Russia appears to have been involved in hacking the Democratic National Committee. The deeper issues, however, go beyond partisan politics.

At the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Secretary of State at the time, James Baker, assured the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, that NATO would not absorb former Warsaw Pact states. The most recent NATO summit was held in Warsaw. We plan to deploy advanced weapons in Poland.

While Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, the United States was involved in an intense political crisis in Ukraine, which had been a republic of the now extinct Soviet Union. Ukraine’s president at the time, Viktor Yanukovich, an unsavory leader by any standards, was close to Moscow. Washington supported a revolution by Yanukovich’s political opponents, Western-oriented free market advocates. They prevailed. Ukraine’s pro-Russian eastern population revolted, and Russia then seized Crimea and interfered in eastern Ukraine. Five thousand Ukrainian forces — anti and pro Russian — have been killed, along with 2,000 civilians.

Victoria Nuland, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, was caught on tape designating one Ukrainian leader as “the guy”; he became Prime Minister.

To be sure, both the U.S. and Russia have interfered in many countries, but when it comes to former Warsaw Pact states and especially to former Soviet republics, the moral issues of democracy — or hypocrisy — are overshadowed by extreme risk.

As the West incorporates former Soviet republics into NATO, as it has the Baltic states, it becomes obliged to defend them with nuclear weapons. In turn, Russia is moving toward nuclear launch on warning, with greatly increased danger of nuclear war by accident or miscalculation. The next President will need to manage tensions with Moscow to avoid a new arms race.

For Speak Your Mind, this is David Keppel.

In 2008 Gary Clack of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote, “Shirley Chisholm broke ground before Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton” (and, I would add, Bernie).

Born in 1924, Shirley Chisholm was an African-American politician, educator and author.

In 1965 she ran for the New York State Assembly with the slogan ‘Unbought and Unbossed.” She served there from 1965 to 1968.

In 1969 she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first African-American woman elected to Congress. She served until 1983.

On January 25th, 1972, she announced her presidential bid, calling for a bloodless revolution in the forthcoming Democrat National Convention. She became the first African-American major-party candidate to run for President of the United States, and also the first woman to run for the Democrat Party presidential nomination.

She said, “In my political career, and my run for the Presidency, I faced more discrimination as a woman than for being black.”

She lost to George McGovern, but she had broken new ground.

During her years in the New York State Assembly, she worked to improve the lives of inner city people. In Congress she worked to create programs to feed at-risk families including the “Women, Infants and Children” program. She was a tireless advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment. She opposed the draft, supported increased spending for education, healthcare, and other social services, but for a reduction in military spending. She was opposed to the Vietnam War and to the expansion of weapon development.

After leaving Congress in 1983 she taught and lectured in many colleges. She visited local minority groups and urged them to become a strong force at a local level. In 1984 and 1988 she campaigned for Jesse Jackson.

She retired to Florida in 1993.

When I watched the documentary film, Shirley Chisholm for President and saw her, an African-American woman, stand up for her beliefs against immeasurable odds, I felt admiration and respect for her courage and integrity. She inspired me and gave me hope in a way that modern political leaders do not. She may have died in 2005 but her example still lives on.

She told her students, If you don’t accept people who are different, it means nothing that you’ve studied Calculus.

These calculations often involve such parsing of words and careful phrasing, that politicians seem to have developed an art of saying nothing while appearing to be saying something. Most politicians practice this art and that’s why people say “they’re all the same.”

Then along comes someone like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, both of whom APPEAR NOT to be playing the Game. I say the APPEAR NOT to play the Game—time will tell if they are.

Yet the two men are different. Trump doesn’t appear to be ABLE to play the Game of calculated response because he is so impulsive that he has to say out loud whatever comes to his head. Yet his lack of calculation has been part of his appeal. Some voters support him in spite of the outrageous quality of his remarks, his inconsistencies and his lack of specifics.

Bernie Sanders appears to be driven by issues he thinks are important—income inequality and poverty. One gets the sense that he says what he thinks, but that it is not about him or his electoral success.
Hillary Clinton has sincere, long held and articulated policy views. Nonetheless, many get the feeling that what she says and HOW SHE SAYS IT betray too much reliance on calculation.

Does a politician have to play the “Campaign Game” in order to win? Apparently, most politicians think so. I hope they are wrong!

Biden’s words were directed at the current front runners in both parties. Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio want to send more arms to the “moderate” rebels against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and to establish a no-fly zone that would bar the Syrian air force from controlling part of Syrian air space, in order to protect not only civilians but also armed combatants against the Assad regime.

Clinton and Rubio have the righteousness that is legitimized by the manifest brutality of the Assad regime, which has used chemical weapons against its own people. But so did Iraqi President Saddam Hussein; yet regime change unleashed sectarian strife, including ISIS. Rather than strengthening Syrian moderates, U.S. arms would likely wind up falling into the hands of ISIS and al Qaeda. A no-fly zone could involve a clash with Russia, which is supporting Assad. Rubio and Clinton take a tough tone toward Russian President Vladimir Putin as well, without saying how far they would go. And that invites unpredictable escalation.

A diplomatic solution must involve everyone, friend and foe. It will be far from perfect. Everything else would be much worse.

References

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/us/joe-biden-concludes-theres-no-time-for-a-2016-run.html

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/marco-rubio-russia-no-flyzone_5612e38ae4b0368a1a60ad06

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-calls-no-fly-zones-syria

https://blog.peaceactionwest.org/2015/10/27/peaceful-alternatives-to-war-pick-up-steam-in-congress/

https://fcnl.org/issues/middle_east/34_organizations_urge_administration_to_tackle_root_causes_of_syria_crisis/

He was referring to Danish policies such as universal health care, free college education and subsidized day care that give more aid to workers than their American counterparts receive. Danes in their prime working-years are more likely to be employed than similar Americans, and they take more vacation too. Although taxes are higher, studies claim Danes are happier than people in most other countries.

Conceding that she too likes Denmark, Hillary Clinton responded that the United States had a capitalist economic system which needed to be controlled, not replaced. She might have added that the United States is a much larger and more diverse country, increasing the cost and complexity of providing public services like the Danish ones. The United States also has responsibilities Denmark does not, most notably in defense, where American spending far exceeds Danish outlays.
What neither seems to have noticed, however, is that for some time, the voters in Denmark and its neighboring countries have been questioning the generosity of their social and economic policies. Indeed, this summer, the Danes elected a more conservative government amid anti-immigrant, anti-European Union sentiments that have been growing rapidly.

So perhaps the real question Americans should ask about Denmark is why the achievements many outsiders admire are increasingly questioned at home.

Sources:

Transcript of Democratic debate
Danish social and economic policies
Danish happiness
Defense spending
New Danish government

This is a big news story. But you wouldn’t know it listening to NPR.

As of May 5th, NPR had aired a grand total of four reports on Sanders’ candidacy. Contrast this with upwards of 30 reports on Hillary Clinton’s campaign since she announced her candidacy last month.

Can you say “playing favorites?” Sure you can.

The first brief mention of Sanders’ announcement was buried in a story on union opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a report that was skewed toward Mrs. Clinton, despite her warm embrace of the trade deal.

Subsequent reports fared no better. Ailsa Chang’s story on Morning Edition simply re-purposed an interview with Mr. Sanders from last summer. This is lazy reporting, plain and simple.

Then there’s Mara Liasson’s story on All Things Considered. Headlined “Why Hillary Clinton is Just Fine with Bernie Sanders’ Candidacy,” Liasson’s “report” sounds more like a Clinton press release than substantive political analysis.

All of which begs the question: Will NPR cover the Democratic race in a fair and accurate fashion, or is the news organization content to propagate the narrative of inevitability that Mrs. Clinton enjoys, but certainly doesn’t deserve?

After all, Hillary was a sure thing in 2008; but things change. Here’s hoping NPR’s coverage of the 2016 campaign does so as well.

Sources

Chang, A. (29 April 2015). “Seeking Presidency, ‘Socialist’ Sanders Looks to Elevate Less-Talked About Issues.” Morning Edition.

Gonyea, D. & Montanaro, D. (28 April 2015). “Union Head Presses Candidates, Clinton, on Trade.” All Things Considered.

Liasson, M. (30 April 2015). “Why Hillary Clinton is Just Fine with Bernie Sanders’s Candidacy.” All Things Considered.

The main criticism is that the Clintons have been trading personal or political favors for contributions to the foundation. The Washington Post, for example, claimed that Bill Clinton drew large speaking fees from foundation donors. Likewise, The New York Times reported that as Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton helped a company run by a big contributor to acquire American uranium mines. The large amount of funds provided by foreign governments and the fact that the foundation spends much more on salaries, fund-raising events and travel than on grants have also raised eyebrows.

Chelsea Clinton and other foundation spokesmen deny any illegality and point out that its finances are more open to public scrutiny than those of most charities, who are not required to disclose the names of their donors. They also argue that the Clinton Foundation’s global reach and staff-intensive programs explain why just ten per cent of its budget goes to the organizations with which it works.

How much harm this latest controversy will do to Mrs. Clinton’s political ambitions depends on the voters. But unfortunately, facing collateral damage are the nation’s charities, which have been seeing declining public trust in how well they are using donations. The attention being given to the practices of the Clinton Foundation will do them no good.

Sources:

Rosalind S. Helderman, “For Clintons, speech income shows how their wealth is intertwined with charity,” The Washington Post.

Jo Becker and Mike McIntire, “Cash flowed to Clinton Foundation amid Russian uranium deal,” The New York Times.

James V. Grimaldi and Rebecca Ballhaus, “Foreign government gifts to Clinton Foundation on the rise,” The Wall Street Journal.

IRS Form 990 (2013), Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

Jesse Byrnes, “Chelsea Clinton defends family’s foundation,” The Hill.

Mr. Obama decided not to provide more arms to the moderate Syrian rebels precisely because he was rightly concerned that these weapons might well fall into the hands of ISIS.

The current chaos in Iraq, Syria, and beyond is a consequence of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, which Hillary Clinton supported and Barack Obama opposed.

In its first decree, the American occupation ordered that all public sector employees affiliated with the Ba’ath Party were to be removed from their positions and to be banned from any future employment in the public sector. This effectively disenfranchised huge numbers of Iraq’s Sunnis, who were the core of the old regime. The new government was Shiite and sectarian. Until these deeper political issues are addressed, ISIS will find support even among those who deplore its brutality.

It is not President Obama, but the Neoconservatives who planned the invasion of Iraq before the September 11th attacks, whom Hillary Clinton should be blaming. She might add a word of remorse for her own role.

Sources:

The Atlantic

The Guardian

Mondoweiss

On De-Ba’athification

Slate

The Nation