Dec 12, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
Howard Dean was already considered a frontrunner for the Democrat presidential nominee before Al Gore endorsed him this week. Now he's virtually a shoe-in, which is all the more reason to take a close look at the policies he's advocating. Last week we criticized Dean for his unwillingness to deal forcibly with terrorist-sponsoring states. In the same Chris Matthews' interview, Dean also revealed his desire to use the power of the FCC to inject his vision of "democracy" into big media, all at the expense of free speech. This is otherwise known as censorship.
DEAN: I would reverse [deregulation] in some areas. First of all, 11 companies in this country control 90 percent of what ordinary people are able to read and watch on their television. That's wrong. We need to have a wide variety of opinions in every community. We don't have that because of Michael Powell and what George Bush has tried to do to the FCC.
MATTHEWS: Would you break up Fox? (LAUGHTER)MATTHEWS: I'm serious.
DEAN: I'm keeping a...
MATTHEWS: Would you break it up? Rupert Murdoch has "The Weekly Standard." It has got a lot of other interests. It has got "The New York Post." Would you break it up?
DEAN: On ideological grounds, absolutely yes, but... (LAUGHTER)MATTHEWS: No, seriously. As a public policy, would you bring industrial policy to bear and break up these conglomerations of power?
DEAN: I don't want to answer whether I would break up Fox or not, because, obviously (CROSSTALK)MATTHEWS: Well, how about large media enterprises?
DEAN: Let me-yes, let me get... (LAUGHTER)DEAN: The answer to that is yes. I would say that there is too much penetration by single corporations in media markets all over this country. We need locally-owned radio stations. There are only two or three radio stations left in the state of Vermont where you can get local news anymore. The rest of it is read and ripped from the AP.
MATTHEWS: So what are you going to do about it? You're going to be president of the United States, what are you going to do?
DEAN: What I'm going to do is appoint people to the FCC that believe democracy depends on getting information from all portions of the political spectrum, not just one.
MATTHEWS: Well, would you break up GE? (APPLAUSE)DEAN: I can't-you...
MATTHEWS: GE just buys Universal. Would you do something there about that? Would you stop that from happening?
DEAN: You can't say-you can't ask me right now and get an answer, would I break up X corp...
MATTHEWS: We've got to do it now, because now is the only chance we can ask you, because, once you are in, we have got to live with you. (LAUGHTER)DEAN: No.
MATTHEWS: So, if you are going to do it, you have got to tell us now. (CROSSTALK)MATTHEWS: Are you going to break up the giant media enterprises in this country?
DEAN: Yes, we're going to break up giant media enterprises. That doesn't mean we're going to break up all of GE. What we're going to do is say that media enterprises can't be as big as they are today. I don't think we actually have to break them up, which Teddy Roosevelt had to do with the leftovers from the McKinley administration. (CROSSTALK)MATTHEWS: ... regulate them.
DEAN: You have got to say that there has to be a limit as to how-if the state has an interest, which it does, in preserving democracy, then there has to be a limitation on how deeply the media companies can penetrate every single community. To the extent of even having two or three or four outlets in a single community, that kind of information control is not compatible with democracy.
Dec 11, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
The New York Sun is a right-wing paper, so one hopes that Annan's comments are not taken out of context in what follows:
In what was dubbed by one observer as "re-Baathification," Mr. Annan called for enlarging the American-appointed Governing Council making it "more inclusive" in order "to bring in national groups and individuals that have thus far been excluded or have excluded themselves."
The undersecretary general, Kieran Prendergast, said Mr. Annan meant adding some Baathists--or as he called them "Arab Sunni nationalists"--and Shiites to the 24-member council. The American policy has been to exclude all remnants of the Baath Party leadership from a future role in Iraq's leadership.
Mr. Annan also reserved some very sharp criticism to the evolving American policy of exerting military pressure in areas where terrorist activity is rampant, which some critics said mirrored Israel's tactics in its own occupied territories. Citing "military responses to threats to coalition forces, dispersal of demonstrations, raids on homes, and confrontations as well as at checkpoints," Mr. Annan called for "adhering strictly to international humanitarian law and human rights instruments."
...Mr. Annan concluded that as long as the U.N.'s conciliatory methods of dealing with security threats were not accepted by the coalition, the organization would not return to the perilous conditions of Iraq. [12/11/2003]
Good riddance!Dec 11, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
In yet another presidential disappointment, FoxNews reported yesterday: Bush Opposes Taiwan Independence."We oppose any unilateral decision by either China or Taiwan to change the status quo," Bush told reporters, "and the comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan" -- referring to President Chen Shui-bian -- "indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally." The referendum, scheduled for March 20, would let Taiwan's electorate decide whether the island's government should demand that Beijing remove hundreds of missiles aimed at it and renounce the use of force. Chen's decision to hold the vote, under a new law that gives him power to call a "defensive referendum" when the island's sovereignty faces imminent threat, is also seen as a means of shoring up his own support as a re-election campaign looms. Chen is a strong proponent of independence for Taiwan, and both Bush administration and mainland Chinese officials say the referendum is an indirect step toward that.
How good can it be when President Bush and the Communist dictatorship of China share the same negative view of another nation's desire to be free from the threat of tyranny? Having earlier this year said that he would do "whatever it takes" to defend Taiwan, now Bush is apparently willing to sacrifice Taiwan. And for what? Supposedly, maintaining the "status quo" with the Chinese dictatorship will encourage it to be part of the diplomatic "multilateralist" pressure on the nuke-seeking North Korean dictatorship -- thus maintaining regional "stability."
Sound familiar? These are exactly the same types of arguments used by leftists who were against invading Iraq.
And who is Bush to condemn Taiwan's unilateral actions to protect itself from an threatening nation? Isn't a willingness to act unilaterally, and preemptively if necessary, a fundamental tenet of America's War on Terrorism? It's not as if Taiwan is proposing to invade China -- they just want to vote on a referendum demanding that China promise not to annihilate them. And this represents some kind of evil "unilateralism" to Bush? Ridiculous. Absurd. Hypocritical.
Bush is saying "Do As I Say, Not As I Do," the type of admonishments he occasionally gives to Israel in its war against Palestinian terrorism. We see where that's gotten Israel. Bush's treatment of Taiwan is disgusting no matter how you slice it but not surprising. This prophetic Jeff Jacoby op-ed from September 2002 spells it all out: Taiwan is not China:
Taiwan is a free republic, a loyal American ally, a guarantor of civil liberties, and an engine of economic freedom. It does not deserve to be treated as an international pariah, or to be hastily shushed when it points out that it is China's political equal, not a rebellious Chinese province. The United States disgraces itself every time it fails to robustly defend Taiwan's right to freely determine its own future. The disgrace is compounded by the fact that the American unwillingness to embrace Taiwan, a [free country], is born of a desire to appease China, the world's foremost totalitarian dictatorship.
Though Bush often, in a very mixed sort of way, advocates pro-American foreign policies -- more so than, say, Howard Dean would -- Bush clearly does not apply those same principles to our allies. He apparently thinks there are some short-term benefits to selling out our allies to appease our enemies. But the long-term consequences of such policies are not in America's interests for the same reason that appeasing hostile Arab tyrannies has proven not to be in America's interests. Does Bush need a Taiwanese 9/11 caused by Chinese missiles to understand this?
If we are to come close to winning the War on Terrorism, we need a consistent, principled, uncompromisingly pro-freedom/anti-tyranny foreign policy. The expedient diplomatic abandonment of Taiwan is yet more proof that we do not have such a policy coming from the Bush White House.
At least Taiwan is being somewhat defiant. Reuters reports that "Taiwan Says Vote Still on Despite Bush Warning":Brushing aside a warning from George W. Bush, Taiwan's president reiterated his plan to hold a referendum alongside elections next March, but said neither independence nor the status quo with China would be at issue.
Hopefully the referendum will still demand that China renounce the use of force, but one commentator in the article above says the referendum may be watered down to merely say that "Taiwan is pro-peace."Dec 10, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Writes Isabel Vincent in Canada's National Post that UN-supervised Kosovo "has deteriorated into a hotbed of organized crime, anti-Serb violence and al-Qaeda sympathizers."
Though nominally still under UN control, the southern province of Serbia is today dominated by a triumvirate of Albanian paramilitaries, mafiosi and terrorists. They control a host of smuggling operations and are implementing what many observers call their own brutal ethnic cleansing of minority groups, such as Serbs, Roma and Jews.
...According to statistics collected by the UN criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague, 1,192 Serbs have been killed, 1,303 kidnapped and 1,305 wounded in Kosovo this year,...The violence continues despite an 18,000-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force and an international police force of more than 4,000.
..."The whole process of rebuilding Kosovo-Metohija as a democratic, multi-ethnic society failed due to both the inability of the UN mission and [NATO] forces to protect Serbs and other non-Albanians from large-scale ethnic cleansing, this time primarily against Serbs," said Dusan Batakovic, a Serb diplomat and leading expert on Kosovo.
...Now, more than 5,000 tonnes of heroin pass directly through Kosovo every month. In a recent article in Serbia's Vreme magazine, Kosovo was referred to as the "republic of heroin."...The Albanian mafia also control trafficking in cigarettes, weapons, gasoline and women. Dozens of young women from impoverished towns and villages in the region are forced into prostitution rings centred in Kosovo, security officials say. Many of the women are taken by mobsters to work in Western European countries.
..."It's a terrible situation," said Mr. Bissett. "If the United Nations and other organizations can't handle Kosovo, you wonder how they are going to do with something like Iraq." ["Crime, terror flourish in 'liberated' Kosovo" (December 10, 2003)]
How indeed.
Recommended Reading: Kosovo: Tribalist Quagmire by Andrew Lewis
Clinton Morally Wrong to Risk U.S. Troops to Impose a "Peace" upon Warring Ethnic TribesDec 10, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From the NYSun:
"Parents today are being forced to contend with a new threat -- big food companies targeting junk food at children," Mr. Lieberman said. "We cannot raise strong and healthy children if the best efforts of good parents all across America are being consistently undercut by corporations looking to profit by spreading bad behavior."
Dec 10, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
A letter from Ed Thompson on progressive education:
"Progressive education" is a term calculated to mislead--who would oppose progress? But it is in fact regressive, designed to thwart cognitive development in favor of a group mentality, creating followers rather than leaders. It instills collectivism rather than individualism, pragmatism rather than standards or principles, range-of-the-moment thinking rather than objective, goal-oriented activity.
Man is the only species in nature capable of willfully crippling its young. Progressive education clips the wings of the fledgling mind before it leaves the nest, leaving its victims ill prepared for adulthood. It's not that Johnny can't read; it's that he cannot think effectively. It is no coincidence that multiculturalism, the misplaced notion that all cultures are equal, has gained a widespread following; it follows from progressive education. Only a society that has learned that there are no standards can disregard the differences between Western societies and primitive ones, e.g., the difference between Beethoven and a primitive drum. The same holds for political correctness, environmentalism, et al.
Most individuals are too benevolent to conceive of such a perverse program--hence, its success over the past 75 years. [Daily Sun]
