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1 But false prophets also appeared among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. 2 Many will follow their indecent behavior, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; 3 and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep..
II Peter 2:1-3

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Showing posts with label Gary Johnson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gary Johnson. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Our Three Kinds Of Presidential Candidates

In saying that we currently have three kinds of Presidential candidates, I am not saying that we have candidates that are too much, candidates that are too little, and candidates that are just right. The reason why is that though there are Papa Bear candidates and Mama Bear candidates, there are no Goldilocks candidates.

 What we currently have is at least one candidate who is prepared and has the experience necessary to be President and a number of candidates that have little to no preparation. Here we should note that rarely have we had a candidate that is fully prepared to be President on day one. In fact, the last presidential candidate I remember who was fully prepared on day one was George H. W. Bush during the 1988 and 1992 campaigns. He was the resume candidate.

From that we obtain two important points. The first point is that one does not necessarily have to have the preparation others have had to be what is considered a successful President on day one. The second point is that Hillary is the George W. H. Bush of 2016 in that she is this year's resume candidate.

 So none of the other candidates have Hillary's qualification to be President as of now. But many of our past Presidents became qualified as they learned their job. In addition, qualifications alone do not make candidates who are just right. Having the right sense of direction is also a part of being a successful President. Here, we should note that that the current direction of the nation since the 1970s is to implement neoliberal economic policies while pursuing neoconservative foreign policies. 

 Neoliberal economic policies want to strip as many government regulations on a given nation's economy and trade as possible as well as reduce taxes on businesses as much as possible. This might sound good to many conservatives, but what that actually says to nations with governments that are working democracies is that there should be as few, if any, democratic controls on a nation's economy as possible. Such an approach sounds good to conservatives because they regard most, if not all, governments as alien entities and they have little regard for democracies because of their emphasis on individual liberty. 

What neoliberal economic policies end up doing is to make a society of any given nation into a pawn of economic elites. And while in the early days of neoliberalism, our own society would be a pawn of the economic elites of one's own nation, the same is not true for today. With free trade and today's trade agreements and organizations, the people of free trade nations become pawns to economic elites from other nations. Neoliberal economic policies produce ruling classes and, again, with free trade, these ruling classes not only gain a measure of control over their own nation, they gain control over other nations regardless of what the people from those other nations say or do.

 Neoconservative foreign policies is the latest version of American Exceptionalism. What these foreign policies accomplish is a degree of hegemony for America. Acknowledging and submitting to that hegemony is the admission price other nations must pay to enjoy Pax Americana. In the end, only America is allowed to be immune to international law because international law challenges America's national sovereignty. Thus, it is only America's national sovereignty that must be respected in the world. And American hegemony does not allow other nations to claim that privilege.

 But we should note one other point here. Neoliberal economies present a challenge to the national sovereignty of any nation, including America's. That might sound like a potential threat to American hegemony, but in reality, it isn't. That is because America's power will be redirected to support neoliberal economies.

Neoliberalism and neoconservatism are the two factors we must consider when assessing the direction of our current crop of Presidential candidates. Those candidates that pursue one of the various forms of neoliberalism and/or neoconservatism are going, in the opinion of this blog, in the wrong direction. They are pursuing a world where financial elites rule and one's welfare depends solely on whether one is serving the interests of the world's financial elites.

 Having said all of this, we can now classify the current crop of Presidential candidates we have. In terms of those candidates who are fully prepared to step in as President on day one, only Hillary Clinton qualifies. No other candidates have her experience. Trump neither has her experience nor does he demonstrate a Presidential degree of self-restraint. And neither Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, nor Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, have Clinton's experience or have they shown adequate preparation in terms of understanding how government works or having adequate background knowledge of the world and its leaders.

 But of all the candidates, only Jill Stein and the candidates to the left of her, such as Gloria La Riva, have the right direction. We must reverse course from implementing neoliberal economic policies and pursuing neoconservative foreign policies. Here we should note that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump  are advocates of their own versions of neoliberalism and neoconservatism. Here we should note that for all of Hillary's talk of taxing corporations and the rich and that she now opposes the TPP, she is strongly in favor of open hemispheric trade (click here) and does not denounce the TPP for how its structure threatens our national sovereignty (click here and there). We should note that Clinton's call for open trade across the hemisphere is a modified version of US plans from 1945 that oppose economic nationalism in Latin America nations and was partially enforced on many of those nations (click here).

And while Gary Johnson rejects neoconservatism, he fully supports neoliberalism. We should note that neoconservatism will eventually draw us into a war using WMDs since advancing technology has made the proliferation of WMDs inevitable. To back that claim, we should note that it was our nation's pursuit of neoconservative foreign policies that fueled the rage that was part of the 9/11 attacks. So Gary Johnson gets both a mark and a demerit for having a good direction. The demerit is, of course, because of his support for neoliberalism.

 With Trump, Johnson and Stein being woefully prepared to be President while only Stein, of those three, can point our nation in the right direction and only Clinton being more than adequately prepared. But with Clinton being ready to take us in a horrible direction that can only lead to elite-centered rule over our nation, the following question becomes critical in deciding for whom to vote. Which candidates will harm our nation the most, will it be inadequately prepared candidates who can lead our nation in a good direction vs the candidate who is very well prepared but will lead us into the self-destruction of some kind of elite-centered rule?





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Monday, August 15, 2016

ONIM For August 15, 2016

Presidential Election

Christian News

 World News

Pick(s) Of The Litter




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Monday, August 8, 2016

ONIM For August 8, 2016

Presidential Election

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Saturday, October 27, 2012

Reviewing Something Old And Something New

There are two important occasions at this time. The first is that this is the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Fifty years ago, we came so close to fighting a nuclear war with the then Soviet Union which would have certainly destroyed all of human life. The second is that we are within 2 weeks of voting for the next President of the United States. To prepare for choosing the next President, we have had the much publicized Presidential and Vice Presidential debates. The participants in these debates have been the nominees of the Democratic and Republican parties. However, less known to others is the Third Party Presidential debate of October 23 between the nominees of the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, the Justice Party, and the Constitution Party (can be seen here). A followup debate between the Green Party and Libertarian Party candidates will be held on October 30. Rather than choose one of these events, I thought it most appropriate to review both.

There is plenty of material available for one to learn about the Cuban Missile Crisis for those who are too  young to know or remember. I am not that young though, I was an elementary school student when the crisis occurred. I have faint memories crisis with the most prominent one being that of hearing my first air raid siren while I was in my neighbor's driveway. That memory stuck out most in my mind because when I heard the siren, I didn't know it was only a test; I thought for sure that war had started. To review this crisis, I will use the movie, Thirteen Days. This is a movie I own and I once assigned it to a class on terrorism so they could learn and distinguish the different parts of intelligence gathering, interpretation, and policy making. The movie can be accessed here. This movie does a fair job of accurately portraying most of the key events that took place during the crisis.

The Cuban Missile Crisis started with the discovery of medium range Soviet ballistic missiles on the island of Cuba. The issue then became how the U.S. was going to remove those missiles. Two sides quickly formed during this crisis. The first side were those who favored an immediate military intervention. According to the movie, those favoring such a response included the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as those in the intelligence community. The other side consisted of those who opposed any kind of action that could trigger a WWIII. This other side was a diverse group from Adlai Stevenson who was strongly favored a diplomatic solution while President Kennedy, his brother Robert, and the President's unofficial Chief of Staff, Kenny O'Donnell. These three, at first, had difficulty believing that a diplomatic solution could be found but they knew that the military option would mean a world war.

Two key features of this movie was President Kennedy's resistance to following the advice of his military advisors. The President believed that if he had ordered an attack on Cuba, the Soviet Union would retaliate against Berlin. This would eventually lead to the localized use of nuclear weapons which could never be contained. According to the movie, the two driving thoughts that sustained President Kennedy's resistance to the demands of his military advisors was the belief that "abandoning" one's own judgement was "immoral." The second thought was what President Kennedy learned from reading the book, The Guns Of August. The lesson that Kennedy learned was that the military leaders in WW I made fatal battlefield decisions based on past wars. Their flawed tactics and strategies cost millions of soldiers their lives. And indeed, the thinking of President Kennedy's military advisors was based on WW II thinking.

The second key feature was Adlai Stevenson's role. Though his suggestions of finding a diplomatic solution were, at first, quickly scoffed at and dismissed by the all involved. In the end, a diplomatic solution, similar to what he suggested, was used resolve the crisis. And Stevenson's handling of Soviet Ambassador Zorin in a UN meeting was one of the highlights of the movie and history.

But why review this movie here? It is because with today's esteem for our military and power that is so prevalent in our society, we should note how the use of the military can invite one's own destruction. This historical lesson is greatly needed today. We can never afford to allow any President to give carte blanche deferment to our military leaders. On the other hand, us citizens must never allow the President to use the valor of our troops and our esteem for their high character as a moral shield for their militaristic policies. It is the latter that is what is happening today despite the growing number of civilian deaths that results.

As for the Third Party Presidential debate, for the most part, the candidates focussed more on making popular sound bites and individual statements while avoiding showing a broad unifying perspective on today's issues. And I am making this criticism while planning to vote for Jill Stein, one of the participants in the debate. While the conservative third party candidates made the fiscal bottom line the only bottom line, the nonconservative candidates, except for when Rocky Anderson mentioned the Nuremberg Principles, failed to mention the moral bottom line. So while the conservative candidates determined right and wrong by whether we can afford to do something, none of the nonconservative candidates adequately pushed for a moral bottom line in determining foreign and domestic policies.

Being a chief administrator requires one to work with both concrete details and abstract principles. For the most part, none of the participating candidates demonstrated a recognition of the latter. Talking in sound bites will only allow one to preach to the choir. If these third party candidates want to significantly cut into the popular support for the two major parties, they will have to show that they have broad perspectives that are more encompassing that those from the two major parties.

What abstract principles are needed today? They are the ones promoted by both Socialist candidates who were not invited to participate in this debate and OWS. That is we need to build a world that is based on sharing and cooperation rather than competition. It isn't that competition on a small scale cannot bring some benefits. Rather, it is that the more any part of society is based on competition, the more that part of society threatens the rest. And in our world, competition is not only king, it is the only resident. With proliferation being inevitable and with natural resources that dwindle as the world's population increases, morals that promote sharing are not idealistic but unrealistic luxuries as the business community would have us believe. Rather, they are essential to surviving the future. On October 30, it will be up to Jill Stein to show how a broad moral perspective can guide how one works with the details. It is up to her alone because conservatives have as their only guide, the fiscal bottom line.
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