Recommended: The Western View of Russia

Another insightful and thoughtful piece from STRATFOR, The Western View of Russia, which I recommend to readers interested in the delicate political balancing act we have with Russia. The author argues that our Western view of what Russia views as its national interests and how it thinks about Western political and economic actions is badly flawed.

Recommended: The Right Strikes Back

In all the fuss and coverage about domestic health care reform, some other important foreign issues have been temporarily forgotten. One of these is the recent coup in Honduras. Immanuel Wallerstein has a thoughtful analysis of what is really happening there in his July 15 article The Right Strikes Back!

Recommended: Tax Reform’s Lesson for Health Care Reform

Amid all the hysterical polemics and deliberate misinformation from both liberals and conservatives about health care reform, an occasional piece of good sense emerges. I recommend Bill Bradley's Op Ed in today's New York Times, entitled Tax Reform’s Lesson for Health Care Reform as one of those rare pieces of good common sense.

Recommended: In Kennedy, the Last Roar of the New Deal Liberal

Sam Tanenhaus makes much the same argument about Ted Kennedy as the writer recommended in the previous post, in a balanced, well-written piece in today's New York Times entitled In Kennedy, the Last Roar of the New Deal Liberal

Recommended: Barack Obama must abandon the Kennedy way, or he will fail

As Senator Ted Kennedy is buried today, there is the predictable adulation from the liberal press and from fellow politicians, though one is reminded that even the Mafia bosses showed deep public respect when one of their own died -- even if they were the cause of that death. But certainly Kennedy did help enact some significant socially-liberal legislation in his time, for which his memory deserves respect.

But as one foreign observer notes in The Weekly Standard (UK) Barack Obama must abandon the Kennedy way, or he will fail, Kennedy's form of big-government, big-spending liberalism is out of date in today's America, and President Obama's attempt to revive it is going to face hard sledding. Despite the Democratic Congressional majorities in the last election, America is predominantly center-right. The religious far right makes a lot of noise, and the far left is certainly popular among the chattering classes, but neither of these groups is anywhere near a majority -- the real political power in the nation is held by people who are moderately conservative or centrist. President Obama loses their support at his peril. One hopes he realizes this pretty soon.

Not good news.....

This ought to get people's attention:

WASHINGTON, August 25, 2009, Associated Press – In a chilling forecast, the White House is predicting a 10-year federal deficit of $9 trillion — more than the sum of all previous deficits since America's founding. And it says by the next decade's end the national debt will equal three-quarters of the entire U.S. economy.

Recommended - How American Health Care Killed My Father

For anyone seriously interested in the health care debate, I strongly recommend the article How American Health Care Killed My Father in the September 2009 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. This is a long and complex article, but it points out many of the real problems in the American health care system, most of them a result of the market distortions from previous government actions and legislation, and it makes a convincing case that the approaches now being considered by Congress and the administration will do little to solve these problems and much to make them worse.

Good for President Jimmy Carter

Former President Jimmy Carter resigned from the Southern Baptist Convention recently because of its discriminatory stand on women. His resignation letter is an eloquent argument for gender equality. I have reproduced it below:

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Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God. I have been a practicing Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women's equal rights across the world for centuries.

At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.

The impact of these religious beliefs touches every aspect of our lives. They help explain why in many countries boys are educated before girls; why girls are told when and whom they must marry; and why many face enormous and unacceptable risks in pregnancy and childbirth because their basic health needs are not met.

In some Islamic nations, women are restricted in their movements, punished for permitting the exposure of an arm or ankle, deprived of education, prohibited from driving a car or competing with men for a job. If a woman is raped, she is often most severely punished as the guilty party in the crime.

The same discriminatory thinking lies behind the continuing gender gap in pay and why there are still so few women in office in the West. The root of this prejudice lies deep in our histories, but its impact is felt every day. It is not women and girls alone who suffer. It damages all of us. The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for society. An educated woman has healthier children. She is more likely to send them to school. She earns more and invests what she earns in her family.

It is simply self-defeating for any community to discriminate against half its population. We need to challenge these self-serving and outdated attitudes and practices - as we are seeing in Iran where women are at the forefront of the battle for democracy and freedom.

I understand, however, why many political leaders can be reluctant about stepping into this minefield. Religion, and tradition, are powerful and sensitive areas to challenge. But my fellow Elders and I, who come from many faiths and backgrounds, no longer need to worry about winning votes or avoiding controversy - and we are deeply committed to challenging injustice wherever we see it.

The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by former South African president Nelson Mandela, who offer their influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity. We have decided to draw particular attention to the responsibility of religious and traditional leaders in ensuring equality and human rights and have recently published a statement that declares: "The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable."

We are calling on all leaders to challenge and change the harmful teachings and practices, no matter how ingrained, which justify discrimination against women. We ask, in particular, that leaders of all religions have the courage to acknowledge and emphasize the positive messages of dignity and equality that all the world's major faiths share.

The carefully selected verses found in the Holy Scriptures to justify the superiority of men owe more to time and place - and the determination of male leaders to hold onto their influence - than eternal truths. Similar biblical excerpts could be found to support the approval of slavery and the timid acquiescence to oppressive rulers.

I am also familiar with vivid descriptions in the same Scriptures in which women are revered as pre-eminent leaders. During the years of the early Christian church women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets. It wasn't until the fourth century that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy.

The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions - all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views.

What is the anger really about?

Legislators have been facing angry, hostile audiences across the nation the past two weeks as they try to explain and defend the (so far nonexistent) health care bills. Democrats have been trying to downplay this, arguing that it is the result of organized conservative groups. Even if true, that of course overlooks the obvious point that conservative groups have had little difficulty finding lots of angry people to organize.

But is the anger really just about the health care bills? This is just speculation, but I wonder if the anger isn't really more about the soaring deficit and the perception that Wall Street has gotten a big bailout at the expense of the rest of us. No one asked us about the bailout. No one held town meetings about the fiscal stimulus plan. No one asked voters to weigh in on whether AIG and Bank of America ought to continue to pay huge bonuses even as they took government money to survive. So in fact these town meetings about health care are the first real chance voters have had to express their views on the whole sorry mess -- and they are angry.

Polls do indeed suggest that a large portion of the nation is getting increasingly skittish about the amount of money this administration and this Congress is spending, and the rate at which they are increasing the national debt. Democrats ignore this at their peril, and I suspect much of the anger at these town hall meetings is really rooted in those fears.

The Health Care Debate

No one should have expected an overhaul of the American health care system to be easy, and it isn’t. During this August Congressional recess, all sides in this debate are playing hardball, and it’s pretty hard to see what is really happening for all the misinformation being circulated. Conservatives are claiming (falsely) that this is a move to a nationalized health care system. Liberal are claiming (falsely) that it won’t cost much and that in any case insurance companies are making out like bandits (they actually rank about 35th in profitability – a pretty poor showing).

And of course it doesn’t help that in fact there isn’t any actual proposed legislation to debate yet – just a bunch of wildly different draft bills from various House and Senate committees.

But a few things are clear:

a) The administration is certainly right that America needs to overhaul its health care system. We currently spend about 17% of the nation’s gross domestic product on health care, almost 4 ½ times as much as we spend on national defense, and the costs are rising at about twice the rate of inflation. We spend more per capita on health care than any other nation on earth, yet the World Health Organization ranks America's health care as 37th in the world, down with Costa Rica and Slovenia, with worse life expectancy and higher infant mortality than many nations that spend substantially less per capita.

b) It certainly seems that a nation that can afford to offer multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses on Wall Street to people who actually produce nothing of concrete value in the world ought to be able to offer at least the most basic health care insurance and coverage to all of its citizens.

c) Most of the plans currently being considered by the various Congressional committees are going to cost a lot, despite the continued promises of “revenue neutral” solutions. Unfortunately, liberal legislators can’t seem to see any solutions that don’t involve the government spending more, and as the Congressional Budget Office keeps pointing out, this doesn’t do anything to lower the actual costs. Unfortunately, conservative legislators can’t seem to find anything practical to offer as an alternative, so they are reduced to just “being against” anything proposed.

d) And all of this against a backdrop of an absolutely astounding increase in the national debt. The Bush administration added almost $5 trillion to the national debt over its eight years in office, which was appalling enough. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Obama administration’s current budget plans appear to be on track to add about $10 trillion more to the national debt over two terms, and that is without adding any new expensive programs like a national health care plan.

It should be an interesting August.

Recommended - The Ayatollah Begs to Differ

Another book I have just finished and which I highly recommend is Hooman Majd's The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran. Majd, now an American, was born in Iran, the son of an Iranian diplomat (under the Shah) and grandson of a prominent Iranian Ayatollah. As the witty title suggests, this is an easy book to read, but very insightful about the Iranian character and culture. I found his discussion of President Ahmadinejad's style, background, and political image (within Iran) especially enlightening.

His book makes it clear that we (the American press and political system) often misread or misunderstand the subtle messages from the Iranian leaders, because we don't understand the cultural background from which they emerge. And, no doubt, they misread us just as often, which is surely a recipe for eventual disaster.

Recommended - Our Angry Aristocracy

I recommend Victor Davis Hanson's August 3 article Our Angry Aristocracy. So-called 'limousine liberals" (multi-millionaire liberals who prescribe all sorts of expensive remedies for the poor, but who are themselves exempt from any of the consequences or costs) have always been a problem. But the hypocrisy is more evident now, as Congress debates health care changes (that won't affect their own very, very generous health plans) and executive pay restrictions (that won't affect their own very, very generous pay or pensions).

Recommended - Ten Years of Putin

I highly recommend perusing regularly the web site for STRATFOR Global Intelligence at http://www.stratfor.com. One can subscribe to their free weekly email report, and this week's report Ten Years of Putin is well worth reading and pondering.

I have in a previous posting recommended The Next 100 Years, by STRATFOR president Dr. George Friedman. It too is well worth reading.

Recommended – The Devil We Know

Robert Baer knows the Middle East well, having served in that area for the CIA for decades. His new book The Devil We Know: Dealing With the New Iranian Superpower, is worth reading because Americans, including the American political establishment, are woefully ignorant of the complex cultural currents in the Middle East, and therefore our policies and strategies are far too often naïve, counterproductive, or ineffective.

His previous two books are also worth reading: See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism (2003) and Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude (2004).