Syria Choices- Root Canal or Slam your Hand in the Car Door?

Deciding what to do in Syria is like choosing between having a root canal and slamming your hand in the car door. Why, in heavens name, would we want to do either?  OK, Assad is a ruthless dictator.  Yet, for many years we have supported ruthless dictators all over the world- but mostly in the Arab countries. For a brief period, it looked as though the Arab Spring would save us from this mess we are confronted with today. If only Assad could’ve kept his chemical weapons in the depot- we’d still be on the sidelines. But damn, he had to call us out, and now we’re on the verge another war. Like Obama said, “... our military doesn’t do pin pricks...” and once the shooting starts all the plans go out the window.

I’m reminded of Lincoln’s advisors who insisted that our Civil War would be over in a matter of weeks. Well-to-do aristocrats picnicked on the hillside to watch the battle of Bull Run, hoping to catch a glimpse of the war before it was all over. They had no idea it was only the beginning and a half a million lives would be lost.

Johnson used a trumped up, fake crisis, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, to get Congress to authorize unlimited military force in Vietnam. Prior to that, Kennedy had only sent “advisors” - no boots on the ground. What one president promises doesn’t mean anything to another president.

America was exhausted from fighting WWII with every man in the country in uniform and every woman in a factory making the equipment of war. Peace had just begun to settle in; GIs were going to college, getting married, buying that dream house and making families. Neither Congress or the President had the stomach to go to war, so Korea became a “conflict”, so as to lessen the pain and win support for action. America hated Korea. Ike ran for president on a platform of getting us out, which he did ( although we still have 50,000 troops in Korea today, 60 years later!) . So weary of war was our greatest twentieth century general, he  managed to avoid it for  all eight years of his presidency. He knew hell, he had been there, and he did everything to avoid it.

If we do help the rebels overthrow the Assad regime, what are left with? Militant, Al-Qaeda sympathizers are sprinkled throughout the rebel organization. We could be just trading one bad dictator for another equally bad outcome.

Which all leads me back to my question. Why do we really want to get involved at all?  If Eisenhower could avoid war, Obama should be able to too. He should check his “red line” ego at the door and get on with a peaceful solution.

Syrian Crisis- Brinkmanship or Accidental Diplomacy?

Every president makes off the cuff remarks they regret.  Every once in a while these remarks  shape our history.  They reveal both the humanity and the conscience  of presidents. Can every statement a president says instantly and accurately pass through the filter of being consistent with policy, partisan platform, popular opinion, constitutional and international law,  personal judgement and morally right? Hardly.  

In the old days, presidents would meet with reporters and declare statements to be “off the record and not attributable”. Roosevelt was famous for confiding in the press and at the same time controlling what they reported. Those old days of presidents controlling the press  are long gone (thankfully). Yet, Obama’s “red line” comment was off the cuff, not a prepared policy statement.  The civilized world abhors indiscriminate killing with chemical weapons.

The President said what he believed to be the morally right thing to deter their use. The problem, of course is obvious; his comment instantly became policy of a world power with all the trimmings of honor, commitment, and worldly expectations;   the proverbial chip on the shoulder of a school yard bully flicked off before the eyes of the world. 

Presidents are usually pretty good at sticking to the script (they’re all politicians, that’s what they do), and they avoid letting policy statements  be trumped by personal conscience. When they do, it’s usually news!   They’re human.  And sometimes it shapes history. 

 Now another off the cuff remark, this time from Kerry, may have opened the door to avert a calamity. Kerry’s remark sounded more like a personal response of  moral conscience than policy, and he quickly caught himself in real-time as he was speaking by ending his sentence with the  political proviso that “of course it can’t be done”. 

Yet now a diplomatic solution (stalled  for years) appears to be feasible-- probably only because we are on the brink of military action ......... 24 hours after Kerry’s remark most politicians who were in favor of taking military action are now falling all over themselves in support of a diplomatic solution.  

But the real force in this crisis was the voice of America, screaming for a diplomatic solution. Obama even admitted, “the American people aren’t with me on this”.... and now he’s hopeful of a diplomatic solution. The conservative newspaper, Union Leader’s own poll (at last count) shows 81% of respondents do not support military action.  Military action is dead. 

The president will speak tonight. Yet, he's caught in a Twitter world where events move as quickly as tweets, and world opinion and policy is shaped in hours- not days or weeks! The President is no doubt re-writing his speech today. Originally  scheduled to win public approval for military action, rather than cancel the time slot, he will now most likely make an international policy statement of the diplomatic process to handover Syria’s chemical weapons to international control.  Let's hope the speech he writes this afternoon is still relevant tonight. These are interesting times!

My First Paying Job

My first paying job was as a newspaper delivery boy for the Washington Post when I was 13. It was 1958.  I lived in Kensington, Md. The Post was a morning edition. I had to get up at 4am and walk to the  newspaper drop point about six blocks from my house. I can’t remember how many customers I had, but I had to deliver the papers in two loads because my newspaper bag wouldn’t hold all of them. I’d get back home about 6:30 or 7 in the morning, eat breakfast and walk to school.  

This was a seven day a week job, (Sundays were brutal!) and once a month I had to go out to every single house in the evening  to collect the paper money from the customers. Sometimes I had to go back to a person’s house several times before I could get them to pay up. (That was my first experience with poor credit risks.) I found that if I went back often enough I could shame them into paying what they owed me. I figured the job was about 65 hours a month, for which I netted about $15-$20.  

I will say the man who dropped off the papers, and for whom I was a subcontractor of sorts, was a life long inspiration. I was always at the drop point waiting for him, most kids weren’t.  He really appreciated that, because papers left laying around can and did get stolen. He was always cheerful and and he had nice things to say. I didn't know if he was married, or if had any kids, or if this was a temp  job  or if this was his life's career job, but he seemed to enjoy his work. His enthusiasm was contagious and I enjoyed working for him. People like to work for people they like. 

 One day, it was snowing and he didn’t show up at the usual time. I ran home, got a couple of hot dogs, ran back to the drop corner, made a stick fire and roasted hotdogs waiting for him. When he finally pulled up, he couldn’t believe his eyes! I gave him a hot dog. 

Later he gave me a set of cuff links as a tip for my diligent work.  I was beside myself! They were only costume jewelry, but it was the first bonus I ever received!  A fancy little box contained two sets of cuff links, one silver and one gold. When my dress called for cuff links, I have always worn those inexpensive cuff links all my life (and still do) as a reminder of my first job and my first boss. I keep them in my  Dopp kit bag. They have a nice patina now, where the gold plating has worn off and exposed the brass. They don't have any value, but for me they are a treasure. Funny how a little thing like that can shape a person’s work ethic.

Detroit- "We built it, We Abandoned it"

Any community that depends on a single form of manufacturing can not survive if those companies pull up stakes and leave.  NH is a great example of corporate desertion with many “mill towns” that suffered after a manufacturing exodus.  Sure, after a very long period of adjustment, some towns like Manchester and Nashua have recovered, but others never did.  

After fifty years the mill buildings in Manchester  have clawed their way back to near full occupancy. (Yet some are still vacant today.) Detroit was once the  “Motor City” and the center of auto production. Today it produces fewer cars than any auto plant in America.  The auto giants gradually motored out of town in search of  lower paying, non-union assembly plants in the south, Mexico and Canada.  

The people who depended on those jobs, and the city itself, was a blur in the “Big Three’s” rear view mirror. I realize our “free enterprise” system is under no legal obligation for the welfare of a community, even if they built the community. But it stinks- both morally and ethically-  to benefit from a community and then abandon the city they built  in search of maximizing profit. The free enterprise system will endlessly seek the lowest possible labor cost, wherever it may be, in what ever country it may be.  

Maybe the Republican big business motto should be, “We built it, we abandoned it.”

Zimmerman Verdict: Justice Aborted in an Anti-Abortion State

This is what bothers me about the Zimmerman verdict: If a twenty something black guy, armed with a gun, stalked a 15 year old white kid returning from the store with a box Skittles, and the little white kid had the nerve to try to defend himself, and was shot and killed in the process, what would’ve happened to the black dude with gun? He’d be on death row now,  that’s what.

Southerners  hate to see the race card waived in their face, but damn, wake up!  Zimmerman could’ve defended himself with his fists.  That’s  what Martin was trying to do. If Martin had the upper hand on him, Zimmerman would’ve been a very sore and beat up guy, but he’d still be alive!  Shooting an unarmed man, even in a scuffle, has always been considered excessive use of force, that is, unless you’re a white guy pulling the trigger and a black guy receiving the bullet.

Republicans keep whining about Obamacare- Now the delay, Why?

Republicans will never stop whining about Obamacare, but they should just get over it. It’s the law of the land.  No one ever said reforming our healthcare system would be easy. The law was passed in 2010, with a plan to phase in various aspects of the program so as not to create chaos, and allow a smooth transition. 

Delaying the employer mandate a year should be a welcome relief to businesses(many whom are Republicans), but Republicans  don't want healthcare reform. They want chaos and dissension. They want Obamacare to fail.  Giving the Government another year to phase in mandates helps, not hurts, the implementation. That’s why Republicans are whining about the delay.  They want healthcare to be denied to millions of Americans.  Obamacare is far from perfect, but it's way better than the Republicans -“Nocare”.  

Despite their constant opposition, Obamacare is a major compromise to the  Republicans. Other than expanding healthcare to people who don't have it and taking on all comers, keeping healthcare reform in the hands of for-profit health insurance companies does little to improve care or reduce costs. True healthcare reform will come by lowering the Medicare eligibility age to zero,  and have one single payor system for everybody. Then healthcare will be fixed.