"Ewan McIntosh.Scottish teacher: changing one education system at a time
"Posted: November 29, 2010 01:44 PM Education News
"Email Comments When I mention that, in addition to working with schools and education departments on their learning policy and practice, I spend at least a third of my week working with tech start-ups, television and film companies, I get more than a few strange looks and raised eyebrows.
"People just don't understand why anyone would "make life difficult for themselves" by working in two camps -- business start-ups and education -- which, on the face of it, have little tying them together.
"I've spent three years on an occasionally painful journey learning how to structure deals, work out business models and build a business from the customer back. Within two weeks of starting that journey, many of my former colleagues started referring to me as someone who "worked in media." I was no longer "in education." Some, in the past year, have let me "back into education," but trust me: blending two worlds hasn't been easy to explain and, for some, it's been too hard a concept to grasp.
"I realized that, for all the talk of encouraging entrepreneurial attitudes in schools and giving more choice to students, too many schools still hadn't understood what's actually required to do this successfully, in a way that benefits society later. I thought that the best way to help schools understand how lessons, curricula or resources could be planned to this end would be to always spend a good part of the week in the sharpest end of that societal and business world.
"So what? There's an example of the challenge if we don't get over our reliance on structures and methods of learning of old in a Harriet Sergeant Sunday Times comment piece from earlier this year:
"The managing director of a medium-sized IT company explained why. High-flyers -- Oxford and Cambridge graduates -- are still as good as any in the world. His problems come when he tries to recruit middle management. Last year he interviewed 52 graduates -- all educated in state schools. On paper they looked "brilliant students." Each had three As at A-level and a 2:1 degree [ed: a top SAT score and a good degree]. He shook his head. "There's a big difference between people passing exams and being ready for work."
"This was obvious even before the interview began. Of the 52 applicants, half arrived late. Only three of the 52 walked up to the managing director, looked him in the eye, shook his hand and said, "Good morning." The rest "just ambled in." When he asked them to solve a problem, only 12 had come equipped with a notebook and pencil.
"The three who had greeted him proved the strongest candidates and he hired them. Within a year they were out because of their "lackadaisical" attitude. They did not turn up on time; for the first six months a manager had to check all their emails for spelling and grammar; they did not know how to learn. It was the first time they had ever been asked to learn on their own.
"What's so wrong with schooling?
"And what are these old structures that lead to the unemployable? I think Don Ledingham's summary of Alan McCluskey from the Swiss Agency for ICT in education sums it up: The 7 Tacit Lessons Which Schools Teach Children:
"1.Knowledge is scarce.
2.Learning needs a specific place and specific time (lessons in classrooms).
3.Knowledge is best learnt in disconnected little pieces (lessons).
4.To learn you need the help of an approved expert i.e. a teacher.
5.To learn you need to follow a path determined by a learning expert (a course of study).
6.You need an expert to assess your progress (a teacher).
7.You can attribute a meaningful numerical value to the value of learning (marks, grades, degrees).
"When we're generating fresh ideas for a business and working through how it might work in practice, the process of Design Thinking has become one of our trusty tools. Some ideas around how Design Thinking might be one way of pivoting our practice -- either strategically or tactically within your classroom -- are now up on the Global Education Conference archive of my talk last week.
"If you don't have the time to watch the talk, let me summarize the key point: everything being done to formal schooling by the political classes in America and England runs against what business actually requires: self-starting, creative, entrepreneurial youngsters. I realize that this approach alone isn't a savior of schooling, and that there are many other tactics as well as strategic approaches that help move us away from a factory model to a studio model of learning. But the conversation that I find the hardest is with those who don't even see that the model is no longer effective, who believe that "it was good enough for me so...". So help me -- are things so broken that we should replace them with thoughts shiny and used (and very often recycled)? Or can we do a renovation job on what we've got, as many would prefer?
"This was originally posted on the author's site, edu.blogs.com."
Schools need to get with the program, and teach their students useful skills and make them employable.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Quack Quack! The Lame Ducks are back in town in DC!
".Lame Duck Session Takes Flight
"by Chad Pergram | November 28, 2010
"Remember how easy school was the first week back after a long break?
"That was the first week of Congress's lame duck session right before Thanksgiving.
"And so the rubber hits the road this week.
"House Democrats and Republicans tackled very little legislatively two weeks ago. That changes now.
"The House devoted the week before Thanksgiving to welcoming victorious freshmen to Capitol Hill. Journalists focused on infighting among Democrats as they sorted out their internal leadership squabbles. And few people even noticed as the House passed minor, non-controversial bills.
"One piece of legislation saluted long-time Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. Another honored the late, legendary, New York Yankees' public address announcer Bob Sheppard.
"It's unclear if the New York Congressional delegation will move to revoke their vote if the Yankee brass fails to sign shortstop Derek Jeter. And then Jeter takes Sheppard's signature, pre-recorded introduction with him when he comes up to bat elsewhere next season.
"Say for the Boston Red Sox.
"Lawmakers have significant issues to tackle in the second week of the lame duck. Democrats want to move key bills important to their base before their majority expires in a few weeks.
"And House Republican lawmakers are poised to lay down markers now on tax and spending policies in an effort to project how they'll govern next year.
"Let's start with what lawmaker HAVE to do.
"Renewing the so-called "Bush-era" tax cuts are perhaps the most controversial issue awaiting lawmakers during the lame duck. But that's not a "must-do." More on that in a moment.
"All lawmakers have to do is approve some sort of spending bill to keep the government running past December 4. If they fail to do that, the government shuts down.
"Since the election, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been particularly strident in his rhetoric opposing Democratic spending efforts in the lame-duck. In fact, McConnell argued that he would do all he could to block any sort of "omnibus" spending bill to keep the government open.
"A government shutdown may be a rallying cry from many conservative factions who are more than ready to force a standoff with President Obama even before Republicans seize power in the House come January. But that could potentially be the worst-possible scenario for Republicans. A government shutdown means national parks close and the Social Security checks don't go out. The message of the last election is that the public demanded lower taxes and less spending. But voters also want action. And Republicans won't exactly score plaudits if they demonstrate they can't govern. Even before they're running the show.
"The White House and Congress approved precisely zero of the 12 annual spending bills that keep the government operational this year. That means both houses of Congress must okay each of them individually (and convince the president to sign them into law). Or, they can blend all of the bills together into a gigantic, catch-call measure known as an omnibus and do it in one, fell swoop.
"But there's one more option. They can also just renew spending at current levels by December 4 by approving another Continuing Resolution (known in Congress-ese as a "CR."). A CR will keep the government running until they work all of this out.
"If they work it out.
"Presumptive House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is already on record that he thinks Congress should dial back spending to 2008 levels. It's unclear whether Boehner has the appetite to force the issue over the CR. But a Boehner spokesman says Republicans certainly won't help Democrats pass any sort of omnibus bill to fund the government for the next fiscal year.
"Now to tax cuts.
"Again, this battle is over legitimate, critical elements of policy that defines both Democrats and Republicans. Which is why the public relations battle over tax cuts may even be more important than the actual policy itself.
"Since summer, Republicans and some Democrats have demanded that Congress renew all of the tax cuts set to expire at the end of this year. But Democrats are reluctant to do that. In fact, the House Democratic leadership is steadfast in its desire to limit tax reductions to those who make only up to $250,000 annually.
"Republicans believe they can appeal to Americans across the board by restoring all of the tax cuts. Democrats feel they curry favor with other segments of the population by arguing the GOP endorses tax cuts for the wealthy.
"Expect the tax cut debate to be a pitched battle that will echo well into next year and the 2012 elections.
"Then there are other issues.
"Democrats would like to try to move the DREAM Act. Short for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, the legislation that would allow illegal immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as minors to stay in the U.S. if they are in college or the military. Illegal immigration is a radioactive issue on Capitol Hill. And since there's no plan to grapple with a comprehensive immigration reform bill any time soon, expect a proxy fight over the DREAM Act when it comes to immigration policy.
"Democrats may have waged internal squabbles two weeks ago over their leadership squads for the new Congress. Expect fights in the Republican ranks to take center stage this week as the GOP sorts out who will chair key committees.
"Let's start with the all-important stewardship of the House Appropriations Committee. Appropriations is the panel charged with spending tax money on individual government projects.
"For starters, there's an emerging, three-way battle for the Appropriations gavel between Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), currently the top Republican on the Appropriations panel and Reps. Hal Rogers (R-KY) and Jack Kingston (R-GA).
"House Republicans voted a moratorium on earmarks for this Congress. Earmarks are efforts by lawmakers to tag specific monies for designated federal projects, often in their home states or districts. Both Lewis and Rogers have long brought home the bacon to their constituents, but have signed off on the GOP pledge of no earmarks. Plus, Lewis may need to secure a waiver to continue at the top of the Appropriations Committee. Lewis chaired the panel for two years when Republicans last held the majority. Then served as the GOP's ranking member on that committee over the past four years.
"The question Republicans have to solve is whether Lewis's six years as the leading Republican on that committee constitutes six years as "chairman." Internal GOP rules prohibit lawmakers from "chairing" a committee for more than six years. But Lewis was only a chairman for two.
"Expect Jack Kingston to close on the inside rail before this is all sorted out for Republicans. Especially if Republicans argue that appointing either Lewis or Rogers as Appropriations Chairman sends a bad signal when the GOP is striving for fiscal sanity.
"Republicans must also determine who will chair the Energy and Commerce Committee, the panel that could play a major role in trying to undo the health care reform bill. Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) is currently the top Republican on the committee. But Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) is challenging Barton. Some Republicans were ready to throw Barton overboard in June when BP CEO Tony Hayward testified before the Energy and Commerce panel after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Barton famously apologized to Hayward for how the federal government treated BP.
"The Democrats have a bit of their own palace intrigue as well.
"Rep. Ed Towns (D-NY) is in line to be the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. But now Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) is challenging Towns.
"Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is set to assume the chairmanship of the Oversight Committee. And he's promising thorough if not ruthless investigations of the Obama Administration. Democrats widely admire Towns. But some believe the feisty Kucinich could serve as a better foil to the wily Issa.
"The House is also expected to mete out punishment this week to embattled Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY). By mid-week, the full House is expected to consider a plan to censure Rangel for abusing House privileges and failing to pay taxes on a vacation home. Expect Rangel's pleas before the House to consume considerable news oxygen.
"Oh and there's one more thing that has to happen in the coming month: the big move.
"House Republicans will presumably move into the more coveted slices of Capitol Hill real estate as they prepare to assume the majority. And Democrats will abandon their Boardwalk and Park Place squares on the Congressional Monopoly Board in favor of Baltic and Mediterranean Avenues.
"And if the land transfers mirrors what happened when Democrats assumed the majority in late 2006, the move will probably happen in the dead of night, right around Christmas Eve.
"Wonder if Democrats will leave a lump of coal in the stockings hung by the fireplaces for Republicans when they move in?"
O.K for you overseas readers the American Term "lame duck" refers to elected officials who have already been voted out of office, but are still active in government awaiting the date their successors take over. About forty Congressmen and about fifteen U.S. Senators won't be back next year, but they are still in office until January. I believe that the European Parliamentary system is different, and that in Europe (and perhaps South America), when a public official is voted out of office, his successor is sworn in the following Monday. Lame Duck Presidents, and Lame Duck members of Congress and State legislatures and State Governors are an American way of life. What do you think readers? Should we keep Lame Duck officials in office for two months after the election in which they (or their party) is voted out of office? I say that, since most of the Lame Ducks are Democrats, that we should keep Lame Ducks in office. What is your comment?
Wikileaks--the saga continues.
"FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Nov. 29, 2010
Wikileaks Exposes Truth: Arab States Fear Iran, Not Israel
•Netanyahu: Time for Arab world to speak openly about Iran threat
•Iranian missiles could strike European capitals
•Iran also backing Terrorist Groups in Yemen
Washington, Nov 27 – Publication of some 250,000 classified diplomatic cables by the Wikileaks website has exposed the fact that Arab states see Iran and its nuclear weapons program and not Israel as the real threat to Middle East stability and their own security.
"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the documents reinforced what Israel has been saying for years about the Iranian nuclear program.
“More and more countries, governments and leaders in the Middle East and the wider world understand that this is the fundamental threat,” Netanyahu said at a news conference in Tel Aviv. “I hope the leaders will have the courage to say to their nations publicly what they’ve said about Iran.”
"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad responded that the leaks were deliberately released as part of a psychological warfare campaign against his country.
"But an analysis from Reuters puts the truth in stark terms: “The revelation confirm the depth of suspicion and hatred of the Shi'ites among Sunni Arab leaders, especially in Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni power and which regards Iran as an existential threat.”
""Iran should take note of the distress that its nuclear program is causing in the region -- this is not something that should be ignored," said Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center.
"In one key document King Hamad of Bahrain “argued forcefully for taking action to terminate the Iranian nuclear program, by whatever means necessary. "That program must be stopped," he said. "The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it," he said.
"“The cables reveal how Iran’s ascent has unified Israel and many longtime Arab adversaries — notably the Saudis — in a common cause,” The New York Times said. “The United States had put together a largely silent front of Arab states whose positions on sanctions and a potential attack looked much like Israel’s.”
"Among the important revelations in the documents, as published by The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel are the following:
"•Saudi King Abdullah repeatedly urged the United States to destroy the Iranian program. “He told you [Americans] to “cut off the head of the snake,” the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir said, according to a report on Abdullah's meeting with the U.S. general David Petraeus in April 2008. Abdullah told a US diplomat: "The bottom line is that they (the Iranians) cannot be trusted."
•Officials from Jordan also called for the Iranian program to be stopped by any means necessary while leaders of the United Arab Emirates and Egypt referred to Iran as “evil,” and an “existential threat.”
•Iran has obtained advanced missiles from North Korea that could let it strike at Western European capitals and Moscow.
•Crown Prince bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi said in one cable: “Any culture that is patient and focused enough to spend years working on a single carpet is capable of waiting years and even decades to achieve even greater goals.” His greatest worry, he said, “is not how much we know about Iran, but how much we don’t.”
•Kuwait's military intelligence chief told Petraeus Iran was supporting Shi’ite groups in the Gulf and extremists in Yemen.
•The United States failed to stop Syria from supplying arms to Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, who have amassed tens of thousands of rockets aimed at Israel. One week after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad promised a top State Department official that he would not send new arms to Hezbollah, the United States it had information that Syria was providing increasingly sophisticated weapons to the group.
•Iran smuggled weapons to Hezballah in ambulances and medical vehicles in violation of international conventions. Hamas also used such vehicles for military and arms-smuggling operations.
•Iran withheld from the International AtomicEnergy Agency the original design documents for a secret nuclear reactor.
Here are some sources for the raw materials:
"http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/240364
"http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40405218/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times/
"http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/209599
"http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/
"Contact:
"Alan Elsner: 202-857-6671 (office), 202-306-0757 (cell), alane@theisraelproject.org
"Jennifer Packer: 202-207-6122 (office), jenniferp@theisraelproject.org
www.theisraelproject.org"
The release of the Pentagon Papers c. 1973 was followed by eighteen years of peace for the United States because of the anti-war mood and the general suspicion of CIA spooks by the general public. Will the CIA always honor the statutes that say that CIA spying on American citizens in America is UnConstitutional and illegal? It is helpful to the American Public to know what our spokespersons are doing abroad. Let's not be ostrichs with our head and necks in the sand. The American Public should know the truth. The truth will make you free!
Thursday, November 25, 2010
We wish you a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving.
Kenneth
When Michelle and I sit down with our family to give thanks today, I want you to know that we'll be especially grateful for folks like you.
Everything we have been able to accomplish in the last two years was possible because you have been willing to work for it and organize for it.
And every time we face a setback, or when progress doesn't happen as quickly as we would like, we know that you'll be right there with us, ready to fight another day.
So I want to thank you -- for everything.
I also hope you'll join me in taking a moment to remember that the freedoms and security we enjoy as Americans are protected by the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces. These patriots are willing to lay down their lives in our defense, and each of us owes them and their families a debt of gratitude.
Have a wonderful day, and God bless.
Barack
P.S. Kenneth Stepp also wishes Barak and Michelle Obama and the reader a very Happy Thanksgiving.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
America is not the Weimar Republic.
It is true that people who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Concerning inflation, much has been said about the Weimar Republic--That was the government of Germany after the Kaiser was forced from office and before Hitler took over. The Weimar Republic had huge debts, which they tried to solve by huge deficit spending. The end result was runaway inflation and then Hitler took over.
The United States is planning on borrowing $600 Billion from the Federal Reserve Bank. Will that lead to runaway inflation, anarchy, and then a dictatorship? Probably not.
Let's look at the differences between the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1920's, and the U.S. of A. today. For one thing, the U.S. is the biggest economy in the world now, but, in the 1920's the Weimar Republic was the fifth or sixth biggest economy in the world--a big difference. For another thing, the U.S. Dollar in 2010 is the world's currency. We are like the Banker in the Monopoly game; everyone wants to be nice to us. If a Japanese businessman wants to make a transaction with a Chinese businessman, normally they swap goods for American Dollars. That is why Mainland China has such a big hoard of American Dollars as a reserve currency, American Dollars are accepted as money throughout the world. We have to have enough dollars circulating to keep those Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, and Russian businessmen happy, or they will find another medium of exchange.
On the other hand, the Deutch Mark in the 1920's was not sought after as an international medium of trade. Bob Hope used to joke about preferring to be paid in Deutch Marks rather than Dollars during his comedy routines of the 1970's, but even in the 1970's the Deutch Marks did not catch on as an international currency. Yes, if you went to Germany, you'd better have some Deutch Marks on you in the 1920's and in the 1970's, but you couldn't spend your Deutch Marks in many places--especially in the 1920's. Back in the 1920's, gold was king, and the British pound sterling was often used in international commerce, but the Weimar Republic Deutch Mark was hard to get anyone to accept outside of Germany.
Let's look at track records, too. The U.S. Dollar has been around for over two hundred years. It was a currency with a stable value from 1792 until 1932, because we had been on the gold or bimetal (gold and silver) standards until that time. During my own lifetime, the American public would not stand for high inflation, and voted any such politicians who presided over high inflation out of office. Gerald Ford had high inflation of about 12% a year, and he was voted out of office in favor of Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter had high inflation of about 13% a year, and he was voted out of office in favor of Ronald Reagan. It's my prediction that if inflation reaches 13% during the Obama Administration, there will be no second term encore for the Obama Administration--and that makes me sad because I'm a Democrat.
Another look at track records. During the 1920's the German Weimar Republic inflation rate exceeded 100% a year. The worst the United States had had in inflation has been at 13% a year. That's another reason that I don't expect you to see the American inflation rate above 13%. Sure, if politicians want to be voted out of office, they may sacrifice their political careers in favor of inflation. Right now, most members of the U.S. Senate and House can stay in there for life, if they don't get indicted or mess up too bad. They probably would rather see a little gridlock than let inflation get so out of hand that they get voted out of office. The German Weimar Republic had no such track record. When Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated around 1919, the German Weimar Republic came into being with no track record. By 1929, it had a poor track record, with some years of over one hundred per cent inflation. Finally, in the 1930's the sound of hob-nailed boots signaled the end of that attempt at democracy, and a return to strongman rule in Germany.
Strongman rule seems unlikely in the U.S.A. We have never had a dictator. We were almost destroyed in a Civil War, but we have never had a dictator. There is too much diversity here. What would be popular with one group would get the other groups out on the picket lines or on the barricades. Diversity is America's greatest strength and America's greatest weakness. Sometimes we can't decide which way to go, and we seem paralyzed. Other times, a great speaker like John Kennedy tells us that we need to fly to the moon, and we send men to the moon--a feat never done before nor since by any other nation. America is unique, and I'm proud of America. Sure, we've been through many crises, and we will make it through this crises and come out stronger and better than before. When America sneezes, the World catches a cold.
We have a lot to be thankful about, that America is not like the Weimar Republic. They were faced with a world depression and collapsed. We were faced with a world depression and made it through stronger and richer than before. Don't sell the United States short. Don't bet against the United States. Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, the Soviet Union, and many others have bet against the United States, and they are mere footnotes in the history of the world as the United States continues to lead.
The Weimar Republic did not have an immigration problem. In a recent international poll, the question was "Where would you prefer to live?" About twenty five per cent (25%) said "in the U.S.A." How could we crowd a billion people in the fifty United States? That would be wall to wall people. An article I saw today--there it is, I found it:
Now, a lot of people would say that America is despised among Muslims, black people, and residents of the former Soviet Union, and that they would like to stay away from America. Not true. The Wall Street Journal for Nov. 22 on page A3 reports that with the Immigration Lottery, foreigners can apply to enter the U.S. with a green card, and 50,000 people a year will be selected to enter the U.S. with a green card--"a quick path to legal, permanent U.S. residence for 50,000 people a year--selected purely by the luck of the draw."
In the most recent "move to the U.S.A." lottery, the highest number of applicants came from that impoverished Muslim country Bangladesh with 7.67 million people. Next was Nigeria with 1.47 million applicants. Nikita Khruschev, the Soviet Union leader from the Ukraine once told Americans "We will bury you", but the Ukraine had the third largest number of applicants to live in the United States at approx. 760,000. Ethiopia, an African land mentioned in the Bible and often a battleground, was fourth at approx. 580,000. Finally, in Fifth place was that Muslim Republic Egypt with approx. 340,000 applicants for the 50,000 slots for entrance in the United States with a green card. No, America remains a popular place to live among Muslims, black people, residents of the former Soviet Union, and many other people whom the media claims despise us.
Excuse me, I tend to ramble.
As I said, I am a Democrat. I believe that poor people should still be allowed entrance into the United States. Poor folks tend to be Democrats. I do favor special quotas for certain types of people that would be useful to the United States. Corporate CEO's who make over $300,000 per year should be admitted to citizenship without much hassle; maybe they can bring their factories with them. Doctors and dentists and such should be allowed to be a part of the U.S.A. without much hassle; that, through supply and demand, would bring down the costs of visits to the Doctor, visits to the dentist, and Obamacare. Highly technical skills such as engineering, architecture, and mathematics should help people get green cards to get into the U.S.A. Sure, give us your tired huddled masses, but we'll take the cream of the crop also. Besides, most corporate CEO's wouldn't want to live in the U.S.A. anyway, and would probably want to return to the country of their birth when their job in the U.S.A. headquarters of their international corporation expired.
I had noticed that my readership had increased a lot since I had changed the names of my blogspot. In the most recent U.S.A. elections, 60% of the people questioned replied that the economy was the main issue. I enjoy writing about the economy, and and if people prefer to read about it, I'll write more about it. Kenneth Stepp.
The United States is planning on borrowing $600 Billion from the Federal Reserve Bank. Will that lead to runaway inflation, anarchy, and then a dictatorship? Probably not.
Let's look at the differences between the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1920's, and the U.S. of A. today. For one thing, the U.S. is the biggest economy in the world now, but, in the 1920's the Weimar Republic was the fifth or sixth biggest economy in the world--a big difference. For another thing, the U.S. Dollar in 2010 is the world's currency. We are like the Banker in the Monopoly game; everyone wants to be nice to us. If a Japanese businessman wants to make a transaction with a Chinese businessman, normally they swap goods for American Dollars. That is why Mainland China has such a big hoard of American Dollars as a reserve currency, American Dollars are accepted as money throughout the world. We have to have enough dollars circulating to keep those Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, and Russian businessmen happy, or they will find another medium of exchange.
On the other hand, the Deutch Mark in the 1920's was not sought after as an international medium of trade. Bob Hope used to joke about preferring to be paid in Deutch Marks rather than Dollars during his comedy routines of the 1970's, but even in the 1970's the Deutch Marks did not catch on as an international currency. Yes, if you went to Germany, you'd better have some Deutch Marks on you in the 1920's and in the 1970's, but you couldn't spend your Deutch Marks in many places--especially in the 1920's. Back in the 1920's, gold was king, and the British pound sterling was often used in international commerce, but the Weimar Republic Deutch Mark was hard to get anyone to accept outside of Germany.
Let's look at track records, too. The U.S. Dollar has been around for over two hundred years. It was a currency with a stable value from 1792 until 1932, because we had been on the gold or bimetal (gold and silver) standards until that time. During my own lifetime, the American public would not stand for high inflation, and voted any such politicians who presided over high inflation out of office. Gerald Ford had high inflation of about 12% a year, and he was voted out of office in favor of Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter had high inflation of about 13% a year, and he was voted out of office in favor of Ronald Reagan. It's my prediction that if inflation reaches 13% during the Obama Administration, there will be no second term encore for the Obama Administration--and that makes me sad because I'm a Democrat.
Another look at track records. During the 1920's the German Weimar Republic inflation rate exceeded 100% a year. The worst the United States had had in inflation has been at 13% a year. That's another reason that I don't expect you to see the American inflation rate above 13%. Sure, if politicians want to be voted out of office, they may sacrifice their political careers in favor of inflation. Right now, most members of the U.S. Senate and House can stay in there for life, if they don't get indicted or mess up too bad. They probably would rather see a little gridlock than let inflation get so out of hand that they get voted out of office. The German Weimar Republic had no such track record. When Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated around 1919, the German Weimar Republic came into being with no track record. By 1929, it had a poor track record, with some years of over one hundred per cent inflation. Finally, in the 1930's the sound of hob-nailed boots signaled the end of that attempt at democracy, and a return to strongman rule in Germany.
Strongman rule seems unlikely in the U.S.A. We have never had a dictator. We were almost destroyed in a Civil War, but we have never had a dictator. There is too much diversity here. What would be popular with one group would get the other groups out on the picket lines or on the barricades. Diversity is America's greatest strength and America's greatest weakness. Sometimes we can't decide which way to go, and we seem paralyzed. Other times, a great speaker like John Kennedy tells us that we need to fly to the moon, and we send men to the moon--a feat never done before nor since by any other nation. America is unique, and I'm proud of America. Sure, we've been through many crises, and we will make it through this crises and come out stronger and better than before. When America sneezes, the World catches a cold.
We have a lot to be thankful about, that America is not like the Weimar Republic. They were faced with a world depression and collapsed. We were faced with a world depression and made it through stronger and richer than before. Don't sell the United States short. Don't bet against the United States. Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, the Soviet Union, and many others have bet against the United States, and they are mere footnotes in the history of the world as the United States continues to lead.
The Weimar Republic did not have an immigration problem. In a recent international poll, the question was "Where would you prefer to live?" About twenty five per cent (25%) said "in the U.S.A." How could we crowd a billion people in the fifty United States? That would be wall to wall people. An article I saw today--there it is, I found it:
Now, a lot of people would say that America is despised among Muslims, black people, and residents of the former Soviet Union, and that they would like to stay away from America. Not true. The Wall Street Journal for Nov. 22 on page A3 reports that with the Immigration Lottery, foreigners can apply to enter the U.S. with a green card, and 50,000 people a year will be selected to enter the U.S. with a green card--"a quick path to legal, permanent U.S. residence for 50,000 people a year--selected purely by the luck of the draw."
In the most recent "move to the U.S.A." lottery, the highest number of applicants came from that impoverished Muslim country Bangladesh with 7.67 million people. Next was Nigeria with 1.47 million applicants. Nikita Khruschev, the Soviet Union leader from the Ukraine once told Americans "We will bury you", but the Ukraine had the third largest number of applicants to live in the United States at approx. 760,000. Ethiopia, an African land mentioned in the Bible and often a battleground, was fourth at approx. 580,000. Finally, in Fifth place was that Muslim Republic Egypt with approx. 340,000 applicants for the 50,000 slots for entrance in the United States with a green card. No, America remains a popular place to live among Muslims, black people, residents of the former Soviet Union, and many other people whom the media claims despise us.
Excuse me, I tend to ramble.
As I said, I am a Democrat. I believe that poor people should still be allowed entrance into the United States. Poor folks tend to be Democrats. I do favor special quotas for certain types of people that would be useful to the United States. Corporate CEO's who make over $300,000 per year should be admitted to citizenship without much hassle; maybe they can bring their factories with them. Doctors and dentists and such should be allowed to be a part of the U.S.A. without much hassle; that, through supply and demand, would bring down the costs of visits to the Doctor, visits to the dentist, and Obamacare. Highly technical skills such as engineering, architecture, and mathematics should help people get green cards to get into the U.S.A. Sure, give us your tired huddled masses, but we'll take the cream of the crop also. Besides, most corporate CEO's wouldn't want to live in the U.S.A. anyway, and would probably want to return to the country of their birth when their job in the U.S.A. headquarters of their international corporation expired.
I had noticed that my readership had increased a lot since I had changed the names of my blogspot. In the most recent U.S.A. elections, 60% of the people questioned replied that the economy was the main issue. I enjoy writing about the economy, and and if people prefer to read about it, I'll write more about it. Kenneth Stepp.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Democrats, Republicans and War.
"While the Democrats steered America into the wars of the 20th century, Republicans are doing their part in the 21st, having nominated and elected President George W. Bush and having stood by him as he called for a “global democratic revolution.” The party that once boasted of its ability to keep the peace now appears committed to an endless series of wars, enduring intervals of peace only as a last resort. It is today more the party of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt than the party of Robert Taft. Or perhaps it is, once again, the party of that glorious Rough Rider, Teddy Roosevelt, who, in President Taft’s words, “would think it a real injury to mankind if we would not have a war.” ---Jack Kenney in "The New American"
Monday, November 15, 2010
Is it Imperialism?
"Tom Engelhardt.Editor of TomDispatch.com
Posted: November 15, 2010 03:23 PM
The Stimulus Package in Kabul (I Was Delusional -- I Thought One Monster 'Embassy' Was the End of It) "You must have had a moment when you thought to yourself: It really isn’t going to end, is it? Not ever. Rationally, you know perfectly well that whatever your “it” might be will indeed end, because everything does, but your gut tells you something different.
"I had that moment recently when it came to the American way of war. In the past couple of weeks, it could have been triggered by an endless string of ill-attended news reports like theChristian Science Monitor piece headlined “U.S. involvement in Yemen edging toward ‘clandestine war.’” Or by the millions of dollars in U.S. payments reportedly missing in Afghanistan, thanks to under-the-table or unrecorded handouts in unknown amounts to Afghan civilian government employees (as well as Afghan security forces, private-security contractors, and even the Taliban). Or how about the news that the F-35 “Joint Strike Fighter,” the cost-overrun poster weapon of the century, already long overdue, will cost yet more money and be produced even less quickly?
"Or what about word that our Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has officially declared the Obama administration “open” to keeping U.S. troops in Iraq after the announced 2011 deadline for their withdrawal? Or how about the news from McClatchy’s reliable reporter Nancy Youssef that Washington is planning to start “publicly walking away from what it once touted as key deadlines in the war in Afghanistan in an effort to de-emphasize President Barack Obama's pledge that he'd begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July 2011”?
"Or that bottomless feeling could have been triggered by the recent request from the military man in charge of training Afghan security forces, Lieutenant General William Caldwell, for another 900 U.S. and NATO trainers in the coming months, lest the improbable “transition” date of 2014 for Afghan forces to “take the lead” in protecting their own country be pushed back yet again. ("No trainers, no transition," wrote the general in a “report card” on his mission.)
"Or it could have been the accounts of how a trained Afghan soldier turned his gun on U.S. troops in southern Afghanistan, killing two of them, and then fled to the Taliban for protection (one of a string of similar incidents over the last year). Or, speaking of things that could have set me off, consider this passage from the final paragraphs of an Elisabeth Bumiller article tucked away inside the New York Times on whether Afghan War commander General David Petraeus was (or was not) on the road to success: “'It is certainly true that Petraeus is attempting to shape public opinion ahead of the December [Obama administration] review [of Afghan war policy],' said an administration official who is supportive of the general. 'He is the most skilled public relations official in the business, and he’s trying to narrow the president’s options.'”
"Or, in the same piece, what about this all-American analogy from Bruce Riedel, the former CIA official who chaired President Obama’s initial review of Afghan war policy in 2009, speaking of the hundreds of mid-level Taliban the U.S. military has reportedly wiped out in recent months: “The fundamental question is how deep is their bench.” (Well, yes, Bruce, if you imagine the Afghan War as the basketball nightmare on Elm Street in which the hometown team’s front five periodically get slaughtered.)
"Or maybe it should have been the fact that only 7 percent of Americans had reports and incidents like these, or evidently anything else having to do with our wars, on their minds as they voted in the recent midterm elections.
"The Largest “Embassy” on Planet Earth
"Strange are the ways, though. You just can’t predict what’s going to set you off. For me, it was none of the above, nor even the flood of Republican war hawks heading for Washington eager to “cut” government spending by “boosting” the Pentagon budget. Instead, it was a story that slipped out as the midterm election results were coming in and was treated as an event of no importance in the U.S.
"The Associated Press covered U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry's announcement that a $511 million contract had been awarded to Caddell Construction, one of America’s “largest construction and engineering groups,” for a massive expansion of the U.S. embassy in Kabul. According to the ambassador, that embassy is already “the largest... in the world with more than 1,100 brave and dedicated civilians... from 16 agencies and working next to their military counterparts in 30 provinces,” and yet it seems it’s still not large enough.
"A few other things in his announcement caught my eye. Construction of the new “permanent offices and housing” for embassy personnel is not to be completed until sometime in 2014, approximately three years after President Obama’s July 2011 Afghan drawdown is set to begin, and that $511 million is part of a $790 million bill to U.S. taxpayers that will include expansion work on consular facilities in the Afghan cities of Mazar-i-Sharif and Herat. And then, if the ambassador’s announcement was meant to fly below the media radar screen in the U.S., it was clearly meant to be noticed in Afghanistan. After all, Eikenberry publicly insisted that the awarding of the contract should be considered “an indication... an action, a deed that you can take as a long-term commitment of the United States government to the government of Afghanistan.”
"(Note to Tea Party types heading for Washington: This contract is part of a new stimulus package in one of the few places where President Obama can, by executive fiat, increase stimulus spending. It has already resulted in the hiring of 500 Afghan workers, and when construction ramps up, another 1,000 more will be added to the crew.)
"Jo Comerford and the number-crunchers at the National Priorities Project have offered TomDispatch a hand in putting that $790 million outlay into an American context: “$790 million is more than ten times the money the federal government allotted for the State Energy Program in FY2011. It's nearly five times the total amount allocated for the National Endowment for the Arts (threatened to be completely eliminated by the incoming Congress). If that sum were applied instead to job creation in the United States, in new hires it would yield more than 22,000 teachers, 15,000 healthcare workers, and employ more than 13,000 in the burgeoning clean energy industry."
"Still, to understand just why, among a flood of similar war reports, this one got under my skin, you need a bit of backstory.
"Singular Spawn or Forerunner Deluxe?
"One night in May 2007, I was nattering on at the dinner table about reports of a monstrous new U.S. embassy being constructed in Baghdad, so big that it put former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s grandiose Disneyesque palaces to shame. On 104 acres of land in the heart of the Iraqi capital (always referred to in news reports as almost the size of Vatican City), it was slated to cost $590 million. (Predictable cost overruns and delays -- see F-35 above -- would, in the end, bring that figure to at least $740 million, while the cost of running the place yearly is now estimated at $1.5 billion.)
"Back then, more than half a billion dollars was impressive enough, even for a compound that was to have its own self-contained electricity-generation, water-purification, and sewage systems in a city lacking most of the above, not to speak of its own antimissile defense systems, and 20 all-new blast-resistant buildings including restaurants, a recreation center, and other amenities. It was to be by far the largest, most heavily fortified embassy on the planet with a “diplomatic” staff of 1,000 (a number that has only grown since).
"My wife listened to my description of this future colossus, which bore no relation to anything ever previously called an “embassy,” and then, out of the blue, said, “I wonder who the architect is?” Strangely, I hadn’t even considered that such a mega-citadel might actually have an architect.
"That tells you what I know about building anything. So imagine my surprise to discover that there was indeed a Kansas architect, BDY (Berger Devine Yaeger), previously responsible for the Sprint Corporation's world headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas; the Visitation Church in Kansas City, Missouri; and Harrah's Hotel and Casino in North Kansas City, Missouri. Better yet, BDY was so proud to have been taken on as architect to the wildest imperial dreamers and schemers of our era that it posted sketches at its website of what the future embassy, its “pool house,” its tennis court, PX, retail and shopping areas, and other highlights were going to look like.
"Somewhere between horrified and grimly amused, I wrote a piece at TomDispatch, entitled “The Mother Ship Lands in Baghdad” and, via a link to the BDY drawings, offered readers a little “blast-resistant spin” through Bush’s colossus. From the beginning, I grasped that this wasn’t an embassy in any normal sense and I understood as well something of what it was. Here’s the way I put it at the time:
"As an outpost, this vast compound reeks of one thing: imperial impunity. It was never meant to be an embassy from a democracy that had liberated an oppressed land. From the first thought, the first sketch, it was to be the sort of imperial control center suitable for the planet's sole ‘hyperpower,’ dropped into the middle of the oil heartlands of the globe. It was to be Washington's dream and Kansas City's idea of a palace fit for an embattled American proconsul -- or a khan.
In other words, a U.S. “control center” at the heart of what Bush administration officials then liked to call “the Greater Middle East” or the “arc of instability.” To my surprise, the piece began racing around the Internet and other sites -- TomDispatch did not then have the capacity to post images -- started putting up BDY’s crude drawings. The next thing I knew, the State Department had panicked, declared this a “security breach,” and forced BDY to take down its site and remove the drawings.
"I was amazed. But (and here we come to the failure of my own imagination) I never doubted that BDY’s bizarre imperial “mother ship” being prepared for landing in Baghdad was the singular spawn of the Bush administration. I saw it as essentially a vanity production sired by a particular set of fantasies about imposing a Pax Americana abroad and a Pax Republicana at home. It never crossed my mind that there would be two such “embassies.”
"So, on this, call me delusional. By May 2009, with Barack Obama in the White House, I knew as much. That was when two McClatchy reporters broke a story about a similar project for a new “embassy” in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, at the projected cost of $736 million (with a couple of hundred million more slated for upgrades of diplomatic facilities in Afghanistan).
"Simulating Ghosts
"Now, with the news in from Kabul, we know that there are going to be three mother ships. All gigantic beyond belief. All (after the usual cost overruns) undoubtedly in the three-quarters of a billion dollar range, or beyond. All meant not to house modest numbers of diplomats acting as the face of the United States in a foreign land, but thousands of diplomats, spies, civilian personnel, military officials, agents, and operatives hunkering down long-term for war and skullduggery.
"Connect two points and you have a straight line. Connect three points and you have a pattern -- in this case, simple and striking. The visionaries and fundamentalists of the Bush years may be gone and visionless managers of the tattered American imperium are now directing the show. Nonetheless, they and the U.S. military in the region remain remarkably devoted to the control of the Greater Middle East. Even without a vision, there is still the war momentum and the money to support it.
"While Americans fight bitterly over whether the stimulus package for the domestic economy was too large or too small, few in the U.S. even notice that the American stimulus package in Kabul, Islamabad, Baghdad, and elsewhere in our embattled Raj is going great guns. Embassies the size of pyramids are still being built; military bases to stagger the imagination continue to be constructed; and nowhere, not even in Iraq, is it clear that Washington is committed to packing up its tents, abandoning its billion-dollar monuments, and coming home.
"In the U.S., it’s clearly going to be paralysis and stagnation all the way, but in Peshawar and Mazar-i-sharif, not to speak of the greater Persian Gulf region, we remain the spendthrifts of war, perfectly willing, for instance, to ship fuel across staggering distances and unimaginably long supply lines at $400 a gallon to Afghanistan to further crank up an energy-heavy conflict. Here in the United States, police are being laid off. In Afghanistan, we are paying to enroll thousands and thousands of them and train them in ever greater numbers. In the U.S., roads crumble; in Afghanistan, support for road-building is still on the agenda.
"At home, it’s peace all the way to the unemployment line, because peace, in our American world, increasingly seems to mean economic disaster. In the Greater Middle East, it’s war to the horizon, all war all the time, and creeping escalation all the way around. (And keep in mind that the escalatory stories cited above all occurred before the next round of Republican warhawks even hit Washington with the wind at their backs, ready to push for far more of the same.)
"The folks who started us down this precipitous path and over an economic cliff are now in retirement and heading onto the memoir circuit: Our former president is chatting it up with Matt Lauer and Oprah; his vice president is nursing his heart while assumedly writing about “his service in four presidential administrations”; his first secretary of defense is readying himself for the publication of his memoir in January; and his national security adviser, then secretary of state (for whom Chevron once named a double-hulled oil tanker), is already heading into her second and third memoir. But while they scribble and yak, their policy ghosts haunt us, as does their greatest edifice, that embassy in Baghdad, now being cloned elsewhere. Even without them or the neocons who pounded the drums for them, the U.S. military still pushes doggedly toward 2014 and beyond in Afghanistan, while officials “tweak” their drawdown non-schedules, narrow the president’s non-options, and step in to fund and build yet more command-and-control centers in the Greater Middle East.
"It looks and feels like the never-ending story, and yet, of course, the imperium is visibly fraying, while the burden of distant wars grows ever heavier. Those “embassies” are being built for the long haul, but a decade or two down the line, I wouldn’t want to put my money on what exactly they will represent, or what they could possibly hope to control.
"Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book is The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s (Haymarket Books). You can catch a Timothy MacBain TomDispatch video interview with me on our "stimulus" spending abroad by clicking here or download it to your iPod, here.
"[Note: For those still interested, some of the BDY sketches of the Baghdad embassy remain up at Antiwar.com. Click here to see them. And while I’m at it, let me make a heartfelt bow to Antiwar.com, without which TomDispatch research would truly be hell and, in particular, Jason Ditz, whose daily updates are must-read fare for me. Other crucial must-read sites for collecting war info include Juan Cole’s Informed Comment, Paul Woodward’s the War in Context, and Noah Shachtman’s Danger Room.]
In the 1800's Queen Victoria of England was also called The Empress of India. Perhaps Messer's George W. Bush and Barak Obama desire the appellation The Emperor of Afghanistan. Pulease! Let's bring the troops home now, and send any neo-imperialists in D.C. packing!
Posted: November 15, 2010 03:23 PM
The Stimulus Package in Kabul (I Was Delusional -- I Thought One Monster 'Embassy' Was the End of It) "You must have had a moment when you thought to yourself: It really isn’t going to end, is it? Not ever. Rationally, you know perfectly well that whatever your “it” might be will indeed end, because everything does, but your gut tells you something different.
"I had that moment recently when it came to the American way of war. In the past couple of weeks, it could have been triggered by an endless string of ill-attended news reports like theChristian Science Monitor piece headlined “U.S. involvement in Yemen edging toward ‘clandestine war.’” Or by the millions of dollars in U.S. payments reportedly missing in Afghanistan, thanks to under-the-table or unrecorded handouts in unknown amounts to Afghan civilian government employees (as well as Afghan security forces, private-security contractors, and even the Taliban). Or how about the news that the F-35 “Joint Strike Fighter,” the cost-overrun poster weapon of the century, already long overdue, will cost yet more money and be produced even less quickly?
"Or what about word that our Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has officially declared the Obama administration “open” to keeping U.S. troops in Iraq after the announced 2011 deadline for their withdrawal? Or how about the news from McClatchy’s reliable reporter Nancy Youssef that Washington is planning to start “publicly walking away from what it once touted as key deadlines in the war in Afghanistan in an effort to de-emphasize President Barack Obama's pledge that he'd begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July 2011”?
"Or that bottomless feeling could have been triggered by the recent request from the military man in charge of training Afghan security forces, Lieutenant General William Caldwell, for another 900 U.S. and NATO trainers in the coming months, lest the improbable “transition” date of 2014 for Afghan forces to “take the lead” in protecting their own country be pushed back yet again. ("No trainers, no transition," wrote the general in a “report card” on his mission.)
"Or it could have been the accounts of how a trained Afghan soldier turned his gun on U.S. troops in southern Afghanistan, killing two of them, and then fled to the Taliban for protection (one of a string of similar incidents over the last year). Or, speaking of things that could have set me off, consider this passage from the final paragraphs of an Elisabeth Bumiller article tucked away inside the New York Times on whether Afghan War commander General David Petraeus was (or was not) on the road to success: “'It is certainly true that Petraeus is attempting to shape public opinion ahead of the December [Obama administration] review [of Afghan war policy],' said an administration official who is supportive of the general. 'He is the most skilled public relations official in the business, and he’s trying to narrow the president’s options.'”
"Or, in the same piece, what about this all-American analogy from Bruce Riedel, the former CIA official who chaired President Obama’s initial review of Afghan war policy in 2009, speaking of the hundreds of mid-level Taliban the U.S. military has reportedly wiped out in recent months: “The fundamental question is how deep is their bench.” (Well, yes, Bruce, if you imagine the Afghan War as the basketball nightmare on Elm Street in which the hometown team’s front five periodically get slaughtered.)
"Or maybe it should have been the fact that only 7 percent of Americans had reports and incidents like these, or evidently anything else having to do with our wars, on their minds as they voted in the recent midterm elections.
"The Largest “Embassy” on Planet Earth
"Strange are the ways, though. You just can’t predict what’s going to set you off. For me, it was none of the above, nor even the flood of Republican war hawks heading for Washington eager to “cut” government spending by “boosting” the Pentagon budget. Instead, it was a story that slipped out as the midterm election results were coming in and was treated as an event of no importance in the U.S.
"The Associated Press covered U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry's announcement that a $511 million contract had been awarded to Caddell Construction, one of America’s “largest construction and engineering groups,” for a massive expansion of the U.S. embassy in Kabul. According to the ambassador, that embassy is already “the largest... in the world with more than 1,100 brave and dedicated civilians... from 16 agencies and working next to their military counterparts in 30 provinces,” and yet it seems it’s still not large enough.
"A few other things in his announcement caught my eye. Construction of the new “permanent offices and housing” for embassy personnel is not to be completed until sometime in 2014, approximately three years after President Obama’s July 2011 Afghan drawdown is set to begin, and that $511 million is part of a $790 million bill to U.S. taxpayers that will include expansion work on consular facilities in the Afghan cities of Mazar-i-Sharif and Herat. And then, if the ambassador’s announcement was meant to fly below the media radar screen in the U.S., it was clearly meant to be noticed in Afghanistan. After all, Eikenberry publicly insisted that the awarding of the contract should be considered “an indication... an action, a deed that you can take as a long-term commitment of the United States government to the government of Afghanistan.”
"(Note to Tea Party types heading for Washington: This contract is part of a new stimulus package in one of the few places where President Obama can, by executive fiat, increase stimulus spending. It has already resulted in the hiring of 500 Afghan workers, and when construction ramps up, another 1,000 more will be added to the crew.)
"Jo Comerford and the number-crunchers at the National Priorities Project have offered TomDispatch a hand in putting that $790 million outlay into an American context: “$790 million is more than ten times the money the federal government allotted for the State Energy Program in FY2011. It's nearly five times the total amount allocated for the National Endowment for the Arts (threatened to be completely eliminated by the incoming Congress). If that sum were applied instead to job creation in the United States, in new hires it would yield more than 22,000 teachers, 15,000 healthcare workers, and employ more than 13,000 in the burgeoning clean energy industry."
"Still, to understand just why, among a flood of similar war reports, this one got under my skin, you need a bit of backstory.
"Singular Spawn or Forerunner Deluxe?
"One night in May 2007, I was nattering on at the dinner table about reports of a monstrous new U.S. embassy being constructed in Baghdad, so big that it put former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s grandiose Disneyesque palaces to shame. On 104 acres of land in the heart of the Iraqi capital (always referred to in news reports as almost the size of Vatican City), it was slated to cost $590 million. (Predictable cost overruns and delays -- see F-35 above -- would, in the end, bring that figure to at least $740 million, while the cost of running the place yearly is now estimated at $1.5 billion.)
"Back then, more than half a billion dollars was impressive enough, even for a compound that was to have its own self-contained electricity-generation, water-purification, and sewage systems in a city lacking most of the above, not to speak of its own antimissile defense systems, and 20 all-new blast-resistant buildings including restaurants, a recreation center, and other amenities. It was to be by far the largest, most heavily fortified embassy on the planet with a “diplomatic” staff of 1,000 (a number that has only grown since).
"My wife listened to my description of this future colossus, which bore no relation to anything ever previously called an “embassy,” and then, out of the blue, said, “I wonder who the architect is?” Strangely, I hadn’t even considered that such a mega-citadel might actually have an architect.
"That tells you what I know about building anything. So imagine my surprise to discover that there was indeed a Kansas architect, BDY (Berger Devine Yaeger), previously responsible for the Sprint Corporation's world headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas; the Visitation Church in Kansas City, Missouri; and Harrah's Hotel and Casino in North Kansas City, Missouri. Better yet, BDY was so proud to have been taken on as architect to the wildest imperial dreamers and schemers of our era that it posted sketches at its website of what the future embassy, its “pool house,” its tennis court, PX, retail and shopping areas, and other highlights were going to look like.
"Somewhere between horrified and grimly amused, I wrote a piece at TomDispatch, entitled “The Mother Ship Lands in Baghdad” and, via a link to the BDY drawings, offered readers a little “blast-resistant spin” through Bush’s colossus. From the beginning, I grasped that this wasn’t an embassy in any normal sense and I understood as well something of what it was. Here’s the way I put it at the time:
"As an outpost, this vast compound reeks of one thing: imperial impunity. It was never meant to be an embassy from a democracy that had liberated an oppressed land. From the first thought, the first sketch, it was to be the sort of imperial control center suitable for the planet's sole ‘hyperpower,’ dropped into the middle of the oil heartlands of the globe. It was to be Washington's dream and Kansas City's idea of a palace fit for an embattled American proconsul -- or a khan.
In other words, a U.S. “control center” at the heart of what Bush administration officials then liked to call “the Greater Middle East” or the “arc of instability.” To my surprise, the piece began racing around the Internet and other sites -- TomDispatch did not then have the capacity to post images -- started putting up BDY’s crude drawings. The next thing I knew, the State Department had panicked, declared this a “security breach,” and forced BDY to take down its site and remove the drawings.
"I was amazed. But (and here we come to the failure of my own imagination) I never doubted that BDY’s bizarre imperial “mother ship” being prepared for landing in Baghdad was the singular spawn of the Bush administration. I saw it as essentially a vanity production sired by a particular set of fantasies about imposing a Pax Americana abroad and a Pax Republicana at home. It never crossed my mind that there would be two such “embassies.”
"So, on this, call me delusional. By May 2009, with Barack Obama in the White House, I knew as much. That was when two McClatchy reporters broke a story about a similar project for a new “embassy” in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, at the projected cost of $736 million (with a couple of hundred million more slated for upgrades of diplomatic facilities in Afghanistan).
"Simulating Ghosts
"Now, with the news in from Kabul, we know that there are going to be three mother ships. All gigantic beyond belief. All (after the usual cost overruns) undoubtedly in the three-quarters of a billion dollar range, or beyond. All meant not to house modest numbers of diplomats acting as the face of the United States in a foreign land, but thousands of diplomats, spies, civilian personnel, military officials, agents, and operatives hunkering down long-term for war and skullduggery.
"Connect two points and you have a straight line. Connect three points and you have a pattern -- in this case, simple and striking. The visionaries and fundamentalists of the Bush years may be gone and visionless managers of the tattered American imperium are now directing the show. Nonetheless, they and the U.S. military in the region remain remarkably devoted to the control of the Greater Middle East. Even without a vision, there is still the war momentum and the money to support it.
"While Americans fight bitterly over whether the stimulus package for the domestic economy was too large or too small, few in the U.S. even notice that the American stimulus package in Kabul, Islamabad, Baghdad, and elsewhere in our embattled Raj is going great guns. Embassies the size of pyramids are still being built; military bases to stagger the imagination continue to be constructed; and nowhere, not even in Iraq, is it clear that Washington is committed to packing up its tents, abandoning its billion-dollar monuments, and coming home.
"In the U.S., it’s clearly going to be paralysis and stagnation all the way, but in Peshawar and Mazar-i-sharif, not to speak of the greater Persian Gulf region, we remain the spendthrifts of war, perfectly willing, for instance, to ship fuel across staggering distances and unimaginably long supply lines at $400 a gallon to Afghanistan to further crank up an energy-heavy conflict. Here in the United States, police are being laid off. In Afghanistan, we are paying to enroll thousands and thousands of them and train them in ever greater numbers. In the U.S., roads crumble; in Afghanistan, support for road-building is still on the agenda.
"At home, it’s peace all the way to the unemployment line, because peace, in our American world, increasingly seems to mean economic disaster. In the Greater Middle East, it’s war to the horizon, all war all the time, and creeping escalation all the way around. (And keep in mind that the escalatory stories cited above all occurred before the next round of Republican warhawks even hit Washington with the wind at their backs, ready to push for far more of the same.)
"The folks who started us down this precipitous path and over an economic cliff are now in retirement and heading onto the memoir circuit: Our former president is chatting it up with Matt Lauer and Oprah; his vice president is nursing his heart while assumedly writing about “his service in four presidential administrations”; his first secretary of defense is readying himself for the publication of his memoir in January; and his national security adviser, then secretary of state (for whom Chevron once named a double-hulled oil tanker), is already heading into her second and third memoir. But while they scribble and yak, their policy ghosts haunt us, as does their greatest edifice, that embassy in Baghdad, now being cloned elsewhere. Even without them or the neocons who pounded the drums for them, the U.S. military still pushes doggedly toward 2014 and beyond in Afghanistan, while officials “tweak” their drawdown non-schedules, narrow the president’s non-options, and step in to fund and build yet more command-and-control centers in the Greater Middle East.
"It looks and feels like the never-ending story, and yet, of course, the imperium is visibly fraying, while the burden of distant wars grows ever heavier. Those “embassies” are being built for the long haul, but a decade or two down the line, I wouldn’t want to put my money on what exactly they will represent, or what they could possibly hope to control.
"Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book is The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s (Haymarket Books). You can catch a Timothy MacBain TomDispatch video interview with me on our "stimulus" spending abroad by clicking here or download it to your iPod, here.
"[Note: For those still interested, some of the BDY sketches of the Baghdad embassy remain up at Antiwar.com. Click here to see them. And while I’m at it, let me make a heartfelt bow to Antiwar.com, without which TomDispatch research would truly be hell and, in particular, Jason Ditz, whose daily updates are must-read fare for me. Other crucial must-read sites for collecting war info include Juan Cole’s Informed Comment, Paul Woodward’s the War in Context, and Noah Shachtman’s Danger Room.]
In the 1800's Queen Victoria of England was also called The Empress of India. Perhaps Messer's George W. Bush and Barak Obama desire the appellation The Emperor of Afghanistan. Pulease! Let's bring the troops home now, and send any neo-imperialists in D.C. packing!
Friday, November 12, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
A Veterans' Day Special Salute
Kenneth Stepp salutes all of the brave men and women who have died in defense of the United States during our many wars and conflicts. Kenneth Stepp gives a special salute to those sons of the Kentucky Fifth District of the U.S. House who bravely sacrificed their lives and died in the U.S.-led operations in Iraq, including Cpl. Gary B. Coleman, 24, Pikeville, Army, died Nov. 21, 2003; Sgt. 1st Class James T. Hoffman, 41, Whitesburg, Army, died Jan. 27, 2004; PFC Joshua K. Titcomb, 20, Somerset, Army, Died Sept. 29, 2004; Sgt. Joseph M. Tackett, 22, Whitehouse, Army,died June 23, 2005; Sgt. 1st Class Lance Cornett, 33, London, Army, Died Feb. 3, 2006 [source: Lexington Herald-Leader]. I also have a special salute to my personal friends who were killed in the Viet Nam War: Barry Alexander, Sam McDowell, and Jerry Plunkett. "Greater love hath no man, than he lay down his life for his friends."
Reinstate Federal Parole
Federal Parole was abolished in the 1980's. It should be reinstated. America is a progressive nation, and should have progressive policies toward nonviolent Federal prisoners. The following article explains:
News
Set in Steel: Prison Life Without Parole
Set in Steel: Prison Life Without Parole
By Maya Schenwar
t r u t h o u t | Special Report
Wednesday 28 November 2007
"For federal prisoners, the prospect of early release expired in 1987. As prisons bulge and recidivism persists, why is the parole ban still in place?
"In 1982, when George Martorano pled guilty to charges of marijuana possession and drug conspiracy, he was expecting ten years in prison, at most.
"Today, after 24 years, Martorano holds the honor of longest-serving nonviolent first-time offender in the history of the United States. He's all too ready to forfeit that mark of distinction, but if his sentence plays out as issued, he'll be looking at several decades more: Martorano is serving a life sentence for three years of transporting and selling marijuana. Despite his spotless prison record - not to mention his suicide-prevention volunteer work, his yoga practice and the 20 books he's written while incarcerated - he has no hope of being released.
"Martorano is just one of almost 200,000 inmates in federal prison, many of whom have no chance for early release, thanks to the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, which abolished parole at the federal level. The toughening of prison legislation over the past 20 years has also meant longer sentences for nonviolent offenders, combining with the parole ban to prompt a sharp increase in the federal prison population. As it stands, the beefed-up federal prison system costs taxpayers $40,000 per year for every inmate, and it costs inmates whole decades of their lives.
"We're being warehoused," Martorano said in a phone interview. "It's taken a million dollars just to keep me in."
"Since the parole ban took effect, the federal prison population has more than quadrupled, according to Bureau of Justice statistics.
"In the past few years, the sentencing system has been slowly changing in other ways. For example, the US Sentencing Commission recently shortened its recommended sentences for crack cocaine offenses, and Congress has shown signs that it will consider bills addressing the disparity between penalties for crack and powder cocaine. The Supreme Court is deliberating whether judges should be able to grant sentences that dip below established guidelines for sentence lengths.
" However, Congress has taken no steps toward reversing course on federal parole. Although a bill to revive parole for federal prisoners has been introduced repeatedly in the House over the past few years, it has never made it to the floor for a vote. And an official at the US Sentencing Commission, who asked not to be identified, said he was not aware of any impetus that would bring back parole anytime soon."
We have parole of state prisoners. We should have Federal parole available for nonviolent Federal prisoners, also. Kenneth Stepp.
News
Set in Steel: Prison Life Without Parole
Set in Steel: Prison Life Without Parole
By Maya Schenwar
t r u t h o u t | Special Report
Wednesday 28 November 2007
"For federal prisoners, the prospect of early release expired in 1987. As prisons bulge and recidivism persists, why is the parole ban still in place?
"In 1982, when George Martorano pled guilty to charges of marijuana possession and drug conspiracy, he was expecting ten years in prison, at most.
"Today, after 24 years, Martorano holds the honor of longest-serving nonviolent first-time offender in the history of the United States. He's all too ready to forfeit that mark of distinction, but if his sentence plays out as issued, he'll be looking at several decades more: Martorano is serving a life sentence for three years of transporting and selling marijuana. Despite his spotless prison record - not to mention his suicide-prevention volunteer work, his yoga practice and the 20 books he's written while incarcerated - he has no hope of being released.
"Martorano is just one of almost 200,000 inmates in federal prison, many of whom have no chance for early release, thanks to the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, which abolished parole at the federal level. The toughening of prison legislation over the past 20 years has also meant longer sentences for nonviolent offenders, combining with the parole ban to prompt a sharp increase in the federal prison population. As it stands, the beefed-up federal prison system costs taxpayers $40,000 per year for every inmate, and it costs inmates whole decades of their lives.
"We're being warehoused," Martorano said in a phone interview. "It's taken a million dollars just to keep me in."
"Since the parole ban took effect, the federal prison population has more than quadrupled, according to Bureau of Justice statistics.
"In the past few years, the sentencing system has been slowly changing in other ways. For example, the US Sentencing Commission recently shortened its recommended sentences for crack cocaine offenses, and Congress has shown signs that it will consider bills addressing the disparity between penalties for crack and powder cocaine. The Supreme Court is deliberating whether judges should be able to grant sentences that dip below established guidelines for sentence lengths.
" However, Congress has taken no steps toward reversing course on federal parole. Although a bill to revive parole for federal prisoners has been introduced repeatedly in the House over the past few years, it has never made it to the floor for a vote. And an official at the US Sentencing Commission, who asked not to be identified, said he was not aware of any impetus that would bring back parole anytime soon."
We have parole of state prisoners. We should have Federal parole available for nonviolent Federal prisoners, also. Kenneth Stepp.
HAPPY VETERANS DAY!
"22-May 1 A Multi-National Corps - Iraq Soldier died in a non-combat related incident in Baghdad Province, May 22.
21-May 3 Three American soldiers were killed Thursday in a bombing in Baghdad, the U.S. military said, part of a burst of violence only weeks before American combat troops are due to leave Iraqi cities.
16-May 1 Spc. David A. Schaefer Jr., 27, of Belleville, Ill., died May 16 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his unit. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 172nd Infantry Brigade, Schweinfurt, Germany.
13-May 1 Cpl. Ryan C. McGhee, 21, of Fredericksburg, Va., died May 13 from wounds suffered when his unit came in contact with enemy forces while conducting combat operations in Central Iraq.
11-May 5 Maj. Matthew P. Houseal, 54, of Amarillo, Texas. He was assigned to the 55th Medical Company, Indianapolis, Ind.;
Sgt. Christian E. Bueno-Galdos, 25, of Paterson, N.J. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment, 172nd Infantry Brigade, Grafenwoehr, Germany;
Spc. Jacob D. Barton, 20, of Lenox, Mo. He was assigned to the 277th Engineer Company, 420th Engineer Brigade, Waco, Texas; and
Pfc. Michael E. Yates Jr., 19, of Federalsburg, Md. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment, 172nd Infantry Brigade, Grafenwoehr, Germany and
Commander Charles K. Springle, 52, of Wilmington, N.C., and served in the Navy all died May 11 from injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident at Camp Liberty, Iraq.
10-May 1 Maj. Steven Hutchison, 60, of Scottsdale, Ariz., died May 10, in Basrah of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle in Al Farr, Iraq. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.
9-May 1 Spc. Omar M. Albrak, 21, of Chicago, Ill., died May 9, in Baghdad, of injuries sustained during a motor vehicle accident. He was an Individual Ready Reserve soldier assigned to the Headquarters, Multi-National Forces Iraq.
8-May 2 Pvt. Justin P. Hartford, 21, of Elmira, N.Y., died May 8 at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the 699th Maintenance Company, Corps Support Battalion, 916th Support Brigade, Fort Irwin, Calif.
Staff Sgt. Randy S. Agno, 29, of Pearl City, Hawaii, died May 8 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, of wounds sustained Apr. 27 from a non-combat related incident at Forward Operating Base Olsen in Samarra, Iraq. He was assigned to the 325th Brigade Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
7-May 1 Spc. Shawn D. Sykes, 28, of Portsmouth, Va., died May 7 at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany, of wounds suffered from an accident that occurred May 5 at Combat Outpost Crazy Horse, Iraq. He was assigned to 215th Brigade Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
2-May 2 Spc. Jeremiah P. McCleery, 24, of Portola, Calif.; and
Spc. Jake R. Velloza, 22, of Inverness, Calif. died from wounds sustained after they were shot by enemy forces in Mosul, Iraq on May 2. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas."
Kenneth Stepp salutes the U.S. troops killed in Iraq in May. Let's bring our American troops home from Iraq.
21-May 3 Three American soldiers were killed Thursday in a bombing in Baghdad, the U.S. military said, part of a burst of violence only weeks before American combat troops are due to leave Iraqi cities.
16-May 1 Spc. David A. Schaefer Jr., 27, of Belleville, Ill., died May 16 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his unit. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 172nd Infantry Brigade, Schweinfurt, Germany.
13-May 1 Cpl. Ryan C. McGhee, 21, of Fredericksburg, Va., died May 13 from wounds suffered when his unit came in contact with enemy forces while conducting combat operations in Central Iraq.
11-May 5 Maj. Matthew P. Houseal, 54, of Amarillo, Texas. He was assigned to the 55th Medical Company, Indianapolis, Ind.;
Sgt. Christian E. Bueno-Galdos, 25, of Paterson, N.J. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment, 172nd Infantry Brigade, Grafenwoehr, Germany;
Spc. Jacob D. Barton, 20, of Lenox, Mo. He was assigned to the 277th Engineer Company, 420th Engineer Brigade, Waco, Texas; and
Pfc. Michael E. Yates Jr., 19, of Federalsburg, Md. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment, 172nd Infantry Brigade, Grafenwoehr, Germany and
Commander Charles K. Springle, 52, of Wilmington, N.C., and served in the Navy all died May 11 from injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident at Camp Liberty, Iraq.
10-May 1 Maj. Steven Hutchison, 60, of Scottsdale, Ariz., died May 10, in Basrah of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle in Al Farr, Iraq. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.
9-May 1 Spc. Omar M. Albrak, 21, of Chicago, Ill., died May 9, in Baghdad, of injuries sustained during a motor vehicle accident. He was an Individual Ready Reserve soldier assigned to the Headquarters, Multi-National Forces Iraq.
8-May 2 Pvt. Justin P. Hartford, 21, of Elmira, N.Y., died May 8 at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the 699th Maintenance Company, Corps Support Battalion, 916th Support Brigade, Fort Irwin, Calif.
Staff Sgt. Randy S. Agno, 29, of Pearl City, Hawaii, died May 8 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, of wounds sustained Apr. 27 from a non-combat related incident at Forward Operating Base Olsen in Samarra, Iraq. He was assigned to the 325th Brigade Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
7-May 1 Spc. Shawn D. Sykes, 28, of Portsmouth, Va., died May 7 at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany, of wounds suffered from an accident that occurred May 5 at Combat Outpost Crazy Horse, Iraq. He was assigned to 215th Brigade Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
2-May 2 Spc. Jeremiah P. McCleery, 24, of Portola, Calif.; and
Spc. Jake R. Velloza, 22, of Inverness, Calif. died from wounds sustained after they were shot by enemy forces in Mosul, Iraq on May 2. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas."
Kenneth Stepp salutes the U.S. troops killed in Iraq in May. Let's bring our American troops home from Iraq.
Friday, November 05, 2010
War defunding.
Back during the '90's we had a spit gover nment with Bill Clinton President and a Republican House of Representatives. Now we have the similar situation.
Back then, our Democratic President wanted us to conduct a war in Somalia. The Republicans chose to embarass him by cutting off his funding for that war; thus ended that war. Maybe the upcoming Republican House will to the same thing to President Obama next year and defund our MidEast wars.
Will the Tea Party movement force an end to any foreign wars?
Kenneth Stepp.
Back then, our Democratic President wanted us to conduct a war in Somalia. The Republicans chose to embarass him by cutting off his funding for that war; thus ended that war. Maybe the upcoming Republican House will to the same thing to President Obama next year and defund our MidEast wars.
Will the Tea Party movement force an end to any foreign wars?
Kenneth Stepp.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Hal Rogers Re-Elected!
Jim Holbert has conceded that Hal Rogers is Re-Elected. Congratulations to Jim Holbert on a race well run. Congratulations to Hal Rogers on being re-elected. Kenneth Stepp.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
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