Foreign Affairs article on Cambodia
Cambodia has become nation mired in corruption that stiffens growth and tarnishes success as being bought not earned: The other side of U.S. withdrawal from Indochina. The end of the Vietnam War, devastating Pol Pot regime, and Vietnam intervention has left a country without the human resources necessary to build a country capable of building a self sustaining economy. The government is populated by former Vietnam straw men and Khmer Rouge officials. Kick backs and skimming are the expected way of conducting all life. Extending to grade school children expected to bribe teachers for good grades or not attending since they cannot afford the bribes. Government officials have established rules to take action against any teacher taking bribes with little result. This system of pay for grades has made any graduate suspect as to their actual abilities. Land for development can be had for the right price. The agency empowered to establish property rights will create a land deed that allows the new owner to have the legal owners, sometimes entire streets, evicted by force and relocated to become the tenant problem of another persons land. This problem has been address by yet another commission to adjudicate complaints only to have the resolutions lost and left unenforceable. Ministers and members of the parliament live a lavish existence conspicuously above the means of their state salaries. Lives behind walls and with private golf courses are not unusual. NGO’s have implemented accounting measure to address this type of patronage but the bribes and pilfering continues at a lowered level. A grass roots organization has petitioned the government for a new anticorruption law but action is not expected. This organization has also created a program to identify corruption only to be used by the government to be show cased as addressing the problem when funding time comes around. The entire budget of the government is provided by foreign grants and little is expected to change. The situation is so dire Gap could ruin the nation by closing down and leaving. Life is cheapen to a new level when relatives of officials are coddled by police forces when they hit pedestrian and the victims are left to bleed to death at the accident scene . Murder for hire is they other way to make a living while quieting the opposition. The death of many educated professionals during the Pol Pot regime has left the country unable to produce future leaders that will build a nation with accomplishments rather then hand outs. The lose of Cambodia to a Communist system was honorific and now life under an unregulated capitalist system will have the opportunity to show case its strength as market forces efficiently distribute resources via scarcity. What would have happed to Jesus if Egypt had a bill similar to Arizona’s? Where would the Christian religion be now? This argument is over the top but no less then the ranting going on by the supporter of the Arizona bill. (I refer to it as the bill because the Heath Care Law is still referred to as a bill.)
The argument for the bill begins with the story of the rancher on the Arizona New Mexico boarder killed by a reported drug dealer from Mexico. The solution to this problem is to collect all men, women, and children in Arizona without permission and remove them from the United States. This solution to the problem of “narco-terrorist” “human trafficking” murderers is simplistic. The poppies growing in Afghanistan, the cocoa growing in the Southern Americas, the Marijuana or Meth produced inside the United States, and the demand for sex workers and cheap labor will likely continue regardless of how many hard working families are removed from the United States. What will ultimately result from this policy is a reduction in the public participations of the largest growing part of the population. A fear will settle over immigrant communities aware that any contact with law enforcement is lawful contact making them subject to citizenship verification. People with information related to drug trafficking, murders, robberies, or other crimes will be reluctant to engage law enforcement officers with this fear hanging over their head. The trouble with proving citizenship is a burden few will want to endure. Recent stories of people reluctant to offer help to a person lying on a side walk displays the apathy towards getting involved even when proof of citizenship is not in question. The related decrease in crime related to the increased deportation will have to be measured but like most statistics they will eventually confess if you torture them long enough. An easier statistic to measure is the percentage of citizen participating in these criminal activities. Medicinal marijuana users and the economic activities they create will bring drug decriminalization into the argument of immigration reform. The argument continues towards the need to secure the boarders of the United States and a call for an increased presence on the boarder. Traffic will decline with some activity continuing as along as the right payments are made. The cries of graft and a military bought and paid for with drug money will soon replace the cries of support or troops. Nothing will be done to secure ports and harbors where most international traffic occurs. Jobs are the hot button argument as the Great Recession hangs over job creation, pitting the unemployed against immigrants taking away their opportunity to fill the jobs of farm worker, service worker, or day laborer. I heard one black comedian say they’d had their fill of picking. Citizens are looking for more from this nation’s economy. The friction between immigrant communities is one of resources and access to political power more then a fight over the crumb on the floor. The traditional arguments of a drain on social services and of welfare queen in Cadillac’s are being told once again to fill the time of talk radio. These arguments, like the audience, have limited appeal. The economic boom and bust in the U.S. housing market effect the entire population. Immigrants benefited from the construction jobs and increased purchasing power. Those gains were reflected in increased tax base benefiting both state and local governments. Countless stories were told of housing tracts filled with immigrant laborers. Most of those robbed of wages in the post Katrina building boom were immigrants. The fall of the housing boom and the Great Recession has seen an exodus of worker out of the country but an increase in drug crime. Decrease in crime attributed to immigration should have occurred. Schools are closing and firing teachers because of declining revenue not decreased enrollment from immigrants leaving the country. School district with negligible immigrant students are not immune and more likely affected by home foreclosures and job losses not reduced immigration. The increasing drain on governments budgets for social services are due more too increased demand from citizen recently fired. The food panties are seeing increased demand from people employed and trying to hold onto a declining living standard. Reduction in the immigrant population should have seen a decline in welfare request, declining economic activity was the true result. The path to citizenship will become the real battle ground in this argument. Objection to amnesty is more repudiation of the Reagan administration policies. A present day Reagan amnesty solution, like a present day Reagan GOP election, will be hard to accomplish. The argument against a Reagan amnesty plan involves penalizing those that followed the rules and didn’t cut ahead in line. The argument embraces a cry to follow the rule of law. To all my fellow LOST fans, the man in black is looking for a loop hole. I listen to President Kennedy’s commencement speech at Vanderbilt University during times like this to remind me that it the responsibilities of the educated citizen to uphold the rule of law. President Kennedy prefaced his speech by referencing the issue of civil rights and framing the question of civil rights as a continuing discussion of how one group of citizen will be treated. Immigration reform is now an issue of how a group of people in this country will be treated. How U.S. citizen with non citizen parents will be treated. These citizens have a right to have their parents with them. They have the right to benefit from the hard work and sacrifices their parents made to make their futures better. They have the right to be supported by their parents and not the state. These small independent business owners have only their labor to sale and time and again create wealth from the work citizens find beneath them. They have organized communities and business groups, transformed the big box retailer model into the small box on wheels, taught their children to work together raising money to bury their friends, and chosen life and religion. Attempts to deprive these parents of citizen their property and livelihood harkens back to World War II…Japanese Internment. Reward for hard work and personal sacrifice are values supporters of the bill hold dear, and will be used to defeat this bill elevating the Democratic Party as the party of small business and family values. This was written during the time between the announcement of resignation and the final Sunday when resignation occurred. The events between then and now are not discussed and any reference is accidental.
The past is always with us, but until we seek to find a future that promises both the possibility of success or failure we cannot hope to change. William Faulkner. The road that the future former Governor of Alaska will take can be seen in the footsteps left in the path that lead the Ex Governor to where she now stands; hurt, isolated, vengeful, and disillusioned. Hurt from media attention that displays an alternate view, isolated from political bi-partisanship, vengeful of endless attacks, and disillusioned at her present public image. The media coverage of the future former Governor of Alaska has not been kind in her opinion. She declares the media does not report accomplishments that accrued before her VP run, and complains that only recent activates appear to be reported. As the Legislature rejected her appointments and gladly accepted 97% of the President’s stimulus money, it became apparent that the damaged caused to the Alaskan GOP ended the bi-partisanship she enjoyed in her first year in office. The original attack of Trooper Gate followed up with the only DC complaint involving the GOP provided wardrobe was just the beginning of the ethics complaint that we now know were the main cause of her resignation. The real cost to the Alaskan tax payer was already budgeted and her defense fund covered some of her expensive laying greater power to the claim of vengeance over cost. This tied in with an ever emerging negative image that forced her to play defense, put the Ex Governor in a position that she was unaccustomed, unfamiliar, and unequipped to play. The future former Governor of Alaska is most comfortable on attack and best when fed topical material. The ability to talk in platitude or stings word together to hit catch phrases without answering question has become a trade mark labeled as not politics as usual disguised as traditional avoidance and attempts to deny the implications in a question and redefine the subject characteristics of traditional politics. The Vanity Fair article is the most telling of a person who takes criticism very personally and uses attack as a counter when silence might prove a better tactic. Her engagement with Letterman offered short term sympathy but leaving David to milk the situation for millions of last laughs. The Ex Governor failed to craft the one sided Samurai sword, this take time and the hand of an experienced master, she instead forged a two sided broad sword. The unintended consequences of government regulation of political morality became the traditional legacy by which one falls by the sword which gave one life. Better to elect leaders that have shown acceptable local values then trying to legislate them. Coalition building with the opposite party so as to take control over your own is a dangerous occupation when life time politicians have more skin in the game then someone just walking thru. This action allowed the Democratic Party to elect a US Senator and increase the power of the party in Alaska. Lame duck status had already been placed upon the Ex Governor while speaking in Evansville the legislature continued to operate the state in her absence. The failure to successfully achieve appointment and her 3% solution to the stimulus package confirmed her obsolescence. Speculation that the Ex Governor of Alaska would run for a state congressional position is unlikely. Alaska has only one congressional seat and it will take a lot to convince the Alaskan voters that change is needed. The current Republican US Senator has already started shooting over her bow with remarks about how resignation is a disservice to Alaskan’s, however, the Alaskan US Senate seat held by the Democrat’s offers an interesting scenario that is unlikely. A successful US Senate seat win in 2014 would leave in place a campaign force experienced and available to take on a national campaign for office. The biggest issue to fight would be one of only seeking the seat to position for a run at the office of POTUS. Collecting a check for two years while running for POTUS would look opportunistic and hypocritical at best. Settling for the VP spot would be easier drawing less attention but the same claims would be lodged. A second failed run in 2016 would leave the Ex Governor as a junior Senator in a chamber rich with the tradition of union seniority. No longer in a position to drive agendas and force policy, the now junior Senator will also be the youngest and newest member of the also ran club. Forced to learn the world of compromise and coalition, the Ex Governor would be a dead fish out of water. The animosity between the Ex Alaska Governor and Legislature will be well remembered and relationship building will be hard. Not trusted and isolated in a minority party would force the Ex Governor, now in her late fifties, to follow the role of Ex Ohio Governor Voinovich. (Goggle him, I can’t do all the work.) The transition from legislature to executive is hard but more rewarding then walking the other track. The nature of this beast is to be the center of attention. Talking about other in any way but in attack mode is another skill that the Ex Governor has never taken the time to learn, and this politician has shown a desire to have the last word so as to direct the message. Her reputation of speaking praise in private and prose of self serving platitudes in public are already well know and the driving force of her critics. Speculation that the future Ex Governor will go into the talk entertainment industry is a likely final out come. This epitaph will likely be that of the character Sarah in the book “Kinfkicks” by Lisa Alther. Sarah becomes a celebrity on the local television network only to see the program become bigger then her and eventually take on a life of its’ own without her. After a short time in office the new administration is now raising taxes, increasing defense spending both leading to record deficits and historical increase in national debt and the likelihood that an immigration policy granting amnesty is also in the offering. President Obama will talk to the nation on March 24, 2009. I find the discussion by the mass communication media failing to heed Nixon’s advise and continues to talk down to us on a matter so important to the future of our way of life. Both sides of the argument are guilty. The subject is covered in generalities or by repeating the key words and phrases used by the pundits and public to address the Great Recession. I am not blind to the business model of talking to the lowest common denominator to attract the greatest audience, but an issue of this gravity attracts audiences on its’ own. |
AuthorChris Mathews quoted President Richard Nixon; “fight up, not down.” This inspired me to begin writing weekly rants on topics I’ve heard rolling around in my head. Archives
May 2012
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