Martin Luther King, Jr., -- Christ Figure

“And men will recognize that out of one blood God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth. Let us be dissatisfied until that day when nobody will shout ‘White Power!’ - when nobody will shout ‘Black Power!’ - but everybody will talk about God’s power and human power.” -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


Whether from my high school English teacher or the Cliffs Notes I held surreptitiously close to me, I first learned some variant of the term “Christ-like figure” while studying the novel and its protagonist, Herman Melville’s Billy Budd. While the Christ-like figure of Billy Budd rests mostly on form -- symbols and allusions -- it did start me thinking about a more substantive definition, not unlike Aristotle’s famous four-part formulation of the “tragic hero.”

The four traits I arrived at for the substantive “Christ-like figure” (none of which really describes Billy Budd) are:

1. leader of an oppressed minority group who eventually triumphs over (converts) the oppressive and misguided majority;
2. aims not only to rescue or save the oppressed minority, but also to save the oppressive majority from its own evil;
3. uses nonviolence and teaches love to achieve his aims; and
4. sacrifices his own life to achieve those aims, which further empowers the movement.

I can think of no one who fits this description of "Christ-like" better than Martin Luther King, Jr.

I won’t waste your time with an obvious point-by-point comparison of the two men. You’re way ahead of me by now and have already done the comparison yourself. Rather, the relationship between the second and third traits interests me most.

King, like Jesus (or Gandhi or, for the fictionally disposed, Luke Skywalker), adhered to a philosophy, or "strategy," of nonviolence, not merely to defeat evil, but to convert it to good, in essence to “save” it from itself. (By the way, I love tossing in fictional references given the role iconic fiction plays in improving societal norms – think Gina Davis and Dennis Haysbert. Sorry for the digression.) As one commentator observed of King:

King clung to nonviolence because he profoundly believed that only a movement based on love could keep the oppressed from becoming a mirror image of their oppressors. He wanted to change the hearts of the white people, yes, but in a way that did not in the process harden the hearts of the blacks he was leading toward freedom. Nonviolence, he believed, "will save the Negro from seeking to substitute one tyranny for another." . . . Their real goal, King said, was not to defeat the white man but "to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor and challenge his false sense of superiority. . . . The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community."

And King himself stated:

Black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy, and God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men. God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race and in the creation of a society where all men can live together as brothers, where every man will respect the dignity and the worth of human personality.

King sought to save all sides from the harms of racism and understood that the best way to achieve this was through nonviolence. This meant rising above the human instinct to return a punch with a punch, and instead meet a slap by turning the other cheek. And largely, imperfectly, all too slowly, his way has been triumphant; violence would have had disastrous consequences.

His message, of course, had a proven track record: the triumph of Christianity over its oppressors. And yet implementing its creed at critical moments is more the exception than the rule. Why?

One theory is that it is like dieting and exercise and smoking. We know how we should live, but we are too weak to do what is right, so we do what comes instinctively, reach for another french fry or slap back. But to live and live well, we must overcome our instincts. Another theory is that we just don’t know any better, the “shallow understanding” theory.

In any case, Mr. King would not have been pleased by many of the events of 2006. Nearly all the major killing sprees in 2006 were the result of interracial violence:

1. In the Sudan (Darfur), an insurrection by Africans (a minority) against Arabs (the majority) was met by murderous Arab militias along with indiscriminate bombing of villages, leaving 10,000s, perhaps 100,000s of civilians killed, and others permanently maimed or injured. Commentators suggest a sense of Arab superiority and oppression of the African minority led to the rebel uprising and resulting reprisals. Imagine this in the United States -- oppressed minorities rise up with arms and the government responds with wholesale bombing of minority neighborhoods (my own included) while white militias roam the streets killing, raping and plundering.
2. In Lebanon, the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah triggered a massive military invasion of Lebanon. The invasion did not lead to the release of the two soldiers, but did leave more than 1,000 (mostly civilians) dead with many more injured, displaced almost a million Lebanese and 300,000 Israelis, and left thousands of unexploded cluster bombs for children to happen upon for years to come, and the list of harms go on. Hey, that worked out well! Hezbollah stated it kidnapped the two soldiers to secure the release of detainees held in Israeli prisons. Each side feels its claims are superior: the Israelis to live free of terrorism, and the Palestinians to live free. In the end, both sides are losers. Hezbollah shot itself in the foot given the harm that came to the very people it purports to help, and Israel left its enemy rearmed, better adapted to Israeli military tactics, and more vengeful (think embittered orphans, the next generation). More violence to come . . . .
3. In Iraq, the U.S. displaced the ruling Sunnis (a minority) and put the Shiites (the majority) in power (well, they won an “election,” but they are the majority), and now Shiite militias are exacting violent revenge on Sunnis, and the Shiite government won’t act because they need Shiite votes (after all, this is a “democracy”). Every week, 100s of Sunni bodies turn up with signs of torture (ironically, “torture” is now a euphemism for what really happens, that Sunni men and young boys are hogtied and drilled with holes using electric power tools). The execution of Saddam Hussein (Sunni, minority) became a farce when his executioners (Shiite, majority) taunted him with Shiite chants. Although Saddam was not the nicest of guys, the behavior of his executioners was about as dignified (and helpful to the cause of racial relations) as letting the KKK carry out the execution of a black man to chants of "David Duke." By all appearances, we’ve done in Iraq what Dr. King sought to avoid here: substituted one tyranny for another.

Although we should know well the lessons of Jesus or King or Gandhi or history itself, that violence begets more violence and typically fails to achieve anything good, we cannot overcome our instinct to do violence. How many Christians supported the invasion of Iraq because Saddam was a bad man? Can anyone seriously argue that Jesus would have supported the invasion? How many Jews supported the invasion of Lebanon to rescue two Israelis and disarm Hezbollah (neither successful)? Can anyone seriously argue that this was in the best interest of innocent civilians on both sides of the border and will lead to lasting peace? In the last half of the last century, how many on both sides of our own racial divide supported militant power, or sat idly by while others did? The answer is: too many, given none of the above acts of violence actually accomplished anything good. We can be grateful to Dr. King that we did not live through our own Darfur or Lebanon.

Dr. King's mode of thinking included the question: What can we do to protect and improve the lives of all people, not just our favored group? It is also the question Jesus before him lived by, and time has proven both men to be correct and successful.

If I am too optimistic that we have “learned” the lessons of these great men, but are just too weak to act, then I apologize. Perhaps it’s not a matter of overcoming our instincts and actualizing our knowledge, but rather a poor understanding of what really works, what really brings peace. To those so afflicted, the words of Dr, King best express my frustration: “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”

Why Both Parties Should Lose (but especially Republicans)

While I tend to agree with Cait Murphy's article, I would rather decentralize power right now, which means I hope the Republicans lose one or more houses of Congress and Democrats win. With the Presidency and Courts in the hands of Republicans, this will eliminate one-party control of the federal government for the next two years. The do-no-harm gridlock that ensues will be infinitely preferable to the do-harm actions of the last six years.

The problem with centralized power, as Lord Acton long ago observed, is that it corrupts those with the power. Our Founders understood this when they divided power among two houses of Congress, and Presidency and the Courts. Of course "conservatives" at the time, like Alexander Hamilton, wanted to "conserve" a monarchy in the new United States. "Liberals" like Jefferson wanted to "liberate" the human spirit, and the best way to do this was to prevent government from becoming too big. Good thing Hamilton's ideas were largely ignored at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

Today, Republicans preach limited government, but they cannot resist the power of Lord Acton's famous truism. Republican are not inherently bad in this regard, for Lord Acton comments apply to the human condition, not to one party or the other. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

What we know is that we have lived under one-party rule for six years now. I won't bore you with my extensive list of corrupting effects this as had, but I'll note a few. According to Cait Murphy's article:

According to estimates in a September research report by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank where almost everyone can be expected to vote Republican, federal spending has risen 45 percent during Bush's presidency, three times as fast as it did under Bill Clinton.

Almost half of the increase is in discretionary spending (not entitlements, a whole other issue the GOP has disdained to address in any sustained fashion). And no, Osama is not to blame. As the exasperated Heritage folks note, non-military spending has gone up by 44 percent. Gross ploys like earmarks (putting pet projects into non-related appropriations bills) have ballooned.

So Reagan fiscal conservatives should vote against Republicans this year. But more -- Jeffrey Birnbaum notes in a Washington Post article from 2005:

The number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled since 2000 to more than 34,750 while the amount that lobbyists charge their new clients has increased by as much as 100 percent. Only a few other businesses have enjoyed greater prosperity in an otherwise fitful economy.

The lobbying boom has been caused by three factors, experts say: rapid growth in government, Republican control of both the White House and Congress, and wide acceptance among corporations that they need to hire professional lobbyists to secure their share of federal benefits.

Lobbying is less expensive when you only have to pay one party, and as Econ 1 informs us, when things cost less, we demand more of it. If you think more lobbyists are a bad thing, vote for divided government and against Republicans.

But most important, there has been no oversight of this administration. It has done what it pleased, arrogantly and to the chagrin of a good 50% of the American population and probably 90% of the world's population, and all for what -- arguably to make us LESS safer, to breed terrorists, to destroy our "good guys to the rescue" image that peaked during World War II and has declined with every arrogant decision we make and family we blow up, to tarnish our moral leadership in the world. Arrogance, Lord Acton would agree, is a by-product of unbridled power.

A Congressional victory for Democrats will also give them the power to hold hearings and the power to subpoena witnesses while memories are fresh and witnesses are alive. Recall that Republicans did this for six years while Bill Clinton was office, the vast majority of it, including 140 hours of testimony over White House Christmas cards, led nowhere. In contrast, Republicans only heard 12 hours of testimony on the Abu Grade prison abuses. Such has been the exercise of their oversight responsibilities.

Hopefully Democrats will seize some power back from Republicans in November. Hopefully they will not seek to exact a pound of flesh for the way Bill Clinton was treated, but they will investigate and exercise oversight. Other than this, there is not much a Democratic Congress can do but put a stop to the ways of the current administration. That itself -- like the Russian army at Stalingrad -- may prove an historically significant event.

The Legacy of Pat Tillman, American War Hero

Not too many people give up a multi-million dollar contract to go fight, and die, for their country, but that is just what Pat Tillman did. After 9/11, he gave up a 3.6 million dollar contract extension with the Arizona Cardinals and joined the elite Army Rangers. In 2002, he was killed in a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan. All the same, he is a hero who fought in a heroic war.

Our soldiers in Iraq are heroes too, but the political decision to go to war, as well as other decisions of the current adminstration, was far from heroic. Pat's brother, Kevin, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, apparently agrees.

In a condemnation of the rationale for the Iraq war and Bush's leadership, he writes on Truthdig.com:

"Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes,.... Somehow torture is tolerated. Somehow lying is tolerated. Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma and nonsense. Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world,...."

He notes that the elections on November 7 come just a day after his late brother's birthday: "Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat's birthday,...."

I couldn't agree more with Kevin Tillman. He reminds us that you can support your country and its military, and at the same time oppose your country's leadership and decisions. In fact sometimes to support your country, you have to oppose the leadership if it is hurting the very country you love.

You can read the full article, written by Kevin Tillman, at http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200601019_after_pats_birthday/

Parts of this blog entry summarize and reword phrases from an AP article by Dan De Luce.

Only in New York

This was reported by the Associated Press:

NEW YORK - A speeding car driven by a naked woman high on drugs hit and killed a pedestrian in the New York City borough of Staten Island, before flipping over and stopping in a parking lot, authorities said Thursday.

. . .

The impact of [the driver's] speeding Nissan hitting 41-year-old Larry Simon killed him instantly and sent him flying into above-ground electrical wires, severing his legs, authorities said.

. . .

Military Commissions Act of 2006 Signed Into Law Today

President Bush today signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006, effectively doing away with habeas corpus. Most Americans probably have no idea what habeas corpus is, but it one of our most fundamental rights -- the right to challenge in court our unlawful detention. Indeed all of our other rights -- the right to a jury trial, the right to free speech, the right to religious freedom, the right to be presented with our accusers, the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure -- all of them disappear when habeas corpus goes, all of them disappear when we can be detained indefinitely with no access to courts to challenge that detention.

Access to the third branch of government, the courts, is essentially cut off. If our rights rest on a table with three legs -- our three branches of government -- one of those legs can now be removed anytime the President labels you an "enemy combatant," and you cannot even challenge that label

I think Keith Olbermann expresses my sentiments best. Watch the video.

Military Commissions Act of 2006

Congress has just passed sweeping legislation which, among other things, permits the President to interpret the Geneva Conventions (never mind that COURTS interpret laws, and that ratified treaties ARE laws under our Constitution), to detain any non-American indefinitely (that means potentially for life) without a trial (never mind that habeas corpus, or the right to challenge detention in COURT, is a fundamental right under the Constitution), to use evidence obtained through coersion or secret evidence (never mind the Confrontation Clause in the Constitution), and the list goes on.... See http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6165648

The vote was largely along party lines. Remember this when history judges this vote.

When I was a child, I believed that the United States was the greatest defender of human rights. The bad guys were always out there, beyond our borders -- the Soviet Union, Apartheid, and so on. Our allies were Amnesty International and other organizations fighting for human rights. Read now what Amnesty International thinks of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

The Terrorist Attack that Brought Down the Roman Republic

From "the more things change, the more things remain the same" file, or as an old teacher used to quote: "there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9), comes this....

If you watched the latest Star Wars movies (filmed in part in Italy no less), the galactic Empire is so obviously modeled after the Roman Empire that the Roman-styled buildings used in the movies seem overkill. Both empires had their starts as republics (essentially representative democracies), and both republics fell when the people, in their fear, ceded sweeping power to the executive branch. And just as Rome's emperors promised to return power to the people (and never did), so too did our good Senator Palpatine, aka, Galactic Emperor. (See Wikipedia: "The early Julio-Claudian emperors maintained that the res publica still existed under the protection of their extraordinary powers and would eventually return to its republican form.")

Power, once ceded, like water spilt, rarely returns to its former place. Thankfully, all that could never happen in the U.S. Or could it? (Read this recent report.)

Anyway, getting back to that real republic and empire (not the galatic one), there's a wonderful Op-Ed by Robert Harris in the New York Times this weekend, that notes that the decline of the Roman republic began with a terrorist attack. Some excerpts from the article:

In the autumn of 68 B.C. the world’s only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome’s port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped. [Hmmm, wasn't a senator kidnapped in Star Wars Episode III?]

The incident, dramatic though it was, has not attracted much attention from modern historians. But history is mutable. An event that was merely a footnote five years ago has now, in our post-9/11 world, assumed a fresh and ominous significance. For in the panicky aftermath of the attack, the Roman people made decisions that set them on the path to the destruction of their Constitution, their democracy and their liberty. One cannot help wondering if history is repeating itself.

Harris goes on to describe the terrorist then as terrorist non-state actors, capable to spread incredible fear among a people who were not accustomed to being attacked on their own soil (like Al Qaeda). He also notes the check and balances of the Roman republic and the remarkable liberty people had under it. All that changed after the attack at Ostia...

Mr. Harris continues:

But such was the panic that ensued after Ostia that the people were willing to compromise these rights. The greatest soldier in Rome, the 38-year-old Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (better known to posterity as Pompey the Great) arranged for a lieutenant of his, the tribune Aulus Gabinius [by the way, this is the annoying Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars], to rise in the Roman Forum and propose an astonishing new law.

“Pompey was to be given not only the supreme naval command but what amounted in fact to an absolute authority and uncontrolled power over everyone,” the Greek historian Plutarch wrote. “There were not many places in the Roman world that were not included within these limits.”

.... Such an accumulation of power was unprecedented, and there was literally a riot in the Senate when the bill was debated.

Nevertheless, at a tumultuous mass meeting in the center of Rome, Pompey’s opponents were cowed into submission, the Lex Gabinia passed (illegally), and he was given his power.

Harris opines: By the oldest trick in the political book -- the whipping up of a panic, in which any dissenting voice could be dismissed as “soft” or even “traitorous” -- powers had been ceded by the people that would never be returned. Pompey stayed in the Middle East for six years, establishing puppet regimes throughout the region, and turning himself into the richest man in the empire.

....

An intelligent, skeptical American would no doubt scoff at the thought that what has happened since 9/11 could presage the destruction of a centuries-old constitution; but then, I suppose, an intelligent, skeptical Roman in 68 B.C. might well have done the same.

[The passage of the law] was the beginning of the end of the Roman republic. It set a precedent. Less than a decade later, Julius Caesar “the only man, according to Plutarch, who spoke out in favor of Pompey’s special command during the Senate debate” was awarded similar, extended military sovereignty in Gaul....

It also brought a flood of money into an electoral system that had been designed for a simpler, non-imperial era. Caesar, like Pompey, with all the resources of Gaul at his disposal, became immensely wealthy, and used his treasure to fund his own political faction. Henceforth, the result of elections was determined largely by which candidate had the most money to bribe the electorate. [Sound familiar?] In 49 B.C., the system collapsed completely, ....

Caesar crossed the Rubicon (a river in northern Italy, which generals were not permitted to cross with a standing army), and plunged republican Rome into a civil war, from which he would become the first of a series of emperors. The phrase "crossing the Rubicon" today refers to any people committing themselves irrevocably to a course of action.

Of course the terrorists didn't destroy the Roman republic, the overreaction of the people to the terrorists destroyed the republic. And that full quote in Ecclesiastes 1:9, you ask? "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."

I rate the article an A- on my rating system:
A = Must read, educational, informative.
B = Should read for more informative details
C = Take it or leave it. I've summarized the main points
D = No need to read.
F = It's so bad, you SHOULD read it.

Iraq War Veteran Running for Congress -- Says It Like It Is!

I'll summarize this article for you: Iraq War Veteran (Black Hawk pilot no less)returns home minus two legs (no one would deny she's a war hero), runs for Congress, claims George Bush has no real plan to win the war, only a plan to win over voters. This is what I've been saying all along. (It was apparent to me there was no real plan during the "Mission Accomplished" fiasco and widespread looting after our invasion of Bagdad went unchecked.)

"Instead of a plan or a strategy, we get shallow slogans like 'Mission Accomplished' and 'Stay the Course,"' former Army Capt. Tammy Duckworth stated. "Those slogans are calculated to win an election. But they won't help us accomplish our mission in Iraq."

The rest of the article, which I rate a "C" (take it or leave it) is at http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/30/Dems.radio.ap/index.html

My article rating system:
A = Must read, educational, informative.
B = Should read for more informative details
C = Take it or leave it. I've summarized the main points
D = No need to read.
F = It's so bad, you SHOULD read it.

I haven't posted in nearly a year, but stay tuned...

I haven't posted in nearly a year, but stay tuned...

Locked doors thwart Bush's bid to duck question

This is just a funny photo of the President trying to duck a question, but running into a door. We all need a laugh. His comeback was pretty good too: "I was trying to escape. Obviously, it didn't work."

Bush Misled on Iraqi Intelligence (NYT Editorial)

Regardless of what YOU think of the New York Times, can you pinpoint any factual or logical errors in the following Editorial?

Decoding Mr. Bush's Denials

Published: November 15, 2005

To avoid having to account for his administration's misleading statements before the war with Iraq, President Bush has tried denial, saying he did not skew the intelligence. He's tried to share the blame, claiming that Congress had the same intelligence he had, as well as President Bill Clinton. He's tried to pass the buck and blame the C.I.A. Lately, he's gone on the attack, accusing Democrats in Congress of aiding the terrorists.

Yesterday in Alaska, Mr. Bush trotted out the same tedious deflection on Iraq that he usually attempts when his back is against the wall: he claims that questioning his actions three years ago is a betrayal of the troops in battle today.

It all amounts to one energetic effort at avoidance. But like the W.M.D. reports that started the whole thing, the only problem is that none of it has been true.

Mr. Bush says everyone had the same intelligence he had - Mr. Clinton and his advisers, foreign governments, and members of Congress - and that all of them reached the same conclusions. The only part that is true is that Mr. Bush was working off the same intelligence Mr. Clinton had. But that is scary, not reassuring. The reports about Saddam Hussein's weapons were old, some more than 10 years old. Nothing was fresher than about five years, except reports that later proved to be fanciful.

Foreign intelligence services did not have full access to American intelligence. But some had dissenting opinions that were ignored or not shown to top American officials. Congress had nothing close to the president's access to intelligence. The National Intelligence Estimate presented to Congress a few days before the vote on war was sanitized to remove dissent and make conjecture seem like fact.

It's hard to imagine what Mr. Bush means when he says everyone reached the same conclusion. There was indeed a widespread belief that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons. But Mr. Clinton looked at the data and concluded that inspections and pressure were working - a view we now know was accurate. France, Russia and Germany said war was not justified. Even Britain admitted later that there had been no new evidence about Iraq, just new politics.

The administration had little company in saying that Iraq was actively trying to build a nuclear weapon. The evidence for this claim was a dubious report about an attempt in 1999 to buy uranium from Niger, later shown to be false, and the infamous aluminum tubes story. That was dismissed at the time by analysts with real expertise.

The Bush administration was also alone in making the absurd claim that Iraq was in league with Al Qaeda and somehow connected to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That was based on two false tales. One was the supposed trip to Prague by Mohamed Atta, a report that was disputed before the war and came from an unreliable drunk. The other was that Iraq trained Qaeda members in the use of chemical and biological weapons. Before the war, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that this was a deliberate fabrication by an informer.

Mr. Bush has said in recent days that the first phase of the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation on Iraq found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence. That is true only in the very narrow way the Republicans on the committee insisted on defining pressure: as direct pressure from senior officials to change intelligence. Instead, the Bush administration made what it wanted to hear crystal clear and kept sending reports back to be redone until it got those answers.

Richard Kerr, a former deputy director of central intelligence, said in 2003 that there was "significant pressure on the intelligence community to find evidence that supported a connection" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The C.I.A. ombudsman told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the administration's "hammering" on Iraq intelligence was harder than he had seen in his 32 years at the agency.

Mr. Bush and other administration officials say they faithfully reported what they had read. But Vice President Dick Cheney presented the Prague meeting as a fact when even the most supportive analysts considered it highly dubious. The administration has still not acknowledged that tales of Iraq coaching Al Qaeda on chemical warfare were considered false, even at the time they were circulated.

Mr. Cheney was not alone. Remember Condoleezza Rice's infamous "mushroom cloud" comment? And Secretary of State Colin Powell in January 2003, when the rich and powerful met in Davos, Switzerland, and he said, "Why is Iraq still trying to procure uranium and the special equipment needed to transform it into material for nuclear weapons?" Mr. Powell ought to have known the report on "special equipment"' - the aluminum tubes - was false. And the uranium story was four years old.

The president and his top advisers may very well have sincerely believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But they did not allow the American people, or even Congress, to have the information necessary to make reasoned judgments of their own. It's obvious that the Bush administration misled Americans about Mr. Hussein's weapons and his terrorist connections. We need to know how that happened and why.

Mr. Bush said last Friday that he welcomed debate, even in a time of war, but that "it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began." We agree, but it is Mr. Bush and his team who are rewriting history.

Blogger’s Note: Another sad example of the Bush administration twisting information to “fit” the conclusion they wanted Congress and the American people to draw, censoring and censuring dissenters, failing to listen to those who possessed contrary facts. How even 44% of people can think he is doing a good job is beyond me, unless, of course, people like being misled (and there is probably evidence that this is the case – people prefer to be told what they want to hear over the truth).

The New 80/20 Rule?

Two stories bolster my arguments yesterday that (1) the Bush administration should start listening to people and, in the case of torture, denounce its use by ANYONE, and (2) that the invasion was a mistake akin to pouring water on a grease fire, causing it to spread.

First, this week about 170 malnourished Iraqi detainees, some of whom appeared to have been tortured, were found at an Interior Ministry detention center. If the CIA argues it needs to retain the use of torture, others, like the Interior Ministry of Iraq, will ride the coattails of that argument. See the story at http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Torture.html (link expires within a few days).

Second, Jordanian investigators report that the Iraqi woman who took part in the Amman hotel terror attacks said Monday that she had volunteered to become a suicide bomber because three of her brothers had been killed during “operations” in Iraq involving U.S. Marines. The cost of fighting the war on terrorism Bush’s way is to increase terrorism. That is ineffective leadership, just as, well, you-know-what is ineffective firefighting. See the story at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/international/middleeast/15jordan.html (link expires within a few days).

To quote recent AP wire reports:

The Central Intelligence Agency recently warned that a new generation of jihadists was being trained in the Iraq war, and that these fighters could soon take their cause to other countries.
The theory of a widening jihad, with Iraq at the center, is bolstered by intelligence reports stating that Mr. Zarqawi, long opposed to the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan, had been funneling people and supplies to Jordan even before Wednesday's attacks.

Did you also notice that today the Senate voted 79 to 19 to demand regular reports from the White House on the course of the conflict and on the progress that Iraqi forces are making in securing their own country. “The bipartisan support for the measure sponsored by Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee, reflected anxiety among Republicans as well as Democrats.” See the story at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/politics/14cnd-congress.html (link expires within a few days).

Funny, this is the same 80:20 ratio as the latest New York Times/CBS News, which shows that 8 in 10 Americans are very or somewhat concerned that the $5 billion being spent each month on the war in Iraq is draining away money that could be used in the United States. See the story at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/17/politics/17poll.html?ex=1132203600&en=49940844e6309c8e&ei=5070 (link expires within a few days).

Could this be the new 80/20 rule? Hmmm.

Never Listen To People Who Disagree With You

Sometimes a misguided attempt to right a wrong backfires, exacerbating the original wrong. Throwing water on a grease fire is one example. Tying a tourniquet so tight that it cuts off the blood supply to a limb is another example. Hiding from lightening under a tree – bad idea! You probably have a list of your own examples that fit the bill. The root causes of such “mistakes” nearly always boil down to lack of knowledge or experience or the rush of acting without thinking first. In some cases, a bystander warns “don’t throw water on that fire,” but it is too late. The do-gooder doesn’t hear in time or, in more egregious cases, stubbornly decides to ignore the advice. The fire spreads.

So it comes as no surprise that the ten former 9-11 Commissioners (now the 9-11 Public Disclosure Project), including five Republicans, warned this past Monday that Iraq is becoming the world’s prime terrorist training ground. Last week’s triple suicide-bombing in Amman, Jordan demonstrates the ability of terrorists in Iraq to export their deadly goods. It is believed that those terrorists had prepared in Iraq.

Iraq borders six countries: Jordan, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Its border of 1,793 miles roughly approximates the size of the 1,900-mile border between the U.S. and Mexico, but it is much more difficult to patrol. Conceivably, it is just a matter of time before terrorists from Iraq spread into the rest of the Middle East, Europe, and even the United States. So spreads an imprudently fought fire.

Even if you don’t accept that the invasion of Iraq was akin to throwing water on a grease fire (when a well placed lid would have been preferable), there is no reason now to fan the flames further. But that is just what the Bush administration has repeatedly done and has done again by its rejection of the Senate’s proposed amendment to a military appropriations bill (passed 90-9), which states: “No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” – basically outlawing torture. The same administration that used legal briefs to defend its use of torture is now seeking a special torture exemption for the CIA, the same guys who supposedly “directed” the interrogations at the Abu Ghurayb Prison.

The Commissioners noted that the increasing terrorism threat from Iraq is, to some extent, connected to the “highly publicized reports of brutalization, humiliation and desecration” by the United States. The Senate’s amendment is a first step in ending these winds that only help fan the flames of Islamic fundamentalism.

Sadly, this President does not learn from his mistakes, his biggest being his inability to listen to anyone outside his insular circle of adviser-cronies. He might have gone down as a great leader had he listened to Colon Powell after 9/11, focused on Afghanistan where we knew terrorists trained, and used the goodwill we so briefly engendered from other nations, including Arab nations, to unite the world in a global fight against terrorism. But he did not, and it is unlikely he will listen to the Commissioners.

No one likes to see a President fail. But with Scooter Libby indicted, Karl Rove and Bill Frist under investigation, and Democrats defeating Republican candidates in Virginia and New Jersey, among other things, there is some satisfaction when the great stubborn do-it-my-wayer, ignoring advice not to throw water on a fire, gets a little burned himself. Such schadenfraude, however, only numbs the pain, but does not heal the disease. The disease is that this President does not listen, and as a result, the flames he fans kill innocent Iraqis by the dozens each day, kill and maim our own brave men and women working to bring peace to the Iraq, and may ultimately hit our own shores in the form of exported terrorism.

Presumably, the administration believes torture is a useful means of obtaining reliable information about possible terrorist attacks. The experts say otherwise, noting that victims of torture do talk, but they give information that is less reliable than that obtainable by other means.

But what are the chances that the Bush administration will listen to experts?

***

The Report on the Status of 9/11 Commission Recommendations (Part III) issued on November 14, 2005 is available at http://www.9-11pdp.org/press/2005-11-14_report.pdf.

Reported in the News Today: Film Mentioning Evolution Kept from Southern Theaters

This should be of concern to people. I don't believe the marketplace argument is rational here. Southern states are not overwhelmingly fundamentalist, just moreso than other parts of the country. Plenty of folks would see this movie (as I did) and not even catch the brief references to evolution, or at least not be bothered by them. Apparently politics is at play -- the politics of keeping unfavorable information away from the public. I wonder who set that trend....

IMAX theaters reject film over evolution
Some theaters in South believe 'Volcanoes' a tough sell

CHARLESTON, South Carolina (AP) -- IMAX theaters in several Southern cities have decided not to show a film on volcanoes out of concern that its references to evolution might offend those with fundamental religious beliefs.

"We've got to pick a film that's going to sell in our area. If it's not going to sell, we're not going to take it," said Lisa Buzzelli, director of an IMAX theater in Charleston that is not showing the movie. "Many people here believe in creationism, not evolution."

The film, "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea," makes a connection between human DNA and microbes inside undersea volcanoes.

Buzzelli doesn't rule out showing the movie in the future.

IMAX theaters in Texas, Georgia and the Carolinas have declined to show the film, said Pietro Serapiglia, who handles distribution for Stephen Low, the film's Montreal-based director and producer.

"I find it's only in the South," Serapiglia said.

Critics worry screening out films that mention evolution will discourage the production of others in the future.

"It's going to restrain the creative approach by directors who refer to evolution," said Joe DeAmicis, vice president for marketing at the California Science Center in Los Angeles and a former director of an IMAX theater. "References to evolution will be dropped."

International Monetary Economics For Complete Morons

(In honor of the "For Dummies" and "Idiot's Guide" series of books, I am inaugurating a new "For Complete Morons" series of articles, which I hope you will find enjoyable, educational and mostly correct.)

Several items of economic note occurred in the last couple of months that provide a lesson of sorts on international monetary economics:

• The dollar reached an all-time low against the euro as central banks around the world shift currency reserves from the US dollar to euros. (See FT article)
• The US debt as a percentage of our income (GDP) is approaching record levels not seen since World War II. (See graph)
• The producer prices index (PPI) jumped 0.8% in February, the highest such jump in six years, which led to sharp falls in stock prices on the day of the announcement. (See Reuters article)
• The 2004 trade deficit was reported, and it is the highest ever, not just in dollar terms ($617.7 billion), but more importantly, as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, or GDP (5.3%). The US set record trade deficits against Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, the European Union and South and Central America. Even during the heady spending days of the Reagan-Bush years of the 80s and early 90s, the trade deficit crept above 3% of GDP in only two of twelve years.

What does this mean and why should you care? If you have an adjustable rate mortgage, money in mutual funds, a long commute or SUV, or dollars sitting in a bank account, you might want to care.

First the basics: Economics is governed by supply and demand. Few empty seats at the concert and scalpers can charge whatever they want; lots of empty seats and good luck selling your extra tickets for face value. The same applies to stock prices: If people decide they want Apple stock and don't want Yahoo stock, Apple stock price will rise on increased demand while Yahoo stock price will decline as people sell it off. Fine. Basic stuff.

You can think of money in the same way: If demand for dollars grows relative to supply, then the value of the dollar will increase (appreciate) against other currencies. Similarly a decline in demand for dollars will cause the dollar to decrease (depreciate) in value. If you think of the U.S. dollar as Yahoo stock and the euro as Apple stock, we can understand better why the euro has climbed so high and continues to climb against the dollar. Investors are cashing out of dollars and investing in euros and other currencies.

One reason people sell the stock of one company (or in this case, one country) is because they think (or fear others will think) it is poorly managed. If Yahoo's debts were growing year after year, while Apple was actually accumulating profits, you might make the switch too. So let's look at the management of the US versus Europe. In 2003 and 2004, the US government budget deficit was about 5% of GDP (GDP is Gross Domestic Product, which is akin to the "earnings" of a country). For the same period, the EU ran government deficits of less than 3%. It's true, deficits can be a good thing. I ran a deficit to get a law degree, and it is somewhat paying off. I know people who borrowed to buy real estate, and it has paid off for them too. So if Apple runs a deficit (borrows money) to update its technology or finance a new product or expansion project or train its employees, that might produce greater income (GDP) in the end. But what if the spending is not on a house or an education, but on lavish meals, a brand new car and electronics, war, medical care for 35,000 permanently maimed soldiers, and to finance US consumer credit spending, government deficits and the like -- items that are not considered investment? You get the picture. In short, if the investor, in this case the world, decides we are investing wisely, it will stay invested in the dollar; otherwise it will sell.

Each business day, the US must attract about $2 billion in net lending and investments to fund our deficit spending. The people lending us dollars to finance our debt have these extras dollars to lend because of our trade deficit (known as the current account). More dollars leave the United States to pay for imports than we collect from our exports. Those extra dollars abroad circulate back to the US by way of foreign investment in US t-bills, stocks, bonds, etc. Which may be fine, if we don't mind more and more of our assets being held overseas and the possibility of a sell off of those assets, and if those dollars go to investment, versus wasteful spending. (Warren Buffet warned that Americans may end up a "Sharecropper Society" if we maintain our current path -- paying a large portion of what we earn to foreign owners.)

Another reason foreign holders might wish to sell dollars is that there is a viable diversification alternative. Today, the EU has the same size economy as the US (each is about $11 trillion), which is growing at the same 1.8% (factoring out the effects of population growth) as the US's. The EU is slated to pick up some Eastern European countries with growth rates far exceeding the US's. An Ernst & Young survey of international businesses showed a preference for investing in new projects in Western Europe (38%) over Central and Eastern Europe (19%), China (16%) and North America (14%). This does not bode well for dollar demand. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the currency of choice was the British pound. But with the decline of Great Britain as a world power and the rise of the United States, the world shifted to dollars. Having your currency widely used gives you the power to dictate many of the terms of the international system. For example, oil contracts anywhere in the world are denominated in dollars and many government and foreign investors hold large dollars reserves (although euro reserves have been growing as a percentage of all reserves). A move to euros could signal a weakening of American influence in the world, as happened with Great Britain at the end of the 19th century. In any case, there is nothing like competition to give the frontrunner a run for its money (no pun intended).

So back to things you care about, like your adjustable rate mortgage, mutual funds, a long commute or dollars buried in the mattress (or bank). The dollars is the easy one. This is like holding Yahoo stock while everyone else is selling and the price declines. If the world sells off its dollars, then as the dollar depreciates, you become poorer in world terms.

Because the US finances its deficits by borrowing money abroad (i.e., selling t-bills) and paying interest on those borrowings, if the rest of the world starts to sell off dollars, then the US will have to raise interest rates to make the dollar investment more attractive. It's like adding a second headliner to that empty concert to attract concertgoers, or increasing the dividend on a stock or interest rate on a corporate bond. But paying higher interest rates (1) causes the deficit to grow even faster since more interest must be paid out of the budget, and (2) if the government is paying more on its borrowing, why should a lender lend to someone buying a house when the lender can lend to the government. . . unless that rate goes up too, and it does. Rising interest rates make it harder for people to buy homes and start businesses and this in turn depresses the demand for homes and home prices and slows economic output.

Your commute? Remember that we are net importers of oil and gas. Even though oil contracts are denominated in dollars, a devaluing dollar will make oil and gas prices climb even higher. In fact the falling dollar is largely responsible for driving the price of oil to record highs. Because energy is a major input in our domestic economy, this price increase could have a ripple effect, causing a general increase in the price level -- inflation. (So far there are only a few signs of inflation, but remember that jump in the PPI number.) And since we import so many of our goods, those prices will increase as the dollar weakens, and that too creates inflation. (There is a slight offsetting feature to the devaluing dollar: our exports should become cheaper and increase in number, but this in turn is offset by the fact that much of our exports rely on imported, and hence more expensive, parts and equipment.)

The traditional way to fight inflation is to raise interest rates, so that people save more and spend less (thereby cutting demand for goods and services, and with that reduced demand, reduced prices). But raising interest rates, again, depresses the demand for homes and home prices and slows economic output.

And your mutual funds? Well, if you are diversified in a world fund that includes Europe and emerging markets like China and India, you might be OK. But if you are invested wholly in US stocks and the dollar devalues, you become poorer (because you are holding dollar-denominated assets), plus you risk a further decline in these funds as foreigners sell them off to cut their dollar losses. Add to that the higher interest rates necessary to attract investors back to dollars and/or to fight inflation, and it becomes more difficult to start and expand businesses and harder for people to finance purchases, leading to reduced earnings for companies and people -- recession! It is also possible that rising fuel prices would dampen output (more recession) while at the same time leading to inflation. This almost intractable combination is known as stagflation -- intractable because raising interest rates is no longer viable medicine during a recession, since it would only slow the economy further.

What to do about this? The last time the executive and legislative branches were controlled by one party (1992-1994), the Democrats set out to reverse the large deficits run up during the Reagan-Bush presidencies (1980-1992) and eventually produced surpluses. Granted, a strong economy helped, but this strong economy was in part the result of confidence at home and abroad that the United States was well-managed, and this is a result of the get-serious attitude of the Clinton Administration to control deficits. Ultimately, economies are built on confidence.

If our current Republican-controlled executive and legislative branches continue to "borrow and spend," reasonable investors may lose confidence in the management of the United States and take their investments elsewhere. So far, Republicans have shown no sign of fiscal conservatism, having chosen to lower taxes at the same time as they launched an expensive war on false pretexts. This combination of lower taxes during wartime has never before been tried in the history of this country, and some would argue that only a "complete moron" would try such a thing. (For an interesting prospective on the deficit and why President Bush may actually want it to balloon, see Opinion) Still, if the tax stimulus grows the economy faster than we accumulate deficits, fine. This doesn't seem to be happening, however, as the comparison with Europe shows: even with our higher growth rate (which is almost entirely due to our higher population growth rate), our deficits are still growing at a faster pace as a percentage of GDP.

I am not predicting doom and gloom, because the Republicans in power own homes, drive SUVs, invest in mutual funds, and ultimately possess self-interest like the rest of us. The question is whether their short-term self-interest in getting reelected has taken precedence over the long-term interest of the nation to avoid the next potentially battering economic downturn. Only time will tell, but the abandonment of one of their core principles -- fiscal conservatism -- cannot be a good sign. That and the world's attitude towards the US dollar are the two things to watch in the coming years.

* * * * *

Epilogue.

The day after I completed the first draft of this piece, two articles appeared in the New York Time (2/22/05), which I briefly excerpt below.

Stocks Tumble on Spike in Oil Prices. A weaker dollar and a spike in oil prices sent stocks tumbling Tuesday as investors worried that continued currency troubles could lead to higher prices overall and spur inflation. . . . The dollar dropped 1.5 percent against the Japanese yen and also fell against the euro and the British pound. The dollar's weakness combined with a cold snap in the Northeast to drive crude futures past $50 per barrel. . . . The Conference Board reported that consumer confidence fell slightly in February, hurt by January's losses on the stock market, continued high energy prices and slow job growth. . . . The dollar's drop was a negative for oil prices, since most major transactions are conducted in dollars, and foreign oil producers must charge more in order to make up for the falling value of the greenback. The dollar also pushed bond prices slightly lower, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rising to 4.28 percent.

Dollar Drops as Bank of Korea Looks to Buy Other Currencies. The dollar fell sharply in the foreign-exchange markets today after the Bank of Korea disclosed plans to step up its purchases of securities denominated in other currencies. . . . The dollar lost more than 1.5 cents in value against the euro, which rose to $1.3229 in afternoon trading in New York from $1.3068 late Monday. It also weakened against the Japanese yen, dropping to 104.21 yen today from 105.54 yen the day before. Australian and Canadian currencies also gained against the dollar, as the Bank of Korea indicated, in a report to the South Korean parliament, that it might keep some of its reserves in those currencies instead of the dollar. The South Korean won posted gains as well. . . . Today, the news led to a quick strengthening of Asian currencies against the dollar, before washing over Europe and propping up the euro, which as the world's second most widely held currency is the logical beneficiary of the dollar's weakness. Over the last few years, many central banks have registered a decrease in their dollar reserves, but this decline owed itself to the revaluation of reserves that reflected a weaker dollar. From 2001 to 2003, the euro's share of the world's currency reserves grew to 19.7 percent from 16.7 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund, although it is still far behind the dollar. The looming prospect that these central banks, especially in Asia's emerging markets, might begin actively seeking out other currencies as storehouses of their wealth has the potential to hammer the dollar even harder . . . . Russia's central bank has said it is rethinking what proportion of dollars and euros it holds, and it ranks as a rising player in the foreign exchange market because of the inflow of money from high oil prices. Some Middle Eastern countries have also indicated they might step up their purchases of euros, at the expense of dollars.

Judgment and Honesty

On February 10, 2005, the National Security Archive posted a memo dated January 25, 2001 (five days after Mr. Bush’s first inauguration) from Richard Clarke to Condoleezza Rice. You should read it yourself: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/index.htm. It requested an immediate meeting of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee to discuss strategies for combating al-Qaeda – the type the Clinton Administration held weekly. The Bush team response, according to Clarke’s sworn testimony, was “that in the Bush administration I should, and my committee, counterterrorism security group, should report to the deputies committee, which is a sub-Cabinet level committee, and not to the principals and that, therefore, it was inappropriate for me to be asking for a principals’ meeting. Instead, there would be a deputies meeting.” In other words, while the Clinton administration dealt with al-Qaeda at the principals (i.e., top) level, the Bush administration pushed it down a layer into the bureaucracy and did not deal with it… that is, until the first Principals meeting to address al-Qaeda was held on September 4, 2001 – some eight months later (compared to the Clinton’s weekly meetings). Bush’s month-long vacation at his ranch in August of 2001 didn’t help matters.

We ultimately choose our leaders for judgment, which is a function of intelligence and morality. I have long believed that if any Americans were partially responsible for 9-11 by being asleep at the wheel, they are George Bush and Condoleezza Rice, who, as you’ll recall, were focused on things like non-existence WMDs in Iraq and the Star Wars missile defense systems. Those who despise Clinton only had to close their eyes and replay those words, “I did not have sex with that woman” to visceralize their dislike. Those of us who feel similarly about Mr. Bush, especially in New York, need only close our eyes and replay the bodies falling from buildings to do the same. For starters! Then there are the lies about WMDs propagated to the American people and to the world (who had the judgment not to buy it), the false attempts to link al-Qaeda with Iraq, the disrespectful statements about the Geneva Conventions and international law that led to the Abu Ghraib prison and other abuses. Was it good judgment, moral or intelligent to wait five days after the tsunami before calling any of the leaders of the affected countries and offering condolences? For me, these moral wrongs show the true amoral character of this administration.

The response to the Clarke memo was the first in a string of bad judgments that make Clinton’s lapses, by comparison, look like driving 70 in a 65 zone. Those who were outraged by lies about sex, but sat silently and even applauded the lies about war and death – lies that have led to the deaths of 10,000s of civilians and a greater number of permanent disabilities – seem to have exercised judgment that lacks proportionality and places form over substance. It is no wonder our leaders lack judgment. In a democracy, the judgments of our leaders ultimately reflect our own judgments.

New York Blue and Proud

I am relieved that the election is over. I had predicted in my Open letter to Undecided Ohioans that it would come down to Ohio, and sure enough, it did. Still, there is something about certainty, regardless of the result, that allows one to move onto the next big thing. Certainly the process this time was much better than in 2000 (which was marred, ultimately, by the intellectually unsound U.S. Supreme Court decision that decided it, and which very few Americans actually read). So I accept the results this time and am ready to move on. Hail to the Chief!

My fellow New Yorkers, on the other hand, are still trying to get over their bewilderment and grief. I see it in the faces of people, I overhear it on the street. Even people I hardly know say to me “we lost,” making the numerically justified assumption that I am a Democrat because I am a New Yorker.

Despite the attacks of 9-11 (or perhaps because of them), more than 80% of Manhattanites voted for John Kerry. Some op-eds have wondered aloud whether people in the “red” states (where the chances of a terrorist attack are quite slim) voted the way they did because they simply don’t care about New York’s safety. Others, as exemplified by the British newspaper headline “How could 59,239,776 people be so dumb?” attributed the result to ignorance. In the throes of grief, these are seductive theories indeed. But I cannot let myself believe the former, and as for the latter, the exit polls for Ohio and for the entire nation simply do not support this theory (to the extent education level is correlated with intelligence) -- educated and uneducated people split their votes pretty evenly. In short, a lot of smart, caring people voted for George Bush.

So what is it that has New Yorkers feeling so “blue” and feeling so unlike the rest of America? I think, first, it is part of the natural grieving process and will soon pass. Come visit us and cheer us up!

Second, it may be an overreaction to the media’s flavor-of-the-month hot topic of “moral values.” No one likes being told they lost because they don’t have moral values. New Yorkers, justifiably, feel they do have moral values. After all, it is the city that welcomed most of our ancestors to this country (that and the other blue city on the West Coast) -- the city that embraces the moral values of hard work and success, of risking life and limb to rescue lawyers and bankers from burning buildings, of welcoming different peoples into a multicultural environment unlike any other, of respecting the love and commitment two people make to each other regardless of their gender, of welcoming the benefits of science and medicine free of political interference, of avoiding the death and mutilation caused by unnecessary war, of not misleading people into war, of not passing onto our children the accumulation of deficits (the largest as a percentage of GDP since World War II), and of making sure poor children receive adequate healthcare and a decent education. These are moral values of the heart that have real benefits and enhance Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness. And so New Yorkers are taken aback when the Election suggests that the losers have no moral values. New Yorkers should get over this and be secure in their morality. I’m biased, but I think they have upstanding moral values.

Third, there is and always has been a cultural and philosophical divide about what America is about. New Yorkers should get over that fear that the other side is some new menace taking over the country. Our divisions date back to our nation’s founding when Federalists and Anti-Federalists fought over the very structure of our Union. The Federalists -- James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay -- supported a strong federal government and wrote their Federalist Papers to persuade New Yorkers to support ratification of the new Constitution. Anti-Federalists like Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson opposed the Constitution and any form of centralized government. The Federalists eventually prevailed in this philosophical battle over what America would be -- a strong central government versus a confederacy of independent states -- but not without giving in to Anti-Federalists’ demands for a Bill of Rights (which interestingly the Federalists opposed as being capable of too narrow a construction). This first Congress sat in New York just two blocks from my office. When their work was done, the rights of individuals embodied by the Bill of Rights were federal rights, guaranteed by a strong centralized government and promoted by both sides as minimum rights, not a complete list of rights.

Almost a century later, the divide reshaped itself along the Mason-Dixon Line, but the philosophic differences underpinning the American Civil War had a familiar flavor that went beyond the issue of slavery, but to the larger issue of federal power versus states' rights -- the proponents of the former siding with expansive rights for people, of the latter seeking to maintain the bonds of slavery. Again, the former prevailed.

Even after the Civil War, the legacy of slavery left a century-long stain upon the nation that again stressed the divide along the same geographical lines. In the 1950s and 60s, states in the South sought to “conserve” their right to segregate the races, outlaw interracial marriage and make it difficult or impossible for African Americans to vote -- policies justified by states’ rights and Biblical arguments. Federal power and Northern values again triumphed.

The strength of our nation today is in part a result of the way these struggles have gone. It is doubtful that a confederacy of independent states, some still entertaining institution of slavery, could have defeated Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany in world war or stood up to the Soviet Union. Our power comes from our progress. The term “progressive” comes from “progress,” and “liberal” is the entomological cousin of “liberty.” America's predominance in the world is the result of experiment in liberalism. Even the most conservative of our founders were liberals by the standards of the time -- the liberal idea of an elected president with limited terms prevailed over the then conservative notion of monarchs selected by God. (The origin of “conservative” comes from conserving things the way they are, and at the time, monarchy prevailed.)

The moral fabric of our nation is Judeo-Christian; it has been colored and dyed by themes first embraced over 200 years ago in places like New York, Boston and Philadelphia, and later decried in places like Richmond, Montgomery and Birmingham.

And yet, as a nation, we cannot rest on our “progress.” We know that bad ideas and ideologies can take hold FROM WITHIN and destroy a country, especially when we are asked to stop thinking and just believe what we are told. It happened in 1917 in Russia, it has happened in many of the non-secular nations of the Middle East -- once the cradle of Civilization -- and it can happen here too. But I think this Election should provide some comfort, however slight, that it won’t happen here, because people won’t rest when they perceive their nation threatened, whether from within or without. We saw this in the voter registration and protection efforts and the huge election turn-out.

Some of the “they” that New Yorkers don’t understand are Evangelicals and Born-Again Christians, but they are neither to be overestimated nor feared, but rather understood. Despite the rumors to the contrary, New Yorkers are human, and humans fear what they don't understand. In fact more than 20% of Evangelicals and Born-Again Christians (self-identified in exit polls) voted for Kerry -- not quite the expected monolithic block.

If New Yorkers and New-Yorkers-at-heart are secure in their morality, then they should share the word with others. This is what the other side has been doing with their morality with great effectiveness.

Third, even though the Electoral map, at least in the eastern third of the nation, is pretty much divided along the same Mason-Dixon line that divided us a century and half ago, the margins are not so huge as to present a geographical divide as a philosophical one that does not respect boarders. Although in Ohio, 49% of voters chose Kerry while 51% chose Bush, even in Virginia and North Carolina, close to 45% of voters chose Kerry. If the colors of the map truly represented these close margins, the map would be various shades of purple throughout.

While it’s hard in any given moment to see the grand lay of the land, trends past and future, the worldwide trend is towards greater freedom. Much of the industrial world (in large part the progeny of our post-WWII policies) is more liberal than the United States, and most Americans, even those who voted for Bush, oppose criminalizing abortion and support civil unions for gay couples (at least in the younger demographics). Even if we naturally become more conservative as we age, it is unlikely that we will abandon these ideals. Older conservatives are often former liberals who won their battles and don’t want things “to go too far.” If you doubt this, ask your conservative friends if they oppose Social Security, Medicare for the elderly, desegregation, and any number of programs and ideas that were originally opposed by conservatives of their times, but are now the accepted norm.

Ultimately our allegiance must not be to any president or party, but to the ideals (yes, moral ideals) on which this country was founded (in the blue Northeast, I might add) and on which we have made the greater part of our progress over the last two and half centuries. New Yorkers deserve to be proud of their great role in that legacy.

So despite all the glum faces in blue New York, I am optimistic for our country. If history is any measure, I have good reason to be. I can also now say, I am a proud New Yorker.

And yes, I am glad the elections are over. And no, I'm not leaving New York to move to Canada!



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AN OPEN LETTER TO UNDECIDED OHIOANS

Dear Ohioans,

I am a New Yorker who works right next to the World Trade Center site and my office overlooks Ground Zero. I think this election will come down to Ohio, just as the last one came down to Florida.

Of course many of you have made up your minds about whom you will vote for on November 2nd, and I am unlikely to change your mind. But if you haven’t, may I make a suggestion? Consider the people directly in the line of fire of terrorists – New Yorkers – and who they believe will better secure their safety.

By more than a 2-to-1 margin, we think John Kerry will do a better job keeping us, and the rest of America, safe. [See http://www.maristpoll.marist.edu/nyspolls/PZ040915.htm (Marist College poll indicating that 59% of New York City registered voters favor the Kerry/Edwards ticket, while 27% favor the Bush/Cheney ticket).] We are people not only concerned with security because we are in the terrorists’ gunsites, but we are people who voted for a Republican, Rudolph Giuliani, as Mayor. We WILL vote for the best man, regardless of party. This time around, a vast majority of us thinks that the best man for president is John Kerry.

Why do most of us feel we would be safer and more secure with John Kerry as president? I do not speak for all New Yorkers, as must be self-evident (but in this age of verbal assault, someone will say it if I don't, so let me start with that admission and save us from that chorus), but I have some ideas why we overwhelmingly favor John Kerry, which I think many, if not a majority of New Yorkers, would accept in great part.

Let me first say that we do not think he is perfect – he has his real and perceived weaknesses [See bottom of this letter.] But many of us believe the President’s war in Iraq, as one example, distracted the country from the war on terrorism and weakened us in several ways:

1. Unnecessarily spread out our military forces. If, God forbid, we were to suffer another terrorist strike or discovered a country really supplying terrorists with WMDs, our brave troops and reserve forces are spread far too thinly to effectively open a third military front in the war or terrorism. We have yet to fully secure Afghanistan (a justified war) and we are a long way from securing Iraq (an unjustified war). Even if we could still fight a third war, wouldn’t it be a better fight if we did not have so many forces bogged down in Iraq? Further, Iran and North Korea seem emboldened in the actions under this president, maybe because they know we can’t do anything anyway. That is weakness to the point of impotence.

2. Helped terrorists recruit new blood. The prolonged war and occupation of Iraq have fed into the recruiting efforts of terrorists around the world. The last thing we in New York City want is a growing population of young terrorists willing to die to harm us.

3. Made it more difficult to convince the world to cooperate with us. The world does not like being lied to or misled. How can we get other nations to cooperate with the war on terror with a president that thumbs his nose at the world and loses trust in their eyes? We are weaker without world cooperation.

4. High Cost – distracting funds needed to secure the Homeland. By the end of next year, the Iraq conflict will top $200 billion dollars if the President gets the money he requested. Meanwhile, airplanes fly with uninspected cargo, 95% of container ships go uninspected, our borders are porous, New York subways and train stations have virtually no protection, and the list goes on. With record deficits, we should have spent that money at home.

5. High Cost – human lives. Let’s not forget the most important cost, human life and welfare. We’ve lost over 1,000 brave soldiers, with ten times that number suffering grave wounds. Imagine, 10,000 of our best with missing limbs, blind, shattered eardrums. Does that strengthen us? Maybe, if they are fighting a country with WMDs and ties to terrorists, maybe then the price would be worth it. But Iraq was not worth it, and we feel awful for all of young people there. And let’s not forget that the Iraqi casualties, many women and children, are much higher than ours. Maybe worth the price in some places, but they had volunteered to rise up against Saddam, but unlike our Founding Fathers, they did not make that choice willingly, but had it thrust upon them.

6. Bad judgment on this war foretells bad future judgments. The President miscalculated the length and cost of the Iraq war. Exhibit One -- “Mission Accomplished.” This is probably due to the fact that, unlike John Kerry, President Bush has no experience with war. In fact most of his cabinet never fought in a war. Even Ronald Reagan understood this when he said, “History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.” No doubt, as bad as it sounds (we have to be honest with ourselves, even if we don’t like the truth), we were the aggressor here (Iraq threatened nobody), and we thought we would walk in there and clean house quickly. Ronald Reagan was RIGHT! George Bush has no concept of war or history, and these are prerequisites of good presidential judgment. Bush senior had military experience, Clinton studied international relations, Reagan had a great sense of history, Kennedy had all three, but our current president has none of these.

7. Lying about the main reason for war weakens our credibility and moral reputation. Finally, we cannot forget the cost of permitting the biggest lies to go unchecked. These are the lies that cost lives, like false accusations of murder. The President and his staff lied to us and the world about weapons of mass destruction, their MAIN reason for going to war as they stated in all their speeches on the eve of war. (Yes, later they came up with other reasons, but none of these distinguished Saddam’s regime from many others around the world.) On August 26, 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney told the VFW National Convention that “there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction,” and the following month, he told a group of Wyoming Republicans that there was “irrefutable evidence” that thousands of tubes made of Iraqi high-strength aluminum tubes were destined for clandestine uranium centrifuges. In his State of the Union address in January 2003, President Bush told us that “Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.” And on September 8, 2002, Condoleezza Rice, the President’s national security adviser, said on CNN that the tubes were “only really suited for nuclear weapons programs.” And there are dozens of other instances of the President and administration officials trying to scare us into war with Iraq by citing chemical and biological weapons, weapons that earlier this month the President’s own chief weapons inspector finally said do not exist. [http://lunaville.org/WMD/billmon.aspx] Did the President and his staff lie, or were they mistaken? In 2001, the President’s national security staff had been told by the Energy Department’s foremost nuclear experts had concluded that the tubes were most likely not for nuclear weapons at all, and Britain’s experts agreed with this. So the President and his staff knew in 2001 that what they said in 2002 was “irrefutably true,” likely wasn’t true at all; they MISLED us to scare us into going to war. This is wrong for any president to do. I could give other examples involving other types of WMDs, but this letter is long enough. (By the way, the President asserted that when Mr. Kerry voted to authorize the use of force against Saddam, he “looked at the same intelligence I looked at,” but numerous sources have confirmed that the Bush administration suppressed intelligence that might have raised doubts in Congress.) Many of us find it hard to believe that we can impeach a president for lying about sex, but that a president who lies about war that kills and injures 10,000s might get re-elected.

So what’s so great about Kerry then? Well, “great” is not the key word; “better” is -- much better:

1. He fought in war and understands the true costs of war.

2. He is analytical, will look at where the evidence leads, rather than fashioning the evidence to lead to where he wants. Thus, we stand a much better chance of avoiding the horrors of unnecessary war. In the words of John Adams, “Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.”

3. I believe he is more honest than the present president (that is just my belief), and that is a strength that will renew our damaged credibility in the world. Just remember how the darkness of the Cold War lifted when the old, humorously dishonest leaders of the Soviet Union died off and Gorbachev came to power. Margaret Thatcher proclaimed “this is a man we can deal with.” Well, the world is waiting to proclaim that the United States has a man it can deal with.

I am sure Kerry is not the perfect candidate. But I’ve looked at the attacks against him, and many New Yorkers probably have too, and we find them exaggerated and misleading in the ways they paint him as a flip-flopper and unpatriotic (any more than the current president changes his mind from time to time).

1. Flip-flopped on the vote to authorize the war? – NO. FactCheck.org, which regularly criticizes Kerry too, stated that “Kerry has never wavered from his support for giving Bush authority to use force in Iraq, nor has he changed his position that he, as president, would not have gone to war without greater international support.” [See http://www.factcheck.org/article269.html.] Kerry stated WHEN HE VOTED to authorize war: “Let there be no doubt or confusion about where we stand on this. I will support a multilateral effort to disarm him (Saddam) by force, if we ever exhaust those other options, as the President has promised, but I will not support a unilateral U.S. war against Iraq unless that threat is imminent and the multilateral effort has not proven possible under any circumstances.” (I added the bold for emphasis.) He never wavered from that. A vote is Yeah or Nay, so it does not mean you support or oppose everything in a bill or resolution. He stated the conditions of his vote, but like a parent giving the car keys to a teenager on the stated conditions that the teen not speed and drink and drive, Kerry had no say once he gave the authority. Once he handed over the keys, all he had was faith that the power he was granting would be used wisely and that the conditions would be adhered to. Bush went binge drinking and wrapped the car around a telephone poll -- not the parent's fault here (unless of course he had reason to believe the teen would do that).

2. Voted against the $87 billion emergency funds for troops. I believed this, and to be honest, I was concerned about this, but not enough to overcome all my concerns about George Bush. But then I looked into it. There were two versions the $87 billion funding bill, he voted for the first version and against the second version (as did 42 other senators). The second version, the one he voted against, passed. So the Bush machine was able to mislead us again by making us think this was a flip-flop. Kerry simply voted for a different version of the $87 billion emergency funding. [See http://www.factcheck.org/article269.html.]

3. Accused veterans of war crimes in Vietnam. I hate to say it, because I love my country, but I love it with honesty rather than false Pollyanna pretenses that we are perfect (after all, you try to improve what you love, and you can only make improvements when you admit faults) but there probably were some war crimes committed by U.S. forces, indeed atrocities were committed on both sides -- again this is a cost of war that only Kerry can appreciate (witness Abu Ghraib). BUT even if there were no atrocities, Kerry never accused anyone of atrocities. The swiftboat ad fails to state that he was testifying on behalf of Veterans, whom he thought were suffering inside and out, and he was quoting what he heard THEM say in their anguish. Let me fill in some of what the ad leaves out: "several months ago in Detroit . . . highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes . . ." and "They told the stories at times they had personally raped, . . . [etc.]" He simply told what he heard anguished Veterans confess to. Was he supposed to lie and say he didn't hear anything at the Detroit meeting? [See http://www.factcheck.org/article244.html.]

In fact, I can list numerous flip-flops of the President, but I don’t want to “attack” him generally; I just want to state a few particular issues relating to the war and security. [There’s a pithy list of such flip-flops at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/3/7/213753/1954, not sure all are correct, but at least with respect to security, Bush was against the Department of Homeland Security until Congress passed legislation creating it in November 2002, but then even as recently as the debates, he took credit for it; it was of course first proposed during the early part of the Bush Administration by a commission that had been set up by the Clinton Administration but had not finished its work until after Bush was installed.]

And let us not forget which candidate served his country in war.

Anyway, I hope you can see that in the area of security, not only of New York City, but the nation, that the difference between John Kerry and George Bush is stark, at least in the minds of those of us who live with the real possibility of terrorism everyday. I was not in New York on September 11th. But when my office finally reopened, I watched out my window as additional damaged and smoldering buildings were demolished. I watched out my window the many ceremonies mourning the loss of so many heroes. I heard stories of people who lost loved ones. One of my best friends lost her boyfriend that day.

I do not hesitate to invoke the tragedy of 9/11 in asking you to consider the views (and security) of the vast majority of New Yorkers when you vote. We should never forget that day, and that’s why I am reminding you of it now. But George Bush DID forget that day when he invaded a country that had nothing to do with that day or any future 9/11s. That is a grave misuse of power and of the 9/11 tragedy. There is a difference between my use of 9/11 to remind you of what we potentially face in New York and why our views are well considered, and the President's misuse of 9/11 to distract us from the war on terror to fight a personal war that had been in the planning stages from Day One of the administration. There is a difference between the presidential candidates.

Thank you for listening. Please pass this on to your fellow Ohioans, especially undecided voters.

Thank you and God Bless America! May we keep her strong AND smart, and make her more secure and more respected in the world!

Sincerely yours, A New Yorker

P.S. By the way, are we better off without Saddam Hussein in power? I think any good thing (like Saddam NOT in power) depends on the price you pay for it. Owning a nice house is a good thing, but if you paid $300,000 for a $200,000 house, you are not better off. My definition of a "mistake" is paying too high a price for something. Think about it! The house example I just gave -- mistake! Driving drunk and wrecking your car -- the benefit is you had a grand old time drinking, but the cost (even the risk of an accident) is too high, so it's a mistake. Robbing a bank -- there is a benefit, but the cost is higher -- mistake! I'll let you think about whether we got a "good deal" or it was a "mistake" spending $200 billion dollars (probably much more in coming years) that could be spent on homeland defense, sacrificing 1,000s of lives, injuring 10,000s, especially considering there was no imminent threat, and that containment was working (as it worked with the USSR and worked with Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis) and containment is cheaper than war. (Note that the recent missing weapons material that could be used to trigger nuclear explosions, but are not themselves WMDs because they are conventional, were safely guarded IN IRAQ by international inspectors for a decade, but went missing after the inspectors evacuated Iraq on the eve of war. Containment worked better than war at keeping those weapons from the bad guys. [http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/international/middleeast/28bomb.html]) Given the choice between war and containment during the Cold War, would the world have been better off without Castro, without Krushchev? Those who say yes ignore the "cost" of war, in those cases, possible nuclear war. JFK understood the cost-benefit analysis of war and resisted striking Cuba during the missile crisis, despite the advice of nearly all his advisors (and we now know that some of the missiles in Cuba were ready to fire). If George Bush had been president then, I'm not sure he would have the judgment that comes from fighting in war and studying history, as JFK did, to make the correct decision. On the occasion of the Berlin Wall going up, JFK remarked, "A wall is better than a war." Something to think about.