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December 1, 2008
Rice, Bush and Yet Another Wedge
There has been a Condoleezza Rice citing. The near-invisible Secretary of State
for the Bush administration (a.k.a. The Administration of Diminished
Responsibility) has come out of the shoe store long enough to weigh in on the
India massacre and hostage mess this past weekend:
"What we are emphasizing to the Pakistani government is the need to follow the
evidence wherever it leads. I don't want to jump to any conclusions myself on
this, but I do think that this is a time for complete, absolute, total
transparency and cooperation and that's what we expect."
-Rice
What is sorely missing from any analysis by anyone during this newest quagmire
is that Pakistan - already being blamed by Indian police officials for what
occurred - is under the leadership of a new administration. (Pakistan has a new
President and Prime Minister, the former a replacement for General Pervez
Musharraf.) Certainly the attacks in India, likely by Islamist extremists and
likely by extremists from Pakistan, was planned, at least in part, to help
create a wider drift than already exists between the two neighboring and feuding
countries.
Think back to Senator Joe Lieberman's words (which were echoed by Senator Joe
Biden during the just passed 2--8 US Presidential election:
"Our enemies will test the new president early. Remember that the truck bombing
of the World Trade Center happened in the first year of the Clinton
administration. 9/11 happened in the first year of the Bush administration."
-Lieberman on Face The Nation
In this case, the administration being tested is the new Pakistani regime, one
put in place, in part, due to the unpopularity and seemingly criminality of
former President Musharraf.
Secretary Rice and President Bush have come forth to jump on the "blame
Pakistan" bandwagon, and it isn't smart. Anyone who is paying attention (and it
appears increasingly more and more that the Bushies aren't) realizes that the
new government in Pakistan needs US help. They need our help to govern; they
need our help to create a peace between them and their neighbor, India; and they
need our help to extend that peace inward towards themselves. Piling on while
pointing fingers might be the way in which the Bush administration usually
operates, but in this case it's just another infusion of hate into an already
horrific situation.
Isn't it funny how on the day Secretary Rice says that Pakistan should "follow
the evidence wherever it leads" that President Bush also said his biggest regret
was the "intelligence failure" on Iraq. One has to wonder how this
administration could sit there with a straight face and tell Pakistan to do what
they ignored. Remember, the evidence that brought us to war in Iraq took us out
of a true coalition fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan,
Pakistan's other neighbor. And when the lies were brought out to bear witness
against the policies which took us to a seemingly never-ending war in Iraq,
President Bush, Secretary Rice and all those who favored such a conflict came up
with a litany of other reasons to keep our troops there. They included: The
world is a better place without Saddam Hussein; We have to fight them there so
we don't have to fight them there; al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were working
together; and Saddam Hussein sought yellowcake uranium.
No one's going to seriously sit there and tell me that this enemy - this same
enemy - hasn't been emboldened by the constant lies and evidence centered around
the already defined conclusions which kept us in Iraq and out of the real war on
terror that's helped lead us up to this moment.
Bush's admitted that he was "unprepared for war" would today be laughable if it
weren't for the thousands of lives lost in Iraq and the fuel which helped create
the situations we now see in India and elsewhere in Asia. Even today, bush's
answer to the "bad intelligence" as a reason to go to war doesn't sway him from
the fight he sought:
"That's an interesting question. That is a do-over that I can't do. It's hard
for me to speculate,"
"The biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence
failure in Iraq. I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess."
-Bush
Driving wedges into situations for political and personal gain has been
trademarks of the Bush administration. We've seen them use every issue from
immigration to stem cell research as a means of separating people who should be
united, not divided.
The use of Pakistan's new government, in this case, is still just another wedge.
But why? Is it that they really believe that pointing fingers at the new
government of Pakistan will make us more popular in that nation? I doubt it.
Maybe they just can't help themselves. After all, driving wedges between people,
cultures and nations is what the Bushies do best.
And it doesn't stop there. Rice decided to personalize the India terror acts for
US citizens:
"We share the grief and the anger of the Indian people but of course Americans
were also killed in this attack and they were killed deliberately because they
were Americans,"
-Rice
If there were no Americans killed would Rice even have bothered to come out of
the shoe store? Is it really necessary for terrorists to kill an American or six
to make us stand up and take notice? It certainly appears that it is the case to
make sure the Bush administration takes notice.
I'm sure that identifying Rice's statements for what they are; realizing that
the ineptitude which the Bush administration seems to keep piling on; and the
things they keep on saying and doing which make our world so much worse are just
not going to stop. With around fifty days remaining in their time leading the
less-free-than-it-used-to-be world, one has to wonder what kind of havoc the
Busies are going to be able to wreak with the time they have remaining.
-Noah Greenberg
SQUEEZING PHILADELPHIA
by Victoria A. Brownworth
copyright c 2008, Journal Register Newspapers, Inc.
Mayors of cities all across America should take a long look at Philadelphia. So
should President-elect Barack Obama and those expecting him to make the changes
he promised in speeches given over the past two years of his campaign. The
nation is on the financial skids and it is showing up in Philadelphia ways that
will no doubt hit other, seemingly better-off cities and their leaders in due
time.
Philadelphia may well be the cautionary template by which other cities–and the
nation–will need to predicate any changes that require municipal or federal
funding in the next few years.
When Michael Nutter was running for mayor and after his inauguration in January,
he made extensive promises about changes he would make in the city’s
infrastructure. Nutter’s proposals were exciting, but costly.
Those promises were sundered Nov. 6 when Mayor Nutter announced that the
recession had hit Philadelphia very hard. “The economic storm has arrived with
such force that a respected economist said it was as if the national economy had
‘fallen off a cliff,’” Nutter said. “Painful program and service cuts are
necessary.”
Philadelphia is the only one of America’s ten largest cities to also be among
the ten poorest cities, so it was not surprising that we would be hit hardest
and earliest–and we will not be the last, that’s certain.
It’s also clear that what is happening in Philadelphia will be mirrored in the
nation as a whole and that what Mayor Nutter is being forced to do here,
President-elect Obama will be forced to do on a larger scale nationally.
Budget cuts hurt. How much they hurt depends on who you are, where you are and
how much you need what’s being cut. Services impact the poor and working poor
the most, and when those are cut, the people who can least afford to be slammed
again are indeed hit hardest.
That will certainly be the case come January in Philadelphia.
Like President-elect Obama has outlined for the country, then-Mayor-elect Nutter
also had scores of policy initiatives and plans for re-organizing and
re-structuring that would benefit the city as a whole.
Then the economy went into free-fall and the city’s previously stable budget
wasn’t stable anymore. Like everyone else, the city lost money in the stock
market. But unlike for Wall Street, there was no bailout ready to cushion the
blow. The amount the city has lost due to the economic crisis is huge. The
impact that loss will have on the city, however, is incalculable.
According to Nutter, a $1 billion shortfall in funds has created a severe
financial emergency for the city and the only way to address it is with major
budget cuts. This also means that Nutter’s plans for improving the city,
expanding services and creating new programs and services will be curtailed or
forfeited altogether.
Last year Nutter pledged changes in taxes to benefit Philadelphians. These
included continuing the plan to reduce the City Wage Tax to 3.25 percent for
residents and nonresidents by 2015. Another Nutter pledge was to establish a
schedule for eliminating the gross-receipts part of the Business Privilege Tax
over five to seven years as well as a cut in the net-income portion.
Among the alterations Nutter has been forced to make to his original plans are
postponing all these cuts until 2015.
Mayor Nutter also promised to finally fully fund the Housing Trust Fund which
has desperately needed increased funding since as far back as when Wilson Goode
was mayor.
The HTF finances all affordable housing projects in the city–many of which are
currently in the process as homes are being built to replace former high-rise
Section 8 housing that has been demolished. But under the new budget cuts, the
$15 million Nutter pledged in a five-year plan has been cut by more than half to
a mere $6 million.
Another big hit for the city is police protection. If you attended the
Thanksgiving Day parade (the oldest in the country and the most charming), you
likely saw many Philadelphia police officers along the parade route. But come
January (hopefully after the Mummer’s Day Parade which brings millions to the
city), police presence at parades will have to be paid for by those putting on
the parades. This is either going to mean fewer parades or ones that are far
less safe for parade-goers. What it will mean for the annual July 4th
celebrations which generally bring at least two million people to the Parkway is
unclear.
But beyond the parade issue, Mayor Nutter originally pledged to hire 500
additional police officers over three years.
That’s no longer happening, despite the fact that four police officers have been
murdered in Philadelphia in the past year, the most recent two weeks ago.
According to Everett Gilson, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, around 200 unfilled
positions in the police department will remain vacant. In addition, overtime
like that required in the recent searches for the killers of police officers,
will be reduced. The police department instead will shift police from one place
to the other to attempt to remedy the shortfall in officers. Two hundred police
officers have been moved onto street duty from other duties to artificially
increase patrol manpower. But at the end of this month, the number of police
officers, just over 6,600, will be the same as it was when Nutter took office in
January. There will be no new hires.
Several firehouses will also be shut down, making access to Philadelphia’s
increasingly limited EMS system all the more strained.
In addition to these cuts and deferrals, Nutter plans to cut more than 800 city
jobs and also cut salaries for administrators. Most cuts will be five percent,
but Nutter has taken a ten percent salary cut himself effective with the other
cuts in January.
The budget cut that has galvanized Philadelphians, however, is one that effects
their children directly. The city will close 11 libraries, cut the Sunday hours
of three others and close 68 of 73 public swimming pools.
This cut seems less dramatic now that the temperatures are below freezing and
Christmas is less than a month away. But when schools let out in June and
hundreds of thousands of Philadelphia kids are left with no outlet for their
frustrations in the heat and unsupervised hours of another brutal Philadelphia
summer, the impact of these pool and library closings are going to be felt not
just by the kids who use them, but by everyone else in their neighborhoods.
Nutter may feel there are no other places to cut. But for decades a crushing
debt in pension and health care plans for city workers has made it difficult for
any mayor to manage to move their budget forward. Philadelphia municipal
employees receive an average of $13,000 in services per person, per year,
compared to $9,000 for state workers.
Everyone wants a pension, but few American workers actually have them. Everyone
deserves health care. But shouldn’t the city be looking at its biggest financial
burden–these pension and health care plans–and figure out a way to get more for
less, the way the state has?
And where is the private sector in this crisis? Philadelphia’s sports’ teams
alone should be kicking in some of this shortfall. Donovan McNabb should pledge
to keep several city pools open. He could certainly donate some of his $30
million salary which has yet to secure the Eagles a Super Bowl win. He’s been
paid for two seasons sitting on the bench. Shouldn’t he contribute something to
the city that makes it possible for him to live his lavish lifestyle?
And it’s not just McNabb–he just happens to have the most outrageous salary.
Philadelphia spent $1.5 million on the World Series celebration. While the
Phillies and the city were certainly deserving of that celebration, shouldn’t
Phillies management pick up some of the tab, given that it’s been 28 years since
the last win?
The Mayor has gone to Washington, D.C. to ask for some of the proposed bailout
money, but whether or not it will be granted is another story. The Bush
Administration seems disinterested in bailing out Main Street.
The drama of the budget cuts is massive and cannot be overstated. But at present
Mayor Nutter’s plan appears to be taking the city’s crisis out on the people who
can least sustain the impact: the poor and working class. People in Chestnut
Hill, the Far Northeast and Center City will have access to their private clubs
in the heat of the summer months and so will their children. There are books and
computers in their households already.
But for the three out of five Philadelphia kids who live at or below the poverty
level in Germantown or Kensington or Grey’s Ferry, those libraries and pools are
what make summer livable. Violence and heat are linked. Without access to
air-conditioned libraries and cooling pools, how much more gun and gang violence
can we expect?
The country is in the throes of an economic disaster. Philadelphia may be the
canary in the mine, the harbinger of what other cities can expect in the coming
year. But while cuts are certainly necessary, trimming the fat is the way the
Mayor should go, not cutting the life-lines our poorest communities have.
In response to India's 911-like terrorist attacks, Robert Chapman writes:
The idea that there is some anti-terrorist success in not having an attack on
American soil since 9/11/01 is ludicrous.
The Green Zone in Baghdad where the American Embassy is located is under
constant attack. Press reports documented one a couple of days ago. Outside the
Right wing whacko world, attacks on an Embassy are attacks on US soil.
Secondly, and more importantly, the last attack on American soil before 9/11/01
was in the War of 1812. Unless Bush/Cheney are willing to take the blame for
dropping the ball and failing to do something that 38 other Presidents
prevented, they should quit their crowing.
Finally, we know that the US is just as vulnerable to an attack now as it was in
'01. We know that the terrorists have struck everywhere else in the world. It is
not the crack anti-terrorist strategy of the Bush Administration that has spared
us. It is the inherent difficulty of attacking America.
Bush/Cheney may have used the dearth of attacks since '01 as talking points, but
they remain just empty talk.
And Denise adds:
We should definitely be concerned about the attacks in India, but we should not
have the mouth piece of the Bush Administration already threatening Pakistan,
even though it has been said that the group responsible has it's roots in India.
Is there no reasoning anymore? The captured militant accuses Pakistan as the
cause and Ms. Rice and Bush believe this. Reasoning (even though I could be
wrong) would tell you that a captured militant's end result of this horrible
incident would be to have the U.S. focus on Pakistan and further divide yet two
more areas in this region.
There is a right way for dialogue regarding this incident and Rice's and Bush's
finger pointing and tough talk do not help the situation. If a miracle happens
we will see a more diplomatic approach that encourages these rivals to talk and
come to an agreeable solution rather than have the United States dictate and
become even more unpopular in a part of the world we are already hugely
disliked.
Send your comments to: NationalView@aol.com
-Noah Greenberg