JUST LIKE US

I personally feel that the scariest thing about the upcoming election is that the people want to vote for someone “just like them”. In spite of the fact that this is a path straight to disaster, as should have been obvious from the 2004 election. It’s really hard to see why people don’t understand the simple fact that the President of the United States should understand their problems but he or she simply cannot be just like them; he or she has got to be smarter, more capable and tougher. Otherwise why would that person be fit to hold the highest office in the land? Isn’t the difference between understanding the problems of the common man and being a common man yourself clear? Apparently not to the people of this great land.

What gets my goat even more is that in speaking thus, people also allude to Lyndon Johnson, Truman, JKF and FDR who were apparently “just like them”. This is just ganz falsch. FDR and LBJ may have understood the problems of the common man but they were far from being like the common man. Both FDR and JFK were born in privilege and lived as elites, a fact seldom remembered. LBJ and Truman might have been the closest to the common man, but LBJ was a man who was one of the toughest and most savvy politicians of the century; one just has to read Master of the Senate to understand what kind of a political heavyweight he was. Truman may have been underappreciated before he became President, but again, David McCullough’s magisterial biography clearly denotes the immense capability and potential he had already demonstrated. LBJ, Truman, JFK and FDR; they were far from being “common men”. Or let’s just say they were common men of uncommon ability.

Previously Americans seem to have appreciated such leaders, exceptional men who were more than fit to lead. Now though, they want common men of common or even subcommon ability to rule over them. This is one of the most fatalistic and downward-looking streaks in the current American voter. They demonstrated this streak in 2004 when they elected Bush because they thought he would be fantastic as a beer-drinking partner. Now they are demonstrating it again by embracing Sarah Palin as someone who espouses “small town values”; this is a woman they hadn’t even heard about a month ago, and who is almost completely clueless about the past 8-year history of her country. She doesn’t have any idea what the Bush Doctrine is, and she is sending her son to Iraq because she still seems to think it’s Saddam who attacked her country on 9/11. One would be extremely hard-pressed to find a Vice Presidential contestant who was this frighteningly ignorant in such a crucial time; her selection seems to almost border on the surreal at times.

But in an ominous development, Thomas Friedman accurately notes that since Americans vote with their gut feelings they are actually warming up to Palin. On the other hand, Friedman notes that Obama who had that gut connection with especially young Americans a couple of months ago, no longer seems to radiate that tough and highly inspired attitude that rouses the irrational among us. I tend to agree. In fact in some of his recent interviews Obama frighteningly has a demeanor similar to John Kerry’s; congenial and forthcoming, yet not connecting to voters’ deeper centres.

And William Kristol of the NYT comparing Palin to Truman and LBJ simply indicates that the delusion is complete. The future of this country really seems to be in jeopardy, not because of its politicians but because of its people. Democracy never had a more glamorous display of its inherent problems.

SOME THINGS JUST DON’T MAKE SENSE

We had a chemistry professor over from a Canadian university for a talk. During lunch with him, the talk inevitably turned to healthcare in Canada. The professor ascertained that healthcare in Canada is free. Where does the money come from? From taxes of course. The interesting thing is that the Canadians are taxed heavily (around 50%) yet nobody seems to complain. As much as libertarians complain about taxes, I think the reality is that most of us won’t mind being taxed as long as the taxes are used for a good purpose, even for the purpose of helping other people. Very few people in Canada complain about the fact that their taxes are being used to help other people. Why is that? The reason seems clear; in the same process, the same help comes back to them when they need it. I cannot but help see this as a sort of inverse operation of the invisible hand; people contributing to the good of others when they are ultimately contributing to their own good. Of course Canada has problems of its own, but healthcare there really seems to be a well-structured and largely excellent system, and it’s better than the US where taxes go into fighting the failed war in Iraq.

In the end, the professor could only shake his head and say, “The richest country in the world, and they cannot provide healthcare for 40 million of their citizens. It just doesn’t make any damn sense”. Whichever way you analyse it, in the end, it indeed does not.

SATANIC PROGENITOR

Gaurav writes about the US hand in giving rise to fundamentalist Iran. A joint British-American effort restored the Shah of Iran back in power. After the coup that achieved this, it is not without interest to note that America controlled about 40 percent of Iranian oil. I think back with bitter amusement in my mind, about the number of fundamentalist countries and dictators the US directly or indirectly gave rise to. Whenever there was a democratically elected left-wing people’s government, the US government and the CIA has tried almost every tactic possible to suppress it and house a government of its choice in its place. I would take this involvement even further back, right from the end of World War 2, beginning with the Truman Doctrine, which supported and almost replaced British interference in Greece. The British had already accepted their role as “junior partner” in the US-British alliance.

Basically every President since Truman has suppressed political and social uprisings abroad that were unfavourable to US interests. In fact, it was even before WW2 that Secretary of State Henry Stimson spoke about America as a great equalizing and humanizing force in the world. Even that has many precedents in British rule. I will always remember the incident about a famous essay that John Stuart Mill penned in 1858, expounding the value of British style freedom, humanist ideals and democracy. Consider; this was 1858, one year after the British brutally suppressed a revolt for freedom in their most coveted colony.

To be honest, this is hardly surprising. Every country tries to use many means to ensure its influence in the world’s geopolitical landscape, especially a superpower like the US. By this token, almost every powerful contry’s leaders are to blame. But what’s always been amusing, and probably not amusing anymore, is how the US has always tried to justify all these actions under the garb of ‘spreading democracy and freedom’. There is no doubt that some of the countries like Iran which the US is carping against constitute troubling governments, but the US never exactly had the authority to take an exclusive high ground against them.

For an excellent model of how the media always tries to spin these government actions around and put them in a context that is favourable to the administration, Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent still rings very much true.

Frankly speaking, I still would consider the Americans and British among the most gentlemanly and fair rulers and superpowers in history, compared to others. Even now, I respect the relatively free dialogue and freedom of the press that is encouraged in both these nations. But there is always another side to every issue, and the problem is that both these nations, and especially the US, still try to act as if they are morally perfect and completely free of blame, and that they are the ones who have the greatest claim to teaching the world, and indeed imposing upon it, moral rectitude. That’s what bugs people.

Addendum:
Just because America interefered in the past affairs of the countries it is despising does not mean it ‘deserves’ retribution from them, and any one who thinks this way is a bonafide kook. But in my opinion, this is really a question of attitude. If someone makes a totally unprovoked attack on you, someone with whom you had absolutely nothing to do in the past, then your attitude is rightly one of extreme moral indignation and aggression. However, if you know that directly or indirectly, in some way you contributed to this state of his, you might naturally empathize a little more with him and adopt a more conciliatory stance. As has been made clear by conflicts such as the Vietnman war, one of the most important reasons for the US disaster in South Vietnam was a lack of empathy, a lack of understanding Vietnamese culture and their ambitions (unlike what the US thought, the Vietnamese were not fighting as pawns of the Russians or Chinese, but were fighting for their independence). In any case, as the above example shows, if Americans know something about US interests and past actions in Iran, it is much more likely that they will empathize with their enemy. The mindset of a man who thinks Iran sprang from nowehere and is committing aggression against the US, is much different from a man who knows something about US-Iran historical relations. He would be far more empathetic towards the situation, and empathy is neessary for solving such problems.

SATANIC PROGENITOR Gaurav writes about the US han…

SATANIC PROGENITOR

Gaurav writes about the US hand in giving rise to fundamentalist Iran. A joint British-American effort restored the Shah of Iran back in power. After the coup that achieved this, it is not without interest to note that America controlled about 40 percent of Iranian oil. I think back with bitter amusement in my mind, about the number of fundamentalist countries and dictators the US directly or indirectly gave rise to. Whenever there was a democratically elected left-wing people’s government, the US government and the CIA has tried almost every tactic possible to suppress it and house a government of its choice in its place. I would take this involvement even further back, right from the end of World War 2, beginning with the Truman Doctrine, which supported and almost replaced British interference in Greece. The British had already accepted their role as “junior partner” in the US-British alliance.

Basically every President since Truman has suppressed political and social uprisings abroad that were unfavourable to US interests. In fact, it was even before WW2 that Secretary of State Henry Stimson spoke about America as a great equalizing and humanizing force in the world. Even that has many precedents in British rule. I will always remember the incident about a famous essay that John Stuart Mill penned in 1858, expounding the value of British style freedom, humanist ideals and democracy. Consider; this was 1858, one year after the British brutally suppressed a revolt for freedom in their most coveted colony.

To be honest, this is hardly surprising. Every country tries to use many means to ensure its influence in the world’s geopolitical landscape, especially a superpower like the US. By this token, almost every powerful contry’s leaders are to blame. But what’s always been amusing, and probably not amusing anymore, is how the US has always tried to justify all these actions under the garb of ‘spreading democracy and freedom’. There is no doubt that some of the countries like Iran which the US is carping against constitute troubling governments, but the US never exactly had the authority to take an exclusive high ground against them.

For an excellent model of how the media always tries to spin these government actions around and put them in a context that is favourable to the administration, Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent still rings very much true.

Frankly speaking, I still would consider the Americans and British among the most gentlemanly and fair rulers and superpowers in history, compared to others. Even now, I respect the relatively free dialogue and freedom of the press that is encouraged in both these nations. But there is always another side to every issue, and the problem is that both these nations, and especially the US, still try to act as if they are morally perfect and completely free of blame, and that they are the ones who have the greatest claim to teaching the world, and indeed imposing upon it, moral rectitude. That’s what bugs people.

Addendum:
Just because America interefered in the past affairs of the countries it is despising does not mean it ‘deserves’ retribution from them, and any one who thinks this way is a bonafide kook. But in my opinion, this is really a question of attitude. If someone makes a totally unprovoked attack on you, someone with whom you had absolutely nothing to do in the past, then your attitude is rightly one of extreme moral indignation and aggression. However, if you know that directly or indirectly, in some way you contributed to this state of his, you might naturally empathize a little more with him and adopt a more conciliatory stance. As has been made clear by conflicts such as the Vietnman war, one of the most important reasons for the US disaster in South Vietnam was a lack of empathy, a lack of understanding Vietnamese culture and their ambitions (unlike what the US thought, the Vietnamese were not fighting as pawns of the Russians or Chinese, but were fighting for their independence). In any case, as the above example shows, if Americans know something about US interests and past actions in Iran, it is much more likely that they will empathize with their enemy. The mindset of a man who thinks Iran sprang from nowehere and is committing aggression against the US, is much different from a man who knows something about US-Iran historical relations. He would be far more empathetic towards the situation, and empathy is neessary for solving such problems.