NEWS CLUES
Hats off to conservative talker Glenn Beck for not having a knee-jerk response to the early, partial release of the speech given by Ms. Sherrod of the Agriculture Dept. She was fired in a stupid and hasty reaction by the Dept. and the Obama administration. Mr. Beck's reaction when the highly "edited" speech was released by a right-wing blogger: "Whoa, let's hold on before judging this woman." Oh, how that sort of maturity, patience and intelligence are needed among today's political commentators. Ms. Sherrod showed how her earlier feelings on racial questions had to be overcome in order for her to deal in a balanced way when matters of race entered her workplace and her job. Kudos to Ms. Sherrod AND Mr. Beck.
The new Republican Governor of New Jersey indicates some lauditory actions for dealing with the overwhelming deficit facing his state. While I might disagree with some of his actions, he has jumped into the task at hand and actually made some DECISIONS that were not only politically motivated.
While many Americans are prone to want to call the resignation and re-assignment of the CEO of BP a "golden parachute," it isn't nearly as atrocious as some of the "going away presents" given to some U.S. CEOs whose actions were economic diasters here. The immoral and unethical actions by some of American CEOs in the financial and Wall Street world were given far more lucrative packages. We have not come anywhere near to actually dealing with what was sleazy and greedy by U.S. financial businesses that helped cause the economic melt-down that started back in the last 7 years or so. We have to wake up! Wall Street and other financial places may still steal and rob the American people and get away with it.
While the thousands of pages of material that was released recently show some glaring information about the Pakistani collusion with the Talliban, it should be cautioned that much of that material was several years old. The U.S. has always had a precarious relationship with Pakistan. Somewhat reluctantly, Pakistan has improved its cooperation with the U.S. in fighting terrorists in that nation and neighboring Afghanistan, but much more is needed. However Pakistan is faced with a very conflicting situation regarding powers inside its own borders, and its historical problems with Afghanistan.
The more our U.S. "democracy" falters and develops its own schisms, polarizations, economic manipulations, power of war corporations, inability to listen to each other, and seems hell-bent on developing our own fundamentalist take on the world, the more difficult it is for us to attempt to present ourselves as a shining example of democracy. The old saw that we have, with all of our mistakes, the most democratic nation in history is becoming less and less true. Listen to the screamers in the U.S.; they hardly sound like voices of tolerance, maturity, intelligence, etc.
The threats by the right about "wait until November" turn my stomach. Yes, the Democrats are in trouble and may very well lose those elections nationwide. Very few in elected office today are pure or deserving of re-election. But threats about re-election should never be the major guideline for voting. Unpopular political decisions have often been correct, moral, and ethical. The people have been known to be wrong. One has to look no further than slavery or denying the vote to women to see how the majority of American voters were wrong for many, many years. It is often more popular to be wrong. Being correct on moral or ethical issues is often not popular. Think of how many people hated Carrie Nation, Abe Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Franklin D. Roosevelt, etc. We only have to look to our own various religious leaders to see how unpopular they were: Abraham, Jesus, Muhammed, Buddha, Gandhi, etc.
