A Tale of Two Countries

Britain in 2010 is not a happy country – too many divisions, inherent antagonisms, and ideological chasms divide the nation and make it a country that could be described as “being at war with itself”.

So says Margit Appleton in an editorial for MJB Times, titled Britain at War Chapter II.

I can’t speak for the veracity of MJB Times, but it makes little difference when I can replace “Britain” in the quote with “America” and end up with the same word-for-word meaning. Ever since the lies and cover-ups of Bush and Cheney, politics aren’t discussed in either polite or impolite circles at the risk of a black eye. And the chasm grows wider as Democrats (liberal) and Republicans (conservative) spend their time slinging barbs at each other.

Appleton:

Quite apart from the more obvious—and undoubtedly more pressing problems—like the enormous debt crisis,  the trade deficit, the war in Afghanistan, the problem of immigration etc., the Coalition government has its work cut out for itself.

Ditto Democrat Obama, who is closing in on 1½ years of his administration with little or nothing to show for it—and that with a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. He’s managed to spend hundreds of billions of dollars bailing out rich banks and funding “wars”, both within the bailiwick of the Republicans, but his “massive health-care reform” package has yet to see the light of day.

But Mr. Obama has a terrific smile. Appleton writes,

[W]hen Nick Clegg and David Cameron announced their coalition government . . . friendly banter in the garden . . . [a] wave to Obama’s relaxed style was clearly intended.

Never mind that the political systems of th UK and US are quite different; it is the politicians who account for the sameness. They smile to your face, give you a glad-hand, make promises to placate you—and the moment you turn your back, they stab it.

Appleton concludes her editorial with pie-in-the-sky smarm:

Here’s hoping that the new Coalition government has it in them to finally create what a previous Prime Minister called “a nation at ease with itself”.

Don’t make me cry. How can a Coalition possibly solve serious domestic problems? How can Obama solve serious domestic problems when his own Party is in disarray and does not support him?

The answer is obvious. In a tale of two countries, neither one of them can.

Posted from Chandler, Arizona May 20, 2o1o

Tags: Cameron, Clegg, Coalition government, Obama

Fixed Term Parliaments: What would Churchill do?

Image via Wikipedia

Former Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis – yes, that is his real name – has been speaking out against the fixed term parliamentary system introduced by the new Tory/LibDem coalition, describing the idea as a “constitutional outrage”. I know, some might say it’s just a case of sour grapes from the losing party, but he does have some support from constitutional experts.

The argument for change is that the country needs a strong and stable government to oversee the rebuilding of the economy following the credit crisis and bailing out of the banking system. Superficially that does make sense, but closer scrutiny suggests it’s an extremely misleading idea.

During World War Two, Britain was run by a coalition government installed after a vote of no confidence led to the resignation of Conservative prime minister, Neville Chamberlain whose policies of appeasement had proved both unsuccessful and hugely unpopular. Winston Churchill became PM, and later found himself facing a similar vote, but survived to lead the country to victory. I do wonder what he’d think about his successors trying to manipulate public anxiety to make changes to the parliamentary system.

While it is true that we owe a stupendous amount of money, and that we will be paying it off for decades to come, this can not possibly compare to the threat the country faced in the 1940s. Back then, we also had a massive national debt – billions owed to the US alone* – and it was growing because not only did the country have to finance the war effort, there was also the cost of rebuilding once hostilities were over. And of course, the danger was not only financial, the world’s biggest super-power was camped just across the Channel and planning to invade. In the meantime they were bombing our towns and cities into rubble and attacking our shipping with the intention of starving us into submission. Yet, despite this, at no point did anyone think the government should be shored up with changes to the system which made it harder to remove them from power.

Fast forward to 2010 and that very thing could happen. The Tory government want to make it harder to remove them if it all goes horribly wrong. And make no mistake, these changes would protect the Tories, not the coalition! If the coalition falls apart, the fixed term and new rules about votes of no confidence will enable the Tories to stay in power until 2015, despite the fact they will have no majority. They tell us this is a good thing because the country is in financial crisis and needs a firm hand on the tiller to see us through the difficult days ahead. They may have a point, but surely a minority government is not a firm hand, it’s a weak hand, and one which could lead to at best stagnation, and at worst, catastrophe.

So what would Churchill do? Would he approve of a minority government playing on peoples’ fears to introduce undemocratic changes to the parliamentary system to keep themselves in power? I think not.

* It took until 2006 to repay the money owed to the USA

Tags: Coalition government, Conservative, Democracy, Liberal Democrats, Parliament, Winston Churchill, World War Two

No Suicides Allowed

“Thousands of soldiers, their bald eagle shoulder patches lined up row upon row across the grassy field, stood at rigid attention to hear a stern message from their commander.

“Brig[adier] Gen[eral] Stephen Townsend addressed the 101st Airborne Division with military brusqueness: Suicides at the post had spiked after soldiers started returning home from war, and this was unacceptable.

” ‘It’s bad for soldiers, it’s bad for families, bad for your units, bad for this division and our Army and our country and it’s [sic] got to stop now,’ he insisted. ‘Suicides on Fort Campbell [Kentucky] have to stop now.’ “

I quote an article written on April 24, 2010 by Kristen M. Hall of the Associated Press. She goes on to tell the story of twenty-one-year-old Adam Kuligowski upon his return from Afghanistan. Adam loved the Army and his job, but he became increasingly depressed and angry. Finally,

“Adam wrote a note telling his dad, [Mike], ‘Sorry to be a disappointment.’ Then he shot himself inside a bathroom stall with his rifle.

“When the Army closed their investigation into the soldier’s suicide, his father said an investigator told him that Adam’s problem was that he was unable to conform to a military lifestyle. Mike Kuligowski did receive a personal note from the general who was commanding the division at the time: ‘We don’t know why this happened,’ he wrote.

“Kuligowski was not appeased. ‘It reminds me that officers know absolutely nothing about the plights of the soldiers who are under their command,’ he said. ‘What kind of leadership is that?’ “

Off the top of my head and in one word, I would say typical.

The plight of these soldiers was called “shell shock” in WWI. In WWII and Korea, it was called “battle fatigue.” Since Vietnam, the psychiatric diagnosis is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. But disregarding the labels, the symptoms are the same and have been around for a long, long time—perhaps from the beginning of war itself.  For military leaders and investigators to scratch their heads over the increase in suicides is ludicrous, and General Townsend’s proclamation “to stop now” is way beyond asinine.

But according to Hall’s article, Fort Campbell is responding to the crisis.

“The number of patients being treated at the behavioral health clinic has increased by 60 percent,from 25,400 in 2008 to nearly 40,000 in 2009. To handle the expanded need, they’ve also increased the number of counselors in that clinic to 60 last year, compared to 36 in 2008. In all, Fort Campbell has about 100 counselors, some of whom work in areas like social work, family advocacy, substance abuse and children’s behavioral health.”

If all 100 counselors worked directly with the patients, that would equal a caseload of 400 men and women each. Since some of the counselors work in other areas, that makes the caseload even higher. It cannot be done, especially if proper charting (case write-ups) is required and if meetings are frequent (the military bureaucrats live for meetings to justify their existence).

We train our soldiers to defend our country from a hostile invasion. We train them in all types of weaponry, to kill to protect the civilian populace. And then we send them to fourth-world countries like Iraq and Afghanistan that don’t want them there in the first place, and our soldiers kill to protect themselves from an enemy they cannot distinguish from a non-enemy. Amid the chaos they see atrocities no human should ever have to witness, including the bombing of innocent children and infants.

Eventually the soldiers come home and are discharged from service. Most of them adjust to their old lives again, but many don’t—the ones who need help.

As someone whom I can’t remember said, “We make them into killing machines, but unfortunately there is no ‘off’ switch.”

Posted from Chandler, Arizona May 14, 2010

Tags: Afghanistan, counseling, military-think, suicide

Update: Arizona’s Law of Hatred

On August 24, 2010 Phil Gordon, the Democatic Mayor of the City of Phoenix since 2004, wrote a column in the Washington Post denouncing the anti-immigration law as “ugly” and “discriminatory”. Five days later, Republican Governor Jan Brewer signed the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act into law.

Interesting to me is this quote from Gordon’s column:

“Our state is frustrated. We have become ground zero in the battle over illegal immigration because of years of lapsed federal border security. This week that frustration exploded, thanks to hateful political opportunists such as state Sen. Russell Pearce, the author of the legislation, and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is already under investigation by the federal Justice Department for alleged violations of civil rights.

Pearce and Arpaio — two men who are to Arizona law enforcement what George Wallace was to Alabama government — care less about capturing human smugglers and drug cartel gunmen than they do about capturing headlines. And in a state with a far-right legislature that is increasingly out of step with an increasingly moderate population, they’re also out of step with the rules of basic civility.” [Bold is mine]

Posted from Chandler, Arizona, May 11, 2010

Arizona’s Law of Hatred

Mami is a Mexican-American. Not just an American, but an American with a qualifier: Mexican. The Great Melting Pot has been showing cracks similar to those in the Liberty Bell for a long time, but now a sledgehammer is making some very serious dents in it.

A sledgehammer blow came on Thursday night, April 29, 2010 when Governor Jan Brewer signed an Act “Relating to unlawfully present aliens”. (The full text of the Act is here in .pdf format.) On the last page of the law it says, “This act may be cited as the ‘Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act’”.

Horse manure. Here is the kicker in the Act that gives Arizona lawmen the ability to violate a U.S. citizen’s civil rights:

“For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person.”

The bolding is mine because these terms are wide open to interpretation both on the street and in a courtroom. Explain to me, for example, what “Beyond a reasonable doubt” means when a judge is instructing a jury. Few, if any, understand it, and that includes yours truly.

Because Mami’s skin color is brown, she is a prime candidate for what boils down to search and seizure of her person. I don’t have to worry about it, though, because my skin color is a sickly, pasty white. This could change sometime in the future, however, if I refuse to salute the neo-Nazi flag.

J.T. Ready, on the left, with Russell Pearce, author of the Immigration Law.

This is where the hatred part comes in. State Representative Russell Pearce, who authored the new law, is a friend of J.T. Ready, who in turn is one of Arizona’s leading neo-Nazis. According to an article on Crooks and Liars.com, “At a June [2010] anti-illegal demonstration at the state Capitol, Ready and Pearce worked the crowd arm-in-arm.”

J.T. Ready, second from the right in the suit, at a neo-Nazi rally in Omaha, Nebraska in 2007.

A report in the Phoenix New Times on September 9, 2007, had this to say about Ready:

“For anyone who’s doubted J.T.’s National Socialist bona fides, especially after he outed himself on NewSaxon.com, the neo-Nazi MySpace, his participation in this rally is about as blatant as it gets.”

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona.

Add another hate-monger to the group: Sheriff Joe Arpaio is noted for his unannounced “sweeps” of suspected undocumented immigrants in suspected businesses and drop houses. So unannounced that local police departments are not informed and have no idea what illegal activity by the Sheriff’s Department is going on in their own jurisdictions.

U.S.A. founder Rusty Childress with Sheriff Joe, inside the MCSO’s taped-off command post on March 21, 2008.

Does Arpaio have ties to neo-Nazi groups? Yes. Arpaio is friends with Rusty Childress, founder of USA, “United for a Sovereign America”. When pressed by the New Phoenix Times in an exhaustive report on May 14, 2009, Arpaio  said, “Childress is a good guy”.

I have barely touched the tip of a filthy iceberg.  As I was researching this post one link would lead to another link, immersing me in some very dark and sick corners of the Internet. If you have been following dates of photos and articles, the hatred of our elected officials for those of Latino heritage has been around much longer than the law that purports to be about supporting law enforcement and making our neighborhoods safe.  What we have, in effect, is a go to jail free card for anyone with brown skin without any Federal interference.

Criticism of the state of Arizona is more than justified, but don’t be fooled. The state of Texas is considering a similar law, and White Supremacist groups thrive in every state of America. For a country that did not recognize black-skinned people as equal humans until 1964,  it appears that we are regressing rather than progressing.

Posted from Chandler, Arizona, May 1o, 2o1o

Kay Burley: She’s a little bit mad isn’t she?

(Sorry, the sound on the video isn’t great, you’ll need to turn your speakers up!)

A Twitter campaign is calling for the sacking of Sky News presenter, Kay Burley after a complete dog’s breakfast of an interview she conducted with David Babbs from campaign group, 38 Degrees.

This is the same Kay Burley who mistook an Ash Wednesday mark on Joe Biden’s forehead for a bruise. That might have been forgivable if it wasn’t for the fact that Ms Burley was brought up as a Catholic, so really should have known better.

It’s also the same Kay Burley who made Peter Andre cry, then claimed she did it for his own good – ’cause she’s nice like that. What may look like spite to the rest of us is actually the outward manifestation of a truly caring personality.

However, despite all that I don’t think Kay should be sacked, after all, who in their right mind would employ her? Instead, I think we should just learn to love her strange little foibles and accept the fact that she is to journalism what the Simpsons’ Cat Lady is to intelligent discourse.

Tags: 38 Degrees, Joe Biden, Kay Burley, Peter Andre, Sky News, Twitter

Undecided voter? Please read this!

Just popping in to share a couple of links to great posts about what may await us if the Tories gain a majority in tomorrow’s vote.

Welcome to Cameron-Land: Johann Hari takes a look at Hammersmith and Fulham council, now in the control of “compassionate Conservatives” and considered to be the model for the new Tory government.

Remember 1983? I warn you that a Cameron victory will be just as bad: Jonathan Freedland looks back at the last Tory regime and warns us about the dangers of history repeating itself.

Tags: general election 2010