Romney in Israel: Palestinian Culture, Occupation, Racism and Providence

*This was going to be a much longer post and one with a slightly different emphasis but as often happens work and other events intervened and required me to abbreviate it greatly. Hopefully that will be a good thing as I am always seeking to write more concisely anyway.

So boring apologia aside you may have heard that Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney made a bit of a gaffe recently when he made remarks that could be construed as insulting  by comparing the Israeli culture to that of the Palestinians and suggesting that not only was the Israeli culture superior but also that the Israelis were blessed by God and that these two things explained the difference in economic success between the two peoples. Needless to say, this did not go over very well with the Palestinians, who blasted the statements as ignorant and racist. 

Mitt Romney told Jewish donors Monday that their culture is part of what has allowed them to be more economically successful than the nearby Palestinians, outraging Palestinian leaders who called his comments racist and out of touch.

"As you come here and you see the GDP per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000 dollars, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality," the Republican presidential candidate told about 40 wealthy donors who breakfasted around a U-shaped table at the luxurious King David Hotel.**

"And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things," Romney said, citing an innovative business climate, the Jewish history of thriving in difficult circumstances and the "hand of providence."

Of course Palestinians are not a key source of funding for Romney's campaign so Romney had no problem doubling down on his statements in a National Review editorial. Picking a fight with people who have virtually no representation in the Western media on behalf on people who have immense representation in the Western media would not seem to be a particularly brave thing to do but then again Romney never claimed to be a profile in courage. I do think however that he and his advisers, including the neo-con Dan Senor, really are being honest about their understanding of the difference in economic output between Israel, or more precisely, Jewish Israelis, and Palestinians, whether they live within the 1967 Israeli borders or in the occupied West Bank and restricted Gaza Strip. This honesty is useful. But it's not restricted to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. It's something that we see time and time again whenever one group of people have conquered or subjugated another one.

For example, let's say you are taking a shortcut off the expressway from one suburb to another and temporarily wind up in Inner City USA. You're going to notice that the houses and stores (if they exist) are not as new or as clean as in your area. You're going to notice that the people are demographically much different. You may find it prudent to lock your doors and windows.
You may not see a lot of economic activity.
Or let's say that you visit an Indian reservation. You will probably find a number of people who are suffering from alcoholism or unreported sexual assaults or obesity and diabetes. Again, chances are you won't find a huge number of new clean supermarkets.
You could repeat the same scene in a Brazilian favela or a number of Indian cities and so forth and so on.

Now if you lack curiosity or interest in what's going on around you and you REALLY don't want to know that people that look like you might have had something to do with those situations, it would be much easier on your ego to state that those people just have an inferior culture. They have chosen to make bad decisions and that's why they're where they are. It's too bad but unless and until they decide to be more like me, chances are they'll be in the same spot. I'm no racist but why don't they just do blah, blah, blah.. and so on.

On the other hand if you are historically curious or even slightly open to the idea that people aren't all THAT different and few people WANT to be impoverished or poor you might do some research and find out that the black people in the inner city are generally descended from people who had to work for free for over 250 years and were non-citizens for another 100 years. They also had their cultures, languages and religions erased and replaced with an ideology that told them they were the lowest of the low and God didn't look like them or love them. It's only in the past 40-50 years that some of that has started to slowly and fitfully change.

You might do some research and learn that those people you see on the "reservation" had and have a vibrant culture but were defeated in battle, slaughtered en masse and virtually exterminated from the continent. The reservations are almost always located in undesirable places that the larger society doesn't want and are both beyond many local legal protections and often subject to dictates from the Federal government.

Or were you Romney, you might do some basic research and discover that those Palestinians once had the majority of what is today Israel but like the American Indians, have fallen victim to a militarily superior group of people, who having ethnically cleansed much of Israel from Palestinian presence, are stubbornly continuing a policy of occupation, colonization and displacement in the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinians have been under military occupation longer than I've been alive. One of the critical things about military occupation is that it's rather difficult to build an independent functioning economy. EVERYTHING that a business or entrepreneur would need to build or expand his business can be revoked in the twinkling of an eye by a bully with a gun. Think you'll expand your factory in the next lot? Sorry, the IDF just took that lot over for artillery practice. Considering opening an olive supply business? Too bad, the army and settlers decided to uproot your olive grove for a new road for Jewish settlers. Want to open a pizza delivery business? Well you can forget about 30 minutes or less delivery as there are roadblocks and delays all over your area and even if there weren't, again any soldier who's in a bad mood can arbitrarily decide to prevent you or your drivers from traveling the next 5 miles-for no reason other than she feels like it.

I don't deny that cultures differ nor do I deny that some individuals need a kick in their a$$. Many of us know the uncle or friend who always has his hand out for a loan but avoids job interviews like a vampire avoids sunlight, the sister-in-law who always has the latest cell phone and apps but can't seem to plan for her mortgage, or the ne'er-do-well nephew who has big get rich quick plans that require your financial underwriting. It's precisely because we know these individuals that as individuals we can feel comfortable in saying "Get a job" or "No I'm not giving you any money" or "What you really need to do is blah, blah, blah".

But to generalize to a whole group of people and claim that their problem is their culture seems a bit much. You have to look at the whole picture. That picture is going to include ugly things like racism, genocide, self-hatred, and OCCUPATION. We might even flip the script, as Martin Luther King once suggested, to do an intensified study on the dominant group to ask what is the problem with THEIR culture?

There are several countries with higher per capita GDP than Israel. Would Romney suggest that those countries have a superior culture?
Romney ignored the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and its unceasing land theft because those ugly little facts might have a little more to do with Palestinian economic growth than God not loving them or their deficient culture. Of course the Palestinians could have a bad culture that inhibits growth. To be sure, at the very least we would need to run an experiment in which the Palestinians put the Israelis under military occupation for multiple decades, imprison thousands of Israelis without trial or charges, and take more and more land.  Maybe even under those conditions the Israelis would be more economically productive than the Palestinians are today. Only one way to find out!!!

** I just have to mention the horrible irony of Romney giving his speech at the King David Hotel. This was the scene of a horrible terrorist attack by members of the hardline Irgun Jewish group. It killed over 90 people and has never quite been forgiven by the British or repudiated by the Israelis. In fact some Irgun members later became Israeli political leaders. One man's terrorist really is another man's freedom fighter.

What are your thoughts?

Were Romney's statements bigoted?

Does culture impact a society's economic success? If so how much?

The Supreme Court, ObamaCare and Moral Claims of Freedom

The Supreme Court has spoken. The constitutional battle over ObamaCare is over. The President and his much derided solicitor general won on most of the legal merits and the policy implementation. Even as the Supreme Court (rightly in my view) rejected the Administration's argument that the Commerce Clause allowed a mandate to purchase health care coverage, it (wrongly in my view) allowed the individual mandate to stand by wrongly characterizing it as a tax. Very few people besides Lauryn Hill, Wesley Snipes or Irwin Schiff question the government's ability to tax and spend so the Supreme Court called the mandate a tax and allowed it to stand.


So that is that. Short of a (currently unlikely) Romney victory and (quite unlikely) total Republican November sweep of the House and Senate, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a settled issue. There are some Republican governors who are threatening, as is their right, to refuse to set up exchanges or expand Medicaid while for the 33rd time the House voted to repeal the law but those are die-hard responses that won't "pull up ObamaCare by its roots" as some desired.


One thing that I've noticed is that partisans on either side make the mistake of personalizing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (hence the name ObamaCare). This explains the insane "I will break him" attitude of many Republicans and the joy of some PPACA supporters who didn't really look at the fine print.

Too many PPACA supporters make the mistake of assuming that all opposition must, by definition, be based in dislike for the President. This is not the case. There are two major objections to the PPACA, which are shared in different ways by principled dissidents on both the left and right as well as some libertarians across the board.
First, there has been a reduction in freedom. This is the critical issue to people who tend libertarian and/or are opposed to the mandate. 


Unfortunately many people on the left and/or supporters of PPACA miss this entirely. They assume that anyone who invokes this concern is either a useful idiot (if they're leftist) or a liar (if they're on the right). Well maybe. But remember we talked recently about how many people on the left place equality and compassion as the highest and in some cases only moral values. This is an excellent example of that. In order to supposedly move towards equality and compassion the people who support the mandate are perfectly willing to reduce your freedom to make choices about what sort of health care you want. Now think about some of the other power-mad people that are in executive office around the nation. Can you imagine what a President Bloomberg might do with such powers? What sort of nation do you want? Do you want an activist relatively unrestrained centralized government?

I live in Michigan which has a higher than normal amount of truly obese people of all races. It's especially bad for Hispanics and Blacks. All else equal, obese people cost the public and private sector more in medical coverage. They clog the health care system with their (preventable) diseases and conditions. The slender, underweight, normal sized or moderately overweight workers pay money into a system that transfers much of that money to obese care. Why should I pay money to subsidize some free-loading fattie? So OBVIOUSLY we need a mandate that obese people (BMI of 31 or greater, or body fat pct of 32% or higher) join a health club and maintain that membership until their BMI falls to 28 or lower. To make it nice and constitutional we'll just levy a tax on porcine people who refuse the new mandate or can't lose the weight. Sound good?? Well if I happened to own a health club I would love this idea. 
People that drive trucks use more gasoline, contribute more to global warming and damage roads more quickly. And those doggone people won't stop buying trucks even as gasoline stays above $3/gallon. So OBVIOUSLY we need a mandate that everyone purchase either a Volt, a Focus, a Leaf, or a Nano. So those of you who like your Rams or F-150s sorry pal. You're hurting the economy. But why stop there?

There's a doctor shortage, This affects health care. And that's commerce. Too many smart people are going into law or finance. This is an OBVIOUS resource misallocation. Don't these people know that they owe it to us all to make the right choice? We'll just mandate that certain people become doctors. After all chances are that they're receiving some form of government tuition assistance. And should they disagree well that's no problem, we'll just refuse them student loans and make them pay added penalties on any income earned outside of the medical field. We'll soon have more doctors to treat the expanded patient base.
Now that we've accepted that anything (including inactivity) that impacts commerce can be taxed and mandated why not just go for broke. Business hiring decisions have a much larger immediate economic impact than health care provision health care. Corporations are sitting on trillions in cash and refusing to hire people. This hurts the economy. In fact it's economic treason. So let's just mandate that corporations hire people until the unemployment rate is at 5% or lower. Those companies that refuse will have to pay a penalty tax. The Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of Treasury will oversee this program.

And so on. You may think I am being ridiculous. Maybe I am. You may think there are political, legal or constitutional barriers. You may even think some of those are good ideas. But I don't think any of them are good ideas. And I think they are slightly more likely than they were a month ago. The government has unparalleled coercive powers. I don't think it's a coincidence that after the PPACA was upheld we see NYT editorials endorsing the idea of using eminent domain to seize homes that are underwater and give them to other investors for resale or using the power to draft to create a national service cadre of lower paid/unpaid young workers that would undercut unionized labor.


Secondly, the law doesn't solve the problem it was meant to solve. It does not bend the cost curve. How could it? Big pharma maintains protection from cheaper generic drugs. Hospitals have greater incentives to merge. There is no legal mechanism to limit or prevent premium increases. All else equal there will be greater demand for roughly the same supply of services. That means, premiums will increase, as mine already have. It makes it more difficult, if not impossible to push for a single payer program in the US and may increase medical costs abroad.

Who are the people who lack health insurance. Well some are the long-term unemployed. Others are illegal immigrants, who will still be uncovered under this plan and will still be seeking assistance in the ER. Others are people with conditions that are simply so expensive to treat that their insurer has kicked them off their plan and/or other insurers have refused to cover them. Others are employed people who either can't afford coverage or who work somewhere where coverage isn't offered. And finally there are people who, affordability aside, have made a rational choice they they don't currently need health care insurance. 
This last group (the smallest) has received much scorn and opprobrium for supposedly driving up insurance premiums. People speak of them with contempt. They tend to be younger and/or in better health so they are much desired as customers by insurers because they will tend to pay premiums but cost very little in coverage. I don't understand why it is okay to speak with disdain of people standing on their own two feet but if someone has an unkind word to say about a welfare recipient, who is taking from the system, then that's a bad thing. At the very least it's safe to say that this law will have some unintended consequences.


Obviously some people are not fans of the 9th amendment, the 10th amendment or of a Federal Government with limited enumerated powers. That's fine. Evidently portions of the Constitution don't mean what I thought they meant. Cool. Hey I'm no constitutional scholar. I'm just an IT guy.


But, if we did decide that we really really really wanted a Federal Government with limited and enumerated powers and that the 9th and 10th amendments were actually meaningful amendments rather than the redheaded ugly stepchildren of the Bill of Rights, what changes would we need to make to the Constitution since evidently some parts just aren't clear??? This is not a rhetorical question. My concept is that government should stick to its limited roles but otherwise leave me alone.

Now that the issue has been settled, at least in the courts:

What are your thoughts?

Do you at least understand the opposing side (whatever side that is)?

Do you think this will be an issue in the November election?

Do you want a limited federal government or a large unlimited federal government?

Game of Thrones Political Ads

As a brief respite from the real life political issues of the day I thought it would be fun to have a quick jaunt back over to Westeros. If there were political campaign ads in Westeros what would they look like?*

*Do not go to youtube and read comments on these videos as most contain spoilers. Just watch them here. And as always please do not share any spoiler material. Many people (i.e blog partners) have not read the books and would be very upset with you if you spoiled their enjoyment of what has yet to be told in the story. They might even demand your head on a spike or ask you to decide between keeping your tongue or your hands or something like that...

Carter: Obama's Cruel and Unusual Record

We have previously discussed the horrible civil liberties and foreign policy record of the Obama Administration. Generally speaking, many liberals or progressives have assiduously ignored these things or blindly bleated that the Republicans would be worse. Some have argued that the President has access to information that we don't so we must trust him. Well maybe. But President Carter isn't having it. In a NYT column in which he never mentions President Obama by name he tears apart the post-9/11 dismantling of human rights and rule of law, which as he sees it, President Obama has accelerated.

This a really good read and you should check it out. I don't have a lot to say about this mostly because I've said it all before and somewhat because I happen to be in a bit of a pickle on the day job.

Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended. This development began after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has been sanctioned and escalated by bipartisan executive and legislative actions, without dissent from the general public. As a result, our country can no longer speak with moral authority on these critical issues.  

Despite an arbitrary rule that any man killed by drones is declared an enemy terrorist, the death of nearby innocent women and children is accepted as inevitable. After more than 30 airstrikes on civilian homes this year in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has demanded that such attacks end, but the practice continues in areas of Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen that are not in any war zone. We don’t know how many hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed in these attacks, each one approved by the highest authorities in Washington. This would have been unthinkable in previous times.These policies clearly affect American foreign policy. Top intelligence and military officials, as well as rights defenders in targeted areas, affirm that the great escalation in drone attacks has turned aggrieved families toward terrorist organizations, aroused civilian populations against us and permitted repressive governments to cite such actions to justify their own despotic behavior.

I will say that Carter's elegy for the US role as protector of human rights and guarantor of law is an excellent reminder that some values are above and beyond partisanship. There are greater goals for the republic than whether or not a Democrat or Republican is in the White House this time next year. Some things are just wrong no matter who is doing them. And the arc of the country does not seem to bending towards an appreciation of that fact or towards a limited executive branch power. Carter sounds quite close to Tariq Ali's analysis in a review we did some time ago.

You can read the entire piece here. There are good reasons why people who cherish civil liberties may not see either major party presidential candidate as worthy of their vote in the fall election. But ultimately I think both candidates reflect a spreading moral rot in the American body politic. Unfortunately, thanks to human nature, people only tend to see these dangers when it's the other party that is involved in making mincemeat out of constitutional and legal provisions. The Republicans who found new appreciation for Congress as an equal branch of government once Obama was elected are matched by Democrats who suddenly realized that the unitary executive theory wasn't a bad idea, so long as Obama was President that is. So it goes.

What's your take?
Is Carter right?
Do you think it is correct for him to criticize (implicitly) the previous two Presidents?

Breaking News: Obama Administration to give work permits for Illegal Immigrants!!!

The Obama Administration intends to grant work permits to illegal immigrants. This is great news for the people so impacted (i.e. illegal immigrants)  and also some people of goodwill who support some form of legalization but believe you me this will cause venomous opposition from some other voters. Some people will not understand why at a time of 8% unemployment you would want to increase the workforce. The Obama Administration is probably gambling that most people that will be opposed to this were already opposed to the Administration. Perhaps. We shall see. Although the US Latino population has increased dramatically over the past two decades that growth is not reflected at the ballot box, something that worries some Democrats. This could be a game changer either way for the election. I have to do more research to understand how this is even possible without some form of Congressional assent. There's no way that I see this as anything other than horrible pandering to one group at the expense of other groups, not to mention law and order but that may be a minority opinion here. Let us know what you think!!!

LINK

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will stop deporting and begin granting work permits to younger illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and have since led law-abiding lives. The election-year initiative addresses a top priority of an influential Latino electorate that has been vocal in its opposition to administration deportation policies.

The policy change, described to The Associated Press by two senior administration officials, will affect as many as 800,000 immigrants who have lived in fear of deportation. It also bypasses Congress and partially achieves the goals of the so-called DREAM Act, a long-sought but never enacted plan to establish a path toward citizenship for young people who came to the United States illegally but who have attended college or served in the military.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was to announce the new policy Friday, one week before President Barack Obama plans to address the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials' annual conference in Orlando, Fla. Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney is scheduled to speak to the group on Thursday.

Under the administration plan, illegal immigrants will be immune from deportation if they were brought to the United States before they turned 16 and are younger than 30, have been in the country for at least five continuous years, have no criminal history, graduated from a U.S. high school or earned a GED, or served in the military. They also can apply for a work permit that will be good for two years with no limits on how many times it can be renewed. The officials who described the plan spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss it in advance of the official announcement.

The policy will not lead toward citizenship but will remove the threat of deportation and grant the ability to work legally, leaving eligible immigrants able to remain in the United States for extended periods.

Let's bomb Iran!!!

You may have noticed that Iran is in the news a lot lately. Israel Someone has been murdering their nuclear research scientists while various politicians in the United States and Israel and elsewhere are pounding the drums for war. The cause? Well they say that Iran is working on a nuclear bomb and will attack Israel. Therefore we (by which they mean the US) must attack Iran immediately otherwise it's just like 1939 all over again and we (by which they mean the US) are appeasing Hitler. The President, mistakenly in my view, spoke before AIPAC on Sunday, where he said that he was willing to use military force to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Netanyahu will meet with President Obama on Monday to presumably make more of these arguments and attempt to get even firmer commitments of war. After all, before the election is when Netanyahu's influence over President Obama will be at its peak.

There are many problems with this line of logic. Honestly I am too disgusted and too busy with other things today to go off into a long essay about this. I am trying to write shorter pieces anyway. So let's just stick to a few pertinent facts here.

1. According to the US NIE estimates of 2007, 2010 and the most recent, Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. Period.
2. The same malicious mendacious miscreants who lied us into war over Iraqi WMD are currently saying the same things about Iran. Of course even a broken clock is right twice a day but given that the costs of war are immense and these malicious mendacious miscreants are known to be liars, one should at the very least check what they say to see if it passes the smell test. And if you lean closer for a good whiff, I think you're going to smell rotten eggs. Again.
3. Iran has not attacked the United States.
4. Israel has nuclear weapons of its own.

Netanyahu, a senior Israeli official actually had the chutzpah to accuse an AMERICAN general of saying something "that served Iran's interests." Now I am hardly the most jingoistic fellow around but in my view if you're taking American money (which Israel is to the tune of over $3 billion in official aid each year) then you need to keep a civil tongue. Where the hell does some foreigner get off talking about an American military leader in such a way?

So to reiterate, a foreign client state (with the help of domestic warmongering neocons, chickenhawks, and neo-colonialists) is trying to bully the United States into greenlighting its attack or preferably making its own attack on Iran. Didn't we JUST go through this? As any dog trainer will tell you when a dog pulls on the leash you must immediately adjust its attitude so that it understands that you, not it, are the one in charge. Otherwise you're gonna get pulled every which way when you go for walks. It is easiest to correct this when the dog is a puppy. Doing so when the dog is full grown and stronger than you is quite painful for you and the dog. But corrected it must be. It's long past time that the US gave Israel a collar pop and stopped moving. The Israeli right wing doesn't seem to understand who's holding the leash in the relationship. Or maybe I don't understand...

Do I think that the mullahs in Iran are nice people? Of course not.
But the world is full of countries run by people that are not so nice. I don't think it's the job of the United States to run around overthrowing governments that it doesn't like.

War with Iran is not in the interest of the United States. We don't need increased gasoline prices. We don't need more body bags coming home.  We don't need to spend billions more on war. We don't need another occupation. And unless I missed something China and Russia are not on board with attacks on Iran. Feeling misled by the US war on Libya, China and Russia vetoed a UN resolution on Syria. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. Will they go along with an attack on Iran?

Something has gone very wrong in the American body politic. Another war of choice should not even be up for discussion at this point. I think that because of the volunteer Armed services, the incredible amounts of firepower that we possess and the good fortune to mostly have avoided battle in this country, most people don't have any understanding of the costs of war. Our idea (non-military) of war is something in which the other side does all of the dying. From a purely pragmatic point that may be a good thing but most of the people who think that probably aren't worried about their children being born deformed from depleted uranium usage, their daughters turning to prostitution to provide for the family, or having to worry about getting clean drinking water.

Am I the only person who remembers this quote???

"War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”


Questions
1) Do you think either the US or Israel should or will attack Iran this year?
2) What impact would a possible war with Iran have on the fall election?
3) Will an attack on/war with Iran prevent an Iranian nuclear weapons program or make it more likely?
4) Why don't we have an off switch for wars anymore?

Super Bowl Commercial: Republican Racism or Fair Criticism?

There is a honest way to criticize the role that China plays today in our world-its devotion to mercantilism, its general refusal to protect US intellectual property rights, its contribution to climate change, its currency manipulation, its reliance on cheap labor and repressive central government. However Michigan Republican senatorial candidate (and former congressman) Pete Hoekstra decided not to make any of those thoughtful arguments in his campaign ad attacking Michigan Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow. No, Hoekstra went for the more visceral approach.

And so far Hoesktra is holding firm in defending the ad. Hoekstra is not exactly known for being union-friendly but Michigan is a state which has not had much benefit from "globalization". Whether it be foreign students in Michigan universities, foreign car sales threatening the health of the Big Three, or US companies packing up and moving their entire operation overseas, globalization and outsourcing are epithets around here. Still, Hoekstra HAD to know that such an ad would bring commentary and disgust, which may well be what he wanted. He is claiming that his detractors are the ones bringing race into the discussion, not him. I think this is kind of like repeating the children's ditty about Chinese and Coca-Cola and being surprised and offended that anyone is actually, well , offended. The other issue in the background is that once these sorts of feelings get aroused and exploited, who knows where they can end up.

King said it's too early in the campaign to know what kind of impact the ad  will have politically. It depends, she said, on whether he can neutralize the fallout and how the opposition uses it.
There was one immediate effect. Washtenaw County Commissioner Alicia Ping on Monday was so offended by the ad she donated money to Hoekstra opponent Clark Durant's campaign."For him not to know that this is unacceptable, either he doesn't care or he doesn't get it," said the Saline Republican, who is Chinese-American.

On Monday, Hoekstra stood by the $144,000 statewide ad buy, blaming the "left" for bringing up racial concerns to divert the conversation from the real issue he was pushing of Democratic incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow's spending record.
"We're stereotyping here the American left who's more than willing to spend, spend, spend," Hoekstra told a group of supportive voters in Birmingham on Monday morning. "This is why they're angry. They're not angry about stereotyping the Chinese. They don't care."
Hoekstra said he wanted to be "bold" and "daring" and he urged supporters to explain to friends that it's his opponent who is "politically incorrect."  "Debbie is spending your money, and your kids' and your grandkids' money. That's politically incorrect," he said. 

Nick De Leeuw, a Michigan GOP consultant, scolded Hoekstra's spot on Facebook: "Racism and xenophobia aren't any way to get things done." TV host Lou Dobbs said on Fox News that Hoekstra is "doing a terrific job" at defining results of public policy choices.

SOURCE

QUESTIONS
1) Do you find this offensive? If not, why?
2) Is China's economic relationship with the US a fair topic to discuss?
3) How would you re-work this ad if you were a consultant?

The US Senate -It's a Man's World

The US Senate has often been described as a club, a boy's club.  There are 17 women in the Senate. Some people wish to increase that number and are deeply worried about the coming elections. For some activists, political analysts and female Senators, the prospect of having a US Senate with fewer women is just horrible. Worse it's bad for democracy.

Ok. I have no issue with stating that representative institutions should try to be, well representative. That's fine. However as usually is the case when these kinds of discussions pop up the people agitating for more women in the US Senate fall back on hyperbolic claims that the US Senate or democracy itself would somehow be transformed for the better because women somehow have special insights or are just more moral than men.

"When women are part of the negotiation and are part of decision-making, the outcomes are just better," said Gillibrand. "When we have our dinners with the women in the Senate -- the Democrats and Republicans -- we have so much common ground. We agree on so many basic principles and values. I think if there were more women at the decision-making table, we would get more things done."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) echoed that sentiment at Fortune magazine's "Most Powerful Women" dinner in April 2010.

When asked about progress on regulatory reform legislation, Feinstein replied, "Well, I actually think that if we had all women [in the Senate],we would solve the problem."

 Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who was sitting in the front row at the event, enthusiastically clapped in response.

"There was a moment there at the end of the debt ceiling [debate] that some of the women, on a bipartisan basis, were talking about, 'We need to take this over and get this done,'" said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who is running for her second term in 2012. "I think we are, by our nature, nurturers and negotiators. We want people to get along, we want to find a solution, we want to move forward. I think sometimes there is a tendency to like the fight for the fight's sake every once in awhile with some of the guys. So I think having more women involved will help."

Huffington Post Article

Horsefeathers! 

Senator Feinstein's comment stood out to me, not only because of its obvious chauvinism but also because Feinstein was and is in my opinion one of the more ethically challenged people in the US Senate. She is exactly the sort of person that both the Tea Party and the 99% movement would likely agree on as an example of the odious nexus between big money, big government, war profiteering and private enrichment at the public trough. If we had more women like Dianne Feinstein in the US Senate this country would be in even worse condition than it is.

I've been in the world a while now and although there are obvious deep differences both physically and socially/emotionally between men and women I think these are dwarfed by the similarities. And whatever differences I have noticed between men and women certainly haven't been MORAL ones.

I've worked with women bosses or co-workers that: 

• were racist or bigoted
• were bullies
• used sex appeal or sex to get ahead
• used seeming weakness to manipulate people
• were greedy and shortsighted
• were lazy
• were unqualified for their position
• were unable to work well with others or admit mistakes
• were emotionally crippled
• were more dedicated to their job than anyone else
• were gracious and kind
• went above and beyond to help me and others succeed
• were extremely smart
• were incredibly talented hardworking people

In short the women I work(ed) with ran the entire gamut of humanity, just like men did. HOW they expressed themselves might differ a bit from men on average but WHAT they expressed did not. Not at all.

Now Senator Feinstein's and Senator McCaskill's comments, much like Justice Sotomayor's "Wise Latina" crack may not be noticed or may be excused as understandable hyperbole-coming from women that is. It's a minor bigotry as such things go.

But what if say Rick Santorum or Rick Perry stood up and said 

"I agree with Senators Feinstein and McCaskill. Women are more nurturing and that is exactly why we need fewer of them in the Senate. The Senate is not a place for nurturing. It is a place for sober reflection, cold logic and deliberate hardball negotiation. And men are by our very nature, tacticians and philosophers."

Obviously that would be a career limiting move to say the least. But that is one logical outcome of the statements about nurturing.

My fundamental belief is that people are generally the same, morally. I don't believe that women are better than men, that whites are better than blacks or whatever. If the Knesset and Hamas and the PA were made up of all women there would still be rockets and bombs flying back and forth between the West Bank, Gaza and Israel. The only difference is the bombs might have pink ribbons attached.

For whatever reason, whether it be biological or sociological there are more men that want to run for office. So more men get elected. As long as their voters are satisfied with the outcomes I don't think their gender is relevant. And the idea that because a slight majority of the population is women means that the Senate representation should be 50-50 or close to it makes no sense to me. Because so many of the people who state that or imply it are not concerned about the increasing decline of men in college or the workplace. It's as if where women are less than 50% of a given population there must be changes made to bring women in but where women are more than 50% of a given population , well that's wonderful progress. Heads I win, tails you lose.

There are some nations in the world which have legally required or informal quotas for female representation in their legislative bodies. I don't think that's going to happen here, fortunately. I think that over time we will see more women in the House and Senate. But I don't think that's something that is going to be imposed from above. And I also don't think it will make a tremendous amount of difference in how the system is run. Again, as Feinstein shows, it's money that makes the world go round..

QUESTIONS

1) What's your take? Do you think the US Senate needs more women?

2) Would a Senate made up of all women be better for the US?

3) Why don't more women run for office?