Thankfully for some of us, and to the dismay of others, there will never be an absence of topics to write about. If you hadn’t thought about it recently, how about fighting a lion to make a point? A young Egyptian is doing that.
Essawy: When I defeat the lion – which I will – I will pull an Israeli flag out of my pocket, and drape it over the lion, and put my foot on it. Israel led me to this, through all their atrocities which, as a child, I grew up watching on television. The message is that even though Israel and America may be as strong as a lion – the strongest creature on the planet – they too can be defeated.
Al-Masry: By you?
Essawy: By the Arab youth, which is about to explode. Soon, they will be ready to take on the mightiest foe.
Al-Masry: But, technically, the lion’s only fighting because you’re forcing it to.
Essawy: Yes. It’s a caged fight, so there will be nowhere for the lion to run. I have challenged the lion, and I will defeat it.
Al-Masry: So, to dismiss this as just some really crazy guy beating up an innocent lion would be, in your opinion…
Essawy: Completely inaccurate and misleading. I’m not a crazy person. There’s a political reason behind what I’m doing.
…
Essawy: This will be my first battle with a lion, yes. I have fought other animals, mainly dogs. On separate occasions, I have fought three of the most ferocious dog breeds.
Al-Masry: You punch dogs?
Essawy: I punch and kick them.
Al-Masry: How are you training for this specific event?
Essawy: By doing a series of mental exercises. Nothing physical, just brain-training. I visualize the fight for two hours at a time. I visualize the lion, and all the possible ways it could attack. Will it go for the head, or will it grab me by the feet? I ask myself these questions and visualize how I will dodge these attacks.
I’m not sure who I want to win. Perhaps the dogs?
Generation X quickly gave way to Generation Y. Just as quickly, that became the Millennial Generation, which is simultaneously the Obama Generation – if they voted in 2008 – and the “Lost Generation.”
…Instead, what economists call the idleness rate is rising: The share of Americans younger than 24 neither at work nor in school has steadily increased since 2007. That disconnection creates the risk of what Harvard University labor economist Lawrence Katz calls “a lost generation.”
Faster overall job growth would be the best antidote to that threat. But the particular problems of young people demand more-targeted responses. Colleges and universities must see to it that more students don’t just start their degrees but also complete them. As Segal says, those institutions must also accept “greater responsibility to ensure” that those graduates leave with skills employers need. Washington, meanwhile, should consider further expansion of AmeriCorps and other service opportunities for this civic-minded generation.
Europe has become known for its austerity. But while we point and laugh at public sector work cuts and pension freezes we are pursuing the same policies. In the meantime we are indeed creating a Lost Generation.
Last week I did the unusual. I went to a movie. Even more unusually, I went to a screening. It becomes more unusual than that. It was the second screening of the movie Beginners; the first screening was in Los Angeles, this second screening in Santa Barbara, about a hundred miles north of Los Angeles. In the words of the writer and director: “this is a strange screening for me. I grew up in this town.”
Paul Mills was the director of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. The movie ‘Beginners’ is written and directed by his son Mike Mills. My family had reason to know the director of the museum; naturally, along with that comes knowing the son of the director. I never met Paul Mills, and I met Mike Mills for the first time at this screening, but Mike knows my family well. He came to our home before the screening to say hello – in the manner it was done, it seems he came to pay his respects, though the feeling should be mutual – before collecting his entourage – there were seven of us – and heading off to the theater.
Mike Mills met as at the door. And he led us into the theater. It can be difficult, when doing something unusual, to keep your wits about you. So we entered a packed auditorium and said ‘we usually sit a third of the way up’ (that’s two-thirds of the way down), so down we went. But the auditorium was packed. It took a moment to notice that row which we had passed “RESERVED FOR THE GUESTS OF MICHAEL MILLS”. That’s us. It produces a feeling of self-consciousness to sit in a row marked for the guests of the director.
I hope you find a theater near you with “Beginners.” Watch a good movie.
When we speak about a subject, it is usually a subject we have knowledge of. If it is a conversation about a subject whose topic we started, it is likely that we know the topic exists. But will we get facts right? If another person begins a conversation about a topic, we must educate ourselves about the topic, sometimes in mid-conversation. But will we facts right? More importantly, if we are running for political office, or had that honor in the past, will we get facts right? Will we even try?
Well into the twentieth century a preponderance of our presidents read Latin, quoted Milton and Shakespeare, and drew from an immense mental repository of human history in making crucial decisions of state. The founding fathers, to a man, regarded themselves as latter-day Roman Republicans, and often signed their letters to one another as Cato, Publius, Cicero, etc. They understood that the revolution they undertook was not singular, but part of an ongoing struggle for human liberty that predated their efforts and would continue long after.
Presidents look to the actions of their predecessors for guidance and warning. Beyond that, with a wider field to draw from, they also look to events seemingly remote, yet crucial: the English Civil War, Alexander’s campaigns in Persia, the legal reforms of Justinian. A greater knowledge of history means a broader field of precedents, and thus better-informed decisions. This does not guarantee success, as for every precedent there is usually one to counter it. But to argue that ignorance is preferable — or even possible — is to hand the controls of the jet to a five-year-old.
Sometimes I think the song of the Republican Party – one that they would no doubt play without consent – is Cherokee Nation.
They took the whole Cherokee nation
And put us on this reservation
They took away our ways of life…
‘They’ to the Republicans would be anyone who don’t vote their way. The ‘reservation’ they live in fear of, in the same way they fear their ‘way of life’ is disappearing. Their utopia is a land where those-who-do-not-agree live on a reservation; meanwhile, the Republican feels like he/she/it is on a reservation because of ‘taxes’.
In Pakistan, 2% of the population pays taxes. Republicans want to emulate this. In Pakistan, there is little regulation of the economy. Republicans want to emulate this. In Pakistan, there is a traditional religious influence in government, and school prayers. Republicans want to emulate this. In Pakistan, same-sex marriage is unthinkable. Republicans want to emulate this. In Pakistan, the military comes first, and politicians defer to generals. Republicans want to emulate this.
Nicholas Kristof writes for the New York Times:
I spend a fair amount of time reporting in developing countries, from Congo to Colombia. They’re typically characterized by minimal taxes, high levels of inequality, free-wheeling businesses and high military expenditures. Any of that ring a bell?
In Latin American, African or Asian countries, I sometimes see shiny tanks and fighter aircraft — but schools that have trouble paying teachers. Sound familiar? And the upshot is societies that are quasi-feudal, stratified by social class, held back by a limited sense of common purpose.
In fairness to Pakistan and Congo, wealthy people in such countries manage to live surprisingly comfortably. Instead of financing education with taxes, these feudal elites send their children to elite private schools. Instead of financing a reliable police force, they hire bodyguards. Instead of supporting a modern health care system for their nation, they fly to hospitals in London.
You can tell the extreme cases by the hum of diesel generators at night. Instead of paying taxes for a reliable electrical grid, each wealthy family installs its own powerful generator to run the lights and air-conditioning. It’s noisy and stinks, but at least you don’t have to pay for the poor.
I’ve always made fun of these countries, but now I see echoes of that pattern of privatization of public services in America. Police budgets are being cut, but the wealthy take refuge in gated communities with private security guards. Their children are spared the impact of budget cuts at public schools and state universities because they attend private institutions.
Is this our Utopia Nation?
Time, that inexorable force which alters opinion, has persuaded me that the military intervention – bombing, essentially – which the United States pursued in Libya is not to be expected elsewhere. Syria has been in revolt as long as Libya. There has been no outcry from governments to intervene in Syria as there was intervention in Libya. Why? I can think of two reasons: resources and requests. One is tangible; the other, intangible. In the paradox of man, it is far harder to prove tangible reasons than intangible reasons.
We intervened in Libya for intangible reasons. Rebels in Libya requested aid, after realizing they could not win without assistance. We, the several Western intervening powers, sent aid to Libya. Perhaps we should have, perhaps we should not have. Time, that strange force, will tell us. It’s hard to touch or otherwise perceive a request, except with our eyes or ears. It is not hard to touch or otherwise perceive resources natural resources a country produces. Does Libya produce more (that interests us) than Syria? Is there oil?
Libya is the 16th largest producer of oil in the world, responsible, before the recent turmoil, for about 2 percent of world production, or around 1,600,000 barrels per day. Yemen and Bahrain are also oil producers — but far smaller. Bahrain pumps out 45,000 barrels per day; Yemen, 260,000.
The mentions of Yemen and Bahrain result from their internal struggles in March. Bahrain resolved its issues. Yemen continues to rebel. The article doesn’t mention Syria, but Syria produces about “410,000 barrels per day.”
Libyan rebels made a clear request that they needed assistance, but they are not alone in the world. We intervened – we are intervening – in Libya, but not in Syria. If we are assisting rebels (is it really rebellion to overthrow a corrupt government?) in Syria, in Yemen, in Bahrain, or in numerous other places, it is in a covert manner.
Last week I was asked an unusually difficult question. ‘Please break down the Israel vs. Palestine conflict for someone not very knowledgeable about the subject.’ While I am adequate and answering questions and have a decent ability to teach, or educate, people, this question was just a bit broad for me. Where do I begin? I had to ask for a prompt; I had to know what was known before I could expand on the unknown.
The knowledge of the person asking this difficult question sounds pretty generic.
“I know that Israel is one of our strongest allies. I know we provide a lot of money. I know it’s about land that both sides claim to be theirs dating back as long as anyone can remember. I know the peace process has been on going but hasn’t really seemed to have accomplished much since it’s still an issue. Christians seem to not care for the Jewish people but are committed to supporting Israel. I sense that support of the Palestine view is not popular.”
As is my wont, I took time and thought to respond. There are thousands of ways to approach the question of The Conflict, and many different ways to approach why we provide money, whether land claims are accurate, what’s going on in the interminable peace process, and how Christians view the matter. I responded:
“Netanyahu said last week ‘the US needs Israel.’ He didn’t say that Israel needs the US, but that the US needs Israel. The Israeli right, including the American Zionists who develop policy for Israel, believe that the US can’t do without Israel.
They could mean one of two things, and I think they mean both. They mean that we need Israel as an ally in the Middle East (as if anything else has been suggested!); they also mean that Israel must exist as a state. They cannot fathom, and do not want to fathom, a map of the Middle East that is not essentially the Balfour Declaration + drawing lines in the sand + independence of Israel + 1967. They want the world to be immutable and cannot fathom change. The change they cannot imagine would be another declaration and another line in the sand, and the revocation of 1967. And by they, I mean the Israeli right and the American right.
The peace process is still going on. It is the great misfortune of those who seek peace that a liberal, peace-seeking, Israeli-government dissolved into a conservative, defensive, government just at the time that America elected a leader who had plans to work out the differences in the Middle East. Personally, the strength of the Israeli right (including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) discourages me. I would suggest reading “Our Last Best Chance,” by King Abdullah II of Jordan. He’s been a go-between for the peace process for about twelve years, and his father was for fifty years before that.
I can’t speak for the Christian perception of the peace process and for Israeli support. I can’t even speak much about whether they care for Jews; I am mostly with liberal and/or educated people, who do not judge first by religion. I would hazard a guess, though, that support (or lack of support) for Palestine, is based on news coverage. We hear often about rockets hitting Israel. Rockets don’t often hit Palestine, but the oppression there is constant and quiet. We don’t hear about constant, quiet, suffering in the news. Support for Palestine is often based on news, which includes out own interest in multiple sources and awareness of the situation of others.”
Like many Jews of modern times I come from a mixed family. I have, perhaps more than other people I know, a distinctly odd situation. My mother is Jewish, which according to Jewish law makes me Jewish, as indeed I am by choice and by culture. My father is not Jewish, which is to say he never went through the process of converting to Judaism – a very good thing, too, based on the converts I know. He is nominally Jewish, however.
It becomes more complicated. My Jewish mother has two brothers, both of whom have been Bar Mitzvahed, and at least one of whom has ‘left the faith,’ to put it lightly, and the other of which is derogatory of Judaism and every other religion. With a brother and three cousins on my Jewish (i.e. maternal) side of the family, I was the only one to have a Bar/Bat Mitzvah (and I am the youngest of these cousins). Some cousins have become more interested in their Jewish heritage as the years have progressed.
Let’s observe the paternal side of my family. Clearly, since my father is only nominally Jewish, the family religion is something else. My grandmother attends the Episcopalian Church; her children are all rather non-religious. On this non-Jewish side of my family, I have two (three?) cousins who have been Bar Mitzvahed, one of whom is in the Israeli army. I have several other cousins on this side of the family with a decidedly Jewish heritage, though varied in displays of cultural Judaism. I did say it is an odd situation.
I’ve had a Bar Mitzvah, and I call myself Jewish, but I’m far from a practicing Jew. I show up to services for Passover (sometimes) and haven’t been to Rosh Hashanah (new year) or Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) for several years. However, as I mentioned, I have a grandmother who attends church. It was my contribution – one I was glad to make – to drive my grandma to church early on a Sunday morning. Nonetheless, it is distinctly odd sitting in church. As a Jew, I sat there in the second row, wondering, ‘do they know I’m Jewish?’ ‘is it obvious I have no idea what I’m doing?’ – that much was clear, I’m sure.
Generally communal prayer involves some parts where the congregation responds to promptings. I’ve always felt odd doing this – it is a mainstay of education as well to have a reading with a response – but it is decidedly odd doing this for a religion with which you are unfamiliar and don’t quite believe. I’m not very good at lines such as “Jesus is the Lord our God.” Mostly, or completely, these are private worries; nobody commented. Nobody commented that I didn’t take the wine and cracker which is supposed to be blood and body.
It was, as far as necessities go, necessary that somebody take my grandma to church. It is good to get up in the morning and not always be in the house. I can’t complain that I did what somebody was supposed to do – and it might as well have been me – and drive to church. It is much less an act of religion than it is of habit, custom, and socializing. The only thing I’m missing, and I hope I remedy this, is that I should also connect to the religion with which I am familiar. It would feel far less odd.
I have not written for some time on any subject. Before I elaborate on my many doings, I find it necessary to write again about events. Obama has, through his calm demeanor, created much agitation. This is especially true of his natural opponents: anything on the right of the spectrum. This time, he has worried Israel (by which I mean the government) by promoting peace.
I wrote last month about the AIPAC conference, which is now upon us. Andrew Sullivan’s reaction to the AIPAC – Netanyahu mode of action, which is to maintain the status quo, perfectly exemplifies my own reaction.
What strikes me is the visceral and emotional power behind the AIPAC line, displayed in Netanyahu’s contemptuous, disgraceful, desperate public dressing down of the American president in the White House. Just observe the tone of Netanyahu’s voice, and the Cheney-like determination to impose his will on the world, regardless of anyone else, and certainly without the slightest concern for his ally’s wider foreign policy and security needs. It seems clear to me that he believes that an American president, backed by the Quartet, must simply bow toward Israel’s own needs, as he perceives them, rather than the other way round. Has Netanyahu ever asked, one wonders, what he could actually do to help Obama, president of Israel’s oldest, and strongest ally in an era of enormous social and political change? That, it seems, is not how this alliance works.
…
And it is absurd not to notice Obama’s even-handedness. It’s clear he won’t legitimize Hamas until Hamas legitimizes itself by acknowledging Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and dropping its virulent, violent anti-Semitism. He rebuked Abbas for going the UN route. Like any US president, he is committed to Israel’s security and is, indeed, vital to it. But all he asks is a good faith attempt by the Israelis to acknowledge that their future state has to be based on the 1967 lines with landswaps. Indefensible? Says who? With a regional monopoly of over a hundred nuclear warheads and the best intelligence and military in its neighborhood, and a vibrant economy, Israel is not vulnerable. And in so far as it may be vulnerable – to Iran’s nuclear gambit – its government is alienating the indispensable ally in this deserved quest for security. This is panic and paranoia, not reason and self-interest.And no one seems to appreciate Obama’s political courage in all this. Obama seems to understand that an equitable two-state solution is a key crucible for the change he is seeking with respect to the Muslim world, the minimum necessary to advance US interests in the region and against Jihadism abroad. With each month in office, he has pursued this, through humiliation after humiliation from the Israelis, who are openly trying to lobby the press, media, political parties and Congress to isolate this president and destroy his vision for peace and the historic and generational potential his presidency still promises. To achieve this, he has to face down the apocalyptic Christianist right, the entire FNC-RNC media machine, a sizable chunk of his party’s financial base, and the US Congress. And yet on he pushes – civilly, rationally, patiently.
The death of Osama bin Laden has led to the question of how we found him. Naturally, those who defend torture will say torture aided in finding bin Laden, while those who oppose torture will say that torture – Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Black Sites – will say torture hindered finding bin Laden. What’s the reality?
There is no evidence that torture was integral to capturing bin Laden. Of three tortured prisoners among the countless leads and tips and interviewees, one was deemed “quite cooperative” before Torture7 being tortured, thereby leaving open the question of whether the shred of information he provided could have been gotten by non-barbaric methods; and two denied any knowledge of the courier under the torture technique called “waterboarding.” So in order to defend torture, Cheney has to say that it’s a success when the tortured tell lies. Heads he wins, tails we lose. Moreover, in the last two years or so, torture has been forbidden – although its legacy remains with war criminals protected by the US government, in violation of Geneva – and it was after those two years of a return to decency that bin Laden was found and killed. As for the Bush administration’s over-arching goal – democratization of the Middle East – it was only under Obama that we got the Green Revolution in Iran, the successful revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, and the power-struggles now happening in Syria and Libya.
The Dole Blog 