New and Improved

Updates! I spent some time yesterday trying to improve the blog.  I hope you enjoy.  Aside from a more aesthetically appealing layout (I think) you will now find a search bar to search within the blog for keywords like wind energy - which appears enough times to warrant a wind turbine background.

If you are a frequent visitor, please become a follower!  Enjoy the updates and the posts and thank you for reading!

Arab Democracy

In an interesting piece this morning - brought to my attention by my good friend Mr. Cohn - NYTimes columnist Nicholas Kristof argued very strongly and eloquently in favor of a no-fly zone over Libya to assist the rebel forces trying to oust Colonel Qaddafi.

France and Britain also support the idea, with France going so far today as to officially recognize the Libyan rebels as the official government. Meanwhile, in the United States, we're dithering about supporting the rebels, arguing that a no-fly zone is costly and not entirely effective.

I'm curious then, what the United States expects the cost of Arab democracy to be, and how much we are willing to pay for our own national security.

It seems that the official US policy is that Arabs are only fit for democracy when we force it on them - excuse me - bless them with it at gunpoint. When we find them worthy of democracy we are willing to spend eight years, a trillion dollars and 5000 American lives to make it a reality. You're welcome Iraq.

But when our leaders have decided that Arabs aren't ready then the cost of no-fly zone becomes astronomical. Why? Well because the Arabs in Libya decided on their own that they wanted democracy, we didn't choose for them...or at least that's the only reason I can fathom.

But how does this affect the United States? Aside from not assisting the people who are trying to topple a man who is guilty of terrorism, what is at stake for us?

In order to answer that question, we need to compare Iraq to Libya and Egypt and even Saudi Arabia. You see we were taken to war in Iraq under the pretense that there was some connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. In fact there was, that connection being the letter "q," a sneaky letter which crops up so infrequently that its mere presence must mean something dastardly and un-American. What we know is that al-Qaeda did not exist in Iraq when we arrived. Say what you will about Saddam Hussein - and there are a lot of bad things to say - he wasn't working with al-Qaeda. Of course after we destabilized the country, a group called al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia appeared. In our attempt to drive al-Qaeda out of Iraq we...created al-Qaeda in Iraq. Doh!

So the guns didn't work like they were supposed to, or maybe they did because a lot of people died, and Iraqis are certainly better off today than they were under Saddam Hussein, but at what cost to us? Meanwhile, in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, America is funding hereditary monarchies (or was in Egypt) who kept telling us that they were vital to the war on terror. Really? Because according to the CIA, 15 of 9/11 hijackers were Saudi. I guess when the US props up feudal governments who strap electric circuits to people's testicles it creates some resentment. Weird. And so Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki find adherents - wait young, poor Arab man, Hosni Mubarak had you stripped naked and whipped? This is America's fault you know! Like it or not, this recruitment tactic works.

But when we look at what happened in Egypt and is now happening in Libya and elsewhere, there is one group who absence speaks volumes - al-Qaeda. Their rhetoric seems outdated. It's not about America anymore, it's not about Israel, it's about basic human rights and opportunity. Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians didn't show up in Tahrir Square to vent their outrage against America; Libyan rebels aren't up in arms to fight us. Al-Qaeda is absent from Libya and Egypt because the battles in those places are not about America. There is nothing anti-American and there is little Islamic about these uprisings. This is what real Arab democracy looks like, homegrown and authentic, disgusted with a despot...it almost sounds American.

Which brings me back to a no-fly zone in Libya. If the United States is willing to spend eight years, a trillion dollars and 5000 lives to create space for al-Qaeda in Iraq, shouldn't we be willing to spend whatever small amount it takes to fly a couple planes over Libya? Are we really scared of the Libyan airforce? Couldn't we probably eliminate the Libyan airforce on the ground at this instant if we wanted to? I don't get it.

America needs to take positive steps to support the nascent movements in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere. Our guns and bombs failed to win Arab hearts, perhaps it's time we let them come to democracy on their own, however in that effort, they may need our support and they should receive it. A democratic Middle East will do far more for American security than a handful of would-be kings. Maybe America needs to accept the fact that Arab people are now deciding on their own that they want democracy. Maybe by supporting the decisions of Arab peoples instead of making those decisions for them, we would make friends not enemies.

Maybe we'll find that for the price of a no-fly zone in Libya, we can do more for the stability of the Middle East and the security of America than we could do with eight years worth of war in Iraq.

Red Scare the Remix

You've heard of the Red Scare: the time period in American history during which we became so afraid of Communists that we became Communists ourselves and started cracking down on the rights and freedoms of Americans who we perceived to be threatening our values. The irony is thick; the best way to protect American freedoms is to take them away. After all the Communists can't destroy our way of life if we do it ourselves, isn't that right Senator McCarthy?

Fortunately for the soiled legacy of Joe McCarthy and his witch hunts, his banner of fear and narrow-mindedness has been jerked from the mud and patched up by Representative Peter King of New York. Pete's got a plan to save America from the Muslims, just like Joe had a plan to save us from the Commies. Neither plan is good, and both are rooted in the kind of backwardness that lights fires under extremists, but it's a plan nonetheless.

On Thursday, Pete - who is head of the House Homeland Security Committee - is opening Red Scare the Remix hearings. Out are the Commies, in are the Muslims. King's hearings are going to focus solely on the threat to America posed by radical Muslims. That's all well and good I suppose, except that this is nothing but a fear-mongering scare tactic. King claims he wants to examine the methods Al-Qaeda uses to radicalize American Muslims. I wonder if it's worth pointing out that having idiots like King drive moderate Muslims the wrong way is one of those methods. I also wonder whether it's worth asking King who he plans to interview on this topic? Has he invited Al-Qaeda recruiters in America? Or maybe he's just pulled Muslims off the street to grill them publicly about why they are such a threat to our society. That wouldn't make them feel isolated at all.

Perhaps the most ironic part of all this is that - according to recent studies - the people MOST LIKELY to assist law enforcement in identifying and disrupting terrorist attacks are...American Muslims. I wonder if they'll appreciate the thanks they're getting from Peter King.

Maybe Congress should spend its time on something that's actually hurting Americans. According to the same study, 33 Americans have been killed during terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11. That number is hardly trivial until you compare it to this one, 150,000, that's the number of people who have been murdered in the United States since 9/11. Maybe ole Pete King should be investigating gun violence in America. Sadly, 33 of those people were killed at a shooting on the campus of Virginia Tech University perpetrated by someone of South Korean descent. Where is the hearing on the threat to America posed by South Koreans. I demand answers!

It's not funny, it's sad, but when we fear-monger like this, we trample the principles our nation was founded upon and we make our country less safe.

But then again, according to the report, there were 10 Muslim Americans plotting against the United States in 2010, so maybe Pete's right, maybe we should be dragging Muslims through a campaign of hate to get to the bottom of why 10 Americans would plot against their country. Of course, maybe we should hold a hearing to get to the bottom of how Pete King's bigotry is going to do nothing except perhaps push that number higher.

Repressed people demand freedoms; that's what brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union as well as autocratic governments across the Middle East. We didn't win the cold war with the Red Scare and we didn't win it with our bombs, we won it with our tolerance and our values. The Joe McCarthys and Peter Kings of the world do our country a disservice when they stand up cowardly for intolerance, fear and hatred. If Peter King actually wanted to fight radical Islam, he'd do it by showing Muslims what America really stands for; instead he's chosen to push people the other way.

People Talking Sense

Something strange happened yesterday in the United States Senate; two of our elected officials, one Democrat the other Republican put on a rare display of bipartisan sensibility.

Kudos to Democrat Mark Warner and Republican Saxby Chambliss for sitting down together and telling Americans the truth, that fixing our nation's budget problems is going to require sensible cuts, raising taxes and compromise.

Here are two men who are willing to go beyond the partisan bickering and agree on what sensible people already know - that we can't fix our budget deficit with cuts alone, and that we can't ignore Social Security and Medicare if we really want to fix the problem.

Traditionally, Republicans think it's possible to cut a deficit without raising taxes, while Democrats refuse to make changes to Social Security and Medicare. Both of these notions are wrong, and while sensible people know this, our elected officials don't seem to bother catering to sensible people as much as they pander to special interests. So what we get is a refusal by Democrats to even consider raising the retirement age and a Republican attempt to cut too much discretionary spending that won't actually dent the deficit but will derail our economic recovery.

What Warner and Chambliss are proposing isn't anything new, but what they're actually doing is a good sign for our future. It's encouraging to see bipartisanship, and even more encouraging to hear people talking sense.

We have a lot of work to do if we are actually going to improve America's finances, and that work needs to be done in a sensible manner by people who are willing to make good, tough choices and not lie about them in order to advance themselves politically. I applaud both Senators Warner and Chambliss for taking this step and I hope that other politicians will follow suit and place our country's future first.

What's the point?

It's not so much a depressing title as a real question: what's the point? We hear a lot about cutting the deficit, and we should cut the deficit, but why? What's the point? Isn't the role of government to help people? "That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men."

So governments, our founders tell us, are to secure our rights, so when the government does something - goes to war, raises or lowers taxes, passes a healthcare law, or cuts the deficit - it's to secure our rights and help us. We - Americans - are the point.

With that in mind, I've been doing some pondering on the deficit situation. It's true that we need to cut into the deficit, spending cuts are in order, and in previous posts I've outlined some concrete ideas for cuts. But if the point of the government is to help us, and quite a bit of the money the government is spending is on us, then how much cutting can we do without hurting ourselves?

Which brings me to a bittersweet bit of news, critics of Arizona governor Jan Brewer are gathering signatures to force a recall vote. This is sweet because Jan Brewer is best known for being the xenophobe who thought she could fix her state's problems by expelling Mexican immigrants; it's bitter because Jan Brewer was so wrong about Arizona's problems that on top of deportation, she's had to make massive cuts to Medicaid; one in five Arizonans will lose their coverage.

So if the point of the government is to look after us, and in doing so, governor Brewer is taking the axe to the coverage of her constituents, what good is governor Brewer? Furthermore, what is the point of all her cuts? If Arizona saves money but Arizonans die, is that meeting Jan Brewer's definition of progress? It certainly doesn't meet mine. And apparently, according to recent polling, it doesn't meet most Americans' definition of moving the right direction. Deficits need to be reduced, but not at the cost of American lives.

So if we are the point, maybe it's time we elect people who will prioritize us. People who will make informed decisions about how to reduce the deficit without putting Americans at risk. We can't talk about the greatness of America without talking about the people who make us great, Americans. And when we start to value America the ideal more than Americans the people, we make political mistakes that hurt us, and when we hurt ourselves, we hurt the ideal.

The way to make America better is to value Americans. Maybe Jan Brewer should keep that in mind when she has to choose between a healthy budget and a healthy electorate.

Healthcare Exposed

Yesterday, President Obama either caved in or stepped up to Republican governors, supporting a bill that would let states opt out of the new healthcare law in 2014. When I first saw this, I thought the President had caved, until I realized all the stipulations: if states want to opt out, their new plans must cover the same number of people as the federal plan at an affordable cost and without adding to the deficit.

President Obama didn't cave, he threw down the gauntlet. For all we've heard about "repeal and replace," all the talk has been about repeal. Repeal and replace sounds good, but Republicans don't have any ideas to replace the healthcare law. Whining is easy, fixing things less so. By offering to let states opt out in 2014, the President has challenged Republican governors to come up with a better alternative, he's exposed them for the visionless fear-mongerers they are.

It remains to be seen if the bill that will allow states to opt out early will even be passed. It's possible that Congressional Republicans will continue ranting about repealing the law and save Republican governors from looking bad by not passing the bill. But the challenge has been issued and the Republican "plan" on healthcare has been exposed.

I find it distressing that we are still having a debate on this, not because debate isn't healthy (it is), and not because the new law can't be improved (it can), but because one side is doing it's best to make America better and one side is talking about repeal and replace when repeal would make things worse and there is no plan for replace.

Maybe the president's challenge will force Republicans to offer ideas. Maybe it will force Republicans to actually come up with ideas. I hope so because I support the new law, but I admit it's not perfect. But as President Obama has said, returning to the way things were, when insurance companies were basically allowed to steal from people and when the rising cost of healthcare went unchecked because I'm paying for other people's treatment since healthcare is a right but health insurance is not.

I'm curious to see what will happen, but I'm hopeful that this will improve healthcare by forcing real debate on the issue.

The Scissors and the Axe

Scissors and axes, despite being very different, are used for the same purpose, albeit in much different manners. Scissors are used for light cutting or trimming, axes are for hewing, just chopping it up.

If you had to take either scissors or an axe to the federal budget, which would you choose? Perhaps given all the rhetoric you've heard, or maybe if you're a Tea Partier, you'd take the axe, hacking away at our nation's infrastructure and programs without any regard or realization for the damage being done to vital programs or our nation's future. But the axe is the wrong choice. You'd be much better off choosing the scissors, because chopping away at America's budget wantonly means cutting in a lot of the wrong places. We want to cut off excess branches, not fell the tree.

So what we need is careful analysis. Identifying the areas of growth is more important to our nation's future than indiscriminately hacking at the excesses. In his piece today, David Brooks, one the New York Time's conservative columnists, calls for such an analysis. As Brooks points out, we're cutting the future. Republicans like to talk about future generations and how we're saddling them with a huge fiscal burden. Fair enough, but is the best way to ensure that they won't have to pay by cutting education so we can be positive that future Americans won't be educated enough to get good jobs? In some twisted way that works...Ladies, and gentlemen, I give you the Republican vision of the future: America, land of the dumb, unemployed, and debt free.

I'm sorry, sometimes the alley is there and I just have to oop it, but in all seriousness, cutting just to cut, just to live up to a campaign promise may be good politicking, but it's terrible politics. Serious cuts DO have to be made, and I'm quite sure that Republicans - Tea Partiers among them - have identified quite a few wasteful areas, of which there are many. That having been said, there is a lot of harm to be done when we don't think before we cut, when we take that axe and start swinging it.

Despite a huge deficit, America TODAY is in good shape. Not great shape, but good shape. In order to get America back into great shape TOMORROW, we're going to have to make tough, smart decisions. Celebrating cutting $60 billion from the budget is meaningless when you realize that a lot of those cuts are hurting Americans. It's easy to talk about saving America by cutting the budget until you realize that those cuts aren't saving America the country, they're hurting Americans the people.

Cut wisely. Make tough decisions, but don't sacrifice America's tomorrow (education) for a political victory today. SPEND when it's necessary. Say what you will about government spending and government waste, but we are the world's greatest nation and we got there by supporting each other and by investing in our future. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. So take the scissors and trim the excesses, but cutting programs that help Americans means hurting America. Too many of our new politicians don't seem to grasp that.