Bits and Pieces
Here are the things in the news that prick my sense of “hello?”:
Iraq – Violence is trending upward there. Apparently our strategy is to keep doing what we have been doing and hope things calm down until we can leave. It is not going to happen. Iraq is a mess with seething unresolved power stuggles between the Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis. They are all vying for position when we do leave. Remember that we gained the Sunni support by buying them off. The Shiites will not want to continue buying them and would like to take away their weapons. Most of the nation has segregated into their sectarian groups. Many of the critical issues about sharing power have not been resolved. I am afraid our sense of holding the top on this boiling caldron is misplaced responsibility. It is time to set a date certain and get out understanding that there is going to be a great deal of violence before all of this settles out. The alternative is to stay forever which just exacerbates our problems elsewhere.
Ted Stevens – Ted Stevens, his legal team, and Chris Mathews have been declaring that Uncle Ted has been found innocent and that he unjustly lost the election because of prosecutorial abuse. Two problems with this: First, he wasn’t found innocent or guilty, the conviction was overturned, rightly so, because of the misconduct of the prosecutors. But the evidence about his accepting unreported gifts stands. Several jurors have stated that they would have convicted him anyway. Second, the conviction did not come until after the election and the facts about the gifts he did accept and the cozy relationship with those that sent him campaign money were probably more a factor for his defeat. Ted was business as usual and it was time for his ilk to go and that is what Alaskan voters decided.
The Stock Market – The stock market showed signs of a gain and pundits are starting to say maybe we have bottomed out. What fools these people are. For one to understand the crisis we are in, one must look at the world economy, not just the United States. Our ability to buy and sell will be a function of the health of the world economy, and right now things appear to be worsening. This rosy outlook also assumes our economy is the stock market instead of the ever increasing unemployment figures. Think of it this way: We can not go back to our number one export item, packaged debt, and take up where we left off. So just what is it that we are going to sell to the rest of the world to make ourselves solvent again? Right now the economic engine just continues to slow down because we haven’t faced this truth yet, the truth that we are not the great innovators we once were and our failure to invest in ourselves is the root of our problem.
Cutting Services to Balance the Books – States are cutting way back on services to reign in their deficits but many of these cut backs will actually result in bigger bills later. Aid to the elderly is one of those items, and as they don’t get the help they need, they get sicker and then the costs for the taxpayer balloons. You can think of many other examples. Just maybe an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of down the road expenses. Maybe states ought to do a long-term cost analysis before they go slashing services. Or maybe our politicians are finally thinking like businessmen, short term.
Heroes – What got me going on this one is the rescue of the Captain of the freighter that was hijacked by Somali pirates. I listened to CNN report this and use the word hero over and over again in their description of his actions. Maybe he was, but just when did it become heroic to just do your job. Our military are heroes or so the press tells us at every step, but actually they are just doing their jobs. Captain Sullenberger is a hero when what he did was his job. All of these people are thrown into extraordinary circumstances and they do what they are supposed to do and we are so shocked we call them heroes.
Let’s take Sully. You are a pilot and your job is to plan and train for bad things. It is routine discipline for a pilot to think through bad things that can happen and plan alternatives. So when you are taking off, you think about engine failure and what are your options. In his case there was only one option unless you think you can land an airplane in New York City, and through his flying skill and luck, he landed in the river with no fatalities. He made sure everyone was off the plane before he got off. That is not being a hero, that was doing his job. Now he is writing a book about his life. Oh brother.
If you were in any of these guys/gals positions would you not have done the same thing? What other options do you have? Maybe the financial community and our “business” leaders are representative of what we think is now the norm these days, those who look out only for themselves, take what they can get, and get out. So when someone actually does their job in difficult circumstances we think they are heroic. I think when we just start expecting people to live up to the responsibilities of their job and not call it heroic, then we may be a society that can begin to heal itself. We need to move away from this personal worship thing and just expect people we put in charge to do the right thing. It would be a nice change.