Snow and Politics

I woke up this morning to the wonderful view of snow on the ground! Haven't seen snow in a while, and really, really like snow, so I'm not going to complain ;) Today is also Greg's Birthday...Happy Birthday; and my Mom and Dad's Anniversary...Happy Anniversary!

I found some articles in the Japanese Times that I thought I would post here for everyone to look at. There are 3 of them. The first one Democrats should really take heed of, it has some good advice in it. The second on is an article on how Conservatives sold their souls, and the final one is an article on China that is most interested. I really liked the political articles on the Democrats and Conservatives, it gave some good insight into politics. The final article gives some good info on China and the reshaping of the world. Good reads! If you want to go there, the website is http://www.japantimes.co.jp

Neocon lessons for Democrats
By MICHAEL O'HANLON Special to The Japan Times
WASHINGTON -- As Democrats comb the 2004 election results for lessons, one should be obvious: we need bolder, newer ideas, particularly in this post-9/11 world in the realm of foreign policy. Just as neocons have provided much of the spark and intellectual energy behind modern-day Republicanism, Democrats need a "neoprogressive" movement to give purpose and vision to their party -- and political hope to their future candidates.
Big ideas are needed in a changing, challenging international environment. They are also good politics. Candidates with big ideas convey purpose and gravity. They also convey resoluteness and firm beliefs--traits that helped President George W. Bush appeal to voters on the grounds that he had character and shared their values.
Neocons have shown how to come up with big ideas in recent years. They provided some of the intellectual heft and vision behind President Ronald Reagan's outlandish belief that the Berlin Wall should come down. More recent notable examples are Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz's conviction that the overthrow of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could help remake the Middle East, former foreign-policy adviser Richard Perle's willingness to confront Saudi Arabia over its internal policies and the beliefs of John Bolton, Bush's undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, that arms control can be used in a more confrontational way to put pressure on extremist regimes.
One need not agree with much of the neocon movement to admire its intellectual vigor and its ambitious approach. Indeed, neocons can be dangerous. Many bear considerable intellectual responsibility for trivializing the costs and difficulties of war in Iraq. And the doctrine of preemption, a classic neoconservative type of concept, contributed to an international image of an America unbound, to use Ivo Daalder and Jim Lindsay's phrase.
But big ideas are better than no ideas. The key is to ensure that they are debated and vetted, not to squelch them in advance.
Some might disagree with this assessment, at least in political terms, claiming that what Democrats need is simple credibility on foreign policy so that they can neutralize the issue and out-compete Republicans on domestic turf. This perspective, which seems to have guided much of the Kerry campaign this year, begs the question of how one obtains credibility in the first place. Purple hearts from Vietnam, however commendable, do not suffice -- which should be no surprise since Bill Clinton defeated two war heroes and Ronald Reagan defeated a Naval Academy graduate in their respective runs for the White House.
Nor is it enough to run on a platform of multilateralism, however right in principle that basic tenet of John Kerry's campaign may have been. Multilateralism is a means and not an end; it describes process more than goals or vision.
In preparing for 2006 and 2008, Democrats need to think about how they would like history books to look back on their tenures in office should they be so fortunate as to regain the White House and/or the Congress. Then they should work backward, fashioning concrete ideas to create those legacies and political strategies for how to sell them. Among the candidate ideas worthy of exploration:
* A long-term strategy to win the war on terror. Virtually all Democrats certainly agree with Bush that current al-Qaeda leadership and followers must be destroyed using all tools of American power. But as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has noted several times, we have no long-term strategy to prevent the next generation of al-Qaeda and affiliated groups from being created. A few small programs to support nongovernmental organizations in the Arab world and similar efforts to date from the Bush administration do not suffice. Democrats need a vision to tackle this challenge, including elements such as a major push for educational reform and economic opportunity in Islamic countries, with U.S. resources to back up the efforts where appropriate.
* Energy policy. Kerry talked about getting the U.S. off its dependence on Mideast oil, and addressing the global-warming problem as well, but it was far from clear how he intended to do either. Tax subsidies for hybrid cars and greater research funds for alternative energies have their place. So might a major proposal to subsidize production of biomass fuels in the United States. It could gradually redirect existing farm subsidies away from food crops in the process. That in turn could provide the basis for breaking the logjam on global trade talks, and help create economic opportunities for farmers in developing countries as well.
* Training and equipping African militaries to stop civil conflict. The Clinton administration began a program to train and equip African militaries for peacekeeping; the Bush administration kept it on life support at about $10 million a year while advocating, but not accomplishing, a major expansion of the effort. Democrats should wholeheartedly promote this concept and work relentlessly to provide at least $100 million a year for it. The goal should be for Africans to handle most of their continent's many serious conflicts principally on their own, with the potential for hundreds of thousands of lives a year to be saved.
* A major child-survival initiative. Clinton and Bush have both rightly underscored the need to address the terrible scourge of HIV/AIDS. But if this threat merits a bold initiative, so do the traditional scourges of malaria, childhood diseases and malnutrition.
Moreover, all of these are linked; the effectiveness of HIV/AIDS programs is ultimately limited most by the quality of local health networks throughout the world, which are also relevant to increasing vaccination rates and countering childhood diseases. A broader health and nutrition agenda might cost the U.S. $10 billion a year instead of the $2 billion to $3 billion now planned for HIV/AIDS alone. If Democrats need an issue to show that they too care about morality, and want to back up Kerry's words that "faith without works is dead," there can be few more worthy ways to spend money.
Democrats used to be the country's greatest visionaries in foreign policy. And indeed many neocons came from their ranks. It is time now for the party to reclaim the best of its proud traditions. The easiest time to be innovative, and to take risks, is when you have little to lose. Democrats couldn't ask for a better moment.

Michael O'Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution
The Japan Times: Nov. 9, 2004


Conservatives sold their souls
By DOUG BANDOW
WASHINGTON -- After Nov. 2 the Republican Party seems to have it all: continued possession of the U.S. presidency and expanded control of Congress. Ironically, however, President George W. Bush's victory has killed America's conservative movement. The Republican Party and conservative movement have lost their souls.
American conservatism grew out of the classical liberal tradition that gave birth to the United States. Republicans emphasized their commitment to individual liberty and limited constitutional government.
They believed Washington to possess only specific enumerated powers. The most important domestic issues were matters for the states. Internationally America needed to be strong but responsible: War was a tool to protect U.S. security, not remake the world.
Most important was conservative recognition of the limitations of political action. Economist Thomas Sowell observed how the right had a "constrained" view of mankind: No amount of social engineering could transcend humanity's inherent imperfections. In contrast, modern liberals held an "unconstrained" view, that is, they believed in the perfectibility of human beings and institutions.
Although Republican Party operatives and their conservative supporters often placed political expediency before philosophical purity, most of them formally resisted expanding government power. And occasionally -- during Ronald Reagan's presidency, for instance -- they actually rolled back one or another program.
In 2000 candidate George W. Bush ran within this conservative tradition. But he has turned the Republican Party into another vehicle of modern liberalism, little different from the Democrats.
Spending by the national government has raced ahead at levels more often associated with the Democratic Party. The Bush administration has pushed to nationalize local issues, expanding federal controls over education, for instance.
Bush engineered the largest expansion of America's welfare state in decades, a poorly designed but hugely expensive pharmaceutical benefit. And Bush's officials shamelessly lied about the legislation's cost. The GOP's spending excesses threaten to undo the president's celebrated tax cuts.
The administration terms its expansion of government as a form of "empowerment." But this is just another name for nanny-state regulation. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card admitted that Bush "sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child," requiring Washington's benevolent guidance.
In international affairs Bush most dramatically diverged from traditional conservatism, advancing an international agenda breath-taking in its arrogance. First, he launched a preventive war based on bad intelligence, but offered no apologies for his mistake.
His substitute justification, that of promoting -- or really imposing -- democracy on a recalcitrant Islamic society harkened back to liberal war-making in the tradition of President Woodrow Wilson. Abandoning traditional Republican skepticism of foreign aid, Bush sought to win Iraqi hearts and minds by providing garbage trucks and creating a postal zip code system. Such utopian social engineering seemed more appropriate for liberal Democrats such as Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.
Equally disappointing was Bush's commitment to executive prerogative. Administration supporters explicitly and administration members implicitly questioned the patriotism of anyone who criticized the president's Iraq policy. He brusquely dismissed fiscally responsible members of Congress who advocated trimming the administration's Iraqi aid program.
Although a decent person, he represents the worst anti-intellectual caricature of religious ones. He admits that he doesn't read or "do nuance." If religious broadcaster Pat Robertson is correct, the president didn't expect casualties in Iraq. Bush believes in presidential infallibility and exhibits an irresponsible, juvenile cockiness ("bring 'em on," he said, as American soldiers were being killed in Iraq). He holds no one in his administration accountable for anything, even lying to Congress and the public.
Alas, he has influenced much of the Republican Party and conservative movement. Leading GOP congressmen have given up attempting to eliminate even the most wasteful programs. Conservative intellectuals also want to make peace with Leviathan.
Although the Republican Party often violated conservative principles, there once was a real difference between the philosophies and parties. No one could mistake the governing philosophies of Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.
That difference is no longer discernible. Under President George W. Bush, modern conservatism has become a slightly more faint version of modern liberalism. Both groups believe that the right application of spending, regulation and war can perfect people and their institutions.
Conservatism was the primary political repository of the classical liberal commitment to individual liberty in America. But Bush has destroyed the right's opposition to the growth of statism in the U.S. Conservatives have won power by embracing George W. Bush, but they have sold their souls -- along with the individual liberty that is so integral to the American experience -- for a mess of pottage.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan.
The Japan Times: Nov. 8, 2004


China pushes for new order
By GLYN FORD Special to The Japan Times
LONDON -- A new Chinese diplomacy is emerging from Beijing. Traditionally reactive to global events, China now sees itself forced to take on a proactive role in world affairs. The revolutionary phase of Chinese foreign policy is dead; now pragmatism has taken center-stage.
The sharp change is the consequence of the Bush administration's aggressive, unilateralist response to the 9/11 attacks, its "axis of evil" rhetoric and its willingness to pursue a "preemptive" defense.
With the United States painting North Korea into a corner, China brokered the six-party talks (with the U.S., Japan, Russia, North and South Korea) to try to resolve the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula. Without a solution, the knock-on impact could have China in an arms race with its Asian neighbors and the U.S. An arms race would threaten to divert massive resources from the civil economy into the military and break China's economic surge toward key-player status in global diplomacy.
China is therefore pushing hard for a new institutional architecture for global governance and a reformed United Nations that will help control a U.S. administration re-elected for four more years. The idea is to promote counter-progressive globalization driven by a leftist international agenda.
The first stage is to reform the U.N. Security Council with the addition of five or six new members that reflect a better balance of the world's wealth, geography and theology. Candidates for elevation include Japan and India, Germany and Brazil, an Arab/Muslim state, and South Africa. It will require hard bargaining as regional rivalries are a crucial stumbling block.
China will block Japan unless Tokyo makes a Teutonic-style contrition for the occupation of China and its neighbors before and during World War II. A recommended political tour for visiting Europeans is: (1) the Nanking Memorial Museum, built to commemorate the hundreds of thousands of Chinese said to have been massacred in 1937-1938 by the invading Japanese Army, and (2) the Harbin site of Japan's Unit 731, which developed biological and chemical weapon capacity in the 1930s and '40s by experimenting on thousands of hapless Chinese "guinea pigs."
Pakistan will try to veto India, Argentina, Brazil, Nigeria and South Africa, while the German question pitches the U.N.'s third-largest contributor against Anglo-French vested interests. Three European Union member states are too many, but no French or British government -- even without the campaigns of the Tory tabloids -- can meekly surrender the spoils of World War II in favor of a Europe-wide seat. A dark horse is the world's largest Muslim state and restored democracy, Indonesia.
A compromise, even if it can be reached with the five permanent members and the major regional players, is still not sufficient. The 191 members of the General Assembly must endorse any plan for Security Council reform with a two-thirds majority. They will want something out of the deal, such as recognition that hunger, poverty and disease is the engine for terrorism and war. The number of people killed by terrorists in the world in a single day is less than those dying of AIDS in Africa, but where are the battalions fighting it?
The U.N. also needs more resources. It's unlikely to come from higher contributions by member states. One solution may be some version of the "Tobin Tax," where a very low tax is imposed on all capital transfers, to raise $50 billion to $150 billion for new U.N. spending. At the moment, the world's annual military budget is $800 billion, while development aid languishes at $60 billion. To put that in perspective, if development expenditures were paid at the same rate as the military's, development funding would be exhausted by Jan. 27.
Furthermore, pressure should start on parallel reform of the World Trade Organization when free trade is blended with the need for fairness and sustainability. Such a reform package would be hard to put together and sell. But when has anything worthwhile ever been easy?
China's new diplomacy has a regional dimension as well. Despite knowing that East German independence in the end proved no barrier to German reunification, they take an absolutist stance on Taiwan. The "one China" policy does not brook an independent Taiwan. U.S. neoconservatives encouraging Taiwanese independence are literally playing with fire.
Equally with North Korea, China is a determined not to have its interests threatened, so Beijing is pushing Pyongyang to bend a little. The recent state visit to China by North Korean head of state Kim Yong Nam saw him make a series of what the North Koreans considered conciliatory statements.
But the Chinese are preparing for the worst. Recent revisions of history have generated a spat with South Korea. Chinese historians have reclassified the ancient Korean kingdom of Koryo as once a part of the Chinese empire, a position that could justify deep Chinese interest in North Korea. China has made no claims to Korean territory; nor has it called for a boundary change. But its reconsideration of the ancient kingdom does establish a special relationship with the area.
Any violence, instability or collapse in North Korea could find China entering the territory under terms of the 1961 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance. Even without a continual Chinese military presence, the North would not necessarily fall into the laps of the U.S. At the same time, though, the Chinese presence might deter U.S. adventurism if Washington tried to force a solution of the Peninsula crisis in a way that was perceived as directly affecting Chinese interests.
The message is clear. There is a new kid on the block of global diplomacy: China. It's in Europe's interest to help it integrate with the rest of the world. This means a new look at how to promote the new international and political order.

Glyn Ford, a European Parliament member, recently headed a Socialist delegation to China to attend a seminar on the "New International Order and U.N. Reform."
The Japan Times: Nov. 11, 2004