I saw an article in today's paper about the Obama administration saying they plan to bring the Afghan war to an end in 2014. That's interesting, since they likely will only be in power through 2012. What the heck are we doing over there, anyway?
The war is dragging on with little if any real progress. We trade territory with the Taliban, the Afghan Army and police seem unlikely to ever be able to take over, and we are ignoring the lessons of history. The Russians lost in their Afghan war. Are we doing anything other than repeating their mistakes?
As a recent article in The Atlantic (see "The Last Patrol" Nov. 2010) shows, even soldiers over there whose comrades are dying question the value of the military effort there. We read in the paper that Karzai gets bags of money from Iran and he admits it's true. Our noble American men and women are over there getting killed and wounded, and the locals neither appreciate their presence nor understand what we are trying to accomplish there.
We all remember Vietnam. We have seen Iraqmire, and we are seeing Afghanmire. The time to think seriously about ending these pointless foreign wars isn't three years from now, it is in 2011. I support the troops, so this isn't an issue of patriotism. It's an issue of recognizing that pointlessly continuing a misguided foreign policy has already been too costly, and needs to stop NOW.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Michael Jackson and the American News Media Both DOA
Michael Jackson has died an early, perhaps untimely death. We will know in time more about the official “cause of death”. To no one’s surprise Jacko’s demise has been spun up into a media circus. But even (cynic that I am about the American media) I am amazed at the sheer amount of coverage, even on news outlets one would think could maintain higher standards. All seem eager to jump onto the absurd bandwagon of unending repetition of what little is “known”, a parade of experts who really know nothing more than the rest of us, speculation much of which borders on the ridiculous, and the ongoing spouting of nonsensical King of Pop minutia.
The degradation of the American news reporting behemoth in the last few years is truly disturbing. Those of us old enough to remember when television, radio and newspapers actually reported the news (think of Edward R. Murrow, Walter Kronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, etc.), told us daily of the unfolding events when we were at war, and gave us more than sound bites about government. We, sadly, have also seen the entire American media machine become no more respectable than a 1961 issue of The Enquirer. And The Enquirer was the newspaper that featured headlines like “Mom Boiled Babies Then Ate Them”. That’s how respectable the The Enquirer was--pure fiction, nonsense, sensationalism times infinity, and in very many cases out-and-out lies. Some even quite hurtful to those being reported about. The editors and publishers hid, like Jerry Springer and Rush Limbaugh, behind the banner of “entertainment” so—then as now—they could continue their vulgar outpouring of a kind of anti-truth.
As newspapers slowly fade away--I read two regularly and believe me, they are slowly dying—-both in sales and in quality—-the rest of the media world gives us pap instead of news. Increasingly the nature of information we are given is no better on news channels than on QVC and infomercials. Snippets, half-truths, talking heads telling us not the news so much as their version of what we should think and believe about the news, all of this as substitute for content we can make our own decisions about.
There are still some better places to get news, but they are flickers rather than bright lights. Public radio (NPR and affiliates) is pretty good, although degraded in recent years by immense pressure and defunding by conservatives who targeted them for telling the truth. Conservatives prefer managed reporting ala Fox News—the Rupert Murdoch version of selective and slanted reporting spun so that lies sound like truth, and opinion masquerades as news. There is, and of course you know if you are reading this, the internet. So those of us who care to search for the truth, or some hint of it, anyway, hunt around the ‘net for some real news. To be sure, it is getting harder and harder to find. And if democracy depends on an informed populace, where does that leave America?
The degradation of the American news reporting behemoth in the last few years is truly disturbing. Those of us old enough to remember when television, radio and newspapers actually reported the news (think of Edward R. Murrow, Walter Kronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, etc.), told us daily of the unfolding events when we were at war, and gave us more than sound bites about government. We, sadly, have also seen the entire American media machine become no more respectable than a 1961 issue of The Enquirer. And The Enquirer was the newspaper that featured headlines like “Mom Boiled Babies Then Ate Them”. That’s how respectable the The Enquirer was--pure fiction, nonsense, sensationalism times infinity, and in very many cases out-and-out lies. Some even quite hurtful to those being reported about. The editors and publishers hid, like Jerry Springer and Rush Limbaugh, behind the banner of “entertainment” so—then as now—they could continue their vulgar outpouring of a kind of anti-truth.
As newspapers slowly fade away--I read two regularly and believe me, they are slowly dying—-both in sales and in quality—-the rest of the media world gives us pap instead of news. Increasingly the nature of information we are given is no better on news channels than on QVC and infomercials. Snippets, half-truths, talking heads telling us not the news so much as their version of what we should think and believe about the news, all of this as substitute for content we can make our own decisions about.
There are still some better places to get news, but they are flickers rather than bright lights. Public radio (NPR and affiliates) is pretty good, although degraded in recent years by immense pressure and defunding by conservatives who targeted them for telling the truth. Conservatives prefer managed reporting ala Fox News—the Rupert Murdoch version of selective and slanted reporting spun so that lies sound like truth, and opinion masquerades as news. There is, and of course you know if you are reading this, the internet. So those of us who care to search for the truth, or some hint of it, anyway, hunt around the ‘net for some real news. To be sure, it is getting harder and harder to find. And if democracy depends on an informed populace, where does that leave America?
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Votes, Lies and Ahmadinejad
As I write this, rioters are storming the streets of Tehran, doing battle with the armed storm troopers of their religious dictatorship. Brave people, those protesters. I admire them. Not so long ago, here on American soil, we made folks like that into heros, calling them Minute Men and such. Brave people, mostly young, idealistic, and willing to risk life and limb to fight for freedom.
But as the battle unfolds, I can’t help but feel that it is hopeless, that cruelty and power, and vote manipulation and religious fanaticism, will win out, for now. I guess I’ve been in a hopeful mood, with Obama getting elected and working on health care, saying he’ll wind things up in Iraq, really doing something about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, etc. Now I am asking myself why I ever thought there would be anything like a fair election in Iran. The religious zealots are in ultimate control, they know it, and they aren’t going to give it up.
Ahmadinejad is their point man, attack dog, lightning rod. The Iranian people can, most of the time, largely be distracted from their broad dissatisfactions—the evidence of which is playing out on street corners in Tehran at this moment—by constantly being refocused on the bugaboo Satans their leaders have created, most notably Israel and the United States. By denying the Holocaust and calling for the destruction of Israel Ahmadinejad wins points among the militant and fanatical elements across the Middle East, inflaming them to take Iranian money, build bombs, blow themselves up, and generally make whatever trouble they can while, by the way, killing all the Jews they can, among others. So then, like many other dictatorial leaders across the Middle East (Israel is the only thing approaching a genuine democracy, although there are those who would even argue that), the speeches and the fixed, fake elections help to squelch any outcry about poverty, economic stagnation, poor schooling, poor health care, heavy-handed repression, and last but not least, the subjugation of women.
So in the end the Ayatollah needs Ahmadinejad. I’m not easily given to hate, but I do hate the bigmouth troublemaker for what he says, what he is, and what he represents. Because he is the poster boy for all that is wrong in the Middle East among those who oppose Israel. On the world stage now, he epitomizes the arrogance, the hate, the unwillingness to listen to reason, the eagerness to ignore history, the clinging to some distorted version of religion that encourages the senseless murder of innocents and the pointless hatred of nations.
One small step up from Nazism only because of the absence of a powerful, efficient and effective machine of mass death, this whole philosophy represented and promoted by Ahmadinejad and others like him is the reason the Middle East stays stuck, represents the worst of human nature, and poses a threat, ultimately, to us all. Iran is moving quickly toward having useable (I think the experts say “deliverable”) nuclear weapons. When they have those, even the machine of mass death—or at least some of its most deadly tools--will be in place.
But as the battle unfolds, I can’t help but feel that it is hopeless, that cruelty and power, and vote manipulation and religious fanaticism, will win out, for now. I guess I’ve been in a hopeful mood, with Obama getting elected and working on health care, saying he’ll wind things up in Iraq, really doing something about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, etc. Now I am asking myself why I ever thought there would be anything like a fair election in Iran. The religious zealots are in ultimate control, they know it, and they aren’t going to give it up.
Ahmadinejad is their point man, attack dog, lightning rod. The Iranian people can, most of the time, largely be distracted from their broad dissatisfactions—the evidence of which is playing out on street corners in Tehran at this moment—by constantly being refocused on the bugaboo Satans their leaders have created, most notably Israel and the United States. By denying the Holocaust and calling for the destruction of Israel Ahmadinejad wins points among the militant and fanatical elements across the Middle East, inflaming them to take Iranian money, build bombs, blow themselves up, and generally make whatever trouble they can while, by the way, killing all the Jews they can, among others. So then, like many other dictatorial leaders across the Middle East (Israel is the only thing approaching a genuine democracy, although there are those who would even argue that), the speeches and the fixed, fake elections help to squelch any outcry about poverty, economic stagnation, poor schooling, poor health care, heavy-handed repression, and last but not least, the subjugation of women.
So in the end the Ayatollah needs Ahmadinejad. I’m not easily given to hate, but I do hate the bigmouth troublemaker for what he says, what he is, and what he represents. Because he is the poster boy for all that is wrong in the Middle East among those who oppose Israel. On the world stage now, he epitomizes the arrogance, the hate, the unwillingness to listen to reason, the eagerness to ignore history, the clinging to some distorted version of religion that encourages the senseless murder of innocents and the pointless hatred of nations.
One small step up from Nazism only because of the absence of a powerful, efficient and effective machine of mass death, this whole philosophy represented and promoted by Ahmadinejad and others like him is the reason the Middle East stays stuck, represents the worst of human nature, and poses a threat, ultimately, to us all. Iran is moving quickly toward having useable (I think the experts say “deliverable”) nuclear weapons. When they have those, even the machine of mass death—or at least some of its most deadly tools--will be in place.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
CHENEY AS ATTACK DOG
Former Vice President Dick Cheney has assumed the role of the new Republican attack dog. I’m glad he’s around to remind us of what the Republican Party really stands for. First and foremost, it stands for torture. Let’s face it, some spinners can split hairs, but waterboarding and other stuff they did was torture and we all know it. Further, Cheney’s Republican Party promotes such extreme executive power that a President can put people in captivity indefinitely, often with little more justification than the notion, often based on false, flimsy or unreliable evidence that they might be dangerous. You might recall that this kind of despotic power that was popular among medieval kings who could throw anyone who rubbed them the wrong way into a dungeon—forever. History teaches us that this is why we had the Magna Carta, why representative government emerged in enlightened societies, and why countries like the Good Old U.S.A. treasure our democracies and their rights and freedoms. Further, Cheney’s Republican Party stands for a kind of America that is reviled around the world for an arrogant, idiotic, isolating and ineffective foreign policy. So thanks Dick, you can cite 9/11 as much as you want, cry wolf all you can, smear the “new America” President Obama is creating all you want. Some Americans may have a short memory, it’s true, but most of us remember voting for Barack Obama, and we remember why we did. You see, Dick, that “new America” we’ll have during the Obama era, that’s the old America we loved and cherished before you and that yo-yo from Texas came along.
WE NEED HEALTH CARE, NOT HEALTH INSURANCE
I’ve noticed that there is often confusion between “health care” and “health care insurance” in the current common lexicon. In today’s world the two phrases have become, sadly, almost synonymous. Well let me clarify, “health care” is treatment that saves lives and helps people get better when they are ill or injured. “Health care insurance” is a scam that has been perpetrated against the American people. Now my last statement is a pretty controversial one, but I urge you to keep reading allow me the opportunity to justify it in a few paragraphs.
The foundation of health care insurance, the basic economic model upon which it is based, is flawed. It isn’t flawed in terms of making money, it does that, perhaps too well. However, it IS quite deficient in terms of paying for care to make people better. First, insurance companies only make money by figuring out how to avoid providing people with the care they need, after all, care costs money. Second, insurance companies have an army of agents, customer service people, healthcare gatekeepers, and executives all of whom have to be paid. A whole bureaucracy including fat cats with multimillion-dollar salaries, and even stockholders who expect dividends—all of this paid for with the money we think is going toward paying for our healthcare. But all of those millions, folks, they aren’t going to doctors and hospitals.
The really tragic part of health care insurance is the wreckage it leaves in its wake. We see it now in America, and you probably know people who have been its victims. Patients who, even with insurance, can’t afford to get all of the care they need, or can’t afford the medications that are required for their treatment. There are health care consumers who have insurance but have had to sell or mortgage their homes, or dramatically reduce and contract their lifestyles so that they can pay their portion of their health care costs. One might ask, what’s the point of having health care insurance if even with coverage a serious illness or injury means you will face financial ruin? And the even more obvious question—What’s the point of having health care insurance if you can’t afford the health care you need?
So, you see, it’s just a scam--another example of the basic bait-and-switch bunko stuff that has existed for centuries, but in a modern new package. All of the things we all think we are getting when we pay those premiums, well those aren’t really what we get when we’re sick or injured. In reality we are get far less—much less than our money’s worth.
Now the country is moving to repair the system. On the whole that’s a positive thing. But there is concern about who is at the table. The insurance companies have their agenda, and one can expect them to have that “the business of business is business” mentality, which would be based on their ability to maintain profitability. Why?
During the last several decades the basic economic model of health care has changed. Do you remember when your local hospital was a nonprofit organization? I know a lot about nonprofit organizations and they exist for the benefit of the communities they serve. During those same decades the American people were sold a bill of goods about nonsense like “public-private partnerships” along with a lot of right-wing pap about how business does everything better than government. Well, I’ve worked in government and in the private sector and I’ve seen some darn good organizations and some ridiculous ones on both sides.
Let me say out loud something that you will realize is right as soon as I say it. Working for profit is no guarantee of quality products or services. Poor quality stuff represented to consumers as something better than what it is can be found in every shopping mall. And poor quality service has become commonplace in modern America. So if this is what we experience every time we shop or try to get something fixed, why would be believe that BUSINESS is the solution to all of our societal problems? Our job as citizens is to recognize when they are feeding us lies, and politicians, especially those on the political right have been doing lots of this about how business can save us. What business can do is make money. Then those same businesses that make more money are beholden to the politicians, and can give them even more money not to listen to us or care about what is good for us. Is that something we want to support?
Besides, government does lots of things well. People performing as part of a government workforce maintain our birth records, pick up our trash, deliver our mail, and do little things when they have to like defeating the Nazis and the Japanese because they want to take over the world. There is a lot of American pride about what we can do when we set our minds to it, and you know, we can do some things pretty darn well. We can do those things either publicly—as a government effort—or privately.
It makes little sense to involve the private sector in things where profit isn’t the primary motive. Because if we involve the private sector in things where profit isn’t the primary motive, then profit will become the primary motive, and that is exactly what has happened in health care. The goal of helping people to get well, or recover from an illness or injury has been displaced by the profit motive, by multi-million dollar salaries for fat cat executives, and by making money for stockholders. We don’t need profit to be part of our health care system. We shouldn’t be paying health care CEO’s a hundred million dollars a year, and we don’t need stockholders wanting dividends or demanding that management behave in a ways that impress Wall St. to make stock values increase.
As I said, an important change that has happened in the health care system in America in the last several decades is that it has switched from being not-for-profit (or nonprofit) to being for profit. So now that the time has come to reconstitute health care in America, we have to ask, what do we want? Do we want health care sold and managed as a commodity, on a for-profit basis to make money? Or do we want health care managed as a utility the way Los Angeles County manages water and power, or other user-owned systems operate solely for the benefit of their users?
We have seen many changes in the health care system in America, and most of them haven’t been good. We used to beam with pride about having the most admired system in the entire world. Just a few years of for-profit management has changed that, so when are we going to catch-on to the fact that we need to rethink the foundation, the fundamental model of how we organize and manage health care? The system should exist for the medical well-being of everyone, and the financial well-being of no one. Eliminate the fat cat executives, the stockholders, the army of people paid to deny us care, process our “claims” and then kick us out of the program because our health care needs are too costly. All of those people are paid, and they are eating up the money that we need to be spending on surgery, medicines, and expensive machines that can see inside our bodies. Those people are unnecessary. They provide no health care, and they are draining essential economic resources from a system that desperately needs money to make us well.
Last but not least, we need a system that takes care of everyone, that doesn’t blame or victimize people because they get hurt or sick, or have genes that result in illness, or they get cancer. We need a system that doesn’t bring people to economic ruin because they need health care. We need a government overseen, managed, contracted or operated system that will take care of people who need taking care of, and do it with regard to efficiency, but without regard to profit, and with great compassion and concern. We need a system that works to make people better, and that exists only for the purpose of making people better. We don’t need a system that makes a few greedy people rich by denying care to the rest of us and undoing what once made the American health care system the most respected and admired in the world.
The foundation of health care insurance, the basic economic model upon which it is based, is flawed. It isn’t flawed in terms of making money, it does that, perhaps too well. However, it IS quite deficient in terms of paying for care to make people better. First, insurance companies only make money by figuring out how to avoid providing people with the care they need, after all, care costs money. Second, insurance companies have an army of agents, customer service people, healthcare gatekeepers, and executives all of whom have to be paid. A whole bureaucracy including fat cats with multimillion-dollar salaries, and even stockholders who expect dividends—all of this paid for with the money we think is going toward paying for our healthcare. But all of those millions, folks, they aren’t going to doctors and hospitals.
The really tragic part of health care insurance is the wreckage it leaves in its wake. We see it now in America, and you probably know people who have been its victims. Patients who, even with insurance, can’t afford to get all of the care they need, or can’t afford the medications that are required for their treatment. There are health care consumers who have insurance but have had to sell or mortgage their homes, or dramatically reduce and contract their lifestyles so that they can pay their portion of their health care costs. One might ask, what’s the point of having health care insurance if even with coverage a serious illness or injury means you will face financial ruin? And the even more obvious question—What’s the point of having health care insurance if you can’t afford the health care you need?
So, you see, it’s just a scam--another example of the basic bait-and-switch bunko stuff that has existed for centuries, but in a modern new package. All of the things we all think we are getting when we pay those premiums, well those aren’t really what we get when we’re sick or injured. In reality we are get far less—much less than our money’s worth.
Now the country is moving to repair the system. On the whole that’s a positive thing. But there is concern about who is at the table. The insurance companies have their agenda, and one can expect them to have that “the business of business is business” mentality, which would be based on their ability to maintain profitability. Why?
During the last several decades the basic economic model of health care has changed. Do you remember when your local hospital was a nonprofit organization? I know a lot about nonprofit organizations and they exist for the benefit of the communities they serve. During those same decades the American people were sold a bill of goods about nonsense like “public-private partnerships” along with a lot of right-wing pap about how business does everything better than government. Well, I’ve worked in government and in the private sector and I’ve seen some darn good organizations and some ridiculous ones on both sides.
Let me say out loud something that you will realize is right as soon as I say it. Working for profit is no guarantee of quality products or services. Poor quality stuff represented to consumers as something better than what it is can be found in every shopping mall. And poor quality service has become commonplace in modern America. So if this is what we experience every time we shop or try to get something fixed, why would be believe that BUSINESS is the solution to all of our societal problems? Our job as citizens is to recognize when they are feeding us lies, and politicians, especially those on the political right have been doing lots of this about how business can save us. What business can do is make money. Then those same businesses that make more money are beholden to the politicians, and can give them even more money not to listen to us or care about what is good for us. Is that something we want to support?
Besides, government does lots of things well. People performing as part of a government workforce maintain our birth records, pick up our trash, deliver our mail, and do little things when they have to like defeating the Nazis and the Japanese because they want to take over the world. There is a lot of American pride about what we can do when we set our minds to it, and you know, we can do some things pretty darn well. We can do those things either publicly—as a government effort—or privately.
It makes little sense to involve the private sector in things where profit isn’t the primary motive. Because if we involve the private sector in things where profit isn’t the primary motive, then profit will become the primary motive, and that is exactly what has happened in health care. The goal of helping people to get well, or recover from an illness or injury has been displaced by the profit motive, by multi-million dollar salaries for fat cat executives, and by making money for stockholders. We don’t need profit to be part of our health care system. We shouldn’t be paying health care CEO’s a hundred million dollars a year, and we don’t need stockholders wanting dividends or demanding that management behave in a ways that impress Wall St. to make stock values increase.
As I said, an important change that has happened in the health care system in America in the last several decades is that it has switched from being not-for-profit (or nonprofit) to being for profit. So now that the time has come to reconstitute health care in America, we have to ask, what do we want? Do we want health care sold and managed as a commodity, on a for-profit basis to make money? Or do we want health care managed as a utility the way Los Angeles County manages water and power, or other user-owned systems operate solely for the benefit of their users?
We have seen many changes in the health care system in America, and most of them haven’t been good. We used to beam with pride about having the most admired system in the entire world. Just a few years of for-profit management has changed that, so when are we going to catch-on to the fact that we need to rethink the foundation, the fundamental model of how we organize and manage health care? The system should exist for the medical well-being of everyone, and the financial well-being of no one. Eliminate the fat cat executives, the stockholders, the army of people paid to deny us care, process our “claims” and then kick us out of the program because our health care needs are too costly. All of those people are paid, and they are eating up the money that we need to be spending on surgery, medicines, and expensive machines that can see inside our bodies. Those people are unnecessary. They provide no health care, and they are draining essential economic resources from a system that desperately needs money to make us well.
Last but not least, we need a system that takes care of everyone, that doesn’t blame or victimize people because they get hurt or sick, or have genes that result in illness, or they get cancer. We need a system that doesn’t bring people to economic ruin because they need health care. We need a government overseen, managed, contracted or operated system that will take care of people who need taking care of, and do it with regard to efficiency, but without regard to profit, and with great compassion and concern. We need a system that works to make people better, and that exists only for the purpose of making people better. We don’t need a system that makes a few greedy people rich by denying care to the rest of us and undoing what once made the American health care system the most respected and admired in the world.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
MEASURE ISRAEL BY THE SAME YARDSTICK
During the last several days Israel has invaded the Gaza area, and bombarded it with artillery and air strikes. Sadly, many people were killed, among them women and children. More evidence of a seemingly unresolvable Middle East conflict.I have lived through several wars and even more military actions. Vietnam, the two Iraq wars, Afghanistan, and many, many others. In that entire time I cannot recall a military intervention that was covered in as much detail as the recent Israeli action against Hamas. In America, we saw and heard vivid details of damaged buildings, bodies in the street, daily reports of the numbers of "civilians" killed, and heart-wrenching tales of children who had lost limbs, mothers whose children died in their arms, and many, many stories of people who had lost family members. Tales of great human suffering. In all a very stirring collection of reportage, often reinforced by comments from humanitarian workers about how intolerable the situation was, what horrors were unfolding, and how Israel was doing too little to help the people of Gaza.
I ask you, for a moment, to set aside the emotional impact of all of this, and consider what is happening in that situation as a problem in human and international relations. Despite the fact that Hamas has won some elections in Gaza, Hamas is a terrorist organization that is dedicated to the destruction of the State of Israel. Hamas has historically not kept agreements, and generally "cease-fire" agreements* only mean that Israel will not launch a major operation while Hamas operatives continue to shoot rockets at Israeli territory and citizens. Being terrorists, they are in the business terrorizing the Israeli populace, and do so generally with impunity. Hamas doesn't have an army, doesn't have a unified government with identifiable leaders who can make agreements and (have those who are ruled) keep to them. During the Gaza action, even as (Gaza) Hamas members were talking of some kind of cease-fire, Hamas leaders in Damascus were calling for continued resistance—that is, for those in Gaza to fight on against the Israelis. So trying to make a deal with Hamas is like trying to herd cats. Even if one could reach an agreement with one faction, other more radical factions would ignore the agreement and continue their terrorism. There simply is no one with whom to actually negotiate any kind of agreement as long as Hamas is in power in Gaza.
Then there is the Israeli aspect of the story. Can you imagine what the U.S. would do if a radical group wanting to take over American territory—or destroy America--was firing rockets from Mexico into California and Arizona? And did so for years. Would we listen to world super-powers who advised us to restrain ourselves? Would Americans just remake their lifestyles and spend hours in bomb shelters every time an alarm went off warning of an incoming missile or rocket? In truth, we would do none of these things. We might try diplomacy, what but if there were no one reliable to negotiate with, or if diplomacy failed? We would attack, invade, and do everything necessary to stop the bombardment of our sovereign territory and ensure the safety of our people.
After 9/11 we, the United States of America, attacked and invaded two nations halfway around the world, because (we were told) this was necessary to ensure our safety. I am not justifying what the U.S. has done in Iraq and Afghanistan, I am simply pointing out what nations generally do when they are attacked.
These wars we started are ongoing. So, do we get daily reports of casualties, of civilians killed, or parents who have lost children, or of children who have lost limbs? No we don’t. Have we ever gotten that kind of coverage, in all of your memories of the wars and military actions America has undertaken in a dozen countries in the last few decades? No, never.
How about the genocide going on in Africa? The internecine fighting in countries all over the world that result in families being disrupted, children being uprooted, innocents killed, and all the horror that such fighting brings—is this being reported to us in any way approaching the daily, detailed and horrific reports from Gaza? No, no, no.
Once again, I am not justifying ANY military action, nor am I minimizing the human tragedies that they cause. I am however, posing a question. And that question is simply—Why is Israel placed under a microscope that is never focused on any other nation in the world? Why is Israel, measured against, judged and evaluated by a standard that isn’t applied to any other sovereign nation on this planet?
I assume if you are reading this then you follow the news. Reconsider the news that has been reported to you during the last several weeks. Israel attacked an area that has no military, where gangs of men, some of them barely more than boys, take up arms against Israel and its army. A land where young women may strap powerful explosives to their bodies and blow themselves up in an effort to kill Israelis. So in that situation, when Israel causes the deaths of people, who are “civilians”? How would one even know? And if Israel is fighting an enemy that stores weapons and fires missiles from mosques, schools, clinics, hospitals, U.N. compounds and civilian neighborhoods, what is Israel to do to stop the bombardment of its land and its people? Nothing?
Israel is not the Great Satan. (I think that phrase was and is used to describe the U.S.) It is not a fascist state bent on genocide, although that is a common characterization. It is country of people who sought a home in the land of their ancient ancestors, a democracy, with a free press, a state influenced by religion, but in the truest sense not a “religious state” such as Iran, where religious leaders actually rule. Israel has been under attack since its very inception. A country where no café, no pizzeria, no dance club, no Bar Mitzvah celebration or Passover Seder, no shopping mall, no public bus is free from the threat of a bomb that may kill or maim dozens of innocent people at any time. This has been true for decades. So, if you were a citizen of such a country, and knew people who had been killed or injured by such bombs, or rockets, mortars or missiles, what would you want your government to do? Bring humanitarian aide to your attackers?
Today over 180 trucks filled with humanitarian supplies were sent by Israel into Gaza. The Israelis are not monsters. Israel has the right to protect its people. And in so doing, to use the only methods available to a nation to stop the harassment and murder of its people. Israel, like any other nation, has the right to be judged by the reality of its situation, and not by a yardstick that is never applied to anyone else—not even its enemies.
* Within 48-hours of the recent unilateral Israeli cease-fire, Hamas was firing mortar shells into Israel--again.
I ask you, for a moment, to set aside the emotional impact of all of this, and consider what is happening in that situation as a problem in human and international relations. Despite the fact that Hamas has won some elections in Gaza, Hamas is a terrorist organization that is dedicated to the destruction of the State of Israel. Hamas has historically not kept agreements, and generally "cease-fire" agreements* only mean that Israel will not launch a major operation while Hamas operatives continue to shoot rockets at Israeli territory and citizens. Being terrorists, they are in the business terrorizing the Israeli populace, and do so generally with impunity. Hamas doesn't have an army, doesn't have a unified government with identifiable leaders who can make agreements and (have those who are ruled) keep to them. During the Gaza action, even as (Gaza) Hamas members were talking of some kind of cease-fire, Hamas leaders in Damascus were calling for continued resistance—that is, for those in Gaza to fight on against the Israelis. So trying to make a deal with Hamas is like trying to herd cats. Even if one could reach an agreement with one faction, other more radical factions would ignore the agreement and continue their terrorism. There simply is no one with whom to actually negotiate any kind of agreement as long as Hamas is in power in Gaza.
Then there is the Israeli aspect of the story. Can you imagine what the U.S. would do if a radical group wanting to take over American territory—or destroy America--was firing rockets from Mexico into California and Arizona? And did so for years. Would we listen to world super-powers who advised us to restrain ourselves? Would Americans just remake their lifestyles and spend hours in bomb shelters every time an alarm went off warning of an incoming missile or rocket? In truth, we would do none of these things. We might try diplomacy, what but if there were no one reliable to negotiate with, or if diplomacy failed? We would attack, invade, and do everything necessary to stop the bombardment of our sovereign territory and ensure the safety of our people.
After 9/11 we, the United States of America, attacked and invaded two nations halfway around the world, because (we were told) this was necessary to ensure our safety. I am not justifying what the U.S. has done in Iraq and Afghanistan, I am simply pointing out what nations generally do when they are attacked.
These wars we started are ongoing. So, do we get daily reports of casualties, of civilians killed, or parents who have lost children, or of children who have lost limbs? No we don’t. Have we ever gotten that kind of coverage, in all of your memories of the wars and military actions America has undertaken in a dozen countries in the last few decades? No, never.
How about the genocide going on in Africa? The internecine fighting in countries all over the world that result in families being disrupted, children being uprooted, innocents killed, and all the horror that such fighting brings—is this being reported to us in any way approaching the daily, detailed and horrific reports from Gaza? No, no, no.
Once again, I am not justifying ANY military action, nor am I minimizing the human tragedies that they cause. I am however, posing a question. And that question is simply—Why is Israel placed under a microscope that is never focused on any other nation in the world? Why is Israel, measured against, judged and evaluated by a standard that isn’t applied to any other sovereign nation on this planet?
I assume if you are reading this then you follow the news. Reconsider the news that has been reported to you during the last several weeks. Israel attacked an area that has no military, where gangs of men, some of them barely more than boys, take up arms against Israel and its army. A land where young women may strap powerful explosives to their bodies and blow themselves up in an effort to kill Israelis. So in that situation, when Israel causes the deaths of people, who are “civilians”? How would one even know? And if Israel is fighting an enemy that stores weapons and fires missiles from mosques, schools, clinics, hospitals, U.N. compounds and civilian neighborhoods, what is Israel to do to stop the bombardment of its land and its people? Nothing?
Israel is not the Great Satan. (I think that phrase was and is used to describe the U.S.) It is not a fascist state bent on genocide, although that is a common characterization. It is country of people who sought a home in the land of their ancient ancestors, a democracy, with a free press, a state influenced by religion, but in the truest sense not a “religious state” such as Iran, where religious leaders actually rule. Israel has been under attack since its very inception. A country where no café, no pizzeria, no dance club, no Bar Mitzvah celebration or Passover Seder, no shopping mall, no public bus is free from the threat of a bomb that may kill or maim dozens of innocent people at any time. This has been true for decades. So, if you were a citizen of such a country, and knew people who had been killed or injured by such bombs, or rockets, mortars or missiles, what would you want your government to do? Bring humanitarian aide to your attackers?
Today over 180 trucks filled with humanitarian supplies were sent by Israel into Gaza. The Israelis are not monsters. Israel has the right to protect its people. And in so doing, to use the only methods available to a nation to stop the harassment and murder of its people. Israel, like any other nation, has the right to be judged by the reality of its situation, and not by a yardstick that is never applied to anyone else—not even its enemies.
* Within 48-hours of the recent unilateral Israeli cease-fire, Hamas was firing mortar shells into Israel--again.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Does Gay Marriage Threaten Family Structure?
A friend commented on my recent post about the recently-passed California Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage, which I opposed, asking what I thought about the relationship between gay marriage and the nuclear family being the basic structure of human society. I guess, in response, one might ask other questions about the basic structure of human society.
We tend to think of the society we know now as being what the world was always like. That, however is far from the truth. Humans are essentially tribal in nature, and while children spring from families, family structure and the defined role of adults in the family structure has been fluid throughout human history.
Cave men and women lived in caverns or trees or settlements in large groups, sleeping in giant human crowds and raising children was a community affair. Some tribes who live far from or technological, developed societies continue to do similar things today. As Hillary said, it takes a village. Ancient families, such as those in biblical times often included marriages with multiple wives, and sexual liaisons with servants or slaves. In the absence of modern birth control methods, those extra-marital activities often produced children. What was the family structure like then?
Further, looking back just a century or two, people just didn't live as long as they do in America today. People died of infection and illness at startling rates, so families couldn't be enduring because members passed away. Women died in childbirth or from related complications. Men were injured in their roles as farmers or hunter-gatherers and little could be done medically to save the seriously injured (by today's standards).
So perhaps in the 20th century we created and/or promoted the myth of the ideal 1950's family. Dad went to work in his Ford or Chevy, Mom stayed home, baked cookies, cleaned the house with Spic and Span, and everyone was happy. The reality was and is far from that. Families struggled, men died in wars, women had to go out to work or decided that careers were more fulfilling than full-time home-making and family-raising. I wonder if, other than perhaps on TV, this ideal American family with it's supposed wonderful health and structure ever really existed. Among my friends, as I grew up in the 1950's and 60's there were divorces, career debacles, illness, accidental death, alcoholism, wife battering, sexual abuse, etc. This was in a middle class suburb, that, superficially, looked like Ozzie and Harriet might have lived there. But behind the closed doors there was a good deal of misery.
And what about today--the 21st Century? There are a greater percentage of working parents than previously seen; a larger proportion of families are in single parent, mostly female-led households. What affect does the family structure in those families have on children? What about poverty, or adult drug use, unemployment, etc.? I don't see the society rushing in to pass laws against any of these problems, or fixing them, out of concern about the affect they might have on family structure or the children who live in those families.
So that gets us back to Proposition 8 and the ban on gay marriage. I can think of many permutations of families that lack males, or lack females, but those missing members don't make those families fundamentally pathological. If Dad dies in Iraq and children are raised by Mom and Grandmother because Dad is gone does that mean the lives of the children will be ruined? Or that the structure of the society will unravel? Millions of Americans were raised in such family situations and are doing just fine. And many others, raised in two-parent families are in prison, or in a thousand other ways are doing very poorly by most measures.
So the notion that children raised in families by two men, or two women are going to be damaged, or that the society will suffer some universal harm is ridiculous on the face of it. And what is it those against gay marriage would have us believe? If two competent, loving women have children, raise them with love, support, concern, encouragement and care, that even so, the children will be somehow ruined by their imaginings about what goes on behind the bedroom door on some nights? Or because they see the two women hugging or kissing each other? Now that certainly would lead to the instantaneous and total dissolution of the world as we know it, wouldn't it? I mean, if two women actually kissed each other. Shocking! Wait, I'll have to tell my wife never to kiss my adult daughter ever again. I mean, if a child saw that, they might be ruined for life by the very sight of it!
Whatever those who favor a ban on gay marriage say, their opposition to it is simple bigotry. Girls are supposed to like boys, and if your constitution doesn't fit that model then you don't deserve basic human rights. So what if your lifetime partner is hospitalized and you can't see them. Who cares if you bought a house together and now that your partner is dead his family who despised him, rejected him and disapproved of his lifestyle is grabbing legal control of all of his property? I suppose the supporters of the ban on gay marriage would say, "You're gay, you don't deserve anything. You're an abomination."
Well, the Good Book says many things that we should do, but we no longer do. We don't have any altars where we slaughter animals and roast them as burnt offerings. We don't immediately kill children who curse their parents, either. There are a thousand things that the early Judaic writings forbid or say should result in severe punishments that are commonly done today. Religious groups pick and choose at will. So pointing to where it says you shouldn't do this or that doesn't impress me, and is in it's very nature disingenuous. You can't say everyone must follow chapter 43 verse 7 to the letter, and then decide that we really don't have to pay attention to verse 8 because nobody likes it. I'm sorry my fundamentalist friends, but that is simple hypocrisy.
So, in the end, the family structure argument is an empty one. Whether or not children will turn out to be healthy, happy people, and honest, productive citizens is controlled by many variables. The most important involve the love and skill that those in parenting roles can bring to the task of raising children. The sexual orientation of the parents, well, like their hair color, or skin color, or for that matter their affection for baseball, these have very little to do with whether they are good parents. Good parents not only come in all shapes, sizes and colors, they come with varying sexual orientations, and in all kinds of family structures and configurations. Having a home with a mother and a father, and even going to church (synagogue, temple, mosque, sweat lodge, or drum circle), are no guarantee of a positive outcome for a child, a family or a society.
We tend to think of the society we know now as being what the world was always like. That, however is far from the truth. Humans are essentially tribal in nature, and while children spring from families, family structure and the defined role of adults in the family structure has been fluid throughout human history.
Cave men and women lived in caverns or trees or settlements in large groups, sleeping in giant human crowds and raising children was a community affair. Some tribes who live far from or technological, developed societies continue to do similar things today. As Hillary said, it takes a village. Ancient families, such as those in biblical times often included marriages with multiple wives, and sexual liaisons with servants or slaves. In the absence of modern birth control methods, those extra-marital activities often produced children. What was the family structure like then?
Further, looking back just a century or two, people just didn't live as long as they do in America today. People died of infection and illness at startling rates, so families couldn't be enduring because members passed away. Women died in childbirth or from related complications. Men were injured in their roles as farmers or hunter-gatherers and little could be done medically to save the seriously injured (by today's standards).
So perhaps in the 20th century we created and/or promoted the myth of the ideal 1950's family. Dad went to work in his Ford or Chevy, Mom stayed home, baked cookies, cleaned the house with Spic and Span, and everyone was happy. The reality was and is far from that. Families struggled, men died in wars, women had to go out to work or decided that careers were more fulfilling than full-time home-making and family-raising. I wonder if, other than perhaps on TV, this ideal American family with it's supposed wonderful health and structure ever really existed. Among my friends, as I grew up in the 1950's and 60's there were divorces, career debacles, illness, accidental death, alcoholism, wife battering, sexual abuse, etc. This was in a middle class suburb, that, superficially, looked like Ozzie and Harriet might have lived there. But behind the closed doors there was a good deal of misery.
And what about today--the 21st Century? There are a greater percentage of working parents than previously seen; a larger proportion of families are in single parent, mostly female-led households. What affect does the family structure in those families have on children? What about poverty, or adult drug use, unemployment, etc.? I don't see the society rushing in to pass laws against any of these problems, or fixing them, out of concern about the affect they might have on family structure or the children who live in those families.
So that gets us back to Proposition 8 and the ban on gay marriage. I can think of many permutations of families that lack males, or lack females, but those missing members don't make those families fundamentally pathological. If Dad dies in Iraq and children are raised by Mom and Grandmother because Dad is gone does that mean the lives of the children will be ruined? Or that the structure of the society will unravel? Millions of Americans were raised in such family situations and are doing just fine. And many others, raised in two-parent families are in prison, or in a thousand other ways are doing very poorly by most measures.
So the notion that children raised in families by two men, or two women are going to be damaged, or that the society will suffer some universal harm is ridiculous on the face of it. And what is it those against gay marriage would have us believe? If two competent, loving women have children, raise them with love, support, concern, encouragement and care, that even so, the children will be somehow ruined by their imaginings about what goes on behind the bedroom door on some nights? Or because they see the two women hugging or kissing each other? Now that certainly would lead to the instantaneous and total dissolution of the world as we know it, wouldn't it? I mean, if two women actually kissed each other. Shocking! Wait, I'll have to tell my wife never to kiss my adult daughter ever again. I mean, if a child saw that, they might be ruined for life by the very sight of it!
Whatever those who favor a ban on gay marriage say, their opposition to it is simple bigotry. Girls are supposed to like boys, and if your constitution doesn't fit that model then you don't deserve basic human rights. So what if your lifetime partner is hospitalized and you can't see them. Who cares if you bought a house together and now that your partner is dead his family who despised him, rejected him and disapproved of his lifestyle is grabbing legal control of all of his property? I suppose the supporters of the ban on gay marriage would say, "You're gay, you don't deserve anything. You're an abomination."
Well, the Good Book says many things that we should do, but we no longer do. We don't have any altars where we slaughter animals and roast them as burnt offerings. We don't immediately kill children who curse their parents, either. There are a thousand things that the early Judaic writings forbid or say should result in severe punishments that are commonly done today. Religious groups pick and choose at will. So pointing to where it says you shouldn't do this or that doesn't impress me, and is in it's very nature disingenuous. You can't say everyone must follow chapter 43 verse 7 to the letter, and then decide that we really don't have to pay attention to verse 8 because nobody likes it. I'm sorry my fundamentalist friends, but that is simple hypocrisy.
So, in the end, the family structure argument is an empty one. Whether or not children will turn out to be healthy, happy people, and honest, productive citizens is controlled by many variables. The most important involve the love and skill that those in parenting roles can bring to the task of raising children. The sexual orientation of the parents, well, like their hair color, or skin color, or for that matter their affection for baseball, these have very little to do with whether they are good parents. Good parents not only come in all shapes, sizes and colors, they come with varying sexual orientations, and in all kinds of family structures and configurations. Having a home with a mother and a father, and even going to church (synagogue, temple, mosque, sweat lodge, or drum circle), are no guarantee of a positive outcome for a child, a family or a society.
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