I can usually count on Newt Gingrich to be interesting and provocative even while I don't usually aggree with him. While listening to C-Span a few days ago I heard ole Newt make a proposal I thought was unbelievably great. I think he was addressing the National Press Club; he suggested that there should be a series of nine, ninety minute debates between the presidential candidates, one per week during the campaign. That in itself is not particularly interesting. The format is.
Gone would be the boring, mind-numbing, stilted, scripted sloganeering that is now labeled a debate. The candidates would be seated comfortably and engage each other in conversation on a topic or topics; perhaps with a moderator, perhaps without. As I understand it, the only rules would be there would be no rules except perhaps civility and equal time restraints.
What a refreshing chance to see how a potential president thinks. The ability to address issues in depth, including nuances that are often missing from the thirty second ad or the sound bite taylored for the daily news cycle. Such debates would provide fodder for genuine discussion among the public about the candidates and their ideas and whether that individual may make an effective president.
To those who thing this process gives an unfair advantage to policy geeks; so be it! Intelligence does count, people. Its actually more important than likeability. Knowledge can keep this country out of a lot of trouble and smooth our way to a better future.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Priorities
Its not how much money the government takes in; its the priorities for its use that are important.
This was brought home to me very powerfully yet again by the news of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota August 1, 2007.
Every year, at all levels of government we hear city councils, state legislatures and the federal congress arguing over various aspects of their budgets. The arguments are usually confined to a discussion of how each party can give us everything we think we want from the government without having to pay for it. There's a lot of discussion concerning not raising taxes under any circumstances rather than making a determination as to whether a desirable effort may be worth the extra money.
There's seldom a public discussion about (among many other things) the desperate need for routine maintenance, repair and replacement of our infrastructure in this country. Our roads, bridges, rails, the air traffic control system, sewers, water pipes, power plants of various types are all aging. Many of these sytems are at or past their design life.
Everytime there is a catastrophic failure of some system somewhere (such as that bridge in Minneapolis); there is a lot of talk about the obvious (in between the sad stories of the victims) between groups of experts stating the problem yet again as if it were new and politicians making solemn promises to address the issue; promises they seem to forget as they leave the television studio.
Will it be different this time? I'd like to hope so. I'd like to think we'd finally 'gotten it'; that we'd finally figured out that it cheaper in the long run to take care of the dull routine necessary activities on a regular basis and by so doing avoid the need to spend the billions to not only rebuild the failed system but repair or replace the collateral damage and compensate the dead and injured.
Unfortunately, preventive maintainance and repair don't look sexy on campaign ads. In fact the discussion is down right boring. But consider one statistic thrown out during the current talk; one-third of our bridges in this, the riches country on the planet, are considered "stucturally deficient". We're all familiar with our favorite potholes.
When will we learn to talk and yes, argue if necessary, about what matters? When will we talk about priorities, what's truely important.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Introductory rant
Most people would rather die than think. In fact, they do.
-Bertram Russell
As I have aged I have become less interested in making "statements" and more interested in doing things efficiently that work; that is accomplish the task desired. I am not a Democrate or a Republican. I'm (as I often tell my friends) a weird mixture of Green and Libertarian. As I survey the political landscape particularly at the federal level I see our employees at all levels seemingly without a clue about how to do just that, produce legislation to accomplish a required tasks.
A couple of examples that are well known. Most people agree (even congress persons) that something must be done about the lack of a legal immigration system. Many people even understand the problem; that is a large number of low skilled individuals who are not being gainfully employed in their home countries are coming into the United States illegally to find work to support themselves and their families. Its also understood that employers in agro-business, construction and various kinds of manufacturing and production industries take advantage of this flow of low costs labor to run their businesses at the lowest possible costs. and this is understandable. The current shift of some of this thinking into some of the better paying areas of the economy has, in my opinion, led to the rise in the noise level.
The fact is that there is absolutely no enforcement of the law prohibiting the hiring of persons who can not demonstrate their legal right to work here. There is in fact no real desire to do so. This become obvious when you realize that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents must give advanced notice to companies prior to going to their businesses to inspect employee records. Rather than address this issue or perhaps the issue of good identification for citizens, we watched our "leaders" postering and holding press conferences using language such as "amnesty" or "racist" to demonize their opponents instead of compromising to get a product that would do the job; reduce the number of illegal immigrants (without jobs, most would go home, self deport) and provide a way to identify those with a right to work here legally (citizens and legal residences). Serious enforcement of the employer sanctions would definitely solve much of the problem and such enforcement would not have to be often just draconian in order to get the message across. What we got was nothing.
The other glaring example is the exciting war in Iraq. We're well past the discussion of how we got into the current fix. Frankly, the slide into total studipity started right after 9-11 when we allowed the fight against terrorist criminals to be defined as a "war". Its not, although the armed forces may be used as part of the effort. The effort in Afganistan was one such. Note, however, we couldn't admit that what we're doing in Afganistan was a conquest, pure and simple. When you conquer a country and destroy the government you assume responsibility for those people. Everything from the schools, roads and bridges to the sewers. You also finish the job, "accomplish the mission" as the military likes to say. We didn't.
Iraq is more of the same foolishness. Of course we could defeat the Iraqi army. We're the premier military force on this planet. The only real questions were how long it would take and how much it would costs in terms of money and lives on our side. Nobody in the government was thinking about the aftermath. That should have been the main point as we're now realizing.
The general who at a congressional hearing prior to the war stated in response to an inquiry that we would need 500,000 troops to garrison Iraq, has been proven right. A great comfort to him after his forced retirement, I'm sure. Instead of a realistic view of our resposibilities after removing the government we fantasized. Instead of planning for the worst and hoping for the best; we planned for the best and got the worst, in spades. and ... It all started with the looting of the Bagdad museums. Things spiralled downhill from there. When the criminals, Sadam loyalists, jihadists and anybody else with a grudge figured out that we were either unwilling or incapable of keeping order and establishing security, things fell apart.
Now we are in a situation where our troops are being killed at a steady rate, the general population is being murdered in unimaginable numbers and the political will to continue the obviously futile enterprise is disipating daily. Again, everyone knows if we run for the exits as we inevidibly will, the country will fall apart. We will leave a situation behind much worse than the one we knocked down.
Why? No serious questions prior to the war. No serious analysis of the situation on the ground. We did get a lot of name calling, pretentious posturing and mindless flag-waving. We should demand a lot more when we're sending people off to kill and be killed in our name. We should be pretty damn sure its the right and proper thing to do and that its worth the price in "blood and treasure" on both sides. Above all we should make every effort to DO IT RIGHT!!!!
Hopefully, we have learned that our leaders have to do more than just look and act 'presidential'. They have to function effectively. Indeed, we should demand that they do. Compromise is not a dirty word. Real debate is not unpatriotic.
-Bertram Russell
As I have aged I have become less interested in making "statements" and more interested in doing things efficiently that work; that is accomplish the task desired. I am not a Democrate or a Republican. I'm (as I often tell my friends) a weird mixture of Green and Libertarian. As I survey the political landscape particularly at the federal level I see our employees at all levels seemingly without a clue about how to do just that, produce legislation to accomplish a required tasks.
A couple of examples that are well known. Most people agree (even congress persons) that something must be done about the lack of a legal immigration system. Many people even understand the problem; that is a large number of low skilled individuals who are not being gainfully employed in their home countries are coming into the United States illegally to find work to support themselves and their families. Its also understood that employers in agro-business, construction and various kinds of manufacturing and production industries take advantage of this flow of low costs labor to run their businesses at the lowest possible costs. and this is understandable. The current shift of some of this thinking into some of the better paying areas of the economy has, in my opinion, led to the rise in the noise level.
The fact is that there is absolutely no enforcement of the law prohibiting the hiring of persons who can not demonstrate their legal right to work here. There is in fact no real desire to do so. This become obvious when you realize that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents must give advanced notice to companies prior to going to their businesses to inspect employee records. Rather than address this issue or perhaps the issue of good identification for citizens, we watched our "leaders" postering and holding press conferences using language such as "amnesty" or "racist" to demonize their opponents instead of compromising to get a product that would do the job; reduce the number of illegal immigrants (without jobs, most would go home, self deport) and provide a way to identify those with a right to work here legally (citizens and legal residences). Serious enforcement of the employer sanctions would definitely solve much of the problem and such enforcement would not have to be often just draconian in order to get the message across. What we got was nothing.
The other glaring example is the exciting war in Iraq. We're well past the discussion of how we got into the current fix. Frankly, the slide into total studipity started right after 9-11 when we allowed the fight against terrorist criminals to be defined as a "war". Its not, although the armed forces may be used as part of the effort. The effort in Afganistan was one such. Note, however, we couldn't admit that what we're doing in Afganistan was a conquest, pure and simple. When you conquer a country and destroy the government you assume responsibility for those people. Everything from the schools, roads and bridges to the sewers. You also finish the job, "accomplish the mission" as the military likes to say. We didn't.
Iraq is more of the same foolishness. Of course we could defeat the Iraqi army. We're the premier military force on this planet. The only real questions were how long it would take and how much it would costs in terms of money and lives on our side. Nobody in the government was thinking about the aftermath. That should have been the main point as we're now realizing.
The general who at a congressional hearing prior to the war stated in response to an inquiry that we would need 500,000 troops to garrison Iraq, has been proven right. A great comfort to him after his forced retirement, I'm sure. Instead of a realistic view of our resposibilities after removing the government we fantasized. Instead of planning for the worst and hoping for the best; we planned for the best and got the worst, in spades. and ... It all started with the looting of the Bagdad museums. Things spiralled downhill from there. When the criminals, Sadam loyalists, jihadists and anybody else with a grudge figured out that we were either unwilling or incapable of keeping order and establishing security, things fell apart.
Now we are in a situation where our troops are being killed at a steady rate, the general population is being murdered in unimaginable numbers and the political will to continue the obviously futile enterprise is disipating daily. Again, everyone knows if we run for the exits as we inevidibly will, the country will fall apart. We will leave a situation behind much worse than the one we knocked down.
Why? No serious questions prior to the war. No serious analysis of the situation on the ground. We did get a lot of name calling, pretentious posturing and mindless flag-waving. We should demand a lot more when we're sending people off to kill and be killed in our name. We should be pretty damn sure its the right and proper thing to do and that its worth the price in "blood and treasure" on both sides. Above all we should make every effort to DO IT RIGHT!!!!
Hopefully, we have learned that our leaders have to do more than just look and act 'presidential'. They have to function effectively. Indeed, we should demand that they do. Compromise is not a dirty word. Real debate is not unpatriotic.
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