I remember returning to the US in 1998 after an extended visit to Europe and other parts of the world. It was like returning to an alternate or parallel universe. Other parts of the world were gripped and inundated at the time by the fractious and debilitating crises in the Balkans rife with ethnic cleansing, annihilation of innocent men, women and children by nationalism run amok.
In the US, the only news on television and cable was in the putrid scandal of the Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal and his (Clinton's) eventual impeachment. I realized then that once the US is consumed by the "news of the hour" there is other-worldly distance placed on less intriguing news, especially if they are of the international variety. Case in point would be the Casey Anthony legal spectacle that gripped this nation about a month ago. Our national obsession of this debacle was spectacularly disturbing. Recently, the Debt Ceiling debate was the most recent. The point is not in the following of these important stories, but the other major news-worthy items that we lose in the process, especially on its importance to the ordinary citizens.
One such epochal event was the massacre in Norway on July 22. This story was severely under-reported and under-analyzed in the US, especially for its far-reaching global implications.
The very fact that Norway, one of the most peaceful havens on this planet, could come under such draconian attack by what is likely to be a sole attacker is hugely disturbing on so many levels.
Ironically, the killer, Anders Behring Breivik, cited the Balkan conflict as the event that kindled his anti-Islamic bent that led to his massacre of over 90 innocent people in Norway. He rails against multiculturalists for condoning and accepting Muslims into European societies. He believes this would be the death knell to his beloved Continent if they (Muslims) are not resisted and expelled from Europe. So entrenched was he in his convictions that he staged an elaborately maniacal and diabolical exercise that has probably scarred a nation as peaceful as Norway - probably forever.
The purpose of this blog is to highlight a few of my thoughts on this matter. For starters, the fear of Islamic Fundamentalism is real. We cannot talk or analyze enough the loss of innocence America and Americans felt and continue to feel after the horrendous attack on 09/11. It changed our lives and our world in ways that we are still trying to piece together. Then the 07/07 attacks in the UK further entrenched this phenomenon by showing that any and everyone can be touched by Islamists. In the last few years, we have watched with horror as hitherto peaceful countries have felt the garish attacks of fundamentalists in Denmark, Sweden, and many regions in Africa. Who can deny the fact that the Fort Hood shooting in November 5, 2009 by a US Army Major that killed 14 people or the recently averted massacre by Private First Class Naser Jason Abdo are real threats to the fabric of our societal sanity?
It is the response to these brutal attacks that has me wondering if we are losing our "collective souls" to this deepening problem. What I mean is this: All over Europe, there seems to be an upsurge in Nationalist and a revival of Revanchist and Right Wing Movements. I remember watching the Republican Presidential debate recently in which Herman Cain was given a standing ovation for his anti-Islamic sentiments. There is a wave of anti-Mosque sentiments in which many Americans are chillingly against anything Islam in their communities - at epitomized by the debates in New York and Tennessee. There is even a catalog of fear and rumor mongering amongst our politicians on the establishment of Sharia Law as a potential replacement to the American Constitution.
The question is: What kind of people are we becoming - in the US, Europe and the rest of the world - when the solution to Islamic Fundamentalism is to fight hate with hate? Nothing good can ever come out of embracing the Breiviks of the world as they open us up to morphing into the very calluses we are trying to eradicate. Also as important is the fact that there has to be a demarcation between Islam and Islamists. My faith is Christian but I know that to paint a general brushstroke on all adherents of the Islamic religion as terrorists is not only calamitous but dangerously ignorant.
This blog is not necessarily about creating a panacea on how to defeat this growing scourge and menace to our world. But it is more of a plea on keeping our wits about and appealing to our "better angels". Breivik was so consumed by hate for the Muslim world that his only solution was to take the lives of youngsters and innocents who were looking to perform their civic duties in a camp for budding politicians and activists. There is a groundswell of support for Breivik - not necessarily for his actions - but for what many feel should be a wake-up call to the threat of Islam and Islamists.
I don't agree that we should necessarily be afraid of Muslims because of the actions of a few deviants and miscreants. We are better than this. By "We" I mean the rest of humanity who seek peace, equality and justice. If we choose to fight this problem of Islamic Fundamentalism with Islamophobia, we would destroy our innocence and create a rift in our individual countries like the Norwegians have to deal with right now. This is a country that just lost its innocence - and maybe its soul. By the act of one man filled with hate.
Sensus Communis
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Raising The Debt Limit - America's Watershed
One thing this blog strives to do is to encourage independent commonsensical thought among its readers (no matter how few). Its objective is not to sound or lean to any political dashboard. In addition, the intention was also never to repeat topics too closely in a time-space continuum.
However, watching the unbelievably entrenched schism in the dueling press conferences yesterday between Obama and Boehner was disconcerting. It was such a gut-wrenching thirty minutes of guttural dysfunctionality that left most Americans - and the World over - aghast in stupefaction. How did we, as Americans, get to this point? How can we explain to the rest of the World, or to our children, and the rest of posterity, that our representatives in Washington could not come to an agreement on a potentially implosive as the debt limit?
It is intransigently irresponsible for one group to say that to raise the debt limit, we have to cut deeply into America's spending without a concomitant infusion or generation of revenue.
It is also debilitating for the other group to deny that ballooning of the nation's burgeoning debts is unrelated to social programs - which make up over 65 to 70 % of the country's expenses.
Are we truly saying that we as Americans cannot come together on putting all these factors on the table and working out a formula that leads us to a road of financial sanity without playing "footie" (like the Brits would say) with our futures?
Vince Cable, the Business Secretary of the UK, launched a tirade on this debate yesterday. He said, "The irony of the situation at the moment, with markets opening tomorrow morning, is that the biggest threat to the world financial system comes from a few rightwing nutters in the American Congress rather than the eurozone." By "rightwing nutters" he meant the Tea Party members in the House. I think it is unwise for any foreign entity to inject themselves in this country's business, however, it should be duly noted that the country's failure to raise the debt ceiling would severely impact all and sundry around the globe.
Like one of my very good friends remarked to me recently, Are we ready to cut our noses to spite our faces by letting the debt ceiling issue be so politicized that we lead this country to financial ruin? Are you kidding me? How can we choose to ride this bus (US) into a ditch - with eyes wide open - just for ideological sport? More importantly, it is time for the ordinary citizens to raise the decibel of our voices by telling our elected representatives - on both sides of the political isle - enough is enough!
However, watching the unbelievably entrenched schism in the dueling press conferences yesterday between Obama and Boehner was disconcerting. It was such a gut-wrenching thirty minutes of guttural dysfunctionality that left most Americans - and the World over - aghast in stupefaction. How did we, as Americans, get to this point? How can we explain to the rest of the World, or to our children, and the rest of posterity, that our representatives in Washington could not come to an agreement on a potentially implosive as the debt limit?
It is intransigently irresponsible for one group to say that to raise the debt limit, we have to cut deeply into America's spending without a concomitant infusion or generation of revenue.
It is also debilitating for the other group to deny that ballooning of the nation's burgeoning debts is unrelated to social programs - which make up over 65 to 70 % of the country's expenses.
Are we truly saying that we as Americans cannot come together on putting all these factors on the table and working out a formula that leads us to a road of financial sanity without playing "footie" (like the Brits would say) with our futures?
Vince Cable, the Business Secretary of the UK, launched a tirade on this debate yesterday. He said, "The irony of the situation at the moment, with markets opening tomorrow morning, is that the biggest threat to the world financial system comes from a few rightwing nutters in the American Congress rather than the eurozone." By "rightwing nutters" he meant the Tea Party members in the House. I think it is unwise for any foreign entity to inject themselves in this country's business, however, it should be duly noted that the country's failure to raise the debt ceiling would severely impact all and sundry around the globe.
Like one of my very good friends remarked to me recently, Are we ready to cut our noses to spite our faces by letting the debt ceiling issue be so politicized that we lead this country to financial ruin? Are you kidding me? How can we choose to ride this bus (US) into a ditch - with eyes wide open - just for ideological sport? More importantly, it is time for the ordinary citizens to raise the decibel of our voices by telling our elected representatives - on both sides of the political isle - enough is enough!
Monday, July 11, 2011
The American Two-Party System - Time to Crash the Party?
I appreciate the few of you who peered at the last post on the debt-ceiling debate. I was deeply encouraged by some of the comments, especially the one from Patrick from the UK.
I have been thinking of the Two-Party system in the US for a while now and its stranglehold on the political nexus of this great nation. I continue to be befuddled by the fact that these institutions have not only existed for as long as they have but they have literally emasculated any attempts to challenge their dominance in everyday life here in the US.
I was raised in a large family of seven siblings. Every member of my family had strong opinions and feelings about everything - about politics, sports, what kind of pet to get, etc. It would have been unimaginable to grow up with only two embossed opinions as the eternal rule of thumb.
The American two-party system had its origins between 1789 and 1790. At the time, America's population was about 4MM. Apart from the roughly 800,000 Africans and Native Americans, we had a country of Caucasians, albeit of different heritage (English, Spanish, Welsh, Germans, et al). Is it not amazing that with this small population (relatively speaking), agreement was still few and far between, as epitomized by the Civil War, and all the other battles fought during the early years of this great nation.
Today, America's population stands at over 310MM, with people from every nook and cranny of this terrestrial globe. Think about it for a moment: The 2-party system represented about 4MM in the late 18th Century. It is still representing the interests of over 310MM in the 21st Century. Are we saying that all the viewpoints and interests of America's citizenry are well-represented by the Washington elite massed in the Republican and Democratic parties? Why does it seem and feel like an impossible task to open the gates for differing and divergent viewpoints to be representative of most of America?
It is pertinent to note that this blog is not about race or racial politics. It is simply about "the other issues" that do not fit into the entrenched debate encapsulated solely by America's two-party system.
There is the parallel argument by some who would say that the US has seen its fair share of independent candidates. Many would reference the Texas billionaire Ross Perot who ran for the office of the President of the United States in 1992 and 1996. Others would point to Ron Paul, popularly referred to as the "Godfather of the Tea Party Movement". A closer look at these two Texas political stalwarts would reveal men with intellectual savvy, charisma and a depth of eloquence, but there still remained an alignment with the political establishment. Ron Paul is a Republican US Congressman. Perot had numerous convictions that almost seemed like he was reading from the Democratic political ethos. These men are great symbols of independent political machination but not independent political thought. They hoped and intended to sound like independents but their final product (still evolving in Paul's case) seemed to show some encasement with the "usual suspects". Watching Ron Paul a few weeks ago in the first Republican Presidential debate of this political cycle seemed to guarantee a redux of his small government mantra.
In spite of all this, I firmly believe that the US is in need of a truly independent voice like never before. An independent voice that looks nothing like its predecessors in which terminologies like "right", "left", "right of center", "left of center", and the like are not only moribund but archaic. It would an "umbrella party" in which all would be "stakeholders". It would not be borne out of protest movements like we saw in 2010 with the Tea Party movement on the right or Progressive groups on the left or the British National Party (BNP) in the UK that seems to find its niche with disaffected Brits who feel stifled by an increasingly non-British or non-White population. It does not have togas of liberalism or conservatism. It is its own brand. It is not a movement - just people looking to get their voices heard. It is not religious or atheistic. It is not racial or ethnic. It is "We the People.
My question to you all is: Is this even remotely possible? Put differently, is this close to mythical or/and comical? Or is there a place and a need for an independent voice in the US?
I have been thinking of the Two-Party system in the US for a while now and its stranglehold on the political nexus of this great nation. I continue to be befuddled by the fact that these institutions have not only existed for as long as they have but they have literally emasculated any attempts to challenge their dominance in everyday life here in the US.
I was raised in a large family of seven siblings. Every member of my family had strong opinions and feelings about everything - about politics, sports, what kind of pet to get, etc. It would have been unimaginable to grow up with only two embossed opinions as the eternal rule of thumb.
The American two-party system had its origins between 1789 and 1790. At the time, America's population was about 4MM. Apart from the roughly 800,000 Africans and Native Americans, we had a country of Caucasians, albeit of different heritage (English, Spanish, Welsh, Germans, et al). Is it not amazing that with this small population (relatively speaking), agreement was still few and far between, as epitomized by the Civil War, and all the other battles fought during the early years of this great nation.
Today, America's population stands at over 310MM, with people from every nook and cranny of this terrestrial globe. Think about it for a moment: The 2-party system represented about 4MM in the late 18th Century. It is still representing the interests of over 310MM in the 21st Century. Are we saying that all the viewpoints and interests of America's citizenry are well-represented by the Washington elite massed in the Republican and Democratic parties? Why does it seem and feel like an impossible task to open the gates for differing and divergent viewpoints to be representative of most of America?
It is pertinent to note that this blog is not about race or racial politics. It is simply about "the other issues" that do not fit into the entrenched debate encapsulated solely by America's two-party system.
There is the parallel argument by some who would say that the US has seen its fair share of independent candidates. Many would reference the Texas billionaire Ross Perot who ran for the office of the President of the United States in 1992 and 1996. Others would point to Ron Paul, popularly referred to as the "Godfather of the Tea Party Movement". A closer look at these two Texas political stalwarts would reveal men with intellectual savvy, charisma and a depth of eloquence, but there still remained an alignment with the political establishment. Ron Paul is a Republican US Congressman. Perot had numerous convictions that almost seemed like he was reading from the Democratic political ethos. These men are great symbols of independent political machination but not independent political thought. They hoped and intended to sound like independents but their final product (still evolving in Paul's case) seemed to show some encasement with the "usual suspects". Watching Ron Paul a few weeks ago in the first Republican Presidential debate of this political cycle seemed to guarantee a redux of his small government mantra.
In spite of all this, I firmly believe that the US is in need of a truly independent voice like never before. An independent voice that looks nothing like its predecessors in which terminologies like "right", "left", "right of center", "left of center", and the like are not only moribund but archaic. It would an "umbrella party" in which all would be "stakeholders". It would not be borne out of protest movements like we saw in 2010 with the Tea Party movement on the right or Progressive groups on the left or the British National Party (BNP) in the UK that seems to find its niche with disaffected Brits who feel stifled by an increasingly non-British or non-White population. It does not have togas of liberalism or conservatism. It is its own brand. It is not a movement - just people looking to get their voices heard. It is not religious or atheistic. It is not racial or ethnic. It is "We the People.
My question to you all is: Is this even remotely possible? Put differently, is this close to mythical or/and comical? Or is there a place and a need for an independent voice in the US?
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Sensus Communis - The Common Sense Approach
This would be my maiden blog - hopefully, the first of many. Sensus Communis is Latin for "Common Sense". This is at the heart of this blog and its contents. I was asked by a friend from the UK, "Why do Americans always fight about everything and nothing"? As I mulled over this question, my response was easy: The US is founded on true greatness, greatness inspite of schisms and differences. This is a country for all and not one. Our religions, thought processes, ideologies, academics, world view and moral bent may differ, but there is a foundational and structural will to overcome deep or/and elemental differences.
Until the last few years. The decibel level of political, economic, social and religious shrift has been toxic. Our national vocabulary has been revamped to include words like, "socialist", "wing-nut", "neo-con", et al. On every local, state and national debate, there is so much vituperative sputum on display that many hitherto level-headed individuals have become unrecognizable imbeciles.
This blog would be devoted to a community of national and global citizens with a zest for Sensus Communis. We will explore rational exploration of sensitive topics without resorting to demonization of the other person. We would agree or respectfully disagree - with the Washington vitriol.
The first topic for discussion would be raising the debt limit. The Democrats and most national and international economists say it would be "catastrophic" to not raise the debt limit by the August 2 cut-off. They posit that inability to act would send "seismic tremors" to the global marketplace that we may never recover from.
The Republicans, on the other hand, believe that raising the debt limit without attending to our own financial "Armaggedon" - the stench that is our national debt - is not only cataclysmic but a growing cancer that would be felt generations to come if not tackled.
My question is: Are we saying that we cannot do both? That we cannot rein in spending fundamentally while also raising the debt limit? There is a complete politicization of this issue that has left Sensus Communis out of the equation.
The question to my new found friends is: Is it possible to do the two - Raise the debt limit and rein in spending at the same time?
Until the last few years. The decibel level of political, economic, social and religious shrift has been toxic. Our national vocabulary has been revamped to include words like, "socialist", "wing-nut", "neo-con", et al. On every local, state and national debate, there is so much vituperative sputum on display that many hitherto level-headed individuals have become unrecognizable imbeciles.
This blog would be devoted to a community of national and global citizens with a zest for Sensus Communis. We will explore rational exploration of sensitive topics without resorting to demonization of the other person. We would agree or respectfully disagree - with the Washington vitriol.
The first topic for discussion would be raising the debt limit. The Democrats and most national and international economists say it would be "catastrophic" to not raise the debt limit by the August 2 cut-off. They posit that inability to act would send "seismic tremors" to the global marketplace that we may never recover from.
The Republicans, on the other hand, believe that raising the debt limit without attending to our own financial "Armaggedon" - the stench that is our national debt - is not only cataclysmic but a growing cancer that would be felt generations to come if not tackled.
My question is: Are we saying that we cannot do both? That we cannot rein in spending fundamentally while also raising the debt limit? There is a complete politicization of this issue that has left Sensus Communis out of the equation.
The question to my new found friends is: Is it possible to do the two - Raise the debt limit and rein in spending at the same time?
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