A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics
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A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics | |
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June 10, 2005Friday Open ThreadSpeak your piece. Nothing is off topic. Posted by Tully at June 10, 2005 09:06 AMComments
Current 2008 Pres. nomination futures market at online sportsbook Tradesports.com: George Allen 19.1 Hillary Clinton 48.8
Thanks for that, Scott; quite interesting. I'm pleased to see that Santorum and Brownback are so low on the totem pole. Allen worries me on the GOP side, and I'm a bit surprised Frist's prospects are still rated so high (Cheney's too for that matter). I'm glad Warner (and Bayh) are rated so high for the Dems; that might be a good sign. '08 is certainly going to be interesting! Posted by: JBD at June 10, 2005 09:48 AMI'm surprised to see Corzine, even though he's low on the list. He's now running for Gov of NJ. It would be a fast jump. Unrelatedly, are there any other fans in the Centrist blogosphere of the Spanish-language-broadcasting Univision's Saturday afternoon show "Caliente!"? (Or am I the only degenerate?) Just curious. Posted by: WHQ at June 10, 2005 10:49 AMNeat list, Scott. It'll be intersting to watch the odds shift over the next couple of years. I wonder if we can take out quinella bets on the eventual ballot? Posted by: Tully at June 10, 2005 10:51 AMNo, it's straight only Tully. I have an account. My friend who works at the Mass. state house sold 17 contracts of Hillary when she was at 43.5 Posted by: Scott at June 10, 2005 10:57 AMDang. I wanted some partial "field" Q wheels on both sides. At the listed odds. Posted by: Tully at June 10, 2005 11:20 AMTradesports is smart -- there is no field. All others are available on request. Posted by: Scott at June 10, 2005 11:23 AMI guess I could construct my own, but it's the multiplier effect I was looking for.... Yeah, I see that. They've made tremendous advancements this year in market making, so maybe that's the next step for them. Posted by: Scott at June 10, 2005 11:33 AMI'm wondering what people think we should do about the situation in Darfur and in Zimbabwe. Basically, I view nations as people. If they do something bad, give them a slap on the wrist and pressure them to do otherwise: meaning use diplomacy and speak out against the regime, like we did in forcing Syria out of Lebanon. If they persist, give them heavy fines: meaning sanctions. And they behave so badly that there's no chance on reform, lock them up and throw away the key: regime change. Although America may have gone too far in the case of Iraq, there is something to be said for Bush's complaint that if the UN means anything it's got to enforce its own resolutions, especially if everything else fails and it's practical to do so. My understanding in these two cases is that the surrounding nations, and of course the "rogue state" in question, are opposed to any military intervention. I realize in some cases that it's not practical to use military intervention, such as with North Korea, because it is so militarized and because China supports it, but when I see weak countries like Zimbabwe that don't have high Muslim (at least that's my impression) populations, I don't understand why the UN just doesn't take them out. I'm all for orange revolutions, but my understanding is that they don't happen if the regime doesn't mind using very brutal tactics to prevent them. I don't think America should bear the burden alone, not only because its unfair, but people hate us enough already. In my mind, maybe what we need is a widespread grassroots effort by people in Western nations demanding UN intervention. And while the US perhaps ought to more dovish, I feel Europe is shirking its responsibility by not being hawkish enough. And in these cases, hawks and doves is probably the wrong terminology: we're not talking war for conquest, we're really talking about a defensive war: defending the people of that nation from genocide and horrendous human rights violations. So, what do you think? Have I left the fertile plains of centrism for the desolate ravines of neo-conism? Posted by: adam at June 10, 2005 11:46 AMWe need to do something about Darfur immediately. UN Resolutions have no teeth, pressurization without real and willing threat is pointless, and sanctions on non-democratic regimes only hurt the people at the will of such a regime. The UN is not strong-willed or united enough to do the job. I believe the U.S. needs to act unless the regime meets certain goals within a very clearly specified period of time. Absolutely, Scott. If there was ever a time for a "coalition of the willing", this is it. How can we live with ourselves if we continue to ignore what's happening in Darfur? We said "never again" ten years again when Rwanda happened ... and just look at us now. If the UN won't act, let's go to NATO (as we did with Kosovo). If NATO won't act, let's go with whoever will. But let's do something. Posted by: JBD at June 10, 2005 11:58 AMScott, You make some great points. What has gone on in Africa is truly sickening, and yet the world does nothing. There are reasons for our lack of interest and involvement. 1) Europe and the United States plundered the continent for hundreds of years, enslaving people...we've never quite atoned for our sins over there; 2) They have nothing that Europe/America really want--other than diamonds, and we work with the warlords to get those. As far as oil, etc., it's just not the Middle East; and 3) It's not Europe. Kosovo was in Europe, however far removed, thus there was interest. It's truly sad that the United States, with such a large segment of the population coming from Africa, really does nothing. And, of course, it's not only us...it's the rest of the world as well. Kofi Annan, of all people, has done absolutely nothing. The man is worthless. Posted by: AR at June 10, 2005 12:10 PMZimbabwe is less than 1% Muslim. Rest is Christian and native religions, and "mixed" versions incorporating bits of both. Is it neoconism to recognize that Zimbabwe is in really awful shape, getting worse, and wanting to do something about it? Zimbabwe is a basket case that almost makes Haiti look attractive. Adult AIDS rate, 25%. Declining GDP. Soaring inflation. Brutal repression by Mugabe. On the bright side, the population is mostly literate. Even with regime change, there would still be major problems that would take a generation to address. With Mugabe in place, it's hopeless. But it would take an international intervention of large proportions. If we tried it ourselves, you can guess at the outcry. Posted by: Tully at June 10, 2005 12:10 PMI think Bush should plan to go before the UN and elsewhere and shame the rest of the civilized world into joining together in quick and concerted action. He should throw down the gauntlet and declare that failure of UN nations to act quickly and forcefully will be the final proof that the UN has slipped irretrievably into the irrelevance that their reticence has brought on. This can be prefaced by a quick trip by Condoleeza Rice warning our closest allies that this is coming, and looking for support for the position that these events are sufficiently disgraceful that cessation is not enough of a remedy, only some form of justice will do. If a public communications PR battle were fought over the necessity of action here, I think we'd be big winners globally. However, I think the American appetite for our taking a lead role in this is about as low as it could possibly be. Posted by: bk at June 10, 2005 12:17 PMIt's truly sad that the United States, with such a large segment of the population coming from Africa, really does nothing. I was discussing this issue with my Democratic parents over dinner on Mother's Day. If House/Senate Democrats in largely African-American districts/states aren't talking about this issue either in Congress or to the local press, it must be because, extremely generally speaking, African-Americans don't consider this a good cause or don't know about it, or they do and elected Democrats in their district fully take their votes for granted. Posted by: Scott at June 10, 2005 12:23 PMEurope and the United States plundered the continent for hundreds of years, enslaving people...we've never quite atoned for our sins over there OK, Abel, I pretty much agree with you in that post, but I just gotta call you on that one statement. The African-Atlantic slave trade was legal in the United States only from the Revolution until 1808. Prior to 1776 (or, arguably, 1783) the United States didn't exist. That isn't "hundreds of years," and Americans per se were never big players in the actual trade, other than as buyers in that brief period. In 1808 new imports of slaves to the United States were banned, though it took another 40+ years and a civil war to end slavery. The British banned slavery totally in 1833, the Canadians beat 'em to it by a decade or two. Your real culprits in the Atlantic slave trade were the Portugese, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Brazilians, and the British. When the British followed the lead of the Danes and started closing down the trade (the same year that the US banned import of new slaves--1808) the big protestors who wanted to keep it going were the Portugese, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Brazilians, and (mostly just because they hated agreeing with the British) the French. Let's also point out that these European slavers, despicable as they were, did not originate the trade but tapped into the millenia-old African slave trade for their sources. Posted by: Tully at June 10, 2005 12:36 PMPete Rose Tip: "Blue Horseshoe loves Condoleeza." Posted by: kreiz at June 10, 2005 12:37 PMTully, The slave trade was far from a European enterprise. Don’t forget that the middle man in the deal was often an Arab slave trader. Hell, the Saudis didn’t ban slavery until 1969. Oh, absolutely, Tully. Our record of slavery is very short compared to Europe (and, as Alf mentioned, the Middle East). I lumped the two continents together with the "hundreds" comment, something I perhaps should not have done. To address your comment, Scott, I have an opinion on why African Americans in Congress are not front and center on this issue. (I know, suprise, suprise...I have an opinion.) African American Congressmen, who have been exclusively Democratic since J.C. Watts retirement, see no benefit to themselves in pushing this issue. This is not a condemnation of Democratic politics, there are many Republicans who ignore similar issues, so it's not a party thing. It's an incumbency thing. Most of the African American Representatives in Congress are part of the old guard. (Obviously Harold Ford Jr and Barak Obama are exceptions to this.) IMHO African Americans have been poorly served by these representatives who still seem intent on fighting the wars of the past to continue their hold on power. They have not been open to new ideas and causes. Obama is trying to change that. For has been as well. Maxine Waters, John Conyers, Charles Dingel, Sheila Jackson Lee, Stephanie Tubbs, Corrine Brown....they are absent on this issue. Why? They see nothing in it for them. (Incidentally, Corrine Brown--perhaps the most ethically challenged member of Congress--represents my hometown. One of the ethical lapses in judgement that landed a slap on her wrist from the House Ethics Committee involved her daughter's acceptance of a new Jaguar from an African dicatator. She's even gone over and campaigned for some of these African regimes.) Posted by: AR at June 10, 2005 03:16 PMYou know what would be both interesting to watch, and a first, at least for modern times? What if the election came down to Senator Allen and Governor Warner? It would be fascinating to watch, especially at the state level. Posted by: Ryan at June 10, 2005 03:18 PMCongress people don't care because it's not a vote getter. People care in the abstract, as opposed to saying that they don't care, but priority-wise, my sense is that its barely on the radar screens of most people. Not only would most Americans rather not think about it, they usually DON'T about it. When they do think about it, they are disturbed. And this disturbance usually leads to the rationalization that nothing can be done. Acceptance allows you to go bck to not thinking about it. And BTW, I'm not excluding myself from this description, in case anyone else thinks I'm being high and mighty. I'm just another American largely consumed with the details of my everyday life. Posted by: bk at June 10, 2005 03:27 PMAR - Exactly what I suspect. I concluded to my parents that it's a wonder, again very generally speaking, that African-Americans continue to vote Democratic. Imagine if they registered in droves as unaffiliated -- they'd have political power they haven't enjoyed in a generation. Posted by: Scott at June 10, 2005 03:29 PMGonna be kinda tough to get the U.N. to do anything about it when they've even blocked attempts to try use strong language to decry it. I'd like to see something done about it too....but I bet we've got too much on our plates right now for another deployment. The logical choice to take the lead for Darfur(if other African nations wont) would be France. I think they have bases in neighboring Chad. Unfortunately they've been fighting tooth and nail to try to ignore the problem. Posted by: cengel at June 10, 2005 03:47 PMI just gotta nitpick, it's a reflex. Some countries still have effective slavery today, even if it's "officially" banned. Sweatshop and sex slave tracking continues in South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, even parts of the Carribbean, and chattel slavery is ongoing in parts of Africa. I didn't bag on the Arabs in the African trade because they weren't the transporters to the Americas, even though they were major suppliers to some of the importers. So were many Africans. But yeah, Africa's a continent in really bad shape. To their credit, some of the ex-colonialist European nations still work on assisting their former colonies. But the big problem is that "civilization" never broke through the enormous barriers of tribalism and racism in most areas--like Darfur. I'd love to see some good approaches, but it'd be an uphill battle all the way. But where do you start? Africa is BIG, with dozens of nations, and the trouble is everywhere. It would take a very United Nations to even begin. There are a few modest success stories in Africa as well. Emphasis on "modest" and "few." Posted by: Tully at June 10, 2005 04:08 PMI think the problem with Africa (the deeper part of the continent; the problems with northern, Muslim Africa are different, with different histories) is that we're not very good at consciously and deliberately modernizing entire cultures. Modern Western-style democracy did not spring up overnight. It was the product of centuries of government evolution, gradually increasing the liberty of the individual and the power of the people to control government rather than vice versa. We (the West) botched things up terribly with colonial interventions over the past 400 years or so. We destroyed a lot of cultures and didn't replace them with much of anything good. Now we're left with a very bad combination of ancient tribal attitudes and rivalries combined with very modern weapons. I think the World Bank and the IMF are starting to learn that permanent solutions require the growth of education and entrepreneurship in poverty-stricken countries, not just massive aid projects like dams and highways. Microloan programs, I believe, have shown a lot of progress at improving, in small but immediate ways, the everyday life of Africans. I sometimes really wonder, though, if it's possible to go directly from the culture of someplace like Sudan to a functioning, representative democracy. Can we help them skip feudalism, parliamentary aristocracies, etc.? Or does it need, for a time, a strong-handed benevolent leadership class to impose the rule of law on all the factions in the country? Turkey is a modern democracy, and the series of military coups that have taken place over the past few decades have probably helped it become so. President Musharraf claims he is doing much the same thing in Pakistan at the moment. I don't know the answers (and Lord knows I haven't seen any benevolent dictators emerge from Africa), but it's all worth thinking about. Posted by: PatHMV at June 10, 2005 04:52 PMI think Bush should plan to go before the UN and elsewhere and shame the rest of the civilized world into joining together in quick and concerted actionDoes that happen before or after they all join hands, stand and sing "Kumbaya"? Posted by: c3 at June 10, 2005 07:36 PM What I found interesting is that the administration is actually active in getting Congress to *not* give money to fund President Bush's Africa/HIV initiative... [although in their defense, they say the money is on scale, and will increase per year to reach the full sum] That, and that the budget is such that the money in general is being pulled from other, established causes that fight a number of diseases worldwide in favor of an untried and unorganized PR bid. Posted by: Ryan at June 10, 2005 08:32 PMI can't but help suspect that the architects of Darfur deliberately chose a time when the US Army was busy. Does anybody remember what the timing was like for Rwanda vs other crises? I don't think so, Jon, though the suspicion is always there. But there's always something similar happening in Africa. At any given moment at least half a dozen countries are in active crisis, or liable to be so in mere days. That's a major part of the problem. Africa is BIG. Pat is dead-on about seperating sub-Saharan Africa and Mediterranean[sp?] Africa. The two are utterly different. But no matter where you go in Africa, any foreign military presence would have to be locally commanded and tactically autonomous to be effective--and that's exactly what the U.N. isn't. As they showed in Rwanda, where Genral Dallaire begged for troops and permission to use them, and was ignored. And eight hundred thousand people died. I don't think the barriers of tribalism and ethnic unrest can be stressed enough. Tribalism and ethnicity permeates Africa. Posted by: Tully at June 11, 2005 01:59 AMPat, I just wanted to compliment you on your post. It was very factual and well thought out. I personally don't think it's possible to jump from a tribal society to a Western-style democracy. People just wouldn't know how to behave. The American system (and the ensuing European democracies) was an evolution of hundreds of years of experiments. It worked here...wasn't quite as successful initially in France. I've always thought that QEII was a rather kindly soul, Britain doesn't really seem to need her, maybe she'd be willing to pack up and move. Posted by: AR at June 11, 2005 12:54 PM |
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