Egypt

As democracy protests in Egypt enter their seventh day it is becoming increasingly clear that the end of this denouement will come with the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. The police are no longer opposing the demonstrations and the army announced today it will not fire on its own citizens. When an authoritarian government can no longer count on its minions to enforce its authority the end cannot be far behind. See photos here.

The handwriting appeared clearly on the wall yesterday when Secretary of State Clinton and Press Secretary Gibbs started using the word "transition" when referring to events in Egypt. That is as in "transition to a democratic form of government." The terminology is not accidental; it indicates both an intelligence assessment of what is in the process of taking place as well as a signal to Mubarak to expect no propping up from Washington.

Analysis in the American press is now starting to focus on what this might mean for the United States. Will Mubarak's fall make Egypt a haven for terrorists? Will the state of peace between Egypt and Israel that has prevailed for better than 30 years be maintained? Will the change produce instability that raises oil prices? On one level, these concerns are natural. But there are good reasons for optimism about Egypt's future stance. Unlike many other Middle East countries, Egypt is not an unstable tribal amalgam patched together by colonial powers. It is a cohesive nation with a 5,000 year history of which its people are justly proud. It has good reason to keep the peace with Israel. It is not a major oil producer. Its Muslim Brotherhood is a relatively moderate organization.

But more deeply and in any event, the people of the United States and their government can scarcely oppose or stand in the way of any people's legitimate striving for freedom and a say in the selection of their own destiny. That is what America stands for and has espoused for its entire existence. For three decades the people of Egypt have put up with a dictatorial police state and sham democracy. Tunisia's recent successful revolution was the first domino; Egypt will be the second. No doubt rulers from Damascus to Riyadh and from Tripoli to Tehran are wondering whether and when their turn is next. And unless we are hypocrites we can and should do nothing other than applaud.

Health Care Wars: Why Not the Truth?

On Wednesday the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act passed last year by President Obama and congressional Democrats. Three Democrats in the chamber joined the unanimous Republican caucus to pass the repeal 245-189. Since Democrats hold a majority in the Senate and the President would veto repeal even if the Senate were to go along with the House, the vote will not actually lead to repeal any time soon.

The continuing debate over the measure is instructive. What is particularly interesting and disappointing to me about it is how the Republican case is being made. Since its introduction the Republicans have made no bones that they don't like the health care act. They don't like it primarily because they philosophically do not agree with it. They don't like government programs, they don't like government getting involved in the economy (even if thousands of preventable deaths can be avoided) and they don't like the purchase requirement (mandate) that is necessary to fund the premiums for lower-income Americans. Okay, fine. These are all arguments they can make. One doesn't have to agree with them, but they are valid contentions from their point of view.

So why do they have to lie? The measure was titled the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act." In addition to saying Health Care will cost "millions of jobs" they further say that repeal will save billions of dollars. The Congressional Budget Office, the non-partisan fact providers for the lawmakers, found that the law would actually save money, $230 billion over 10 years, and probably result in a net gain in jobs, not eliminate them. At the least it will be neutral on jobs. Go to FactCheck.com, a group with a good reputation for neutral evaluation of the truth, for corroboration.

It's depressingly familiar to see these misrepresentations. Why do they have to tell lies to strengthen their case? They could be saying, "Sure, the bill may save some money but we feel there are other reasons to oppose it that are more important." They could say, accurately, "The bill does not promise to be a big job creator." But they don't. Instead they disregard facts and make up lies. When people feel they have to make up lies to justify an argument it says a lot about either the strength of their position or about their character and ethics. Or maybe both.

President's Touching and Inspiring Speech at Tucson Memorial

A senior citizen woman of my acquaintance recently asked me, "Where is the inspiring President Obama we saw in the campaign?" He answered the question tonight in the Memorial Service for the Tucson shooting victims. In a vintage Obama phenomenal speech, he movingly related the lives of each of the slain, paid tribute to the heroes who emerged on Saturday, and used the occasion to appeal above partisan polarization to national unity and civility. "We must, all of us, work to do everything we can to make our democracy live up to the expectations of our children," he said in one memorable passage.

Article on the speech.

Watch the speech. "Polarized nation needs healing" segment.

Watch the speech. "Barack Obama Consoles a Nation" segment.

Gabrielle Giffords Assassination Attempt

The assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords deserves comment. At this hour six are dead and fourteen reported wounded, including Giffords. The killed include a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl. This kind of event was bound to happen, given the hate, vitriol and violent images spewed by right wing sources. It will likely happen again.

Conservative and Republican figures are currently saying all the right things. John Boehner, Sarah Palin and Tea Party spokespeople are decrying the act for the horrific crime it was. And yes, the shooter has given evidence of an unbalanced mental state. In this morning's news, alleged shooter Jared Loughner is reported to have put up a paranoiac web site replete with anti government rantings, is characterized by acquaintances as a "pot-smoking loner," is reported to have had five police encounters at community college due to disruptive behavior, and the Army reports having rejected him for enlistment due to "unspecified reasons" protected by privacy rules.

These are certainly all marks of a troubled young man-the kind of young man susceptible to campaign advertising by right wing Arizona politicians such as Giffords' last opponent talking about sweeping her out of office at fundraisers while he blasted away with an M-16 rifle. Several other Republican office seekers ran similar ads in their races. On a national level, extremist and alarmist comparisons of Democrats and health care advocates like Giffords to Communists, Nazis and totalitarians (her Tuscon office's glass door was shot out after her vote on the bill last year), Sarah Palin's breathless talk of "death panels," snarking about "reloading" against political rivals and putting sniper scope targets on a map of opposition congressional districts are calculated to do just what, exactly?

The disavowals are transparently threadbare. Giffords' opponent's former campaign manager used the old politician's dodge of changing the question. "I don't see the connection. We cannot find any records that he was associated with the campaign. " Speaking of Palin's sniper scope web page, Giffords at the time said, "For example, we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is, that the way she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action."

One of Palin's promotions went like this:

6/12/10, 10:00 AM
Get on target for victory in November
Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office
Shoot a fully automatic M 16 with Jesse Kelly

Kelly's campaign manager said yesterday, "He was just a deranged individual," as though society cannot and does not influence people's behavior. Conservatives as a rule do not believe that themselves. Otherwise why are they so concerned with rewriting school texts and censoring movies and television programming?

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, answering reporters' questions at the murder site, had this to say. "You see it when you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous, and unfortunately Arizona has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

We will likely be told that no one will be able to prove a link between incitements like Palin's and Kelly's to what happened in Tucson yesterday. But we need to put a stop to their kind of hate speech right now. They are accessories, in my view.

California High Speed Rail

I saw an interesting article in the Fresno Bee Sunday. Tim Sheehan's piece, "China Eyes Calif. Rail System," told about the strong likelihood there will be Chinese financing for California's high speed rail endeavor.

We definitely need this capacity. I've ridden such trains in Britain and France. They go at least 200 miles per hour while trains here chug along at 60, at best. A friend who's recently been in China says returning to the U.S. is like going back in time. For distances under about 1,000 miles HSRs make train travel more convenient than going by air, once you factor in all the time and rigmarole at airports these days. They're also surpassingly more energy and environmentally friendly.

The numbers work out like this: California's 800-mile system will cost $43 billion. The state's voters approved a $9.9 billion bond in 2008. The federal government is expected to put in another $17 billion to $19 billion from Obama stimulus moneys. That leaves a gap of $14 billion to $16 billion to come from other sources.

Companies such as Alstom (France), Siemens (Germany) and Hyundai Rotem (South Korea) with experience in high speed railways in their home countries are already preparing bids. Wang Zhigou, Chinese vice minister of railways, said recently there will be bids from China too. With their cash surpluses and government subsidies the Chinese outfits are expected to have a heavy edge in the competition.

There are "buy American" provisions in the U.S. funding bills, so what the foreign contractors will be providing are technology and operating expertise. It seems we are now the third world nation, needing the advanced countries to help us fund, build and operate a modern transportation infrastructure. Still, it is something we definitely need to do. Shortsighted states such as New Jersey and Wisconsin that have turned down federal dollars to start their own lines will suffer the consequences in the future.