Hong Kong went all out for 2009.
London always has a great display.
But the numero uno New Year’s Eve celebrations are always held in NYC of the USA.
Three minutes and counting …
I think I’ll skip the craziness this year just because I hate going to things solo and I just got off work and everyone else is no doubt already drunk and getting louder by the minute.
Happy New Year; a joyous ending of the annual calendar to you!
🙂
(Big3News)
My political predictions have once again proven true.
I predicted at the onset of the national and Congressional debate over health care coverage in the US that we would see a bill pass both House and Senate but that it would a “watered-down” bill that addressed preexisting conditions and state-to-state plan probability more than it addressed the larger problem of controlling costs.
This Senate bill hardly resembles what I would call “sweeping reform.”
In the course of the debate over the past few months I was in the “incrementalism-reform camp” that was frustrating my fellow Democrats advocating for single-payer, but in the end this bill will fall into indeed too small a step. I was only saying along with others that we have studied government and nothing this big is done all at once. However, like I have heard many say, I would have liked to get a lot more out this process.
The last time I spoke of this I was urging Harry Reid for “reconciliation” in the Senate; without the civics lesson needed here it is quicker to say that once the public option was removed from the table, the process of reconciliation was removed as well.
To encapsulate what is going on this country: we are a constipated nation when it comes to social programs.
There is the very real ideological constipation against positive social reforms dating back to the days of FDR and further still. Then there is the constipation specific to this issue of the monopolistic health insurance companies spreading public disinformation like the stuff is on sale. This, and other factors like Sara “Death Panels” Palin and Glenn “Fearmonger-in-Chief” Beck, make this one of the most hostile environments one could possibly hope to create against pro-reform activities.
The entire experience feels like we pro-reformists have fallen flat on our face and bloodied our nose, which would be correct. But I remind everyone sharing with me in this feeling that we did just run head-first into a brick wall of highly funded anti-reformism.
We have made history in the US Congress in that we have finally cracked the brick wall against fixing a system that every informed person agrees desperately needs reform. To shatter this brick wall is a much larger task and the true importance of these recent national debates over health care coverage has been the value of flushing the wolves out into the open more than it was about the larger picture.
The truth of life lies in the middle, not upon the edges.
Many people as of late tell me things like: “stay positive” and “look on the bright side of life.” What I hear in these well-meaning words is: “stay deluded” and “ignore things you don’t like.”
Telling someone like myself to “stay positive” is much the same as telling me to “stay negative.”
The truth is most people saying such things have absorbed flawed and profit-oriented “self-help” notions that fulfill only the most basic and simplistic concepts while neglecting the raw and often cold truth of existence in the modern world.
Telling people that life rarely works out the way you want it to and that misery is a vital element of life as well as pain being instrumental in personal growth is hardly what people want to hear when they already know much of misery, loneliness and emotional pain.
Telling people, falsely, that listening to you will cure them of their insecurities and personal failings is exactly what people trying to break free of the doldrums of their daily lives want to be told.
My brand of “self-help” will likely never catch on because it doesn’t excuse you from taking responsibility for the world around you and where you fit into it.
The fact is, the people like myself who dissect and analyze everything before them cannot be effected by these flat platitudes and narrow definitions of living our lives.
These “sunny dispositions” touted by many are just a means of excusing that which is unjust and a method by which social tyranny is bound to spread under.
There is a strong desire in many to be “lifted up” by a “guru” who holds all the answers, and I realize these days that I am that “guru.” But this guru doesn’t care to wrap you up in fuzzy blankets of feel-good notions and instead seeks to destroy delusion while cultivating critical thinking.
This is not what those seeking “self-help” wanted to hear.
As my ex-girlfriend recently screamed at me over the phone: “I like it simple!”
She is right, in so far as that my personal ethic is not some quick little program to follow like a robot repeating a repetitive task or a dog barking on command.
People might have to exercise their brains if they wanted me to be their “guide on the journey of life.” One might have to make a decision entirely on their own judgment without preconceived patterns dictating their response.
In essence: you have three choices.
You can be negative, apathetic or positive.
I make no judgments as to which you choose, but I do ask people see that they made the decision in the first place.
What concerns me is that which is the greatest failing of mainstream self-help. That being your true, genuine and honest feelings and the nature of complete imperfection of self being not only ordinary but in fact more healthy than the denial found in purely optimistic stances.
This denial of self promoted by mainstream self-help is, in my opinion, destructive to a healthy psychology.
I say people need to be contented with eating stale bread if they want to be truly happy in the here and now. I say “manifesting your destiny” is a false notion that originates from people who know little or nothing of loss and dashed ambitions.
Some people live their whole lives without ever finding love or realizing even the most minor of their dreams. Perhaps you are one of those people. If so you would probably rather talk to me than those who accuse you of creating disappointment and failure by value of what a poor person you are in attitude and / or mentality.
Some listen to me speak and conclude that it is my sole mission to depress you into submission to my version of reality.
I would contest that it is more a matter of reality and truth themselves that are highly unpopular, more than it is something native to my psyche or message.
Statements like “love is never enough” and “God wants you to think for yourself” will never beat out statements like “love is all you need” and “just obey the Bible and then God is happy.”
Positive thinking is no more than a tool to combat negative thinking and I would never advocate against positive thinking itself. What I advocate against is delusional thinking and herein lies the gray area that quickly destroys my popular appeal and makes for the divide between myself and most every other person who ever spoke of these matters in public.
Also, some of my ideals are highly unpopular in “New Age” thinking.
Shame, guilt and regret are vital to good personal ethics and if we live in a situation bereft of these there is no consequence for our own ill behavior and the harm we do to others in the course of our lives.
The moment I heard the words “I don‘t have any regrets about the time we spent together” from my ex-girlfriend is the same moment I realized that we had grown so far apart in these years away from each other that the gap is completely unbridgeable.
—
Not all mainstream self-help holds fast to these destructive levels of personal delusion, it is important to point out.
One example is Dr. Wayne Dyer.
The concept of “excuses no more” is something I can stand behind fully.
This quote sums up what I like about Dr. Dyer:
“If you tell yourself it is going to impossible and extremely hard to do something then you are setting yourself up for failure and if you look at it from the perspective of it being easy and completely possible then even if you don‘t succeed you at least gave yourself the best chance of getting what you want.”
That is where positive thinking and attitudes have their real value. You can increase your chances of success by taking a optimistic outlook and may well destroy that same chance with negative thinking but it is still just a matter of chance and circumstance more than any amount of “manifested destiny” at play.
Furthermore, I am a person that believes that more is gained by failure than by success in almost every personal situation. Or rather that is to say that more is learned by failing than is learned by succeeding.
What we must fight against is living static and / or delusional lives. Promoting this false notion that we all can have what we want or that we will all find fulfillment in this life will only lead a certain number of people to a dejected dead end that no “self-help guru“ can properly address.
Whereas my unpopular and mainly rejected ideas leave no one behind or out in the cold anymore than I myself am.
I guess I have to write a book about this…
I have no desire to share every twist and turn of my love life on the web, but I see some sense it keeping things in broad generalities.
The long and short of it is within my headline: love makes fools of us all.
I am tired of being the only man alive who admits to his feelings.
I am tired of being surrounded by people more interested in getting their rocks off than they are in anything else.
I am tired of the obvious lies from other men in terms of their emotional investment and complete servitude to their lover.
I have come to the conclusion that is a good thing to be alone, and a good thing for me to not have a lover. These days of endless pain and broken dreams have taught me well.
Most of the time I just keep quiet on this topic. The feelings and thoughts I have don’t give anyone the warm and fuzzy feelings they like to associate with love.
Like so much of what I have to say, the fact remains that nobody wants to hear it because it didn’t give them exactly what they expected and wanted to find.
Having some know-it-all tell you that love can destroy you, as quickly as it can raise you up, is not what someone swimming in the sea of romantic bliss wants to hear.
Listening to someone calling love a random and uncontrollable force of nature when you are convinced that your feelings are entirely centered around this person is just no fun at all.
Add atop that I have strong negative feelings toward those who engage in public displays of affection (something I am normally found of) and hold a general level of resentment toward all those who have found and, by some rare miracle, held on to love … we begin to see why I am better off to just shut up.
I find the more I could give a damn about women and romance, the more appealing I am to others.
I think this is screwy psychology on the part of women. When I enter that state I truly could give a damn about you (whoever you are) and this is exactly what makes women approach me in the first place. It is truly no surprise to me there is so much divorce and domestic violence; such matters are a large part of the problem.
Women (too many of them anyway) reward men for being dispassionate husks that sit aloof from the world in a tower of pride.
I know that state well, and I must say it not something to be desired in the least.
But it is my experience that the sooner I learn to once again think of all women as nothing but mere distractions, the sooner I will stop spending my nights alone and wanting.
Well I have plenty to say and be highly opinionated about in regards to Christmas and the holiday season in general but the most important part is the simple part: have a great holiday!
Whatever we celebrate, whatever we believe the meaning of this day is, we all should take at least one day out of the year to be contented with our lives.
Ken Kupchik has tickled my funny bone…
Air America really? section:
Mclean Police Department McLean, VA
Incident Report # 9005217 Report Entered: 12/17/2009 21:13:34 _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Date/Time Reported Location Apt/Unit# 12/17/2009 Halliburton Hunting Campus n/a
Incident Type/Offense Date/Time Occurred First Degree Assault S53 12/17/2009 12:01:19
Reporting Officer Approving Officer \
Leahy, Ryan (467) Clymer, Harold (213) _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Persons
Role Name Sex Race Age DOB Phone Address Witness Blitzen Male Reindeer n/a n/a n/a North Pole _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Offenders
Status Name Sex Race Age DOB Phone Address Defendant Cheney, Richard M Cauc 68 1/30/1941 n/a McLean, VA _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Narrative
On Thursday December 17, 2009, Richard Cheney, of McLean, VA was placed under arrest at the Halliburton Hunting Area after being observed discharging a rifle directly at another individual, victim Kris Kringle (aka Santa Claus). The perp claims he was hunting for caged quail. These actions on behalf of Cheney served no legitimate purpose and caused harm to an unarmed citizen.
On the above time and date, I was on uniformed duty in an unmarked police cruiser assigned to the Administration Section, working from 7:00-3:00 AM. I overheard a broadcast for a possible shooting and due to my proximity, responded.
When I arrived, I observed a portly man in a red suit with a thick white beard laying on the ground holding the side of his face with his hands. He said, “oh, oh, oh.” I observed Cheney standing in the distance holding what appeared to be a shotgun close to his body. I ordered him to drop the weapon and proceeded to place him in handcuffs for everyone’s safety. During this time, I observed reindeer tied to a sled attempting to hurt Cheney as he sneered and made faces at them. For his own safety I placed Cheney in my cruiser.
After requesting ambulance service for the victim, I began questioning the reindeer as to what happened. Blitzen appeared to take the initiative in explaining the situation. He said that Claus had taken the reindeer out for a test run before the holidays, and while passing through the area doing a low flying maneuver, they heard gunshots, and the sleigh-driver (Claus) was hit. When asked if they heard any warnings before the shots, Rudolph said that he had been “lighting the slay tonight” and was clearly visible. He said that before the shots he heard Cheney clearly yell, “Hey that’s a human, shoot him.”
I attempted to question Cheney about the attack, but he refused to answer any questions about someone named “Valerie Plame,” appearing confused and defiant. After a brief consultation with Sgt. Clymer, I transported Cheney to Redwood Police Station in a police cruiser where he was booked and processed by Off. C. Sheehan.
I keep my eye on politics, and since the uploading of some illegally obtained data from Britain’s CRU the political right wing has lost it’s mind. Science-denial has gripped them and they intend to brow-beat on anyone who questions their faulty logic. This hacking incident being called “Climategate” by the anti-environmentalist right wingers has brought to light to discerning observers that these people are divorced from all logic and rational thought. That they would defend any notion that fit into their preconceived world view regardless of an insurmountable body of research that clearly amounts to scientific fact.
The fact that almost every person the right supports this flawed and debunked theory that these emails prove anything beyond a level of professional bias being enacted against skeptics of the CRU is absurd.
Britain and the U.S. have a high number of global warming deniers and in the aftermath of this hacking it is found that the hackers are likely members of such a group in Britain so it is much like the other propaganda crusades of the right.
There is clear evidence of a willful ignorance on behalf of these people locked in outright denial.
—
Sara Palin wrote on her Facebook page recently:
“this is doomsday scare tactics pushed by an environmental priesthood that makes the public feel like owning an SUV is a sin against the planet.”
I find it laughable that a woman who pushed scare tactics like “he [Obama] associates with terrorists” during the campaign suddenly thinks alarmism is so awful.
Her “environmental priesthood” is scientists around the world and not just environmentalists like myself. She is suggesting the that scientific community is invested in some larger scheme and it is completely manufactured on her part.
And this climate science is not designed to make “the public feel” anything. Science stands on it’s own, apart from this hyperbolic standard she has set up.
Al Gore responded to Palin’s comments:
GORE: Well, the scientific community has worked very intensively for 20 years within this international process, and they now say the evidence is unequivocal. A hundred and fifty years ago this year was the discovery that CO-2 traps heat. That is a — a principle in physics. It’s not a question of debate. It’s like gravity; it exists.
What many environmentalists are loathe to point out is that like all recent science there is “wiggle room” around different aspects of the science in regards to causality, though most studies confirm the notion that man-made greenhouse gasses are the primary factor contributing to global climate change. The elements here that are simply not up for debate are exactly the elements the conservatives have grabbed on to and frankly at a certain point I have to just laugh.
—
Michael Oppenheimer, Director of the Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy Department of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School:
There is a mountain of scientific evidence pointing to human-caused climate change; all available to any skeptic. Colder than normal October in the US is not a climate trend, no matter how often it is repeated on uneducated blogs and by unintelligent cable news pundits. It remains true that Earth has warmed more than 1 degree (F) over the last century largely due to buildup of human-made greenhouse gasses. It remains the case that the projections of future climate change are every bit as discouraging as they were before the recent flap began.
Joseph Romn, physicist of the Center for American Progress:
Evidence of global warming is getting clearer, while opponents are redoubling their efforts at misinformation-disinformation campaigns.
(Time)The opportunities for global growth on a sustained basis are quite positive. Right now the basic building block of global demand , the US consumer, is faltering; therefore there is a lack of aggregate demand relative to supply. The supply has been rising because China and emerging markets have been investing so much in new factories and new productive capacity. A lack of demand relative to excess supply–that’s what the global recession is.
You have to have a complete rebalancing of the global economy. The global imbalances are not sustainable anymore.
(From Dec. 2009 issue of GQ)
I have spoken before of how I believed there existed a very real danger of slipping into a depression economy or have the “double-dip” recession model enacted upon us. I believe the danger still exists but there are many signs pointed in the other direction as well.
Roubini speaks of an “L-shaped” model in terms of his predictions for American economic recovery, and I think he holds the most accurate take on economics available. The “double-dip” is the “W-shaped” model that I spoke of before and it looks like the “L” or perhaps the optimistic “elongated U” are the far more likely graph of US economic growth.
The media calls him “Dr Doom,” and I guess that makes me “Dr Doom Jr” because I am less optimistic that we will balance the global economy. But if there was ever any question as where I get my economics, I would have to cite Roubini.
Let us not forget that he predicted the housing market burst and the coming of the global economic recession. It is important to hear what he has to say at this stage and I find it strange how often his assessment mirrors my own:
Roubini’s Three Major Concerns about current US Economy
The banks that “still have bad assets weighing on them, remain unable and unwilling to lend.”
The “US households that are increasingly indebted and decreasingly employed.”
The corporations that are “improving balance sheets by cutting jobs and cutting costs other than increasing revenue.”
—
The big question here:
Why in the years and months before the economic crisis was it only “bubble bloggers,” Roubini and a handful of Democrats who warned of the coming housing market bubble bursting and the resulting recession from the burst?
There is no question that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke responded aptly to the situation and that the Congressional bailout measures were indeed necessary. What remains to be seen is if the same people who would so readily jump to rescue a sinking economy would have the foresight to see the coming of a “double-dip” recession or if they would warn of it if indeed they did. I believe many financial “experts” are people who only understand talking-up the market and have long since given up on objective assessments on economics.
Ezra Klein of The Washington Post has called this the “best overview of the public option” he has read so far, and I concur:
Getting to a Public Option that Contains Costs: Negotiations, Opt-Outs and Triggers
The debate over a public option has essentially become a debate over the size and role of government in the health care system. The central argument, as we see it, should be one of fiscal conservatism—that a public option should play a role in addressing the very serious problem of health care cost containment. The current debate between the left and the right on this issue is obscuring the fact that consolidation in both the insurance and provider markets is propelling a higher rate of growth in health care costs. The consolidation of power, particularly in provider markets, makes it extremely difficult for insurers to negotiate rates for their services and contributes to rapid growth in health care costs. A strong public option is one that ties provider rates in some way to Medicare rates (though set at likely higher levels), and that is open to any individual or firm regardless of firm size. It would thus provide countervailing power to providers and help control cost growth.
We argue that a strong version is necessary because there is little else in health reform that can be counted on to contribute significantly to cost containment in the short term. Capping tax-exempt employer contributions to health insurance has great support among many analysts (including us), but it faces considerable political opposition. Proposals such as comparative effectiveness research, new payment approaches, medical homes and accountable care organizations, all offer promise but could take years to provide savings. Thus, the use of a strong public option to reduce government subsidy costs and as a cost containment device should be an essential part of the health reform debate.
We recognize that there is opposition to a strong public option. Both the House and Senate proposals are considering relatively weak versions to make the public option more acceptable. Both proposals would have the public option negotiate rates with physicians and hospitals. We see two problems with this. One is that negotiating rates is not simple and it raises difficult implementation issues; for example, with whom would the government negotiate? Further, negotiations are most likely to be unsuccessful with providers who have substantial market power. Since this is at the heart of the cost problem, a strategy of negotiations seems unlikely to be effective, as has been affirmed by cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.
The Senate has proposed a public option with an opt-out provision. This has the advantage of recognizing regional diversity in political philosophy by allowing states to pass legislation to keep it from being offered in their states. A disadvantage of this proposal is that it would exclude many who would potentially benefit from a public option. The states likely to opt out are likely to be those with high shares of low-income people and many uninsured.
The other alternative is to establish a strong public option but not implement it unless a triggering event occurred. The goal would be to allow the private insurance system to prove that it can control costs with a new set of insurance rules and state exchanges. The triggering events could be the level of premiums exceeding a certain percentage of family incomes or the growth in health care spending exceeding certain benchmarks. Since the public option would only be triggered because of excessive costs, however measured, we assume that a relatively strong version of a public option would come into play.
We recognize that taking a strong public option off the table may be necessary to enact reform legislation. But this will mean, at a minimum, higher government subsidy costs by not permitting a payer with substantial market power to bring cost containment pressure on the system. The outcome is likely to be that costs will continue to spiral upward. In effect, the nation would be relying on the range of promising pilot approaches to cost containment that would take some time to be successful. If they are not, we may be left with increasingly regulatory approaches, such as rate setting or utilization controls that apply to all payers. This would mean much more government involvement than giving people a choice of a low-cost public option that would be required to compete with private insurers.
President Barack Obama West Point Speech
During the 2008 Presidential Campaign then-candidate Barack Obama promised the mother a fallen American soldier to not only end the war in Iraq, but the war in Afghanistan as well. I am of the mind that now-president Barack Obama has not forgotten that promise. Many of my fellow Democrats are feeling disenfranchised by the recent official announcement of the decision to increase planned combat-troop levels to 30,000+ in Afghanistan I believe many in the party are taking a dangerously narrow view of militaristic policy.
I’ll simply cut the chase: you break a nation, you bought a nation.
The consequences of immediate withdrawal, in my view, far outweighs the alternative. Should we abandon this nation at this critical stage, after invading and attempting to remove the native opium crops, would be a tragic mistake that would incur even greater wrath upon the U.S. than this “end-game” measure of increased combat-troop involvement. We must not be blinded by political partisanship nor by strong personal feelings against war, that I personally share in this decision to prolong the war. This troop “surge” is accompanied with a clear strategy for withdrawal as well as some long since needed pressure upon the Karzai government in the form of this planned 2011 draw-down / transition of security responsibilities.
President Obama rebuked me in my comparison of Afghanistan and Vietnam. I agree with his statements that it is a “false reading of history,” upon review. But I disagree that what we are fighting in Afghanistan as being “not a popular insurgency.” The radical Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies are indeed a “popular insurgency” in some regions, while not in others. Afghanistan is a highly complex power structure and in every way different from the recent conflict in Iraq or the situation during the Vietnam War, but this is all the more reason to set attainable goals and prepare an exit strategy. We cannot allow ourselves to fall into the trap of counter-insurgency fighting endlessly in the Southern Provinces. We must shift to a counter-terrorism methods in Afghanistan and in order to this it is indeed true that “space” is required, bought with combat-troops of course. The ultimate goal being to seek a similar situation to what exists of involvement in Iraq as of today; a complete withdrawal of all combat-troops.
The sooner it is seen that no nation can “win,” or “lose,” in Afghanistan the sooner we can conduct sound policies in regards to our involvement therein. This is not the no-man’s-land that some make it out to be, much can be achieved with hard work, but we also should not delude ourselves into thinking we can remain troop committed indefinitely to a nation with practically no central government and huge population that is 80% illiterate.
Our humanitarian and intelligence-gathering operations must be secured for the time being and the politically unpopular troop surge is a means to this end. This is a changing in the “face” of this war and I personally hope that we can meet this 2011 time line for beginning combat-troop withdrawal and more importantly that is not simply an arbitrary line in the sand.
I urge people on the left against rush to judgments all is for naught in Afghanistan by value of the nation’s long history of failed attempts at conquering it. This new strategy is not “conquest” but rather supporting existing efforts and expanding upon the model of political solutions with regional leaders. An opportunity will be created in the next two years for Afghanistan to stabilize, but in the end the stand against terrorist tactics must come of the people. That much is out of our hands, it is true.
Along with protecting local Afghans and reducing violence, new efforts are focused on cutting off the funding of the Taliban and other Afghan insurgents. US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke spoke of a new thinking on the issue during a June 2009 visit to Pakistan. Holbrooke said the long-held notion that Afghanistan’s illicit opium trade is the main source of funding for the insurgency is simply not true. And, he says US policy is going to reflect that reality. “If the drugs ended tomorrow, it would not have a major effect on the Taliban source of funding,” said Holbrooke. “And, that’s one of the reasons the United States is going to downgrade crop eradication as part of its policies in Afghanistan. We’re going to upgrade interdiction. We’re going to upgrade our efforts to go after the main drug traffickers. But we want to focus on where the money really comes from.”
According to PBS & independent news media this is indeed true, but mainly because the Taliban has moved toward kidnapping, extortion and money-laundering as opposed to opium-running.
I do not support actions that only needlessly escalate war, but this change in strategy is likely the only course of action that will bring our major operations inside Afghanistan to a timely close. The president spoke of “muddling through” in reference to the former policy and I would say the same of those promoting this policy of rapid withdrawal. It appears to me that many in my party and that I agree with on a host of other issues propose “muddling through” the careful process of timely and permanent withdrawal from these costly foreign incursions brought about under the George W. Bush Presidency.
Regardless of progress on the ground the generals will always ask for more troops and the person we charged with the responsibility over such matters has decided that the 30,000 troops in Afghanistan for the elections is going to stay and more will be deployed in months to come. Provided agencies like the UN are included more directly in solution-seeking and the model of focusing on political solutions as opposed to only military solutions to bring an end to the conflict there is no reason to scoff at the 2011 deadline for strategy review.
This was a mishandled war left by the previous president and one does not clean up a rotten pile of eggs by screaming at it; you get a shovel.
My heart still cries out: “Come home, America!”
But this is very similar to my views on the aftermath of the U.S.-Iraq Invasion: rapid withdrawal has serious consequences not to be ignored but it is equally important to note that keeping the pressure on our representatives to set clear goals and bring the U.S. involvement to an eventual close as quickly as humanly possible is the responsibility of citizens that fund these conflicts.
To leave now is folly.
This was a predictable “middle-option” and under the current circumstances I believe it was the best possible choice available to the president and the true value of this decision is yet to be seen.
Post 9/11
In October 2001, in response to the Taliban regime’s protection of al Qaeda terrorists who attacked the United States, coalition forces forcibly removed the regime from Afghanistan.
Since the Taliban’s ouster in late 2001, remnants of the regime have sheltered in remote reaches of Afghanistan’s mountains, mainly in the south. While they stood little chance of retaking power while the US-led coalition remains in Afghanistan, rogue Taliban members appeared to be regrouping.
Evidence mounted by early 2003 in the southern regions of Afghanistan that the Taliban was reorganizing and has found an ally in rebel commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, labeled a terrorist and hunted by US troops,” the Associated Press reported in early April. The evidence included the discovery by coalition forces of around 60 Taliban fighters holed up near the village of Sikai Lashki, 25 miles north of the southeastern village of Spinboldak. Further indication came from the killings in southern Afghanistan of a Red Cross worker and, separately, of two U.S. troops in an ambush, as well as allegations that Taliban leaders had found safe havens in private homes in neighboring Pakistan’s Quetta province.
While no reliable estimates existed of the number of Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan, the Associated Press said in late March that it is believed that “many” Taliban are holed up in the southern mountains.
While a multinational force helped keep the peace in Kabul and surrounding areas, contributing countries have declined to extend the force’s mandate to other parts of the country. Remnants of the Taliban and rogue warlords sometimes threatened, robbed, attacked, and occasionally killed local villagers, political opponents, and prisoners.
This is what I spoke of before on this blog.
Our target was al-Qaeda and we should have handled the matter as a militaristic police force instead of “forcibly removing” this Taliban regime in 2001. This is the very nature of the trap of nation-building and these recent changes in war policy are a reflection of the situation as it is now and how to combat the elements are indeed a threat to national security while avoiding the pitfalls of unilateral nation-building. This is a policy that will hopefully provide enough security to focus on counter-terrorism efforts along with regional stabilization so that our exit from the region does not serve to only further destabilize a volatile situation.
University of California Santa Cruz is often associated as a left-leaning campus and administration, being the keepers of The Grateful Dead Archive and located in a mainly undisturbed forested historic location, but they have raised the ire of this liberal blogger in the aftermath of a recent four day sit-in protest of a 32% increase in college fees enacted by the university.
I personally side with the protestors, and the group leading the statewide protests called “Occupy California,” in that the increase is outrageously high and only serves to make higher education less available to lower and middle-income households. UC colleges across the state have spent huge amounts of money on construction projects but done nothing to improve affordability or increase teacher pay. I am well aware of the budgeting woes of the university that are not connected to administration decisions and believe this heavy of a rate increase and the response to the Kerr Hall Student Protest are examples in poor leadership above all else. If the spokesman had spoken with the protestors prior to speaking with the press he would not have spread what appears to be inaccurate information, and if the president had only come to find a method of negotiation with the protestors instead of simply ejecting them from the campus using the police department this incident might have been avoided.
It appears the administration, though unlikely in a unanimous effort by any fashion, sought to simply throw these civil protestors off campus without even addressing them as concerned Americans because the protestors raised matters they would rather not address. Such attitudes of indifference to differing logic pang more of the “loyalty tests” we see coming from conservative-ideological camps than it does of liberal-ideological camps. I detect a desire to silence the facts of this matter, perhaps because it looks bad for the “image” of the university. I am also willing to entertain this may have been a decision of the University of California administration as opposed to a decision of the UCSC administration to handle these protestors as such.
To make all these matters worse the local news-outlets are simply repeating statements of UCSC Spokesman Jim Burns, thereby I believe are under-reporting and outright altering the objective truth of the events surrounding the aftermath of this protest.
Both The Santa Cruz Sentinel and The San Jose Mercury have notably deleted the online-versions of the articles they published on the matter.
I do not have all the facts of the case, at this time, but it appears that either the Santa Cruz Police Department or the UCSC administration or both are guilty of greatly mishandling the matter of their response to a small number of destructive and misguided individuals who committed unclear amounts of property damage at UCSC’s Kerr Hall.
One eyewitness told me that people were indeed being forcibly pushed out by the police of Kerr Hall, one website claims mace was used on students and a Letter to the Editor in the Sentinel claims that batons were used.
According to the eyewitness:
“You had to be there. It was frightening to see police officers show up in response to a peaceful sit-in protest with riot gear and holding tazers.”
“The whole point of the protest was non-violence and the leaders of the protest were adamant about keeping the property protected and stopping any violent behaviors before they began. Many of the people who were doing the destruction were not even from UCSC, it is not fair that so many are saying to protestors were the ones doing the damage to the building.”
I asked this eyewitness if they had witnessed any use of non-lethal force against the protestors by the police:
“I didn’t see anything like that. They were pushing people. It’s true that when they arrived a few people had overturned a table and were trying to keep them out, but that was only about three people and from there they were very heavy-handed with everyone.”
I inquired as to why some were so angry in the first place that they felt the non-violence and anti-property destruction ethics of the promoters should be ignored:
“There was a letter sent to the president of the university and it simply asked him to come down and talk to them and it was outright refused. Some people were made very angry about this and started saying things like that the university didn’t care to even take them seriously. I’m not sure, but I think that was motivating some of those people who were very angry. That all went on upstairs, I only know what happened after the police made us all leave.”
Without inquiry the eyewitness filled in the next question I had:
“A lot of people, I was one of them, were trying to get the police to let us back in to clean up the trash and try to repair some of the damage done by the unruly protestors, and we were told that we would be arrested if we went back inside.”
(I am told both the journalistic articles of The Sentinel and The Mercury did not include this report, and that they only repeated the UCSC Spokesman Jim Burn’s statement. Neglecting to report on this claim that many protestors offered to try to clean up whatever damage they said a “select few” were causing in the upstairs of Kerr Hall and also omitted these reports of mace and batons being used.)
Then, after pumping them for information, they started pumping me for information:
“Why weren’t you there?”
I was working, I have been broke for way too long, but I probably would have missed it due to ignorance of it going on more than a lack of support. (I could have asked for the time off if I knew in advance.) Also I’m the “firecracker” in the crowd and might just have my pocket-Constitution handy since I’ll never be able to carry around that huge textbook o’ mine on U.S. Constitutional Law. (The Freedom of Speech shall not be infringed.) I should have been there on Saturday, no question, but I might have only gone as an objective observer.
Had I attended the sit-in protest itself I would have been there on behalf of all American Workers, and on behalf of the working-poor and their equal right to higher education as the upper-classes. All while the UC system makes them the target of the budget gap that have in part created with speculative construction projects.
Here is a notion: how about all UC administration officials take a statewide 25% pay cut?
The difference that would make should be removed from the 32% fee increase and then that would be a policy I might support and would be more critical of those protesting such a hike in fees under such a circumstance.
If the state is suffering and people are struggling perhaps the UC administrations around the state should consider putting themselves in a position in which they have to file for food stamps and are collecting their change to pay for gasoline to get to their job like the rest of us.
To the credit of The Santa Cruz Sentinel they published a Letter to the Editor by one of the protest organizers who is also a UCSC alumni and I believe one of the other credible sources on the events of Kerr Hall:
“Shame on UCSC administration
Throughout Saturday night at UC Santa Cruz, students faculty and staff massed outside Kerr Hall where students barricaded themselves [incomplete]”
To credit of The Santa Cruz Police Department they have recently formed a gang task force after myself and many others made voice to our concerns about the matter. I failed to give credit as that story broke to the SCPD after berating them over the matter via weblog. I believe this was simply a matter of a poor response, in this case, on behalf of the department to arrive with riot gear and non-lethal weaponry instead of standard equipment.
The party that appears to hold the strongest share of what went wrong at Kerr Hall, is the UCSC administration, in both refusing to meet the protestors head-on and directly address their concerns and seek a peaceful solution to their vacation from the grounds if one exists and also in the case of publicly denying that protestors were asking to clean up the facilities that others had damaged if they were indeed ordered by law to leave grounds by means of their spokesman.
Atop of that the university is claiming an unrealistically high damage cost for what multiple sources have told me was mostly minor damage caused by only a small numbers of irate individuals.
It is my view, that if the administration had only addressed the protest from the lens of a civil rights matter they would not have made the same decisions.
One thing I’ve learned, is that ordinary people don’t bend the truth and I believe these two testimonies over any of the “big-name” reporting to come out about this so far.
I don’t have all the pieces at my disposal to provide what I would call “full-coverage” of the UCSC Protest and the aftermath, but I thought it important to share what I know so far as it is somewhat difficult to get the whole journalistic story on this matter with only internet resources:
CBS5.com “UC Student Protest”
No arrests were made and the demonstration ended without confrontation, UC officials said.
I believe it to be inaccurate to say that the demonstration ended “without confrontation” only in that, according to my sources, approximately 75 people approached the police and offered to clean up the second floor. However, CBS5 is only repeating the statements of the UCSC Spokesman. It is accurate to say no arrests were made in Santa Cruz.
NewUniversity.org “UC Santa Cruz Protest: From a Face-off to a Mace-off”
Someone at the protest was using CNN’s iReport “UC Santa Cruz Protest Enters Day 4”
-The protests at the UCSC campus are soon entering Day 4.
-Additional students entering Kerr Hall to aid and support the occupiers.
-Protest has remained peaceful and non-violent.
-Positive atmosphere
-Dozens of students remain outside supporting those inside.
– As of 1:20AM Sunday morning, supporters and occupiers are still present.
—
The final component here is the political right-wing native to Santa Cruz and our local political dynamic perhaps effecting a great many views on this matter.
The local “Club for Growth” neoconservative / libertarian / conservative right-wingers had their voice well expressed in this Letter to the Editor in the same edition of The Sentinel:
“No-growth policies come home to roost
[incomplete]”
I wouldn’t be surprised to discover many of the local police officers agreed with this position and such attitudes are not often found from reactions of law enforcement officials in regards to right-wing protests.
The tuition increase along with the excessive spending on construction contracts while neglecting other more pressing matters like affordability were exactly what the sit-in was in protest of and this individual insists upon finding a way to blame the protestors for the highly questionable decisions made the UC that many, including myself, find upsetting.
I long for a day when “tea-baggers” and neoconservative (“neocon”) pro-war protestors are treated with the same heavy-hands and greatly scorned just for the sake of expressing their ideals. I would love to serve some of these people the medicine of civil injustice and public harassment they so enjoy seeing done to any left-wing protest.
I dream of an America that remembers the past of this country, endless disagreements of every nature and sort that we came together and sought solutions and found a way to look our neighbor in the eye even though we believed their politics to be nothing but whimsical rubbish.
I believe far too many in this community would seek to blame the protestors themselves for all ills than ever look at the matter scientifically, or at least rationally.
With all this love of the “expose,” I should really start tearing apart our local nut jobs and tell my tale of complete disillusionment with a prominent figure in local-conservatism.
The true “expose” here is to be had on portions of the American Press, as well countless figures across the nation touting themselves as “objective” in politics when in fact they are nothing but the most bitter partisans you could hope to find who simply smile and laugh as they create an atmosphere of utter hatred for their fellow Americans. The people tearing apart our legislature, our political media, our newspapers and our economy in this state are not we the liberals and progressives of the state.
I will continue to be critical of both sides and attempt to convey both sides of an issue, and then people can judge for themselves if any level of credibility should be bestowed upon people who distort facts to suit an agenda.
Coming from any political persuasion, such actions are wrong.
The population of students, alumni and residents here in Santa Cruz may be left-leaning individuals but I have long held the impression that the UCSC current administration is not that by any means and this possible suppression of what really happened when the sit-in protestors were asked to leave and the circumstances surrounding the dispersal.
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