Obama on Ending the "War on Terror"

President Obama's speech on May 23 about ongoing issues in our "War on Terror" was a welcome exercise in self-examination.  Nearly 12 years after the attacks of 9-11-2001 the implications of an ostensibly permanent state of low level war have the potential to permanently warp our constitutional and civil libertarian framework.  The President presented his quandary, his responsibility to defend the republic and its citizens balanced against his equal responsibility to safeguard their rights and freedoms.  His considerations were thought-provoking and timely, meant to spark national debate and strongly tilted toward offering a rationale that his own power ought to be curtailed.

Appropriately quoting constitutional framer James Madison's  observation that  "no nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare," the President made a compelling case for scaling back our drone program, closing the Guantanamo prisoner facility and transitioning our main anti-terrorist emphasis from a military to a law enforcement approach.  The drone strikes have accomplished most of what can reasonably be expected of them.  Most of Al-Qaeda's leadership is gone.  Yet now, civilian casualties and the violation of national territory are provoking greater and greater backlash as we target smaller and smaller fry in the terror world.  Strikes have already been scaled back to about one-fifth of what they were running in 2010.  There will now be a restriction of targeting to those known to be imminent threats to Americans who cannot be reached any other way, including by local national forces.

There are still 166 inmates at Guantanamo, over half of whom have been cleared for release.  Yet they remain under detention thanks to congressional insistence.  Obama again called on congress to act in accord with the principles of international and U.S. law.    He said, "I know the politics are hard. But history will cast a harsh judgment on this aspect of our fight against terrorism and those of us who fail to end it."

The congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force passed in the wake of 9-11 remains in effect.  The President says it is time to end it.  His is the responsible position that conferring virtually unlimited power on the President for virtually unlimited periods of time is incompatible with the constitution of a free country.  He is right.  It is also, incidentally, highly admirable of him to propose it.  How many leaders ever ask to have the power of their office limited in any fashion?  

The bottom line is that all wars must come to an end.  There will still be terrorists and atrocities.  But we cannot operate on a perpetual wartime footing without becoming a military regime or a police state.  President Obama is right.  It's time to move on.  The idea is not to let our guard down, but to remain vigilant and effective through the law enforcement, judicial and constitutional processes that were established and have been preserved over 200 years specifically for these purposes.     

Support the Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act

Senator Elizabeth Warren earned her chops as a strong advocate of consumer rights against the machinations of credit card lenders and major banks.  It was largely her advocacy as a Harvard Professor that led to the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in President Obama's first term.  These credentials then helped her win election to Ted Kennedy's old senate seat in Massachusetts last November.  Warren is a true champion of average Americans and a thorn in the side of Washington special interest business as usual.  Her basic premise, that it's wrong to give preferential treatment to the high and mighty and the shaft to average citizens, is at the heart of her first stand-alone piece of Senate legislation: to give student borrowers the same interest rate the Federal Reserve gives big banks when they come looking for short-term cash.  It deserves your support. 

Warren's proposal the Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act would peg Stafford loans to students at the same 0.75% rate banks pay at the Fed's "discount window."  With the next increase scheduled for Stafford loans, they are about to go up to 6.8%.  As Warren said Wednesday on the Senate floor, "In other words, the federal government is going to charge students interest rates that are nine times higher than the rates for the biggest banks — the same banks that destroyed millions of jobs and nearly broke this economy," she said. "That isn’t right."  See her entire Senate presentation here.  It runs six and a half minutes. 

Student debt currently stands at over $1 trillion, and the federal government makes about $34 billion a year in profit from these loans.  The fact that such terms are pricing many out of college and depressing the spending capacity of college graduates acts as a brake on economic growth and the recovery.  In order to compete internationally we need more college graduates, not fewer.  And in order to jump start our own economy we need more people moving into the middle class, not more stuck in dead end jobs due to a lack of access and opportunity. 

As Senator Warren says, "We shouldn’t be profiting from our students who are drowning in debt while we’re giving great deals to big banks,"  If you agree. let your own senators know.  Here's how.
Click on this link to urge your senator to support Warren's legislation. 

Clinton Exonerated on Benghazi

Media outlets, particularly those with political axes to grind who breathlessly report stories when the first suppositions come in are often left looking rather foolish following a more complete examination of the relevant information.  Recent revelations about the deaths of Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans at the U.S. mission in Benghazi last September 11 at the hands of terrorists are a case in point.

Fox News has, to no one's surprise, been joining the Republican congressional chorus seeking political blood regarding the attack.  The prime target has been former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the political reason for that is obvious.  Polls show her to be the prohibitive favorite to capture the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination if she runs, and the heavy favorite in the general election against any of the likely Republican nominees that November.

Fox News therefore reported that on August 15 our embassy in Tripoli, Libya, the capital, held a meeting on the dangerous security situation on the other side of the country at our mission in Benghazi.  They sent out a cable the next day saying a message would be drafted soon to make clear what would be needed.  It read, "In light of the uncertain security environment, the US Mission Benghazi will submit specific requests to US Embassy Tripoli for additional physical security upgrades and staffing needs."  So if that is all you know, along with the tragic deaths some four weeks later, then it is easy to jump to a conclusion.  

However, McClatchy News reporter Nancy Youssef has done a little more digging and come up with the rest of the story.  In an account published today, she reports that the fact is the very next day Gen. Carter Ham, in charge of U.S. Africa Command, without even waiting for the promised cable, personally telephoned Ambassador Stevens and asked him if he wanted a special security detail or other support.  Stevens said no.  Gen. Ham next spoke with Stevens at a conference in Germany, once again offering military assets if the ambassador wanted them.  Stevens once again said he did not. 

The attempts, therefore, to destroy the reputation of Hillary Clinton for failing to provide security that might have saved the ambassador and his three colleagues that night at the US mission in Benghazi are demonstrated to be little more than a conjectured smear campaign undertaken for the political pre-emption of a formidable potential campaign rival.  For whatever reason, the ambassador himself turned down additional security assets and decided to go to Benghazi with minimal protection.  He was the person in charge on the ground and made the call.  We can all agree that what followed was a terrible tragedy, costing the lives of four brave Americans.  We also now know that Hillary Rodham Clinton had nothing to do with it. 

  

Match Training to the Job Requirements!

When you go to the barber shop or beauty salon, do you care whether your barber or hair stylist can do quadratic equations?  When you hear a prowler in the backyard and call 911 is it important to you that the responding police officers be able to do geometric proofs?  If you were hiring air conditioning repair technicians would you check to see if they could factor trinomials?  Of course not, which underscores the innate common sense of a recent educational study. 

Some of the emphasis on remedial math at the community college level is misplaced, according to a study by the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE).  I am in full agreement with the findings and have felt that way for quite some time.  According to a  story in the May 8 Fresno Bee, "researchers found that students were expected to be proficient in higher-level algebra and geometry even though most of the topics from those classes aren't needed to succeed in many of the programs that community colleges offer."

It is important to understand that approximately 50% of what community colleges do is prepare students for job-related certificates.  The article mentions aspiring "auto mechanics and police officers" who may attain high proficiency in the skills of their hoped-for career, but then be prevented from progressing due to deficiencies in mathematics skills such as Algebra II that no mechanic or cop will ever be called upon to use on the job.

The issue is critical, because findings have repeatedly shown that "if students can't complete community college training programs for jobs...or transfer to four-year degrees they'll have a hard time supporting a family above the poverty line."  The range of vocational training available at our community college is extensive.  To get an idea, follow this link to our Industry and Technology Division programs.     

The NCEE found that the deficiencies arise from the abysmal state of math preparedness in lower grades.  "The center recommended that the United States improve high school education first, then raise the bar at community colleges."  While that would certainly seem to make sense, it's still only half the issue.  The other ought to be to stop requiring people to have training in subjects irrelevant to their intended profession in order to become certified for it. 

Fifteen Things You Should Give Up to Be Happy

Online World Observer recently printed a piece titled "Fifteen Things You Should Give Up to Be Happy."  It contains a lot of wisdom I've come to accept over the years, some of which I've been able to incorporate into my life and outlook and some of which I'll have to refer to as a work in progress.  The key point is that a lot of things we hang onto aren't necessarily very good for us, and by that I mean they don't truly serve to make us happy.  Often times they have precisely the opposite effect.  We have a limited time and but one go around at this life.  How will we spend it?

In bold, Here are the fifteen in the list. The comments in regular print are mine.

 1. Give up your need to always be right. 
Pick your battles.  I find it liberating to admit when I am wrong. 

2. Give up your need for control. 
 I find the only thing I can truly control is myself, and even that imperfectly. 

3. Give up on blame. 
 Blame is a self-defeating trap to excuse failure without learning from it.  It also burns bridges to cooperation by making enemies of those blamed.

4. Give up your self-defeating self-talk.
 "As a man thinketh, so is he."  I have no harsher critic than myself, and have to step back at times and give myself permission to be human.  Positive, affirmative thinking is extremely powerful and becomes self-fulfilling.

5. Give up your limiting beliefs.
This is closely related to number four, and just as debilitating.  

6. Give up complaining. 
 Honest appraisal is one thing; mindless negativism is something else.  I avoid complainers like the plague.

7. Give up the luxury of criticism.
 Gossips and constant criticizers are to society what cancer is to the body. 

 8. Give up your need to impress others.
"Virtue is its own reward."  I have to be happy with myself for what I am and do.  As number two tells us, I cannot control their thinking anyway.  I do need to be attentive to others' reactions to me, since they are valuable feedback on my own conduct, but having a need for their approval to feel right about myself leads to all manner of ultimately unacceptable compromises.

9. Give up your resistance to change.
The only state without change is the grave.  The only way I progress and improve is through change.  I have to remember to adapt to difficult change, embrace positive change and initiate needed change.



10. Give up labels. 
 Labels are artificial constructs, often intended to minimize, ridicule or demonize that which is different.  Herbert Spencer is quoted as saying the surest path to "everlasting ignorance...is  contempt prior to investigation."

11. Give up on your fears. 
Most are merely illusory.  Fear paralyzes necessary action.  That is what Franklin D. Roosevelt meant when he said, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”

12. Give up your excuses. 
This is the most destructive form of self-deception.  If I succumb to excuses I cannot overcome my challenges.  Instead, I wallow helplessly in misfortunes.


13. Give up the past. 
I need not forget the past, but I cannot live in it.  The present is all I have, and I must make the most of it. 


14. Give up attachment. 
It is not healthy to be obsessed with possessions.  True love is quite different from unhealthy attachment.  It is focused on selflessness and joy rather than compulsion and fear of loss. 

 
15. Give up living your life to other people’s expectations.
 Similar to number 8, this principle is the key to genuine freedom.