The Biden Administration's Tepid Mentality in the Russo-Ukrainian War
Musings
The war between Russia and the Ukraine is now almost 2 1/2 years old. From the beginning America offered some to support Ukraine but in classic political fashion was only willing to stick its toe in but was hesitant to say or do too much because it may want to pull its toe back out. This was shown with our earliest assistance when we gave Ukraine weapons but put limitations on when and how they could use them, so that when the Ukraine struck back at Russia it would not make Russia too mad. That might escalate the war. It is a naive mentality to tell someone that is at war but that's also classic Washington diplomatic politics. This attitude is also unbelievable in that the Ukraine was attacked by Russia. That is no time to be restrained.
Russia is the largest country in the world by far. It crosses 11 time zones from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It has almost 150 million people and a gross domestic product many times that of Ukraine. The Ukraine has approximately 33 million people, or 1/5 the size of the Russian population, and far less land and natural resources to draw upon. Given the gross discrepancy between the size of the two parties it is unclear how Washington, requiring restraint, could have expected anything other than for the Ukraine to be destroyed in the war. Image two boxers in a ring and one is told not to hit or the other guy, it might make him mad and then he will really pound you! However, that is how we started and that is what is still going on. In 2 1/2 years our foggy bottom diplomats in the Biden administration have stumbled along at a snails pace (maybe caterpillar) in their encouragement to Ukraine and that attitude apparently continues.
Contemplations
I cannot conceive of how Washington came up with this policy. It appears to be the same type of thing that the American diplomats constantly preach because they want to move slowly, make sure everything is under control, nothing happens they don't expect, and they have to hold lots of meetings to do their own contemplations while they are not particularly cognizant of how important time is to the people fighting and dying in the war zone.
In the early stages of the war there were a number of instances where the Ukraine asked for more powerful support with regard to missiles, jet planes, armored vehicles, tanks, air defense systems and similar weapons of war which were refused do to the fear of escalation. Of course the only escalation was that Russia could stand behind its border and keep sending more and more planes, drones, missiles and troop formations into the Ukraine destroying civilian targets and infrastructure while the Ukraine tried to protect its borders and hold the Russians at bay. That's an interesting way for Washington to set up an ally. A classic example of this , supposedly now being modified, is the missiles we are finally sending. The original missiles we sent to the Ukraine could only strike a target at 100 miles. We did not want to give the Ukrainians missiles that went farther because they might shoot them further into Russia. We are now giving the Ukrainians missiles that go 190 miles so that they can try and destroy weapon stockpiles and other targets of war further into Russian held territory. What an interesting concept, and Washington is congratulating itself on learning this in only 2 1/2 years! A similar example is the patriot missile batteries that can shoot down the Russian ballistic missiles. The Ukrainians have three of those. They have asked for many more and we now have some of our allies who are offering up these weapons as America did not want to send more. I particularly note this distinction because we have given Israel many air defense systems including the so-called Dome that has protected the Israelis very efficiently but we don't seem to know how to ship more of those weapons one stage further to the Ukraine. Somehow I don't think the Israelis are as much at risk from Hamas and Hezbollah as the Ukrainians are at risk from Russia. With the limited additional support that has now reached Ukraine we have reports of Ukrainian attacks on airfields, blown up storage dumps further into Russia, destruction of Russian surface to air missile systems, radar systems, air defense command posts, etcetera, that were previously not in danger. That seems to me like an appropriate way to be fighting a war, foggy bottom notwithstanding.
The last befuddlement I stumbled upon while trying to comprehend the administration's attitude and actions was another inexplicable debate going on in the administration about the Ukraine's efforts to attack and destroy Russia's oil and gas resources and refining. It was reported that the Biden administration condemned these attacks because it could lead to a greater Russian retaliation. Well, duh. Hopefully, the Ukrainians will destroy massive amounts of Russia's oil and gas capacity as that is where Russia gets much of its foreign exchange funds used to propel its actions. Maybe such strikes can make Russia rethink its militaristic attitude. These comments by the administration apparently come from the Defense Secretary who was trying to tell the Ukrainians how they should fight their war. Interestingly, our other allies supporting Ukraine don't seem to be bothered by this issue which has the administration making such incomprehensible statements. Perhaps Mr. Biden is a little bit too caught up in the current political campaign and does not want people to pay more for gas. Neither do I, but I think the Ukrainians are doing what they should do.
Thoughts
It is good that we are sending more aid to the Ukraine. We should even be increasing our aid. That is not a wish for escalation that is a wish to put the Ukrainians in a position that they can make Russia reconsider its war tirade, allow some issue to surface for Russia to use to declare they won and go home, and try and bring this debacle to an end. We are not involved in the fighting we are supplying. In offering that support we have to quit telling everyone else how they should do what they're doing. It is a classic case of what makes America a difficult and undesirable ally. In many instances we think we know what everybody else should do and when. This seems to be another example where our diplomats have lost their way and they should get out of the way.
Obadiah Plainman
Copies of all previous postings of this blog can be found at: thoughtscm.com
University Campuses Explode, The Administrators' Pontifications Continue
Musings
The saga of the student body protests on various college and university campuses around the country continues. Over 50 are now under way. The reactions to it are almost universally misplaced and seemed to be guided by the egos of the administrations who do not like their authority challenged and who do not want to have to revisit their policies. They are particularly flummoxed as they took many wrong steps initially responding to the protests and they act like Donald Trump, they can't admit they did anything wrong. Many people in positions of power seem to wind up with that mentality and it appears we have an excess of them in higher academia. We now have some admittance by some of the administrators that they reacted improperly in their initial steps and just made the protests more vehement and more difficult to address. The problem is now to swallow their egos, analyze the situation and try and find an avenue out of this quagmire.
Contemplations
The backdrop of all this is the horrendous assault by Hamas on some Israeli kibbitzes followed by the vengeance assault of Israel on Gaza, destroying almost all of the living space of two and a half million people, which assault continues today, and the Israeli government keeps insisting that its invasions of Gaza shall continue. These actions by the Israeli military have created enumerable civilian deaths, injuries and destruction of the Gaza strip. The big picture perspective is approximately 1400 Israelis which were captured, killed or wounded and the response ordered by the Israeli government has now killed over 30,000 people in Gaza including over 16,000 children. These people are not Hamas fighters, but the Israeli government is focused on destruction.
Against that backdrop a strong protest movement has arisen, particularly on college campuses, that insists that the Israeli government drop its vengeance policy and start working on a way out of this slaughter and presumably find a way to live with the Palestinians, although the current Israeli government insists that it cannot do that. The horrendous nature of the results of the Israeli invasion have created a student protest that is not an extreme case of civil disobedience . Inevitably some of the people at the protests start shouting out language that is offensive. Naturally the people on the receiving end shout back and complain they are being threatened. The reported confrontations do not seem too troublesome.
Into all this we have the administrations that overreact, declare there's: " a clear and present danger", call in the civil police to drag students off the campus to jail, cancel student access cards, and expel students and try and show their power to squash the protests. If there's anything we've learned from past decades and student demonstrations, if you want to confront the students directly just go ahead and show your ego and go on a power trip and watch them respond with their youthfull vehemence of, you can't do that to me I live in a country that allows free speech and assembly. I don't know where the administrators lost track of the historical lessons we presumably have learned and those parts of our constitution. But they have.
To look at just a couple of the universities I will start with Colombia University. That administration seems to be rethinking some of its initial response, but still defending its earlier missteps, even while admitting they were wrong. Figure that one out! They need to start working on ways to loosen up and interact and show the students that they know how to listen and, where appropriate, make changes. The protest from Columbia has spread to a number of colleges and universities and the more a hard line has been applied to squash the views of the pro-Palestinian supporters, the more the protests have spread.
Interestingly at Columbia we also have a court jester who has jumped in. It is it the speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson from Louisiana. He showed up at Columbia to issue his own royal edicts that the president of Colombia had to get control of her campus and if she didn't she had to resign. It is interesting that a member of the House of Representatives representing a district in Louisiana can decide that he should go uninvited to New York City and assert his great willpower to order people around when he has absolutely no jurisdiction and does not even try to go in as a problem solver but just engages in his political posturing. Maybe he was afraid that his voice wouldn't be heard if he just said it from Louisiana. No wonder the House of Representatives is having so much trouble governing itself. Hopefully the Columbia University president and Senate will ignore him and he'll take the hint and go home. But we must remember that politicians love to be in a position where they can get TV, radio and cable coverage to promote themselves and their party. We also saw the governor of Texas decide that he should stick his nose into the protest at the University of Texas in the same manner, although he was still at home in Austin, but nobody needed his bombast added. He is just an arch conservative and he doesn't like liberal demonstrations so he had to jump in the pot.
University of Southern California (USC) has simply continued its absurd policies on graduation and is terminating its graduation ceremony. The valedictorian for the class that was to make a speech at this graduation was a Muslim woman who was a biomedical engineering graduate and emerged at the top of her class. This woman must be extremely powerful because the administration has been quaking in its shoes of what to do especially when it got a report that she had posted a link to a Southeast Asian pro-Palestinian group. I had trouble even conceptualizing that this is an issue for a university administration to spend its time analyzing. USC is either that boring or that lost in the world to explode that information into canceling graduation. USC cancelled the valedictorian speech and, surprise, the student body started to protest in earnest. The administration then cancels the graduation ceremony and all the speeches but announces it will take care of people in small little graduations hidden away in different buildings and the 65,000 people who were to attend the graduation, well they'll just have to stay home because it might be too much trouble to have them on campus. That is an interesting problem for the university since it plays some football games in front of 100,000, it hosts United States presidents to its campus for speeches, it has royalty and other renown's visit its campus and make speeches, but one Muslim woman who has posted a link can shut the whole place down and she wasn't even trying. The administrators saw their power was being challenged, couldn't handle that predicament and decided the way to stop the challenge to their authority was just close things. What innovative leadership! You have to ask yourself if this is what academia is becoming. People in power positions have a way of losing sight of things except their own image in the mirror.
One other aspect of these protest debacles has appeared that the administrations seemed to think complicates their world, but it doesn't really, they just haven't opened their eyes. The protesters are saying that the schools need to divest themselves from any investment in companies that are supplying material to Israel used to fight the Gaza war. It's a pretty simple concept. All these investment companies that work for the universities have way too many people running around analyzing such companies, the list would not be hard to come up with even though many people will pretend that it is. Yes, John Deere tractor probably makes something that the Israelis use that's part of their assault but John Deere probably knows how to clean that up too or it'll lose some investments. This is a fair request by the protesters. Given the harshness of the Israeli attack, and the Biden administrations failure to step in and stop Israel from going forward since we're giving Israel billions of dollars in aid that it uses in its invasion of Gaza. The protesters are saying for moral reasons the university's investments have to withdraw from being part of the support of the invasion.
The response to this has been totally negative from the universities. To pick on one of them, as I understand it, is such a demand from protesters at the University of Michigan. It was met by the investment committee who insisted that their investments were not subject to " political pressure" and they weren't going to entertain that discussion. I found it mind boggling that a protest to withdraw support from companies supporting a totally unjust attack on people that are dying by the 10s of thousands is just political pressure. Further all these investment groups at the different universities make those kinds of moral decisions all the time. I feel quite sure that you won't find them investing in, I hope, blood diamonds, Iranian oil companies, any company of the Myanmar government, Russian uranium mines, or North Korean armaments. Yes, these are extreme examples but you need to have a level of morality in your efforts not just greed to make money. This is part of what the students are protesting. In our capitalist society, in many respects, it has become so capitalist we've lost track of our moral beliefs. It's fine to keep investing money to make more money that's what the endowment groups are supposed to do for the schools, but as my examples above, which are a little extreme, suggest that isn't an open-ended policy to be as greedy as you can be. It would be a very simple act for these administrations to say they will make a list, analyze it, show the changes to the companies in question, and then if the companies don't adjust appropriately, divest, and the endowment value change will probably not even be noticed.
Musings
The administrations are the leaders here. It is up to them to act, not for them to pound the students and tell them to behave Tthe administration leaders are behaving the way they should. They need to go sort out what the students want, treat the students with respect and work on what things are appropriate to do. Drop all of the criminal complaints, let the students back in the dorms hold the graduations, swallow the administration egos and start divestment programs so their college campuses can return to being college campuses and not battlegrounds, nor political backgrounds for politicians that want to go around the country making speeches.
Silence Dogood
Copies of all previous postings of this blog are available at: thoughtscm.com
University Administrations Duck and Hide Coast to Coast
Musings
I am bewildered. The latest information reaching the hinterland suggests that Columbia University and the University of Southern California administrations and presidents have now surrendered the leadership, management and representation of what their schools stand for to a rump republican caucus in the House of Representatives on an election year binge. The news appears to focus on these two particular schools at this time although others have gone through the ringer previously. They are Columbia University in New York City and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Thus we have managed to take this silliness from coast to coast. I am familiar with Colombia and I'm sure my brother, who attended USC, is rolling over in his grave. These schools have lost their way. It is not hard to sort out that they came to a fork in the road and took the wrong one. It is very hard to understand how these smart people with their entourage of advisors and way too many attorneys managed to pick the wrong fork. We now have Columbia University calling in the NYPD to arrest Columbian and Bernard students from the campus green and at USC we have an administration that is afraid to allow the class valedictorian, a biomedical engineering major, to make her valedictorian speech! Mindboggling.
Contemplations
The president of Columbia University, Nemat Shafik, emerged from her visit to the republican rump caucus and apparently surrendered all of her inclinations towards assembly and free speech rights on campus. She somehow could not handle the Columbia and Bernard students holding a protest on the lawn. So she contacted the NYPD had told them the students presented: " a clear and present danger" and asked that they be removed from the campus by the civil authorities. The police showed up in riot gear and began hauling the students away. This sounds like a bad novel attempting to be a suspense movie. How these students were a clear and present danger is almost beyond comprehension unless you're the president of a university they can't face the responsibilities of her office.
At USC a different situation, but almost as improbable, arose when the valedictorian turned out to have a Muslim background and the school quaked in its shoes of what she might say. Apparently speakers can only say what a president wants them to say and if there's doubt of that we now cancel the speech and most of the ceremony. The school also proceeded to cancel its other celebrities that were going to speak. This one young, very smart, Muslim lady seems to have had the whole place terrified. It is interesting that a school that is internationally known and has had all sorts of royalty and United States presidents come to campus to speak, and have been able to handle those situations handily, cannot face the thought of a biomedical engineering graduate giving a valedictorian speech.
In theory our university and college presidents and their administrations know how to handle a mixture of students with many attitudes, ethnic backgrounds and viewpoints. Apparently, Columbia and USC have missed that concept. One of the interesting things about all of these stories is that the university administrations are constantly responding to and jumping to handle discrimination complaints of antisemitism, as they should, and of course some will be valid and some will be noise. But it's hard to find a single word that tells us how either of these administrations are reacting to the anti-Palestinian comments and actions of those supporting Israeli actions in the Gaza war and at the West Bank. The only response seems to be directed at one side of the issue. The reports have noted a number of instances where the Israeli supporters are busy making noise and trying to harass the Palestinian supporters. What happened to giving both sides equal treatment.
Further, it seems it is time to quit getting so excited about the statement by Palestinian supporters of wanting their homeland "from the river to the sea". That is their historical homeland and the reference to want to return to that location is not unusual amongst any ethnic group including the Israelis who were evicted from Palestine and chose to return a couple of thousand years later. Supposedly our national policy is to seek to have both of these groups of people learn to live together in that same area of historic Palestine.
As I recall from my own experience and reading about a number of historical situations where a person in a leadership position did not seem to be able to handle the things going on around them, such as the generals that Eisenhower had to relieve in the North African campaign of World War II or the relief of Admiral Ghormley from the Southwast Pacific campaign in World War II by Admiral Nimitz and similar situations through our military engagements since World War II, if the system is not operating properly replace those that could not handle the situation with new leadership. It would seem to me that at Columbia and USC we have found two intelligent leaders that probably have way too many advisors in their entourage and an excess of attorneys just causing confusion and they're lost in the sinkhole they have created, at least that's what their actions reflect. If they can't redefine the situation promptly and restore some legitimacy to the end of this semester for each campus then someone should step forward who can. College presidents are supposed to be leaders and inspirations. We are currently lacking that at both of these institutions.
Thoughts
These two administrations need to take a step back look at what they've done with a clear view and not just think of ways to spit out more academic gobbledygook justifying what they've done. They need to restore faith in their campuses and the academic freedom of assembly and speech that they are supposed to be defending, not from which they are busy hiding. They need to ignore the republican House of Representatives committee and the other aspects of the 2024 campaign of which they are being made pawns. If you look at the actions of the House committee they are very close the noise being made by the republican presidential nominee who keeps telling all of the Jewish voters in the United States they're crazy to vote for the democrats because democrats don't support Israel enough so everybody come vote for us republicans. The rump committee in the House of Representatives is just part of the same ploy. Ignore them. That is what they deserve.
Please devise a new plan, restore your campus graduations, and allow you’re your students back on campus to assemble and protest from both points of view. Quit being the administrators that destroyed the school year because they were afraid of some politicians. Your students are important to you, the politicians, as you know, are noise and very short lived friends. Once they have your votes they don't even know you exist.
If this is confusing I offer this simplification for college and university presidents and all those 12 and under: In the world of academia you are supposed to explore new concepts and have the right to assemble, present your views and have free speech. That has been violated at Columbia University and USC. Hopefully those schools will rethink their missteps and reform to where their hallowed history suggest they belong.
Silence Dogood
Copies of all previous postings of this blog are available at: thoughtscm.com
Francis Scott Key Bridge and the Dali, Confusion Factors, How did We Get Here?
Musings
Once again we have a situation which is hard to understand. A large container ship leaving the Baltimore harbor struck a massive bridge across the harbor entrance, collapsed the bridge and killed 6 people in addition to the property damage to the ship, the containers and the bridge. This is a major infrastructure tragedy. Some number of people from the respective agencies are now scurrying around to try and determine what caused the problem and I do not have the background to sort that out. Perhaps there was some failure of the steering and propulsion systems on the ship, or shoddy maintenance, and other matters that will be investigated with regard to the preparation of the ship to leave the port to transit down the harbor. Hopefully that will be solved soon. I do not think that is the biggest concern. I am trying to contemplate how we got into this situation to start with.
Contemplations
This was a massive ship it was apparently over 1000 feet long and weighed, loaded, over 100,000 tons of displacement. I believe that is about the size of a nuclear aircraft carrier. It does seem that many of the cargo container ships these days are loaded with such containers being shipped around the world. Apparently, the Dali was a Singapore owned ship on its way from Baltimore to Siri Lanka. That almost seems incomprehensible but that is also the way the world's shipping systems work today.
When you see these ships loaded down like that, they appear to be totally unstable, and perhaps are, but the shipping industry has a fairly decent history of safety. What I am not sure of is how often these containers fall off the ship and are just left to float around the ocean and sink. I presume that's much more than anyone tells us. If we found out I believe we would be appalled.
What I am trying to comprehend is that these overloaded ships are omnipresent and we are building all these port facilities to accommodate them in effect encouraging more and more of the same and bigger and bigger. Presumably that means that our government is doing something to adjust our ports to be able to handle these monstrosities. I am dubious that is being done.
It seems to me that United States is the most desirable location in the world to ship to and because of the size of our cargo traffic we can set some standards. I am curious what we have done to establish those standards with the shipping industry to limit the size of the ships, their safety redundancies and the cargo stacked on top of them that can enter our ports. I understand that the shipping companies will all immediately complain if they have to downsize and reorganize their stacks of cargo (such as secure certain dangerous cargo ) the cost of the shipping per unit will go up and everything will be more expensive. True. Presumably if you get some control over what's going into your ports you also will avoid some accidents like the Dali and the Bridge.
Regulations and inspections still need to ensure that the ships are doing their maintenance and their pre sailing reviews to ensure that they are ready to depart, and or to come into port, but at least you downsize the size so they fit under the bridges and if there are a few containers that get left for the next ship, well that happens but you can only have so many Francis Scott Key Bridge disasters before you defeated the whole process. This accident happened too easily.
The tonnage and height clearance of the ships that want to use our ports must be regulated. I believe given the demand of the US market container ships will promptly begin to downsize. It probably won't hurt any of them. They won't lose as many containers and they will now fit better in the Panama Canal. As we know with the weather changes the ships are having to lighten themselves just to go through the Panama Canal because of insufficient water level in the Canal. This all ties together but it doesn't seem to be clear that anyone is coordinating the entire thing and establishing standards that must be followed.
Also, the construction of the ships should be mandated to ensure that they have the redundancies that we want for safety if they're entering our harbors. The Dali was apparently going at 8 knots ( 9 miles an hour) which I believe is probably an appropriate speed leaving the harbor but once you get to that much weight going, at that speed, it takes a number of miles for it to come to a halt no matter what you do to try and shut it down. Officers that have commanded United States Navy ships know that you need multiple rudders and propulsion systems and react to situations. As far as I know the Dali had a single rudder and a single propeller to move something the size of a nuclear aircraft carrier. That seems incomprehensible to me. I don't understand why The United States government doesn't mandate that ships over a certain size have those control and saftey redundancies built into the ship.
Thoughts
As I try to contemplate this situation it seems to me that once again, we have a lot of focus on the accident and the only step beyond that people are saying is that we need to reinforce bridges and such. Well, yes that's true. But the greater failure is there is not sufficient government oversight and regulation to ensure that the companies using these harbors, that are built with public funds, are using them in a manner to suit the public and not just trying to increase their shipping profits. No one likes regulations, no one likes taxes, but we don't want to spend more taxes to fix broken bridges. We need regulations to ensure that the shipping companies have built their ships in a manner which suits us for use of our harbor facilities.
Obadiah Plainman
Copies of all previous postings of this blog are available at: thoughtcm.com
Quit Trying to Beat Mother Nature
Musings
As humans, and particularly as Americans, we seem to have a penchant for believing that wherever there is a hill, mountain, river, lake or potential for a storm or earthquake or other natural phenomena we can somehow build and structure ourselves to overcome it. I like the positive attitude that reflects. If there is a problem let's work out a way to go solve it. However, there are a number of these natural phenomena of which their occurrences and history tell us it's a losing battle to try and overcome them. Therefore, why we keep banging our heads against the wall trying to prevail against every natural event is a mystery.
Thoughts
I understand that sometimes in the battle with Mother Nature we prevail. Occasionally we get a bridge or a levee that tames a river or allows us to cross it to some extent. Further we can build some buildings so that they can withstand limited earthquakes. We can also create large holding areas and levies that can withstand the great volumes of water from storms and the rising seas as the Dutch did in the early 1950s to avoid the future destruction of the floods from the North Sea. However, most of these efforts are not successful. They falter because it is too hard to know how to build to succeed at the maximum level Mother Nature can send at us and particularly because these are projects in which, if we are to prevail, large expenditures and lengthy lead times are required. In a political democracy there is rarely a willingness to allocate the amount of money needed for such a project and to allow the amount of time it will take. Such proposals usually waddle around in the legislature for many sessions and receive partial funding. The notion is always that if it requires further funding that can occur later. Mostly this is a case of acknowledging the problem but not being willing to undertake the effort needed to overcome the problem.
An example is New Orleans. In Hurricane Katrina the area of the city called the lower 9th ward was flooded and wiped out. However, instead of simply not allowing rebuilding in the lower 9th ward the city proceeded with the notion that it would build better protective levees and allow rebuilding to occur back in the lower 9th ward. I expect we'll all see the time again when that area is flooded.
While we're on Hurricane Katrina let us recall that once it hit the politicians and experts all announced that no one could have predicted that strong of a hurricane would hit New Orleans that directly so there was no one to really blame. However, a hurricane of almost equal strength had passed just east of New Orleans a month earlier, I believe Ivan by name, and hence the city had at least that warning. Further, many studies that had looked at this issue in the prior decades had noted several times that New Orleans was seriously at risk. Further the Mississippi Delta was sinking below sea level and the area that absorbed much of a hurricane's strength as it
came onto the land mass was disappearing and therefore successive hurricanes would hit with greater strength. It seems that someone must have been analyzing that information and been able to predict Katrina, but no one wanted to take on the issue. It was a clean it up later attitude. So it was suggested that no one could have predicted that failure and the failed political system remained unrepentant.
Further examples of the endless efforts to beat Mother Nature which never seem to work are the constant restorations of waterfronts where the currents have washed away the beaches. At most such locations those areas first try to get the government to pay for the Army Corps of Engineers or a private company to dredge up a bunch of sand from somewhere else and use it to restore the beach in front of them because it is so important for the tourist business and the economy of that particular area. Hence, we have innumerable beach restoration efforts constantly going on.
These were occurring with great vehemence along the Lake Michigan shoreline a couple years ago when the Great Lakes reached an all-time high in their water level. Since everyone that builds along the shoreline needs the best view possible many homes were very close to the water. Therefore, as the currents hit the sand bluffs, some homes crumpled down the bluffs. The neighbors all insisted that they needed sea walls very promptly to protect their very valuable property that was so important to their community. The fact that this is a natural reoccurrence and that it seems likely that most everyone that buys one of these houses must know that they are facing the possibility of water erosion does not seem to come into anyone's focus until the homes start to slide. Indeed, because of all of the protests raised by the homeowners, the State of Michigan began trying to approve sea walls on an expedited basis so that they could hurry up and be built before the further homes slid. In a number of locations those permits, and the permits required by the Corps of Engineers, were not even issued. The people just went ahead and built the sea walls and decided they would sort it out later. Perhaps someone got penalized for that but I do not know of any.
There was another recent episode of beach erosion at Salisbury Beach in Massachusetts. Here the homeowners got together and came up with $600,000 to restore their beach which had been eroded by the currents of the Atlantic Ocean. They had 15,000 tons of sand put on the beach to restore it. The sand was placed in mid-February of this year and by March half of it had once again eroded.
The ocean currents do not go away. If we place seawalls and restore beaches the currents will keep coming. If the seawalls push the currents away they will just go further up the beach and erode that part of the beach at a more rapid rate. If we just put sand there we can count on the fact that it will be eroded and leave the beach destitute once more. Yet we keep restoring beaches with more sand because we don't want to admit that it is a losing battle. Having invested so much in the local residences or tourist facilities we can't face up to the fact that it is a losing battle. The ultimate lesson for this mentality is the ruins of ancient cities which can be explored off of the coast of India and in the Mediterranean Sea and other locations which are now underwater.
Thoughts
I understand that when someone has a serious amount of money invested in a residence or in a business structure in a endangered location or along a beach they don't want to give up on it and they want to try and find all the ways to save it. However, I believe many of these efforts have a history of being long term failures. Therefore, they should only be funded by private funds and the permitting should be restrictive so that a new problem, such as forcing the current onto neighboring properties, does not occur. I understand that when you get into the legislatures and Congress the members are trying to make their constituents happy and so they trade support for projects and get money to do projects such as beach restoration. They are bound to get some of these efforts approved in their horse trading legislative schemes. But when you're dealing with Mother Nature you have to be clear and upfront about what is going to happen and who should pay for it. The rest of the population should not pay for these projects which are just there to support the endangered property owners who are in harms way by choice!
Silence Dogood
Copies of prior postings of this blog are available at: thoughtscm.com
Biden Is Not Too Old He Has Just Been Around too Long
Musings
There is a lot of news regarding whether or not Joe Biden is too old to be our president. I don't think that is the case. There is an age beyond which a person will be scrutinized by the public to assess their cognitive ability and their ability to handle the stress of the office. That will vary significantly between people.
Joe Biden does not falter in those categories any more than his opponent. Indeed, his opponent, Donnie Trump regularly makes statements that are incomprehensible for a person running for president. He has threatened mass blood baths, declares that the head of the joint chief s of staff could have been executed for the way he handled his office, in an election he lost by 7 million votes he declares he actually won and regularly acts like a person who has no comprehension of reality
Donnie regularly makes absurd and disruptive comments yet he is rarely called "too old" even though he is almost the same age as Joe Biden The comments about age are usually directed at Joe Biden. I think that the concern regarding Joe Biden is misplaced.
Contemplations
Joe Biden maybe older than we prefer for a president but his cognitive ability does not seem to be less than many of our other national level politicians who make statements and exhibit logic which is befuddling. Therefore, instead of age it seems to me that the real concern with Joe Biden is that he has been around too long.
Joe Biden began his political career in the early 1970s. His politics have been developed over the last 50 years. He has been on the national political scene for most of those 50 years. Therefore, when people think about him in their minds, they may call him too old but really he is someone they have heard about for many years. He projects an image of the past.
Joe Biden may have a great deal of experience and accumulated knowledge of political matters, but people have a predisposition to look for an image of moving forward into new eras. It is hard for Biden to present that image with a history of 50 years of politics. Indeed, when he campaigned for election in 2020 the main platform that was put forth by the Democratic Party was to vote for Joe Biden because he would return the country to a sense of normalcy after all of the Trumpian shenanigans and disruptions that the country had endured. People wanted to get rid of that disruptive world. Joe Biden represented a return to the past. Now he faces the dilemma of that perception which he has generated, and he needs to find a way to show that he represents the future and the positive things the country can do while he carries an albatross of a 50-year history of being a politician.
If we recollect the various items that have occurred during the Biden administration in the past three plus years, on many occasions the president emphasized his past experience and connections. He would regularly tell us that he had had many years of working with Mitch McConnell and could resolve certain problems with Congress. He had been a senator for many years and knew how the Congress worked. He was a long time friend in Bibi Netanyahu and could deal with matters involving Netanyahu and Israel. He constantly emphasized that he was a benefit to the country because he'd been around for so long and worked with these other people for so long. That can be conceived as a virtue, but it does not have the feel of someone who will lead the country into the future. And as we now see those relationships don't seem to be producing results.
Thoughts
I think that Joe Biden is stuck with that image. He can't not erase the past. He has constantly reminded us of it and how that is one of his virtues.
What does make this election different is that Biden is running against a person that has generally been found to be the worst president in our history by those people who study the presidents and rank them. In addition, the Republican Party has enshrined itself in some positions that are at variance from most of the population which will have significant roles to play in the election, such as abortion and gun control. Women making their own health choices regarding pregnancy is a key to the female vote. Also, I believe the nation wants a decent level of regulation of guns by registration and some reasonable level of controls while leaving guns for protection, hunting, collections and recreation such as shooting ranges. To even talk about those issues is a big no no in the Republican Party. It doesn't seem to matter how many mass shootings we have; the Republican answer is to cure everyone in the country of any mental problem, but don't mention gun controls. In addition, the Republicans are busy endorsing of many of Trump's positions such as withdrawing support from the Ukraine and being friendly with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, to mention just 2 of his many failures.
As he campaigns the notion of: its time for a change, will still haunt Joe Biden, but it is Joe Biden's good fortune that the Republicans are giving him a set of issues and a candidate with so many negatives to run against.
Obadiah Plainman
Copies of all previous blogs are posted at: thoughtscm.com
Why is there so Much Disagreement Over the Label "Antisemitism"
Musings
Recently I have read a number of commentaries concerning the word Anti-Semitism or anti-Semitic. There seemed to be quite a number of debates going on at different educational institutions and in the government over those words. Of course, there was the infamous House of Representatives committee which was nothing but an excuse by the Republicans in the House to badger several presidents of eastern liberal institutions about whether they were sufficiently attentive to complaints of anti-Semitism on their campuses. Successively there have been a number of articles about efforts to further define anti-Semitism and the arguments over what should receive that categorization, for the purpose of responding to that behavior. I do not understand why this is a confusing issue.
Contemplations
As I understand the word semitic it means a family of languages that includes Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Phoenician, Akkadian and some other ancient Middle Eastern languages. Therefore, I presume anti-Semitic is originally a word that was used to define something opposed to people that spoke those language groups. However, in the context in which it seems to be used today in the United States it doesn't seem to be anti-Arabic Aramaic or Phoenician, etcetera but is meant to be anti-Hebrew, Therefore I will drop the other members of this semitic language group from the discussion. However, it would be humorous if we returned the word to use its historic meaning and it would include anyone who spoke a Hebrew or Arabic language. I don't think either of the people in those two categories would agree with that definition.
What are anti- Jewish comments or actions seems to be where the debate lies at this time. To me Anti-Semitic would signify people who were saying or taking actions which were intended to be about individuals who spoke Hebrew, had a Jewish heritage, followed Jewish customs and/or the Jewish religion. Similarly anti-Palestinian could mean derogatory actions or language toward anyone of Palestinian culture or heritage. But there doesn't seem to be concern about people who say or do anti -Palestinian things, so we won't worry about that.
Using the word anti-Semitism to categorize comments or actions against individuals because they are Jewish is correct and is easy to understand. The issue seems to there have been clouded as there been a number of comments by those who support the Palestinian position with regard to the state of Israel and its treatment of Palestinians. Presumably those statements fall into two categories. The first is a negative comment about anyone who is Jewish in the state of Israel and the second is about the actions of the state of Israel itself. There is no reason to have anti-Semitic comments about all the Jewish people that live in the state of Israel. That would be just like blaming all of the people that live in Russia for the actions of the Russian government. Presumably the negative comments about Israel are with regard to the actions of the government. Those comments are directed at the policy of the government Israel and are not anti-Semitic. I saw an interesting comment that the US state department's position was that an anti-Israel comment could be anti-Semitic that didn't make sense to me. If if the comment is about all people in Israel then it's anti-Semitic. If it is a negative comment about the government, that falls in a different category which we and others around the world make regularly where there is free speech.
Thoughts
Perhaps my thoughts are too simplistic, but I believe there is a simple dividing line between what is anti-Semitic and what is not. If it is a comment or action directed at a person or people who speak the Hebrew language od follow Jewish customs or the Jewish religion they are anti-Semitic. If there are comments about the Jewish people as a whole or the Jewish people living in Israel they are anti-Semitic. If there are comments or actions with regard to the government of Israel then those are political comments and the fact that they are directed against the government of a country that primarily focuses on and supports the Hebrew religion, does not the commentary anti-Semitic any more than complaining about the government of Iraq would make the comment anti-Semitic with regard to its Arab population.
Obadiah Plainman
DISCOURSE OVER THE LABEL “ANTISEMITISM”
Recently I have read a number of commentaries concerning the words anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic. There seemed to be quite a number of debates going on at different educational institutions and in the government over those words. Of course, there was the infamous House of Representatives committee interrogation of 3 university presidents on this issue which was nothing but an excuse by the Republicans in the House to badger several presidents of eastern liberal institutions. Successively there have been a number of articles about efforts to further define anti-Semitism and the arguments over what should receive that categorization, for the purpose of responding to that behavior. I do not understand why this is a confusing issue.
As I understand the word Semitic it means a family of languages that includes Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Phoenician, Akkadian and some other ancient Middle Eastern languages. Therefore, I presume anti-Semitic can be a word that was used to define something opposed to people that spoke those language groups. However, in the context in which it seems to be used today in the United States it doesn't seem to include anti-Arabic, Aramaic or Phoenician, etc., but is meant to identify anti-Hebrew. Although, it would be humorous if we returned the word to use its historic meaning so it would include anyone who spoke a Hebrew or Arabic language. But I don't think either of the people in those two categories would agree with that definition today.
What are anti- Jewish comments or actions seems to be where the debate lies at this time. To me anti-Semitic would signify people who were making statements or taking actions which were intended to be about individuals who spoke Hebrew, had a Jewish heritage, followed Jewish customs and/or the Jewish religion. Similarly anti-Palestinian could mean derogatory actions or language toward anyone of Palestinian culture or heritage. Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be concern about people who say or do anti -Palestinian things.
Using the word anti-Semitic to categorize comments or actions against individuals because they are Jewish is correct and easy to understand. The issue seems to be clouded by a number of comments by those who support the Palestinian position with regard to the state of Israel and its treatment of Palestinians. Presumably those statements fall into two categories. The first is a negative comment about all those who are Jewish in the state of Israel and the second is about the actions of the state of Israel itself. There is no reason to have anti-Semitic comments about all the Jewish people that live in the state of Israel. That would be just like blaming all the people that live in Russia for the actions of the Russian government. Negative comments about Israel with regard to the actions of the government or the policy of the government of Israel and are not anti-Semitic. I saw an interesting comment that the US state department's position was that an anti-Israel comment could be anti-Semitic that didn't make sense to me. If the comment is about all people in Israel then it's anti-Semitic. If it is a negative comment about the government, that falls in a different category which we and others around the world make about government policies regularly.
Some confusion may exist when comments are made with regard to Zion or Zionism. Zion is an ancient term referring to Israel. Zionism became a movement in the late 1800s promoted by Jewish leaders in Europe who felt the European Jews needed to escape the prevalent anti-Semitics in a number of European countries and destructive pogroms which were occurring in Russia. These leaders we're trying to convince those Jewish people to move to Zion. The movement slowly gained force overtime and references to Zion or Zionism were talking about the lands around Jerusalem and the return of the Jewish people to those lands.
The terms Zion and Zionism today seem to be mostly used in reference to the efforts of the Israeli government and conservative Jews to absorb the remainder of the West Bank (captured from Jordan in a 1967 war) into the Israeli state to complete the fulfillment of the establishment of modern Zion. Since the Palestinians live in this area and view it as their homeland, they and their supporters offer any number of negative comments about Zionism. They view it as a movement to further expel Palestinians from Palestine. Negative comments made about Zionism in Palestinian lands do not seem to me to be anti-Semitic. They are part of the verbal battle between the supporters of the Israeli government and supporters of the Palestinians over who has what rights in the land on the west bank of the River Jordan and the Dead Sea.
Perhaps my thoughts are too simplistic, but I believe there is a simple dividing line between what is anti-Semitic and what is not. If it is a comment or action directed at a person or people who speak the Hebrew language or follow Jewish customs or the Jewish religion, they are anti-Semitic. If there are comments or actions regarding the Jewish people as a whole or the Jewish people living in Israel, they are anti-Semitic. If there are comments or actions with regard to the actions or policies of the government of Israel, then those are political comments and the fact that they are directed against the government of a country that primarily focuses on and supports its Jewish population does not make them anti-Semitic any more than complaining about the government of Iraq would make the comment anti-Arab (or anti-Semitic) with regard to its Arab population.
It is also worth noting that with all of the consternation about new or renewed anti-Semitism there does not seem to be any discourse about anti-Palestinian comments or actions. Then again in our highly charged partisan political atmosphere, where there are more votes and financial contributions to be had from sJewish voters than Palestinian voters, maybe that should be expected.
Obadiah Plainman
WILL THERE BE A THIRD PARTY TO GIVE VOTERS ANOTHER CHOICE?
Super Tuesday primaries are completed and almost all the political analysis suggests that the result of this year's presidential election will be Joe Biden versus Donnie Trump. There is little reason to contest that. The results of the primaries and caucuses to date clearly suggest that those two candidates are in front and likely to be there when the nominating conventions occur in late summer. However, we have approximately 4 months left until the nominating conventions. That is a considerable period of time particularly with the number of ongoing events creating
uncertainty such as the Gaza war between Hamas and the Israeli government and Trumps trials. Further, we have two candidates who, according to traditional analysis, are too old to be running and at their age are subject to any number of medical issues arising which cause concern to the voters. Finally, the primaries and polling of prospective voters suggest that there is a very large number, perhaps the majority of voters, that are ambivalent or opposed to both candidates and would like another choice. In spite of this the commentators and prognosticators are suggesting that a third party candidacy is not likely to nor should enter the election race as it would be too difficult to defeat the Republican and Democratic candidates.
It seems to me that the circumstances of this year's presidential election contest suggest that this is a good year for a third party to try and enter the election. The two dominant political parties have completed enough of their selection process that each of their candidates is known. Neither has a popular candidate. A majority of the anticipated voters have told pollsters that they would prefer an alternative candidate from which to choose. Because of the power of the Republican and Democratic parties they have in the past and again this year are trying hard to keep any third party from making a foray into the election process. The ballot laws that have been passed in the different states make getting on the ballot difficult and expensive.
The only third party of significant size that appears to have contemplated coming into existence and entering onto the ballot currently goes by the name of " No Labels". It seems to be a centrist party. I understand that it is currently on the ballot in approximately 15 states and is making an effort to appear on all of the state ballots. However, it is hard to tell just where that party stands as its efforts have not had a lot of public attention so far. The group that formed this organization has actually been in existence for a number of years. If this effort proceeds it will need to finish its organizing and upgrade its efforts to get on all the ballots as well as initiate a strong marketing campaign to remind people that they wanted another choice.
Although earlier news suggested that the centrists had a convention scheduled for April that would seem to be too early to pick their candidates. Being a new party, the centrist may feel the need to get started so that it can get its name in front of the population soon and enter into the political discussions. They can certainly do that through a convention in April. That serves the purpose of telling people where they're coming from and where they are likely to go. Although there is always a feeling of urgency to get started it seems to me that it would be bad timing to name their candidates in April. The election season is already too long and to put the candidates out there in April would simply throw that presidential and vice-presidential pair into the shooting range for both traditional parties to pick on them for 7 months on the way to the election. It would make more sense to wait until late summer and create some suspense over who would be nominated and only allow 2 months to attack the newly named president and vice-presidential candidates. As to the question of whether or not that is enough time for these people to become known to the voting population, I don't think that is a concern. Given the modern news cycle which runs 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, as soon as their names are known they will be put forth everywhere. Further, waiting until late August or early September will allow the party a considerable period of time to not only prepare its marketing campaign for the nominated individuals but to enter the fray emphasizing why the population, which is already dubious of the Republican and Democratic candidates, should vote for a center candidate.
It seems to me that the information we have so far this year from the polling and the primaries also suggests that this is a year in which such a third party has a good chance of receiving enough votes to win the election. The polls show a desire for a different choice. Further, the primary elections show a consistent 15% to 40% of the Republicans who voted for someone else other than Trump. The Democratic primaries show a consistent vote of 10 to 15% of the Democrats who voted for someone or something other than Biden. Further, most people don't vote in primaries anyhow. The primaries are made-up mostly of people who follow the two parties and feel some compunction to vote in the primary elections. What is interesting in the results is not that Trump won by large margins over Nikki Haley but that even though the Republicans knew that Trump was going to win, in each of those elections they voted in significant numbers for someone other than Trump. That anti Trump feeling is also why Haley was able to raise so much money for these primaries.
The same issue applies for those who did not vote for Biden in the primaries. But Republican voters who don't want Trump don't want to vote for Biden and Democratic voters who don't want to vote for Biden don't want to vote for Trump. Plus, those who aren't closely tied to either party seem to want another choice. This suggests that there is a large voting bloc seeking the middle. It seems like a good time to be a third party candidate.
I recently heard a night time discussion on a national radio program where the commentators suggested that it was not time for a third party attempt which was not likely to be successful and so the experts on the program were suggesting that a third party should not attempt to enter the election. That does not make sense to me. When I think back on other attempts to avoid the candidates promoted by the two dominate parties, two elections that come to mind. One is Ross Perot's third-party effort in 1992. It was a strong success until he decided to back out of the election in early summer when he was leading in the polls. His sole goal for entering the election seems to have been to defeat President George Bush for whom he had a strong dislike. Neither Bush nor Clinton was excessively popular and when Perot jumped in the voters quickly supported his effort. However Perot seemed to be concerned that he could even win the election which he did not want to do, he just wanted to defeat Bush, and when he felt that Bush would lose he slacked off in his campaign, only to reappear late in the election but too late to make up his lost ground.
The other election did not include a third party but a candidate who waited until late in the primaries to enter the race, yet he then went to the front of the line, won number of primaries in a row and was looking at a chance to win at the Democratic convention until he was assassinated after winning the California primary in June, 1968. Robert Kennedys was running against the national Democratic committee and its candidate Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson's vice president. The race never got to the convention, but it certainly seemed like Robert Kennedy was going to become the candidate of that party.
The same situation seems to exist today.
Actually this situation also existed in 2016 in terms of ambivalence to the two candidates but no third party appeared and the election was decided when an unusually large number of previous Obama voters did not show up to vote for Hillary Clinton in key states but voted for small third parties, such as the greens or libertarians. or didn't vote at all. and Trump won the election.
For a third party to enter into a national election takes a lot of money and organization. The effort to do that seems to have been initiated by at least one centrist party. Although the prevailing wisdom is that a third party cannot win the election this year but at most it might give the election to Trump by taking votes from Biden. I believe that is not the case. There are a number of Republicans that don't want to vote for Trump but Biden is their only other choice. Many of those people do not vote for Democrats because of the years of identifying as Republican. Yet I believe this is a large voting bloc as shown by the people in the Republican primaries that did not vote for Trump. That group plus those that believe Biden should step down and not try to run for another term, and the independent voters that are not enticed by either candidate create a considerable block of voters for the third party. I also believe that these people were not going to vote for Biden anyway. They are either protesting having Biden run again, are conservative anti Trump Republicans but don't want to vote Democratic, or independents that are looking for another choice. This is a large number of voters. They don't want Trump, but they want somebody for whom to vote. I believe that is fertile ground for a centrist third party to make an attempt.
Silence Dogood
THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICIES ON THE WARS IN UKRAINE AND GAZA
I cannot comprehend the incompatible foreign policies we currently have on the wars in the Ukraine and Gaza. In Gaza we are currently supporting the Israeli government by sending arms to Israel and the backing them in international politics at the United Nations. At the same time we are sending Israel bombs and ammunition to blow up Gaza we are claiming that the US and others need to support the Palestinians in Gaza in their humanitarian crises caused by Israel's invasion and bombing. Meanwhile our ally in a war in Europe, the Ukraine, is finding itself in a very tenuous position in it's war with Russia because the aid it was receiving from the United States has slowed considerably due the reticence of the Republicans in the House of Representatives to pass enabling legislation. Their failure to act is because the republican nominee for president opposes the aid to Ukraine and doesn't want the Biden administration to achieve any major successes. It is pure partisan obstinance. They take the position of letting the Ukraine hang out to dry. But, in spite of the failure of the Republicans in the House of Representatives to be willing to support our European ally, it does seem that there is ordinance available that we are shipping to Israel that could be sent to the Ukraine to support its military.
We don't have to keep sending ordinance support to Israel. It is one of the richest countries in the world on a per capita basis. Secondly, Biden's position that Israel must be allowed to defend itself has no more pertinence. That was lost some time ago. Israel is no longer defending itself. It is busy destroying Gaza and the culture and community that existed there. Israel has already killed over 30,000 Palestinians and destroyed a great deal of if not most of the public infrastructure and private homes in Gaza. It would seem that is enough blood vengeance to offset the 1200 Israelis killed and 200 captured in the Hamas raid. Yet we are busy delivering more ammunition to Israel to support a continuing Israeli attack on Gaza while we are promoting more aid to help the people of Gaza who are dying from the Israeli attacks and starvation as their food sources have been cut off. I don't know how anyone can combine those two policies as the Biden administration continues to do.
In contrast we are not sending more aid to Ukraine. The Ukraine is busy trying to fight off a Russian invasion but we are no longer supplying them ammunition as what we previously allocated has run out and Congress has not yet authorized legislation allocating any additional ordinance support. It appears that the Biden administration intends to sit on the issue and blame the Republicans in the House of Representatives unless Congress takes action to authorize more money for the Ukraine. To my knowledge that is an incomplete analysis. We can send the Ukraine the ammunition we are currently supplying to Israel. There is no logical reason to keep sending that ordinance to Israel. They are continuing to kill the Palestinians in Gaza and destroy their society. Those two and a half million people are not doing anything to further an attack on Israel. even though Israel claims it must continue until it totally destroys Hamas. That is not possible. This vengeance by Israel and its war against the Palestinians and Gaza is simply creating more Palestinians who will want to respond to the Israeli vengeance. The United States should no longer be supporting that action by the Israeli military.
Also, we have a stockpile of ammunition that we retain for the US military. We can screen that stockpile and skim what believe we can be sent to the Ukraine. The Ukraine is our ally and is fighting to end an invasion by Russian. Our European allies believe such actions by Russia demonstrate a significant threat to themselves. In these circumstances it should make perfect sense to take some of our military stockpiles and provide them to the Ukraine to assist it in opposing the Russian invasion.
It is a simple process to turn our foreign policy into something logical, unless you are a politician, and it is a presidential election year. Stop feeding ordinance to the Israelis and take that ordinance and send it to the Ukraine military. If further ordinance is needed for Ukraine take some of it from the American stockpiles and order additional ammunition to restore the stockpiles. Somewhere in that process some congressmen who are trying to avoid these issues will get upset because it's an election year and they're trying to make their presidential candidate happy. Biden should go ahead and make such decisions and force the issue with Congress. After taking the ordinance from the Israelis and sending it to the Ukraine, then focus more effort on humanitarian assistance for the Palestinians in Gaza.
I am sure there are those who can find fault this analysis and offer complications to my contemplations. What it comes down to is it's an election year and Trump is trying to leave the Ukraine hanging so his friend Vladimir Putin can destroy the Ukraine military administration, the Biden administration will not achieve a victory in supporting the Ukraine, and in his mind Trump will then be elected and can strike a deal with Putin to end the war and claim that he is the only brilliant person that could do this. We saw the results of his similar actions in Afghanistan, and it led to a disastrous withdrawal. He is just setting up the same playbook. This silliness is further exposed because any allocation of money for ammunition to the Ukraine would run through the end of this year and even if trump were elected that allocation would expire before he would take office. He is obsessed with returning himself to office. His actions and positions are not founded on what is best for the United States. Unfortunately, the Republican members in the House of Representatives don't have the fortitude to oppose him.
The Biden administration is also playing election year politics as it hopes to placate the Palestinian vote and those supporting the Palestinians in the United States but not make the voters supporting Israel upset. Hence, the Biden administration continues the silly dichotomy of sending ammunition to Israel, which Israel uses to destroy Gaza, while seeking humanitarian support for the Palestinians. Therefore, we have an incomprehensible mess. I am sure all of Biden's entourage is busy feeding him all sorts of ideas about what to do but I don't know why anyone is making this so complicated. From my position as a citizen, I think the answers of what direction to take and what decisions to make are fairly simple.
Silence Dogood
TAYLOR SWIFTS PLANE TRIPS
We recently had all the exuberance associated with the super bowl. A spin off of that was publicity created by Taylor Swift flying back from her engagement, in Japan I believe, to be at the game. She of course receives a lot of attention wherever she goes and whatever she does. She apparently flew back to the game in a private jet. She could afford one and considering her occupation and lifestyle she probably finds the private jet very helpful if not necessary to make all her connections and attend the events she wants to attend. In the same regard many other people with a considerable amount of money also like private planes for the same reasons. The super bowl is a football game which very few people have a need to attend, but many want to attend, and a game which is very expensive which can be watched on TV at home. Also, it was held in Las Vegas giving it the combination of many items which call for an excessive expenditure to attend the event. This brought an unusually large number of private planes to Las Vegas flooding its airways for the coming and going to and from the game. It was private plane paradise. This lifestyle received considerable commentary in the news media for its excessiveness and even brought about some studies by professors who were commenting on how much more pollution private jets create on a per passenger basis as opposed to commercial jets.
As I read the commentaries and listened to the talk programs demeaning this private plane activity I was confused. I don't think it is too hard to anticipate that planes flying a few people around are going to create quite a bit more pollution than large commercial jets. It is also not hard to understand that a football game that has no home team is going to draw a lot of out of town fans. particularly when it is in Las Vegas where a lot of people like to go to spend money and entertain themselves. Hence it did not strike me that there was anything unusual about this event. I presume, besides the score of the super bowl, it was a slow news cycle. Thus Taylor Swift was not doing anything different or unusual from what a whole lot of people with a lot of money were doing except for the fact that she is Taylor Swift. I'm not sure there was any reason to call attention to her actions flying around in a private jet.
It seems to me that the real discussion was by people who are bothered by others with a considerable amount of money who spend that money on objects and events for their personal pleasure. We have a fairly large number of citizens who do that. I am not sure there is any reason to be bothered by the fact that they do that. It is their money which they either received by inheritance or earned through their work and in a free society they're entitled to spend their money as they wish. The right to pursuit of happiness is one of the rights we enjoy in our free society. We are just not supposed to intrude on others in the process. Those with more money usually spend their money and the more they have the more they spend. Much of the spending is undoubtedly subject to being categorized as wasteful. So what. That is their right. I see no reason to take the time to condemn them for it. If we started categorizing all of the things in our society that are wasteful, we would wind up with a huge portion of our economy and society being so categorized. The hope of achieving that level of success and personal freedom has for centuries caused our country to be inundated by those from other countries seeking a better life and more freedom.
People concerned about the issue of flying private planes may point out that they are particularly concerned about the pollution that is created. They are correct on that point. The many small planes create more pollution on a per person basis. However, that is no different than is the case with our automobiles versus mass transit, the number of boats we put in lakes and rivers for people's pleasure, or the many other things that we do for our enjoyment. It is self-defeating to try and legislate away all those actions that might cause some pollution. Instead, our individual actions and the government's action should be directed towards trying to have those facets of our lives done in the least intrusive way to have minimal pollution.
The demand for use of private jets is no different than all the rest of the facets of our economy and society. Those with more money spend it on more things for the pursuit of their happiness and that is disproportionate to those with less money whether we are talking about houses, cars, planes, electronic gadgets and gizmos or anything else that people buy and use. Those with more money are a smaller percentage of our population but have the most income or savings and they will use the most goods and services. Hopefully those same people will also remember to try and be philanthropic and through their actions and contributions to try to help others who are less advantaged. However, we have no reason to get in the way of the pursuit of happiness by any segment of our society because their expenditures exceed other groups in our society. We are not an egalitarian state, nor do I believe we want to be. We are a country that should still seek to provide equal opportunity for all not a state of equal existence for all.
Silence Dogood
REPORTERS AND COMMENTATORS NEED TO SLOW DOWN ON THE ELECTION HYPE
Some years back there was a song with the verse "slow down you move too fast you've got to make the morning last." That should now be replayed as "slow down you move too fast we need to make the primary elections last." I am not a fan of the election cycles. They are far too long and wasteful. As soon as one election is over the next one seems to begin. I recall that on the morning after Barack Obama was elected president Mitch McConnell, the republican leader in the Senate, promptly announced that his job for the next four years was to make sure Obama did not get reelected! It seemed to me that this epitomized the unfortunate mentality of many of our politicians who are busy being caught up in their election cycles and party business and do not seem to be worried about doing much for the country.
In the current cycle of primaries for the 2024 presidential election our political reporters and commentators seem to be in a rush to push to the end result of the primaries. Since this entire process is a great waste of time and money I understand the desire to get to the end. However, the nominating conventions are 5 months off and in terms of reflecting on the current election season I see no reason to rush the results. It seems to me it will be better if we let the primary season evolve in order to sort out the candidates and issues now facing us.
The two leading candidates are not popular with the electorate. They both seem to be stumbling through as they try to create momentum and a case for themselves to be elected. Donnie Trump suffers from an incurable case of overstated self-esteem such that in his view there is nothing to discuss in the election except how everyone that supports him is wonderful, his campaign is wonderful and when he gets in office he will do wonderful things. Joe Biden keeps bouncing back and forth as he can't seem to get his policies straight. He acts like a bobble head doll, whether it be on the war in Gaza, the problems at the border or how to make people believe he's done well on the economic front. He's raised a lot of money but has not created a lot of support.
If "No Labels" emerges as a party or another candidate in each of the respective established parties appears to be electable, they would probably move to the front of the news coverage to the chagrin of the Biden and Trump camps. The problem is for any such person or movement to get some momentum while all of the reporters are locked into our traditional primary structure and analysis of who's out front. Biden has no opposition in his own party. However, some people are now encouraging people to vote "no candidate" in democratic primaries to mark their disappointment with Biden known. Biden's campaign response is that he is caught in a difficult situation with multiple choices. Yet, we expect our president to be able to make those decisions.
On the republican side Nikki Haley keeps going and attracting some support and more money than is expected. I am not a Nikki Haley supporter but what is discomforting is that the reporters keep analyzing her situation with comments such as "how does she justify going further" after the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries. It's not difficult at all to see why she decides to go further. She wants to be president and she has made a significant encroachment into Trump's support. As she notes he is a " disrupter not a uniter." Many people, including a lot of republicans, do not like Trump and do not want him to be president. They are looking for another viable choice and they are not enticed by the democratic choice. These conundrums should be allowed to play themselves out and not be drummed out by reporters and commentators casting dispersions upon Nikki Haley, and others who may appear, because they will be fighting an uphill battle.
In New Hampshire Trump won 54% of the vote, Haley 43%. 46% of republicans did not vote for Trump. In South Carolina Trump won 50% of the vote and Haley 40%. 50% of voters in that republican primary did not vote for Trump. His campaign attracts certain people and repels others in his own party. Even allowing for crossover voters who are not republicans that voted in those two primaries it clearly shows that of people that could vote republican approximately 1/2 of them did not support Donnie. As Trump's so-called base is only approximately 30% of the American electorate that would mean that he is not attracting a large slice of the electorate. As much as those numbers can be shuffled and accepted or disparaged, they show a large percentage of people looking for a better choice. There are no primary results which show the support for Biden but there is a constant reporting of the lack of enthusiasm for Biden. This would suggest that he is also in danger of falling short of a majority in an election.
In 2016 we had a prior presidential election where both candidates were unpopular. Hillary Clinton got the majority of the votes but lost in the Electoral College. Statistics from a number of states show the votes for Hillary Clinton were considerably lower than the number that Barack Obama had received. She was not a popular choice even though the democratic party put her in the forefront and tried to move her right through to the election throughout the entire electoral season. It did not work. Trump was not popular but with two undesirable candidates the number of people who voted for third parties, wrote in names, or did not vote for a presidential choice at all soared. They made up the difference in the pivotal states Clinton lost. We are facing the potential for a similar result this year. It seems to me it would be a good idea to encourage Nikki Haley and others to continue to test the electorate to try to find more desirable candidates this year and not just declare that the primary season is over, the two front runners are the inevitable winners and it's time to let them start beating on each other for the next eight months.
Silence Dogood
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION MAY NOT BE AS LOCKED IN AS MANY ASSUME
Most commentators seem to feel that the presidential election is locked in between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. That may not be correct. Joe Biden has little to no opposition in the Democratic Party primaries and delegate selections and Donnie Trump has only Nikki Haley to run against. In order to avoid having to spend time and money on primaries and caucuses both of those front running candidates have encouraged any and everyone else to get out of the race so that the two front runners can concentrate their efforts and money on each other. I believe it is too early to get into that position.
The commentators are certainly correct. The two front runners are the only ones piling up delegates and they have the most money and the most backing to continue the race. Hence, if you're betting your money it should go on the two of them and you can pick your favorite. However, it is only late February and there are any number of items that may occur to change the election.
To start with they are both of an advanced age. Both have shown some lapses in judgment as they offered their comments at various rallies and news briefings. Trump has made the ruler of North Korea the premier of China and has had numerous other glitches remembering people and geographic locations. His knowledge of history lacks on many levels, including his speech where he noted that the Continental Army during the American Revolution “took over the airports” from the British. He is also beyond correcting such gaffs as he is so focused on himself. He doesn't listen and analyze things he just wants to go over and over about how preeminent and wonderful he is. He is not going to get any better. Joe Biden similarly has a number of verbal goofs as he holds rallies and briefings and his age is not going to improve those miscues, although he does try to adjust his commentary as he searches for votes. At their age they could each succumb to a medical infirmity at most anytime. I am not casting dispersions I am just noting that their age is a factor.
In addition we have various matters going on in the United States and in the world which give the appearance of having the potential serious effect on each candidates appeal to the voting population. The question of women's medical choices and their ability to make their decisions between themselves and their doctor is creeping back into the news. This has been happening on a continual basis as the anti-abortion lobby is looking for new ways to restrict woman's decisions. While those who want to leave such decisions up to women are preparing to make this a major issue.
The many conflicts going on in the world and particularly the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts appear to have the potential to affect a number of voting blocs. The Republicans are shifting to favoring the position of Russia and blocking further aid to Ukraine. This could force Ukraine to succumb to Russian control. That would have major international repercussions.
In Gaza we have the Israelis busy destroying the Palestinian community in Gaza while they are adding innumerable constraints on the Palestinians in the West Bank and fighting to some degree with Hezbollah on their northern border. Although the United States has traditionally supported Israel and whatever actions it took, there is an ever-increasing number of people who believe that Israel has gone far beyond what it should have done as it retaliates in Gaza for the Hamas attack. The concept that Hamas is being punished has little bearing anymore. The net effect of Israeli actions is to destroy the Palestinian community in Gaza. The Israeli government has stated that it does not intend to allow a Palestinian government to take over in the Palestinian lands to allow a solution of a Palestinian state and an Israeli state to live as neighbors. There is a considerable block of voters in the United States who support a two-state solution. The Biden administration wants to play both sides of this issue and continues to support Israel but sends "messages" to the news media that it is pressuring the Israeli government to be more conscious of the civilians caught in this war. The administrations efforts to play both sides of this issue so it doesn't lose pro-Jewish votes or pro-Palestinian votes in the election is becoming silly.
Finally, there are the Trump lawsuits which are many. They've gone on so long that they're not even entertaining anymore. Donnie loves the attention and center of the spotlight and tries manipulate all those cameras when they're covering his appearances at court, but the results of the various cases are starting to offer negative messages to all but his most ardent fans. He was denied his claim of immunity in the DC Court of Appeals, a New York judge has issued judgments against he and his family to pay over $400 million in fines and he has also been hit with other judgements for $83 million and $5 million. Even for the Republicans who have been giving Trump a lot of money that is starting to get to be expensive and it is just to cover Trump's legal problems as opposed to winning elections. These different court cases have a great deal of potential to change the picture as the election season continues.
Given the factors mentioned above, together with others that I have not tried to itemize, there's a lot of potential for major adjustments in the views of the voting population. It seems to me there is a great logic in Nikki Haley continuing in the election in case any of these issues change the election dynamics. There is no Plan B for the Democrats. It would be good to see a third party such as "No Labels," which at least as near as I can tell is a centrist effort, to get a third party available for people to vote for. That effort could be more important than ever. For a number of years as the Republicans and Democrats moved themselves into deeper and deeper holes on the right and the left. They’ve done nothing to make themselves more competent and responsive to the American people. Now a third party may be essential in order to have a truly viable candidate available for voting in the fall. In the 2016 election we had a choice between two non-desirable candidates and the turnout was not only reduced but there were significant votes for third party candidates. There were also many write-in votes cast to avoid voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Neither party has done anything to correct it's method of picking a quality candidate since then. We do not need to be left with that type of choice again.
Silence Dogood
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S INCOMPREHENSIBLE GAZA POLICY
On October 7, 2023, Hamas, a Palestinian militia, stormed the neighboring property of Gaza and killed or kidnapped approximately 1400 people in Israeli settlements in a horrendous attack upon a civilian population. Since then, the Israeli military has been making a concentrated retaliation which is killing tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, injuring hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and leaving most of the two and a half million inhabitants that live in Gaza homeless. It is the standard example that Israel undertakes when it is fighting Palestinian militias. They regularly ensure that they kill at least 10 times and perhaps as many as 20 times the number of Israeli casualties which occurred. That calculation is occurring in Gaza as the number of dead there is now approaching 30,000.
The Israeli response is directed by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu who has declared its intent to totally wipe out Hamas and has now given suggestions that it intends to devastate large portions, if not all, of Gaza. The claim of course is that Israel needs to defend itself. However, it is no longer an issue of defending Israel. Israel is now engaged in a war of revenge which shows no concern for the two and a half million Palestinians living in Gaza. As various other countries have objected that the Israelis are being excessive in their slaughter of the Palestinians such objections are ignored by the Israeli government. The Israeli government has given no indication of when it's destruction of Gaza will be completed or what will be the status of Gaza when the war is over. This has also historically been the policy evoked by Israel. Israel runs Gaza and the West Bank as colonial territories which have been described as apartheid states by a number of government officials, including President Carter.
In response to the Hamas attacks the American political reaction was the usual support for Israel with declarations that Israel needs to be able to defend itself. That reaction has not changed even though Israel is not doing anything to defend itself at this time but is engaged in destroying Gaza and the Palestinian society that existed there. President Biden has insisted that Israel needs to defend itself and noted that he has support for Israel in his blood. The Israelis have shown themselves appreciative of that position as they run rampant through Gaza.
The problem is that the Israeli attack on Gaza is so extreme that it is not likely to solve any problems. The antipathy of Israelis and Palestinians for each other predates the creation of Israel in 1948. Presumptively since that time over 75 years ago there could have been steps towards the Israelis and Palestinians learning to live together in two different countries lying adjacent to each other. Periodically there has been an occasion when such an effort was undertaken. However, those efforts have been totally rejected by the current government in Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu's government has noted that it will not accept a Palestinian state and it intends to continue its colonial control of any areas in which the Palestinians live adjacent to Israel. The manner in which Israeli control is currently applied is so appalling that it is hard to understand how anyone can expect peace to occur in Palestine. The Israelis harsh attitude is that of a conqueror over a subjugated territory.
This status makes the Biden administration's current policy position incomprehensible. President Biden has continued to make statements about Israel must be allowed "to defend itself" when there is no such issue involved in the destruction of Gaza. He has also requested over $14 billion in military aid for Israel so it can rearm itself and continue its devastation of the Palestinians. It is unclear why the United States should be offering any military aid to Israel when it is busy killing and injuring hundreds of thousands of civilians in Gaza. There is no reason to keep supporting the Israeli domination of Palestinian lands. This policy of military aid is even more mind boggling when we consider that Israel is one of the richest countries in the world on a per capita basis. To give the Israelis any military aid, let alone $14 billion in additional aid to what they have already received in the past year, is simply to encourage the Israelis to keep slaughtering Palestinians.
The Biden administration is now suggesting that the Israeli excesses should be moderated. In typical American political fashion the approach to this is to have senior messengers from the administration make statements that the US is pressuring Israel to be more concerned about civilian casualties and other such gibberish. The Israelis are busy destroying one of the most heavily populated areas in the world with over two and a half million Palestinians in a narrow strip of land. The idea that the United States verbal pressure will make Israel change its policy is silly. We saw that before when President George W. Bush's efforts to get adjustments to Israel government policy were ignored by Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Interestingly President Biden is never the person that says his administration is pressuring Israel to let up on its attacks. Then he could be accused of changing his policy. He continues to take the position of supporting Israel while other members of the administration note that they are trying to pressure Israel to lighten up. It is a classic political effort to appeal to both sides at once. It reminds me of a bobble head doll as the administration says one thing and then its head bobbles around to the other side and says something different. It does not have a cohesive policy but tries to not lose any political points or votes in an election year.
As President Biden won't come out and make a definitive statement that Israel has to back off of its attacks if it wants American support in such places as the United Nations, there is no reason for the Israeli government to change its policies, Indeed, they are anticipating the United States will authorize $14 billion of additional military aid. Why should they presume the United States is serious about doing something to create a solution in the eternal battles of Israel and Palestinian peoples. There's no backbone in American policy. The various actions and statements of the American government are incomprehensible. In the U S the policy is essentially political gibberish. In Israel the policy is continue the invasion and hurry up with the $14,000,000,000.
Silence Dogood
UNDER ATTACK IN JORDAN
The recent death of 3 soldiers and injuries to approximately 40 others at the American Army base in Jordan as well as their subsequent return to the United States and the U S military reaction has led me to several contemplations and musings.
The first thing I wondered about was why our troops were at this base in Jordan. That is not clear, although it may be that they are there to defend Jordan against groups like ISIS. However, it is clear that we have troops in Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Turkey and other countries in the Middle East, it is unclear that there is a logical strategy for this. It looks like just a continuation of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
Regardless, as troops are there we presume they are busy with operations and on a high status of alert for attacks from various militias and groups in the Middle East. The place seems to be awash in militias and fighters. That being the case it is hard to understand why the defensive barriers the Army had in place at this base did not detect this drone as an attack drone. The answer given in the news media is that the people on duty thought that the attacking drone was actually a United States drone that had been on an intelligence mission and was returning. We would expect that United States drones emit a signal that indicate they are "good guys" and not to shoot them down. Therefore any other drones picked up on radar by the defensive forces are "bad guys" and to be shot down. The idea that our troops are not able to distinguish between friendly and enemy drones is almost incomprehensible as clearly someone must have expected that at some time we would have returning drones that we would allow through the defensive perimeter at the same time the "bad guys" are shooting their drones at us. This reminded me of December 7th 1941. The Army had installed a new radar system on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii to look for enemy airplanes. When the Japanese assault approached the radar operators informed the duty officers about what was on the screen but the duty officers dismissed it as just airplanes coming in from the continental United States. The radar system worked correctly in 1941 except no one was paying attention to the fact that the airplanes might not be United States planes. Could this Jordan incident be either bad equipment or poor training ?
I also noticed that we have retaliated for two or three days straight now using airplanes flying off of Navy aircraft carriers in the Middle East and bombers from the United States. The Navy planes already in the region made good sense. But I was incredulous that they flew bombers 6000 miles from Texas to also participate in this retaliation. It would seem that we clearly have enough planes and bombs in the Middle East to have completed the retaliation without having to fly in support from Texas. If we don't then our strategic structure may need some review.
The silliness of sending retaliation planes from both the local area and halfway around the globe also struck me as another case of mission creep similar to when the US felt the need to retaliate against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in 1986. The Navy had sufficient aircraft in the Mediterranean to be able to handle the mission but the Air Force wanted to get in on the mission as well and none of our allies in Europe wanted to be caught supporting the mission so the Air Force could not participate from continental Europe. The Air Force did not want miss out on the operation so they arranged to fly planes from Great Britain to Libya by going around continental Europe and refueling them over the Atlantic Ocean. A clear case of mission creep. Unfortunately this is a disease that all of the branches of the military have. When there is to be an operation they all want a share of it. In the case of the attack on Libya it was successfully carried out except one plane did not return to Great Britain. It disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean. Hence a plane that was not needed for the mission became a casualty along with the pilot. It seems like there was a lesson to be learned there.
I also note that the news reports suggest that we were using bombers from Texas so that we would not be accused of using our military assets in the Middle East to carry out a retaliation strike in Iraq and the other locations where they occurred. This sounds to me like government gobbledygook. I doubt that the governments in the countries we bombed will find this commentary meaningful. These statements are much like the comments that came from London Johnson and Robert McNamara as they tried to send "signals" to the North Vietnamese of what their different bombing campaigns meant. I believe most or all of those signals we sent were either not understood or ignored and the only people that paid attention to them where the government officials in Washington DC. Flying bombers from Texas to suggest that this was not really a response of US resources in the Middle East is just a repetition of the gobbledygook we have seen before.
I also noticed the news on the return of the bodies of the three Army Reserve troops from Georgia. They were flown back to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on a C5 transport plane. It struck me as illogical that the plane flew back to Delaware. All of the troops that were killed were from Georgia. We have enough military bases in Georgia that the bodies could have been flown back to a base in Georgia where the remaining troops of their unit in Georgia could have provided them an honor guard from their home unit, the autopsies performed and the families of the three deceased soldiers would not have had to make a trip to Delaware but could have received their loved ones back in their own home state. It does seem to be a case of the military being too busy with their standard military protocol instead of thinking about what is most conducive to the situation for the families involved.
Obadiah Plainman
ITS ELECTION SEASON ARE REPORTERS RUSHING TO PROMOTE TRUMP AGAIN?
The presidential election season which has been simmering for the last 3 1/2 years is now in full force as we reach the end of January.
The Republicans are attempting to clear the field so that Trump can stage events and offer his egregious comments without being challenged. So far he has effectively avoided all debates even though his opponents have acted with great circumspection as they challenged him.
The Democrats insisted on avoiding the caucuses in Iowa because they don’t like the makeup of the electorate. I guess that means you don’t campaign wherever you might not do well. They also skipped the primary in New Hampshire where there is quite a mixed group of voters from both parties and independents. Presumably that is a good collection of voters where you would want to test how your positions are playing out for the upcoming election. Instead the Democrats have elected to begin their primary season in South Carolina which they have not carried for decades as the state has become heavily controlled by Republicans. Many of the democratic voters there are African American and Biden feels he can show a large victory in that state even though he has little chance of winning it in November!
Somewhere in the actions of these two parties there may be logic but it is hard to find. What we do know is that there seems to be little enthusiasm amongst the electorate for either Biden or Trump. Yet the two parties seem to be insistent on putting those two people forward and their candidacies are supposedly locked down.
Although the election prognosticators are busy. I have not seen anyone comment yet on what I believe was a prominent reason for the result of the 2016 election which brought Trump into our world from which he refuses to leave. I reference the 2016 election because I believe the 2024 election is starting to mirror it. The issue is the election coverage by the news media which is endlessly about Trump. The reporters are fascinated by him. This is an interesting phenomenon because there seems to be little reason for the news media to be enamored with him. Indeed the majority of their articles eviscerate him, however they continually cover him instead of other news even though there is very little news value in what he does. He says the same things endlessly. He is busy declaring that no one else can match him, that he since he is a tough guy other leaders are afraid of him, and that his command of all issues is exemplary and don’t cross him or he will get revenge. All of his town hall interview commentaries and travels are reported, yet hardly anything he does is newsworthy. It is almost entirely bombast
Trumps persona captivates the news media. His campaign relies on dominating the news. I believe in 2016 it was suggested that his campaign received a billion dollars of free advertising from excessive campaign coverage. This incongruity is based upon a feature of marketing which is to be sure your name is repeated as often as possible. Get the name in front of the public is most important not the message. This is what Trump has done consistently. He has told us he is the only one and that no one else matters because he doesn’t need anyone else. If you recall the debates from 2016 he answered a question where he noted that no one else was important enough to discuss regarding cabinet positions because he is the one that would decide everything. Even as he has numerous court cases and criminal charges he never acts ashamed. He snarls while making speeches about political enemies and postures for the cameras.
Trump wants to see his name used endlessly in any manner possible. Not long ago I was talking to some artists and asked them if they were troubled when a show of their artwork got a negative review. I was told that was not the issue with which they were concerned. They emphasized the most important thing was to get their name repeated as many times as possible in the review. The more times their name was stated in the review the more people remembered their name and showed up to buy their artwork. This is the same marketing program that Trump used in the 2016 election and is trying to do again. You recall the news in the 2016 election was consistently about Trump. The only thing I can recall being said about Clinton was her references to papers she posted on her website which people could review. She was not presenting an image. She was trying to show off her knowledge that Trump was being a showman and broadcasting his name.
Even Trumps name for the campaign is a falsehood "MAGA" created for marketing with no basis in reality. It is insulting for him to declare that the United States is not a great nation. America is a country of great freedom and opportunity. Not only do we have the worlds largest and most productive economy but we also have the most inventive. Our education centers continuously produce the most adaptable and knowledgeable job candidates on the planet. To top things off, our military dominates the globe with roughly 435 military installations throughout. MAGA is a marketing name with no substance and no creativity. It’s simply a copy of Ronald Reagans campaign slogan from the 80’s.
Trump could run on his accomplishments from his term in office but they were were miniscule. When he was elected the House of Representatives and the Senate had Republican majorities but Trump could not achieve results. He excels at braggadocio. He failed at governing. He promoted a wall that someone else would build and pay for but they did not. He even took funds from renovations on military bases to help build the wall and even then he could only build a small portion. The proposal of a wall was a charade simply tossed out there for right wing republicans to chew on. There has never been a border wall in history that was successful if the underlying purpose of the people seeking to move is not removed. You have the Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Wall in England, the Iron Curtain and a host of others.
He also tried to show how he is the only person who can accomplish things by sending letters to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and holding summits with him all to no avail. He cavorted with other autocrats and 17 former cabinet members and senior officials of his 2016 government refuse to endorse him for reelection The list goes on.
Trump is not seeking to run on his record. It is a record which shows somewhere between little and nothing. But he has reconstructed his MAGA campaign with the same bombastic speeches promising greatness caused by his own existence. This persona constantly captures the interest of the news media reporters and unfortunately that leads them to constantly bombard us with Trump news. The trouble is the constant bombardment referencing his name endlessly and is putting his name in front of the voters which may bring him to another positive result in this years election. Recently I was looking at the New York Times Opinion pages (a paper which seems to not be enamored with Trump) and it had nothing on those pages but stories about Trump. There was nothing else in the news of the world that day which got the editors attention. The man is not newsworthy. They should quit covering him so intensely even if they’re going to insist on covering him excessively. I would at least suggest we quit using his last name. Maybe the reporters can revert to just calling him "Donnie".
Obadiah Plainman
THE NCAA IS TREADING WATER IN A CESSPOOL
The college bowl season is over. We had 41 bowl games with a total of 82 teams participating meaning that over half of the Division I schools were in a bowl game. There are so many bowl games now that teams with losing records are needed to fill out the bowls so that they'll manage to have two teams in each bowl. It seemed minimal enough a few years back when the mark was to win 6 games, at least ½ your games, to be eligible to get into a bowl game. With the explosion of bowls we now have teams with losing records that receive that acclaim. It does seem overdone.
In contrast the pro football season is slowly winding to a finish in February as it concludes its playoff system. Starting in August and finishing in February seems excessive for a football season. However, those teams are all private enterprises. It appears they can talk people into buying tickets to sit in the snow and watch games in December, January and February. Indeed they added a 17th game so the season would be even longer this year. It is unclear why the players union agreed to that silliness but the owners of the teams wanted that extra game for extra revenue from their modern gladiator events. In contrast chasing money is not supposed to be what College athletics is all about.
What is endlessly surprising is how hard the colleges are trying to emulate the professional sports quest for more money. College athletics and the NCAA have constantly promoted their athletic events as those of student athletes. In that sense the contests were extracurricular activities as were the practices and efforts the athletes made. As more money crept into college athletics as a result of the fan base wanting to see these contests on television the various sports, and particularly football and basketball, have morphed into contests that are there to simply gobble more money from the media without any pretense of being concerned about the student athletes or even to create a logical structure. In basketball, season ending tournaments were created which had little purpose after a full season of conference schools playing each other, except that all the members in the league could play each other in a tournament to bring in the additional radio and TV revenue from those games. Generally winning the tournament only advanced the winner to the NCAA tournament in a few of the conferences as the larger conferences regularly send six or more teams into the season ending NCAA tournament regardless of how they did in the conference tournament. The extra time and effort the athletes would spend away from school was apparently not an issue. One student noted that last year he and his cohorts were out of school for 5 straight weeks for this tournament sequence !
In football the conferences managed to break themselves into divisions so they could have a playoff at the end of the year to determine their conference champion. However the NCAA sanctioned a football tournament which ignored the results on the field and allowed a group of proclaimed “experts” to pick the 4 teams for the playoff, as next year they will pick the 12 teams for the playoff. The experts are not compelled to take conference champions but are allowed to select the teams which those ”experts” deem are the best. An example occurred last year when they picked Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State and TCU for the tournament. Michigan and Ohio State were from a single conference, one of which was the champion but the other was simply the runner up in one of the divisions of that conference. They also picked TCU which lost its conference championship game and therefore was the runner up in that conference. This year they skipped an undefeated conference champion, Florida State, from a “power conference” and replaced it with a one loss team from another conference that they declared was a better choice. The expert’s logic boggles the imagination.
While the innumerable bowl games and the Division 1 football championship series both seem to be misguided they are the epitome of logic when compared with the other current gibberish underway in the NCAA . The NCAA has long been controversial as there are many things that it did not seem to pay attention to that were important while they would nitpick on others. Supposedly the NCAA is supposed to ensure that its members are making their student athletes attend class and get a degree along with their athletic efforts. For many decades the non-policing of these rules has been a running joke on a national basis. Many schools made a point of shepherding their top athletic stars through a substandard or nonexistent academic effort which led to the student getting to the end of their college playing days without a degree and little or no preparation for facing the vocational world in spite of their years in college. I believe the epitome of this was when Maryland won the NCAA basketball championship a little over 2 decades ago and their graduation rate on that team was 0.00%. Having achieved a graduation rate of no one I don't recall any actions by the NCAA to rebuke Maryland. Such major failures as this go on endlessly while we read in the paper that the NCAA has disciplined the Michigan football coach for 2 sets of violations, one apparently having to do with buying a lunch or some such thing for a recruit and the other for trying to steal opposing teams signs that they use to send formations and plays onto the field. The humor of the sign stealing event is that when you watch a game on TV you can tell that all the teams are trying to steal each other's signs as the team signaling on to the field have three or four people sending dummy signs so that the team stealing the signs won't know which ones are correct. It is good to know that the NCAA is right on top of these major issues but isn't wasting its time ensuring that athletes get an education.
We then have the NIL (name, Image, likeness)debacle which has now infected college athletics where players may go sell themselves on the public market to earn money. It is interesting that there was a cry that went up to allow players to do this so that they would be able to be compensated for their athletic efforts on behalf of the school. It used to be thought that getting a subsidized or free education which may be valued at $50,000 to $100,000 or more per year was some kind of compensation. This argument seemed to have lost its pertinence when the NCAA and the various conferences and schools began to collect huge amounts of income from there radio and TV packages. We are told that the major schools hauling in this money such as Michigan and Ohio State received over $200 million in the past year. Apparently the schools never managed to find a way to make some of this money available to the student athletes in the form of savings that they could collect when they left the school or for support to finish their education. Of course even though there was some sharing by schools within the conferences these types of situations also left certain schools awash in money whereas others we're working hard to cover they're athletic costs with the income they received. The trouble with the LIH payments is that they have now been exploited to where these schools are actually promoting those payments that an athlete can receive at their school and are using those payments to recruit incoming athletes. We are told that schools have now arranged for their football fans to put up money in trust funds promoted as charities to pay the football players an annual amount. Presumably that works for other sports as well. The University of Texas has managed to create such a system which pays its football lineman each $50,000 per year. Other schools have copied this system. The NCAA doesn’t care and It is mind boggling to think that the IRS and the Justice Department have not yet collapsed the system on the grounds that this is not a charitable enterprise. This is just big time football universities run amok.
If the LIH we're not bad enough we now have a transfer portal that has been opened up allowing players at schools to elect a transfer one or two times each year, once during the month of December through the beginning of January and the second time in the spring. When the portal opened up at the beginning of December this past year over 1000 players entered the portal on the first day. The sad part of this is that this is right at the time that most teams and conferences were completing their final games and the bowl games then occur later in the month of December. Many of the teams in the bowl games found that some of their key players had entered the transfer portal and would not be available for the bowl games. It is unclear why the NCAA created a transfer portal that would have players electing out exactly when they were coming to the culmination of their season. The wisdom of that is elusive. There also used to be a waiting time of one year before the player who transferred was eligible to play. Now there is no waiting time for that first transfer. Indeed some number of players have transferred multiple times in their college career as they hopped around looking for a school that suited them. All of this seems to suggest that what is important for these athletes is to satisfy their athletic goals and not get an education. The trouble with this mentality is that less than 1% of these athletes will ever earn a living as a professional. In seeking collegiate glory, if they don't get an education and a degree, they are likely to be awash vocationally when they leave school. It would seem that a much better use of of the new found money would have been to try and ensure that tutors and other assistants were provided for players to complete their degrees and resume normal functioning when they are done with their athletics. Simply putting money in the pockets of 18 to 22 year olds without completing an education seems counter intuitive. Having players sit out for a certain number of semesters when they transfer, except for graduate students, could solve a lot of this silliness.
It might also be valuable for the NCAA to look at a restriction on schools that hire coaches away from other colleges before an athletic season is completed. This seems to particularly be a problem at the end of football season when a number of coaches leave their existing institution having been hired away by another institution and the original school is left high and dry for their game or games at the end of the season. This seems to occur because a school is anxious to hire the new coach and so they go out recruiting and the coach that receives the offer wants to hurry up and get to his new school. A good example is Brian Kelly at LSU who has now left multiple schools without staying to coach his team’s bowl game so that he can move on to his new school.. This happened at University of Cincinnati, which I believe was ranked 5th in the nation, when he left it to go to Notre Dame and then he did the same at Notre Dame to go to LSU. I do not recall if he did this to the schools where he coached prior to the named examples and he is not the only coach to have done this. I don't know why the schools can't be told to leave the coaches alone until the season is over. If there were a restriction that the school hiring a coach away before the season was over could not play in the postseason in the succeeding year I presume the schools would learn to do their recruiting in January and not during the end of the football season.
We also now have the problem of conferences raiding other conferences as the Big 10 and SEC did this past year. That started an extensive sequence of schools moving to new conferences. This shuffle has major problems. It means that all the athletic teams will now be traveling much longer distances to play in games at excessive costs and inconvenience. Picture Rutgers playing UCLA in volleyball ! The students that are participating, will have a considerable additional time away from the classroom. Apparently the college finance offices weren’t worried to much about academics. Money first, academics second.
All of these problems exist at this time. There is no evidence that the NCAA is really doing anything positive to resolve them. It seems to be befuddled by the excesses which money has caused in collegiate athletics. As if to make these problems even worse rather than resolve them the NCAA now has a new president, Charlie Baker, the former governor of Massachusetts, who has come up with a proposal to let the rich schools compensate up to 1/2 of their players from’ trust funds in the amount of at least $30,000 per year. Somehow he and his staff came up with this concept. Supposedly they felt this would allow the wealthier schools to do something to balance the system. It seems that what it really does is give certain of the athletes an extra pile of money leaving other athletes out of the picture and allows the schools making the most money to keep adding money and incentives to their system leaving the other schools out of the picture. In essence the rich keep getting richer and the others have to try and get along. This seems very similar to the problem our nation has had in the last three or four decades as our politicians have consistently come up with programs that made the rich richer and left everyone else to try and get along. It must be that Charlie Baker is so ingrained in this system that instead of trying to find a way to correct things he simply is mimicking one of the major problems of our society. Hopefully the presidents, athletic directors and boards of trustees of our public institutions will not sleep through this incongruous proposal, nor the others referenced above.
All of these issues need to be addressed. We have had enough of the NCAA being confused and muddling through without addressing at least the major issues. It would be nice to get some people involved in that organization who will at least start trying to do some things to resolve this mess and not just let it keep growing because they are befuddled. Almost all of the Division I universities are public institutions. They are taxpayer supported. Academics should be the priority. The current situation seems to imply that when the University of Chicago President removed the school from the Big 10 in 1946 to participate at the Division III level because the school was becoming too athletic oriented, he may have been a modern soothsayer.
Silence Dogood
REMOVAL OF STATUES AND MONUMENTS
The removal of statues and monuments (which I will refer to together as statues) is again in the news. I have recently seen articles in the news media about the removal of a confederate statue in Jacksonville FL and one located in Arlington National Cemetery in our nation's capital. In addition in the not far distant past there have been the number of articles and demonstrations with regard to the removal of statue sand other symbols of our past history and citizens in Charlottesville Virginia, Richmond, Virginia and some number of other locations. These statues and symbols are generally objected to as they represent the confederate cause which was to support a slave society or abuse of other minority populations. Often the proposal is to tear the statue down and destroy it in some manner. Except for the brief euphoria as the statue is torn down and melted or crushed nothing occurs to address the underlying need to educate ourselves on when and how all these statues, state flags with the stars and bars added, promotions of the “lost cause” and other works infested our national conscience. Most of this activity is with regard confederate memorances and were created long after the civil war was over, not by confederate veterans, but by successive generations in the South in the late 1800s and the first third of the 20th century who sought to set up an apartheid society to dominate anyone with dark skin. However, you don't erase many decades of such abusive behavior by just stopping on their symbols. I believe removals coupled with museums, parks and accompanying educational materials would be much more effective.
We need to achieve a catharsis. Slavery was abominable but it goes back to the beginning of recorded history. Slavery was not illegal in the American colonies and many of our founding fathers were slave owners. If we start trying to eliminate memorials to all of the people who owned slaves or benefited from a slave society we will erase our own history and the history of the creation of The United states. The world has evolved. We no longer accept keeping other humans in bondage or indentured servitude. We need to erase that mentality. However, obliterating the symbols and statues of earlier history will do nothing to educate our country about what occurred and why we should be conscious to oppose it wherever it occurs. In this regard the relocation and readjustment of the statues can serve an educational purpose of great value.
I believe the country of Hungary has come up with an informative and effective way to address these types of symbols of past efforts to dominate a people. Russia invaded Hungary in 1849 to put down a rebellion against the Habsburg empire. They then left, leaving a lingering bad taste in the Magyar people’s memory. However, they returned in 1956 to restore a Soviet dictatorship that had been overthrown by another rebellion of the Hungarian people that the Russians had imposed after World War 2. The Soviets/Russians were evicted when the Soviet Union fell in 1989. In the interim between World War 2 and 1956 the Soviets had erected innumerable statues to themselves as the liberators of the country from the Nazis and to their governing power. The Hungarian people wanted to remove those stigmas of the Soviet rule scattered all through their capital of Budapest. The city handled this in a very interesting manner. It established a park at a location remote from downtown and moved approximately 42 of those statues to that new location. Some of the statues at new location were spoofs such as the statue that they established of Stalin's boots. They also included a museum that explained the horrors of the invasion by Russia and the excessive attempt to dominate Hungarian society by the Soviet government.
The interesting thing about this approach is the statues are still there to look at, make fun of, and the educational materials are also there including video and other printed signs and information which can inform the Hungarian people and other visitors in successive years ( we are now more than 60 years past the1956 revolution) of what the Soviet/ Russian domination was like and the euphoria which emerged when it was finally rejected. I believe this format creates a much more effective way to deal with the symbols of the Jim Crow era and to educate people what Jim Crow was about, when it happened and who did it. Simply stomping on it by tearing down statues and melting them or crushing them provides nothing to further educate people. It makes more sense to let them look at the statues with explanations of the reasons for which they were erected and by whom if you want to have an effect that carries into the future.
I also note that some of these statues may be merely to honor the common soldiers of that town or county without trying to resurrect a lost cause. I do not find them offensive such that they need removal. I say that with a picture of my great, great grandfather, a member of the 4th Ohio volunteer cavalry, who enlisted when under age and fought in 22 engagements in the Civil War, looking down on me.
Although most of my comments are about the confederate statues that were erected through much of the South in the Jim Crow era there has also been an effort to eliminate statues, memorials and names of some number of the founding fathers and early leaders of our Republic because they were slave owns or benefited from a slave society or were abusive to some other minority in the country, such as Native Americans. I do not believe it makes any sense to remove those names, memorials and statues . That is just an attempt to rewrite history without a positive, educational affect. I believe suggestions to remove statues of peoples such as Phillip Schuyler, which is apparently by the capital building in Albany, New York, is misplaced. Philip Schuyler was a Major General in the revolutionary army fighting for the independence of our country and was a significant leader in the defeat and capture of the British army at Saratoga. Even if we wish he had not owned slaves I believe his considerable efforts to benefit the founding of our country still entitle him to our historical thanks including a statue placed in his honor in an appropriate location for the efforts and sacrifices he made in establishing our independence. The same concept is true of our many other founding fathers such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison James Monroe and others. In our recent history, for all his efforts in the depression and during World War 2, Franklin Roosevelt was phenomenally abusive toward Japanese Americans !
Our lack of education on many of these issues is our biggest problem. The statues can become a means by which the population can be more exposed to these aspects of our history.
Obadiah Plainman
Athletic Contests Debased by Scramble for Money and Electronic Gizmos
College sports programs and the NCAA have a number of problems that need to be sorted out one of which is the surrender of the contests to the quest for money. The debasing source of money comes from advertising, radio and TV, and signs in stadiums. College football and basketball games are both being infected by the same disease. How to maximize the amount of money to be made from each athletic contest. The quality of the game does not seem to matter anymore. In the sports of football and basketball they are constantly trying to find more ways to insert advertising into the games. For professional sports, the teams are private businesses and how they want to showcase their business is up to them. However, colleges are supposed to be academic institutions and their athletic contests are supposed to be extracurricular activities for their students. In the sports which do not attract advertising revenues the games still seem to be conducted for the students. With football and basketball the academic institutions have surrendered to the drive for dollars.
The finance officers of the colleges have decided to turn these athletic contests into money fountains and they consistently spend exorbitant sums to stage and promote them further. They enter into contracts which have totally changed the nature of the game to allow more advertising to occur at the expense of the athletic contest. The football games are now an hour longer than they used to be and that entire hour is the result of timeouts that mostly occur to allow commercial advertising while the players stand around waiting for the game to continue. This is even disconcerting if you're attending the game because all of a sudden there's the man standing out in the field in his red jacket, holding up the game until his little screen tells him that the advertisements are over. Then as suddenly as the game was stopped, the contest continues. Games used to have much more flow and excitement as the advertising, when it occurred, had to occur during a timeout that was called during the game or before or after the game or at halftime. In the quest for more money incongruent timeouts were created to allow more advertising.
The colleges have allowed the game to be reconstructed to this excessive extent seeking revenue, but the revenue is mostly canceled out by added expenditures. The epitome of this is the fact that bowl games with a $1 million payout are now considered a consolation prize as the school will at best break even after expenses or lose money by playing in that game. This incongruency is incomprehensible.
Another embarrassing feature of trying to make money off of athletic contests is the gambling advertising that has appeared at some number of stadiums around the country. Some schools have entered into contracts with gambling companies where the company’s advertisements are splattered all over the stadium and you cannot watch the game without being bombarded by calls to bet and almost certainly lose more money. Of course that is the gambling company’s intention. What is mind boggling is that these academic institutions are so busy chasing revenue that they have entered into contracts promoting gambling.
An additional feature of athletic contests which has significantly delayed games and made them less exciting is the insertion of electronic controls into the refereeing of the game. Every time there is a close play we now have a timeout called so that the referee or umpire can go to a replay camera to see if the play was called correctly on the field. Games were played for many decades without this feature. The former momentum and excitement of the game was much better than the stand around time we now have for the referee to go watch his little screen. To understand the extent to which these timeouts in football change the flow of the game one has only to attend a soccer, lacrosse, or field hockey game, in which the clock keeps moving, and the play keeps progressing. Those games are much more entertaining and the true momentum of the game can be readily felt by those watching or participating in the action. Since the vast majority of the referee calls, even in football, turn out to be correct it is not clear why we need this absolute precision that camera control is supposed to provide. However, this feature does not always provide correct calls. It is just another batch of people making judgement calls from certain camera angles. There have been a number of occasions in which the review by the camera did not provide the correct call. In other words the cameras have simply provided another means of dispute and aggravation over what is the right call while at the same time slowing down the flow and momentum of the game without necessarily giving precision.
With all the money and brainpower that now exists in professional sports and the NCAA it would seem that a little bit of effort could produce a situation where the advertisers can shorten their ads and run them during the time between plays while the offensive team is huddling in football or during the other timeouts that occur during a football or basketball game and halftime which is more attuned to what the media companies have to do in an ice hockey game. Apparently the people at the NCAA are so focused on getting more money they don't have any interest in trying to reverse this trend back to where college athletics like football or basketball are extracurricular activities for students and not a money source controlling the colleges.
Finally, please get rid of the replay cameras. Otherwise the degradation of the game will continue.
Silence Dogood
University Presidents Caught in Partisan Ambuscade
Three university presidents were recently caught in a partisan “investigation” by a House of Representatives committee established by the majority House Republicans. Allegedly established to look into anti-Semitic activities against students of Jewish heritage on college campuses the hearing turned out to be a partisan, political ambush looking towards the elections of 2024. Four university presidents were invited to come before the House committee to answer questions about alleged anti-Jewish activities on campuses. The interesting feature of the investigatory committee is that they only asked the presidents of the four universities which were private, elite, liberal institutions in northeastern states to appear. One of those could not appear, the president of Columbia University, due to a prior commitment. The other 3 presidents, those of Harvard, MIT and University of Pennsylvania, consented to come before the committee. No public universities nor universities from other regions of the country seem to have been invited. For an investigatory committee this seems to have been a rather narrow group to be invited if the committee were really looking for a broad investigation that might have a policy purpose. However, as we are now within a year of the 2024 elections and given the House Republicans announced intentions to hold many investigations to promote their partisan issues it seems clear that this committee had a limited intention from the start. It was looking for a way to promote a pro-Israeli and pro-Jewish position in hopes of seeking votes and election monetary contributions from those that could be swayed by the Republicans announcing such positions.
The news media, as is often the case, reported on the committee hearing with little commentary of what its true purpose was. There seemed to have been no effort by the committee to have a constructive position of how to better defend Jewish students from being bullied or harassed, nor to have the hearing have an effect beyond these liberal institutions. Further the committee seemed to have no concern regarding defending pro-Palestinian students who were bullied and harassed by pro-Israel supporters.
To a certain extent it appears the committee achieved its goals. The president of the University of Pennsylvania resigned her position. Those who appreciated the committee’s efforts to demand more support for Jewish students promptly wrote letters to the respective universities complaining about the president's and their lack of emphatic comments supporting Jewish students and the Israeli efforts. They further threatened to withhold funds from future university fundraising. All of this seems to fall into a common pattern where most of the reaction to events is in the immediate short term without analysis of what the perpetrators were attempting to do or what are the real long term issues involved.
It seems to be that the university presidents had been “prepared” by a reputable law firm so that they would make appropriately modest and nondescript responses to the questions of the committee. In this regard the university presidents when challenged as to why they were not more responsive and repressive to demonstrations that were pro- Palestinian and allegedly made the Jewish students feel that they were being bullied and harassed, would give answers to note that they had to take everything in context because of the right of free speech. That seems to be an appropriate answer but it apparently gave great offense to the Republican members of the committee who felt that protesters calling for a Palestinian country from “the river to the sea” meant that the Israeli nation would be destroyed and an act of genocide would be committed against the Jewish people. Although I believe it is possible for Palestinians and Israelites to live together in that land between the river and the sea.
The Republicans on the committee with their attacking questions reminded me of an attorney in court trying to badger a witness with as many unexpected questions as possible, from as many directions as possible, to get them to contradict themselves and accuse the responding party of saying something which was not the witnesses intention at all. It is a common tactic of attorneys in the courtroom. I'm not sure the Republican members of the committee should feel proud of such tactics. This committee has all the earmarks of the House Unamerican Activities Committee from the 1950s and Senator Joe McCarthy’s shenanigans which wound up beings exposed as an embarrassment to our democracy.
I imagine that one would find very few, if any, of the people in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations intending a genocide with their chants. It seems to me that we have now been through enough of these situations, where there are dubious actions going on in the world, and those in opposition form protests and shout chants without intending deeper meanings nor large scale violence. We certainly saw enough of such demonstrations during the Vietnam War and since then to know that such groups can spit out lots of noise without intending some implied horrific act.
We should not be surprised that the Republicans have structured their committees to promote partisan goals as the upcoming election is less than a year away. When the Republicans won control of the House of Representatives by a narrow margin in the 2022 elections they promptly announced that they were going to have a lot of investigations to expose many hidden depredations. They have attempted to do that. They don't seem to have made much effort to do anything else. They needed 15 votes just to elect their speaker and they have since removed him from office. In their dysfunction they have taken over 720 votes in the year since becoming the majority and have only passed 26 laws, some of which are nothing but fluff. They have been called the ”worst Congress the nation has ever had.”
With the background that the Republicans announced they intended to be very partisan with many investigations to promote their causes it is unclear why the presidents of the respective universities, and those that advise them on how to respond to questions, we're so timid. “What were they thinking”. Given the announced partisanship of the Republicans and their willingness to undermine anyone to get votes and election contributions, why did the presidents of these liberal institutions act like they were going to get kid glove treatment. It would seem to me that the attorneys that prepared the presidents on what to do to be ready, the president's own in-house advisors and the presidents themselves should have been able to look at this picture and understand that the committee’s hearing could quickly turn into a partisan effort and they and their institutions would be the target.
Since it is doubtful that the Republicans in the House of Representatives intend to change their attitude, or their method of operating, future parties invited to investigatory committees by the house should either decline or be prepared to defend themselves and the institutions or actions for which they may be responsible. It is doubtful that the Republicans in the House will be giving invitations that do not have a distinctly partisan intent.
Obadiah Plainman
Thoughts, Contemplations, & Musings
This blog is intended to present a series of issues which have come to my attention that I felt should receive further discourse.
I hope to post a new version every Tuesday.
-Obadiah Plainman