Endi Thinks

On Foreign Affairs

endithinks — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:31:15 +0000

Read this article and be informed.

Also Happy Thanksgiving.

On gagging journalists

endithinks — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:49:23 +0000

This disturbing story about another step in a more intrusive government on the rights of journalists is cited in this CBS story about a news organization getting a request from the Department of Justice for information about the users of this website including IP addresses.

The story can be read here.

Now, I am all for free speech and the role of the journalist is sacrosanct in a democracy or representative republic like the States. We cannot allow the media to be muffled no matter how much we may disagree with what they say.

I can’t stand Fox News for instance, but I’m glad that they are doing what they are doing. A democracy or representative republic like the States needs conflicting views and debate to shake out the extremists on all sides. Only through comparison and contrast can we reach a balanced view.

On Fort Hood

endithinks — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:43:31 +0000

I am horrified at what happened at Fort Hood. Nothing is lower to me than a person who betrays their country and their comrades. My deepest condolences to the families of all those slain.

I am worried that once again this will turn into a religious thing, instead of just a coward lashing out in fear. This man apparently from reports did not do this out of religious reasons. He was a psychiatrist who saw the effects of the war on returning soldiers everyday as a matter of course.

According to the latest reports he was mortified by the thought of being deployed and a few years ago had started trying to get some legal recourse to leave the army before his term of service was fulfilled.

The lawyer that he hired said that there was nothing that could be done and apparently Hasan just put his head down and continued to serve.

So what should the lessons learned from this event be? Firstly, that war without end against a guerrilla force is not sustainable. The war in Afghanistan has now gone on for eight years and we are neither safer or more secure. Iraq is still having problems as well with suicide bombers still hitting crowded markets and urban centers on a monthly basis. We need to reevaluate our strategy to the point of considering and in my opinion retreating.

Military decisions are based on the facts on the ground not idealism. I think that the major mistake the president is making is in continuing this fight in Afghanistan. It is solid military reasoning to retreat under the circumstances of no assured victory. It would not be a loss of face, but a saving move grounded in reality.

No one will think less of the president for getting us out of a mire that we have been sloughing through for eight years. We also need to seriously confront the mental harm that our soldiers suffer through in a war zone and the aftermath of being constantly on guard.

On Afghanistan and reelections

endithinks — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:40:26 +0000

Today we have found out that due to the rampant election fraud in Afghanistan that President Karzai now has dropped to forty seven percent which according to the Afghan constitution automatically triggers a run off election. Excellent. Karzai has been the worst strategic partner we have had to deal with in years. Even Pakistan is doing a better job and that is saying quite a bit considering how we pandered and dithered with Pakistan for all those years with its military leadership getting millions for absolutely no reason.

Now that a runoff has been declared this will definitely put the Afghan question into a new light. What if the presidency of Afghanistan goes to Abdullah Abdullah? Mr. Abdullah is the leading opponent of Karzai and from what I’ve been able to read about him, he seems like a reformer who wants to actually make Afghanistan a working country instead of a collection of tribes, a few big cities and hundreds of miles of mountainous ruin. You can read more about Abdullah here.

My views on the war in Afghanistan are well documented in this very blog, but as a quick reminder…I’m against it. The war is not being won because we do not have a clear mission, we are fighting a country that held off the second strongest military for over ten years (Soviet Union) and the countryside is made for guerrilla fighters. Mountains, deserts, plains and crags, dust, storms and plenty of choke points in mountain passes. In fact in proportion Afghanistan is deadlier to our soldiers than Iraq.

Of course all these arguments mean nothing to a stubborn leadership who has adopted this war as a sign of manliness. This is the major problem I have with the Obama administration is the seeming continuation and escalation of a war that cannot be won without hundreds of thousands of soldiers and a nation building civilian effort. Once again lets look at the facts about Afghanistan. (Taken from the CIA factbook). Pay attention to the life expectancy and literacy rates…


Nationality:
noun: Afghan(s) adjective: Afghan

Ethnic groups:
Pashtun 42%, Tajik 27%, Hazara 9%, Uzbek 9%, Aimak 4%, Turkmen 3%, Baloch 2%, other 4%

Religions:
Sunni Muslim 80%, Shia Muslim 19%, other 1%

Languages:
Afghan Persian or Dari (official) 50%, Pashto (official) 35%, Turkic languages (primarily Uzbek and Turkmen) 11%, 30 minor languages (primarily Balochi and Pashai) 4%, much bilingualism

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 28.1% male: 43.1% female: 12.6% (2000 est.)

School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education):
total: 8 years male: 11 years female: 4 years (2004)

Education expenditures:
NA


28.396 million (July 2009 est.) country comparison to the world: 44 note: this is a significantly revised figure; the previous estimate of 33,609,937 was extrapolated from the last Afghan census held in 1979, which was never completed because of the Soviet invasion; a new Afghan census is scheduled to take place in 2010

Age structure:
0-14 years: 44.5% (male 7,664,670/female 7,300,446) 15-64 years: 53% (male 9,147,846/female 8,679,800) 65 years and over: 2.4% (male 394,572/female 422,603) (2009 est.)

Median age:
total: 17.6 years male: 17.6 years female: 17.6 years (2009 est.)

Population growth rate:
2.629% (2009 est.) country comparison to the world: 28

Birth rate:
45.46 births/1,000 population (2009 est.) country comparison to the world: 4

Death rate:
19.18 deaths/1,000 population (July 2009 est.) country comparison to the world: 8

Net migration rate:
21 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2009 est.) country comparison to the world: 2

Urbanization:
urban population: 24% of total population (2008) rate of urbanization: 5.4% annual rate of change (2005-10 est.)

Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female 15-64 years: 1.05 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.93 male(s)/female total population: 1.05 male(s)/female (2009 est.)

Infant mortality rate:
total: 151.95 deaths/1,000 live births country comparison to the world: 3 male: 156.01 deaths/1,000 live births female: 147.7 deaths/1,000 live births (2009 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 44.64 years country comparison to the world: 214 male: 44.47 years female: 44.81 years (2009 est.)

Total fertility rate:
6.53 children born/woman (2009 est.) country comparison to the world: 4

On Russian-Chinese relations

endithinks — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:37:26 +0000

An interesting article from a book entitled Axis of Convenience by Bobo Lo points out the growing relationship between China and Russia as being both actual and confusing.

The article was posted on Foreign Affairs and you can read it here.

The Unbalanced Triangle

The article also focuses on the American relations with these two powers as well. We have had a recent surge of relations with China since President Bush was in office and now China is our number two trading partner after Canada. Some experts believe we may well be on our way to become closer to China than Canada if trends remain the same economically.

I actually am probably going to pick up this book. If I do I will do a review of it here.

On Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize

endithinks — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:07:55 +0000

The president has won the Noble Peace Prize this morning in a surprise award that the White House has not even had the chance to respond officially. Congratulations Mr. President. Now on to business. Let’s hope that this will remind the president of what he is about. He needs to reevaluate the war in Afghanistan, and focus on reducing nuclear arms. We need to remove ourselves from aggressive foreign soil occupation. I hope that this prize jolts the president in a way that allows him to change the course towards what he really believes.

Here is the article from the nytimes.

Obama wins Nobel Prize

On “American Police Force”

endithinks — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:17:59 +0000

It started with the government under President Bush hiring a private company of mercenaries called Blackwater and now it is continuing. In Montana a small town has had a new group of tourists that they did not expect, a police force from a private for profit company named American Police Force. No you are not in Fascist Germany, you are still here in America where we are starting to use mercenaries in order to police our own cities.

The group has a shoddy, shaddy looking website which you can see here American Police Force (apparently the server is overloaded as I write this) and the group took over a city prison that did not have any inmates. The townsfolk had no idea this was going to occur and since this is a private mercenary group they do not know what to expect.

Read the article from CBS news. American Police Force Comes to Town.

This is quite disturbing. We are not a nation of mercenaries and the fact that they are deployed on our own soil is very disquieting.

On Missile Defense

endithinks — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:25:17 +0000

Finally some good news in regards to the military. President Obama has announced that he is not going to follow the Bush era missile defense shield that started the Russian/Georgian conflict earlier last year. The president has called the prime ministers of Poland and the others and has told them that the defense shield would not in fact be defensive at all.

The decision came after reviewing what the defense shield was supposed to accomplish and realizing that the accomplishments could be made by simpler tactics. The shield was basically an economic gift from Bush to the eastern european countries and a punch in Russia’s eye as Bush wanted to show once again how tough he was. I guess two wars wasn’t enough for him.

As you remember in the Russian/Georgian conflict one of the reasons Georgia was so aggressive and trying to reestablish itself in that regions under nominal Russian control was because they felt a strong sense of support from the former president and felt that the time was right as Russia was apparently struggling economically. Of course they made a huge tactical error as Russia’s military has always been strong regardless of economics. Russia was one of the few countries were you could not directly tie economic strength with military strength.

So Russia venting some of its bitterness and frustration overpowered Georgia not only to defend themselves, but also to send a message to the world that Russia is not a weak nation. The assault also served as a warning against western encroachment on the former soviet states into NATO an organization formed after world war two to directly counter the growing strength of the USSR.

Georgia, Ukraine and Poland were all playing with the thought of becoming NATO allies and Russia was not happy about it. The Georgian war was the perfect foil for Russia to stand up and reenergize its flagging morale.

Here is the article from the NY Times. Way to go Mr. President. Let’s spend our military on things that will actually make us safer and by the way we need to get out of Afghanistan.

Missile Defense Shield

On Seattle

endithinks — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:50:08 +0000

Well the move is finally finished and I am writing from the city of my dreams, Seattle. It has been an eventful last couple of weeks with the move and the combating viruses that my girlfriend and I have been trading back and forth.

It all started with an unfortunate allergic reaction to a veggie burger that I’ve ordered from a martini bar (I know first mistake ordering food from a martini bar), but seriously who the hell puts nuts in a veggie burger made of beans? It was a three bean burger and they threw in walnuts for giggles I guess. I have tried and tried to think of a logical reason for throwing nuts into a veggie burger and I can only come up with the following: they were smoking something.

Anyway after a few days of fever and coughing and swelling I finally recovered only to see my girlfriend come down with a flu that is working its way around town. She is working from home right now luckily she has a job that can afford her to do that, but she is still sick although on the mend.

The town itself is as wonderful as I remember it. I love the feeling of being part of a sprawling mass of humanity and the city has afforded me many opportunities to just sit and relax and marvel at what we can accomplish. I’ve already hit the historical tourist stops in Seattle, walking around Pike’s Place Market, Seattle Center and various other hotspots, but this time I don’t have to hop on a ferry and go home. I am home.

I’ve been looking for work in this city slowly working my way through some routines and plans that are starting to bear fruit. I will be volunteering at various places and sometime this week I am going to increase my search’s radius. I’m trying to find something that is meaningful and worthy. I do not just want to take a position because it is money in the bank. I can’t do that after leaving a position I absolutely loved in Portland. I’ve seen how you can make a difference, a tangible difference if you put your heart into your work and I will not back away from that.

So, I’m looking into non profits, social work, writing and other venues in order to do something that will actually be useful both physically and spiritually. I want to be part of a team that is doing work to help people reach their full potential. I will probably be in the education field of some sort again as I really enjoyed being in a classroom for the past couple of years. Anyway I will keep you all posted.

By the way if you hear of anything that matches me feel free to leave a comment and we can exchange information.

On a guest article from Huffington Post

endithinks — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:10:20 +0000

Here is an article that I think sums up some of my thoughts in the past few days very succinctly. It is from the Huffington Post (which I read mostly for entertainment, but once in a while an article actually has merit) and it is by Jane Devin and all rights remain with her and Huffington Post.

Jane Devin

Writer-Essayist

Posted: September 11, 2009 02:56 PM

Between Blinders & Bible-Thumping, Fanciful Flights & Party Suicide, Where is America Heading?

Radio Flyer is a small 1992 film about two brothers, Mike and Bobby, who invent a flying machine out of a little red wagon so that Bobby can escape the brutal abuse he regularly suffers at the hands of his drunken stepfather.

The end of the film never baffled me. It seemed clear that Bobby’s escape down the side of a mountain failed, and that in order to ease the pain of his brother’s death, Mike invented an alternate reality that had Bobby sending him postcards from all over the world. As a grown man, Mike tells his children the story and says:

“Do you guys understand what I meant about history being in the mind of the teller?”
“I think so.”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Good, because that’s the way I remember it.”

I wasn’t aware until recently that there was a controversy about the movie’s end. Some people, it seems, are adamant that the little red wagon sailed off into the sky and that Bobby spent the rest of his life happy and traveling. This fantastical possibility was offered by the film’s somewhat cryptic ending and many fans decided that, despite the grim reality of the rest of the story, a fantasy ending was somehow fitting. The director, Richard Donner, seemed to want that, too, but he couldn’t sink the weight of writer David Evans’s final few lines.Even as a writer and a creative person, it has always surprised me that some people are so willing to suspend reality in favor of even the most obvious fantasies — like karma and its accompanying bromides like “what comes around goes around” or “there are no accidents”. Bad things happen to good people every day. Some ignorant or bad people are greatly rewarded. Sixteen year old girls blow lottery fortunes on fake boobs and cocaine, while people who’ve worked hard for 30 or 40 years lose their jobs and homes. Talent and persistence don’t always win out — sometimes luck, nepotism, or family connections matter more.

And the chances are that if you see a baby being thrown against a wall, or a woman getting raped, or a gay man being beaten by a bunch of thugs, you’re not going to think it’s karma, or the mythical fates at work — you’re not going to think “there are no accidents” — instead you’re going to think that such events are wretched, horrible, often preventable, and totally unacceptable.

I believe that people buy into the karma myth because it comes with blinders attached. If people can delude themselves into believing that there’s some higher reason for unacceptable acts or circumstances, and that the world runs as it is supposed to, then they’re essentially letting themselves off the hook from having to consider the realities of the world they live in and, consequently, their place and role in those realities. If they believe that “there are no accidents,” then they don’t have to put forth much effort in righting the wrongs, or even acknowledging them, because wrongs simply don’t exist — and if they do, well, karma — not effort — will take care of them.

Many otherwise smart and liberal-minded people I know have fallen under the spell of karmical thinking. They are so enamored with idealized concepts of peace, fairness, inclusiveness, and supporting the underdog that they have become intellectually lazy. They may be willing to lend their names to the progressive cause du jour — Palestine, free elections in Iran, health care reform — but their understanding of the issues may be extremely narrow, often on purpose and adamantly so, because they refuse to see anything beyond their magical blinders.

While some liberals may be bent on mystical, karmic thinking, even more pervasive, particularly when it comes to politics and religion, is the dogmatic adherence being exhibited by many conservatives. Here, people have ceased to think critically, as independent beings, and have instead subscribed to a rigid, and often fantastical, set of beliefs as proffered by their religion’s or party’s most prominent spokespeople.

Paradise in exchange for murder and suicide; heavenly forgiveness for even the most brutal and intentional of acts; forced marriages of young girls to older men; oppression and brutality heaped upon women, children, minorities, and the underclass — there are those, in America and abroad, who insist that God is a co-perpetrator of these and other savage and systematic abuses of humanity, and that man is only carrying out God’s will when he bombs an abortion clinic, forces a thirteen year old Texas girl into a polygamous marriage, or stones a Sudanese rape victim to death.

The horrors of oppressive religion become entwined with culture. In Afghanistan, a ten year old girl beaten with wires by her two older brothers for visiting a skateboard park says, “I’m not upset with my brothers for beating me, they have the right.” In Canada as well as the U.S., women and teenage girls defend a lifestyle in which it is common for 14 and 15 year old girls, most of whom have never experienced life outside of their isolated communities, to marry and bear children.

And while American conservatives have leaned on the gospel of Christianity a great deal, almost none of their social responses are merciful, e.g. Christian, in nature. They buck against the idea of society helping the poor or uninsured. They seek the harshest of punishments against even non-violent offenders. They bring guns to town hall meetings. They favor the deregulation of corporations and a mitigation of corporate responsibilities. They fight against increases in the minimum wage. They either don’t believe in global warming, or don’t think measures to curb it are fair to industry. They think the Constitution and Bill of Rights should bend to their whim — making things like the Patriot Act morally acceptable, but a secular, inclusive government evil.

Under the umbrella of Christianity, the Republicans have stood against equality for women. They have sought to undo affirmative action. They do not believe gay people should have equal rights to the benefits of marriage. They believe that hate crime legislation imposes on their religious freedom. They continue to fight against The United Nations Bill of Rights for Children, which seeks to make children less the chattel of their parents and give them protections as autonomous but dependent beings. 193 countries have signed the bill over the past decade. America and Somalia are two who have not.

In the fantastical world of fundamentalist religiopolitics, it is acceptable for Glenn Beck to call Obama a racist, but not acceptable to question the racial motives behind the continuous, frivolous, and often frighteningly ignorant attacks on President Obama. It was acceptable when a Republican President put the country into trillions of dollars of debt, lied to the American people, advocated torture, kept prisoners without due process, and allowed companies like Halliburton and Blackwater to fill their coffers with tax money — but it is unacceptable that Obama works towards health care reform, and speaks to school children about working hard and not giving up. It was unpatriotic to criticize war and torture under Bush, but it’s perfectly patriotic to bring a gun to a protest against health care.

Ever since Obama became a contender, I have watched the dogmatic branch of the right-wing slip into a state of near hysteria. While there was just something sad and pathetic about watching religious Republican mouthpieces like Jerry Falwell debate the sexuality of Tinky Winky or blaming gays, feminists and pagans for the attack of 9/11, what’s happening now is steeped in a vicious and hateful brew that makes yesterday’s spewed ignorance seem almost innocuous. From conspiracy theories about the President’s birth certificate, to ongoing accusations that Obama is a Muslim, socialist, Marxist, thug — even Satan incarnate — these attacks step way outside the realm of political disagreement or religious differences, and seek to illegitimize and demonize a President who hasn’t even been in office for a full year; who hasn’t yet significantly changed the political or social landscape of America; and who, coincidentally, happens to be America’s most powerful and popular minority figure.

Of course, the possibility that racism is behind much of the expressed hatred is met with staunch denial. Then again, as long as they don’t mention blackness, but instead insist that Obama is an A-rab and play on the fears of their most ignorant followers, then that’s not racist but somehow proper and worthy of consideration.

If a political parallel between the Radio Flyer movie and politics were to be drawn, the mystical thinkers in the liberal party would be the blinders-on idealists who really believe that their little red wagon can effortlessly defy the laws of physics and reality, and fly happily into the sunset to live happily-ever-after in some future made of dreams and wishes. They actually do little to accomplish their imagined flight because that would involve having to fight and possibly alienate the people that don’t want them to take off in the first place. Instead, the mystical thinkers seek to build consensus even among the most inhospitable people, compromising themselves right into a steady holding pattern where little gets done but hey — the intentions were good and in the end isn’t that what’s most important?

Conservatives, on the other hand, may be helping the Republican party commit suicide with their outlandish escapades and maniacal speech but they’re playing it off as if they, too, were taking flight — into a future that glorifies and seeks to replicate the past — when uppity black and poor people, women, and children knew their places; labor laws and unions didn’t interfere with business; war was glorified; prayer was considered more fruitful than knowledge; and non-white, non-Christians were viewed as less than equal or heretical.

In between the two extremes, there are those who seek neither fanciful flight nor destruction of progress. We wonder why it’s not possible to effect a rescue before the wagon goes careening down the mountainside in the first place.

The ending that wasn’t offered by the movie Radio Flyer also seems absent in politics. The question is, between the inaction of the karmic thinkers and the screaming of the backward dogmatists, will the country be able to save itself from the kind of cryptic politics that leaves the future precariously hanging from the side of a cliff?

This version corrects film director’s name.

Follow Jane Devin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/janedevin