Obama and the rest of the world – where does this fascination come from?

Come to work this morning I listened to NPR and their report about a White House dinner with India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. The prime minister was quoted how he praised Obama and his role in the world. He indicated that Obama’s presidency has been welcomed by most nations in this world and people are excited to see him in his position. He even instills hope in others.

Hearing this I could feel the outcry for all these conservative GOP souls. I remember how often Mr. Obama has already been called weak and non patriotic. Some said he is selling us out to the rest of the world. Any of his attempts of successful attempts to improve relations with other countries and using diplomacy to move forward is criticized by the conservatives – without reviewing the facts or the effectiveness of his works. Today, raising opposition is not used as a tool to help shape the world, it has become a principal all conservatives live buy – regardless whether it is good for the people and the country – as long as it helps to foster their own agenda.

To understand some of this, we have to look back at the last administration of President Bush who inherited the Presidency from Bill Clinton. Under Bill Clinton America had risen to a force that everybody respected. His ability to listen and communicate was what lifted the reputation of America to a new high. I never forget when he cut short a trip to Japan so he could return back to the negotiation table between the Israeli and the Palestinians before time ran out. He did not succeed but he gave it his best. He showed the world that his interest in bringing peace to the people. Giving up was never an option.

President Bush destroyed the relations that America built in the first six to eight weeks of his Presidency. He cancelled long standing treaties unilaterally, made it clear to the world that (in everything he did) American interest would come unconditionally first, anything his predecessor did was neither acknowledged nor continued and he surrounded himself with neo-cons that treated everybody outside of America with some rudeness that was not worthy to a nation like ours.

What is the difference? Nations are made of people and they interact with each other like other social and cultural groups or even like individuals. Good relations between big nations can be looked at like friendships. Friends need to trust each other. Friend listens to each other. A friend is especially important in a time of trial. A good friend can be the voice of reason in time of trail. A good friend can criticize one when needed and may help to find the right path again. I am sure there are many other things that are important tin friendships. Nations are most often not ‘friends” but have good relations. These relations work very similar like friendships. If one starts acting unilaterally without even showing concerns for the other partner in this relation – things will not work out. Just brief example; when America got all the opposition from Europe about the Iran war the only answer America could offer were words of insult and threat. There was talk about “the old Europe”, the insults against the nation of France, threats to not support Europe in time of need etc. The main problem really was the insults. If one reverts to insult his good friend or partner – the relationship is in serious trouble.

Nobody ever thought about the fact that Europe might see a war different. Europe had fought two world wars on their own territory besides many small wars in the previous centuries. There are monuments of destruction all over Europe. You don’t have to fly to Arlington to see a cemetery for soldiers fallen in a war. For most Germans, such a soldier’s cemetery is just the distance of a bike ride away. Nearly everybody remember his parent sor grandparents talking about war. Everybody has a relative who died in one of the wars. Everybody has seen the pictures of cities that had little or no houses standing after a bombing raid. Considering this, nobody should be surprised that Europe looks at wars quite differently. A good fried should know this, respect this and consider this in any dealings with each other. But the previous administration only wanted to promote the supremacy of America – friendship was not an option.

President Obama is so different. He has the ability to listen. In my opinion he has shown many times that his interest is to work on bringing peace to all nations. He appears to have deep respect for human rights, but he also recognizes that different cultures may look at his work differently. He respects this without subscribing to other cultures views. He gives many of us the feeling that he works on brining us together. If we acknowledge our differences and respect them, where we can, we can work together. Our differences should not divide us; they should help to bring us closer together. Not one side has a hold on the total truth – there is always something good on both sides.

Obama has been chastised for his willingness to meet with some of the more dangerous or disliked leaders of this world. He was criticized for attempting to meet with them without precondition. What does this mean? Listening to the critics it sounded like they wanted our opponents first to agree with everything and anything we say and demand before we meet with them. How does this work? In which world are these people living?

I can see why nobody wanted President Bush to do this. But, if you are a strong leader, what can send a stronger signal then standing up to you opponent face to face and telling him that you disagree? This does not empower the weaker leader. Meeting Iran’s President Ahmadinejad in public and letting him know that he is on the wrong path would send a stronger signal than avoiding him. It could give hope to the opposition in Iran. What was wrong shaking Hugo Chavez’s hand? It did not empower him! It showed that President Obama is not afraid to confront him.
The crucial point is that all nations and people need to work together. We need to respect each other and lead by example not by force. Obama commands a lot of respect in the world and so does the American nation. Let not jeopardize this. If we respect others they will respect us. The message that all conservatives (neo-cons in particular) send to the rest of the world is that they seem to have the desire of American Supremacy. According to them America cannot be wrong because it mad itself the yard stick that everything else measured against. The Christian right has sent the message to the rest of the world that Christianity is the only acceptable foundation of politics that they would accept. Nothing could be further from the truth. One that studies the major religions will find that all religions have much good in common. The differences are only in their cultural roots and the time they had to develop in modern world.

President Obama seems to act just like he believes in the same facts. His desire is freedom, liberty and justice for all, but he is ready to carry this principal outside our borders to the rest of the world. He stands for the enforcement of human rights for everybody. He knows that his principals don’t come easy they come with a price. He is a great communicator and knows how to listen. He is a president for the people. He wants to be everybody’s president. I am sure he will not shut out people from his speeches when he crosses the country like his predecessor did, simply because they disagree with the.

I wish America gives President Obama the chance he deserves.
President Obama commands respect. That means respect is given to him without anybody asking for it, without any force e to give it to him. The world respects President Obama for his actions and demeanor and or what he represents. I wish this nation would do the same. People can respect each other without the need to agree with each other. In reality I believe that in such disagreement, if dealt with respectfully, lies the great chance to better our world. It always takes a disagreement to come up with something better. When we disagree we look at one subject from different angles and if we find a common ground we all win. Or, more importantly, we all learn something new.

Many of the conservative opponents of President Obama demand respect for themselves and the American nation. Demand means, they have to employ fear or other forces to get this respect only truly great leader can command respect.


Example is leadership.
Albert Schweitzer

Health Care Reform - Are we winners or losers?

The last few days the health care reform has been the dominating theme in our new reports and media. As I said before, I am not claiming expertise – I am simply offering my own opinion. I have no special education that qualifies me, I simply process the information provided to me by the many media surrounding us. I will write down my thoughts in multiple posts. It is just too much for one post to summarize it.

First of all, I cannot understand anymore what this health care reform will do for us. It is somewhere around 2000 pages and our politicians are not interested to explain it to us. All they are trying to do is creating a bias that will benefit them and their party in future elections. One could thing that there are fundamental ideological differences (and I am sure there are) on what needs to changed, but everybody agrees that change is necessary. Why are our politicians not capable of working out some of the problems and explain to us what is good about it. Then they can continue discuss their differences in public and try to find a resolution. This would benefit all of us. But what do we have right now?

We have a bill that nobody understands what is contained in it – at least no one that spends countless hours to research it. None of our leaders provides us with a summary that is comprehensive enough to give us some idea as to where we go. Quite the contrary, both sides bombard us with statements that should either lead us to agree or disagree. We all know that the way a subject is presented can make it look quite different. W all know the old saying, “every coin has two sides”. The same is true when it comes to facts arising from such a large document. To take statements out of context, not quoting the whole paragraph, emphasizing a particular fact without supporting information, biased quoting of facts etc are tolls that can be sued to manipulate the recipient of such information. And this is exactly what is happening here. We all remember the discussion about “death panels”. It is very clear to everybody who has some knowledge about the health care system and its problems that “end of life care” (emphasis on care) is a subject that needs to be dealt with - not only for financial reasons, but also for humanitarian reasons. If anybody has problem seeing the humanitarian need, please go out and speak to health care providers, not the ones that keep the books, the ones that work right at the side of our loved ones beds and care for them.

The use of the word “death panel” moves the discussion into a corner where it becomes nearly impossible to deal with. It instills fears and implies acts that are none existent. I call people that do this demagogue. Rudy Giuliani, whom I dislike because he is a master manipulation when it comes to the selection of words and terms said in an Interview about health care reform ones:” it is better to …(don’t remember the political pleas he made here) .. than pulling the plug on grandma. I was outraged about this, because the disunion continued about the main subject but he had thrown out a fact that was wrong and implied a horrendous possibility that simply does not exist. Even if a chance for this would exist – our society would never let this happen. Yes, many of us are liberals, but we belong to the human race, have a conscience and believe in constitution of the United States. Such demagogic techniques are used right from all sides and prevent the public from understanding what is going and keeping us misinformed – from both sides of the aisle.

Here is my question again. For whom do these politicians work? Why do we let them do this? What is wrong with our system? I am getting so frustrated because there seems to be no solution.

Ronald Reagan is attributed to saying: Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

This leaves me with little hope that anything is ever going to change. I always tell people to get involved if they don’t like something. But, I come to wonder if not most people in the ranks of politics started out with high ideals but the system inevitably compromised them. Maybe the system is so strong that the good cannot survive? Maybe, the good one has to either allow the system to compromise him/her or fail?

A good article

Undocumented aliens are America’s ‘untouchable’ caste

I thought I share this link to the opinion page. I liked this letter a lot.

Holland Sentinel 11/20/2009

Justice for all??

It appears that the government of the United States has decided to bring some of the top suspects responsible for the 9/11 attach to mainland USA (New York) for trial. As soon as this was announced a huge discussion ignited. It seems like everybody in the conservative court has decided that this is not a good thing to do. Some people talked about it being insensitive to bring these people so close to the place of their alleged horrendous crimes. Others just don’t think they should get a trial at all. Then there is a group of people that think that these alleged terrorists are using this opportunity as stage for their cause. Also, many are afraid that they use all possible legal procedures to get off by claiming to be tortured or mistreated, or that their human rights have been violated in different ways.

For me the whole idea of having kept this people off American soil in order to avoid putting them through our justice system has been an outrage to start with. We claim that we live in a country where we provide justice for all. Our constitution provides the bases for this justice system and makes us a constitutional state. I think we can say that our constitution is bases on freedom, liberty and justice for all. These are the three pillars of what we call human right. Proudly we proclaim this to the rest of the world and give ourselves the right to judge other countries that do not have justice system like ours or one that ensures human rights. We don’t grow tired (rightfully so) reprimand other countries for not having such a fair justice system or for their violation of human rights. But, what good does the constitution and our justice system do when we constantly find reasons to work around it and find ways to not apply it to other individual as we choose.

If we believe in our justice system and its foundation the constitution we must follow it rigorously without exception. It validity must be absolute – no exception. There should be no exception as to whether is applied to American citizens or non citizens. If we claim it to be the best around and universal it should apply to all human beings. If not, how can we criticize other nations if their justice system is different, even if it doesn’t deliver justice they we understand it. The word “justice system” does not automatically guarantee that the system ensures the inclusion of human rights or deliver justice according to our values and believes. The only exceptions can come from within the system/law itself, if they are defined within. But then the system would contradict itself. If one exception is defined more can follow. Who would decide on any of such exceptions – the law itself can’t. This would leave the door wide open for abuses by individuals that want to abuse it. Our constitution can be changed by the only authority that I trust in – the people. And the founding fathers of the constitution were smart enough to set bas so high, that any changes are truly coming from a majority in the people. In my opinion, evil can never obtain such a majority. And if it could, the people would deserve what they put upon themselves.

If we believe in what I wrote above, how can any politician, public figure, leader etc. have the audacity and ask for not following our won justice system? How can we, the people, let them keep their jobs? Most politicians swear to uphold the constitution. In all of history, perjury has been a punishable crime. Why not for these politicians?

Where is our integrity if we preach a system of justice and chastise countries without such system (and/or bad human violations) but then go ahead and use (and pay) these countries to take our prisoners and let us abuse them on their territory. Or, we ask them to torture/abuse them for us.(I think we call this Hippocratic. I call people that do this two faced liars that are worst then the ones that violate others rights out in the open for their own good.

As I said in an earlier post, human right are an absolute right and can have no exception. One that advocates and believes in human rights must agree that human right cannot exist without a justice system that supports them.

Sure there will always be abuse. We will have to live with wrong judgments. We will have to endure people (like the alleged terrorists) that might try to make a mockery out of the system. But, if we consider this system absolute, then the system will stand strong and get stronger every time it is applied. People that want to abuse it or make a mockery out of it will fail. I truly believe that justice will prevail.

The simple problem is that no system is perfect. But if we stay with it the system it will get stronger and stronger. I fully agree it is hard to live with these imperfections. People might get hurt or lose their live. But, like with everything in life, we have to pay a price. One or a few individual might lose everything they have, including their live. But society will pay a much higher price if we don’t stay strong. The consequence of not paying this price as a society is far beyond what most of us would expect.

I remember someone saying:” Democracy is the worst form of government, but show me a better one and I will follow it”. This sentence could be modified to be applied to our justice system.

Many great people in history have given all they had and more to fight for great goals. None of the great changes that benefitted human mankind and society came cheap. But, whenever people wave and falter, contradict their own believes, it leads to nothing.

Benjamin Franklin said” The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either.” I would modify this to say:”One that talks about justice but doesn’t follow his own word will not leave any footsteps in history”

A Good Movie

We saw the movie John Paul II. This movie is portraying the major stations in the life of the late pope. It is a very interesting movie and put the life of the former pope into a very interesting light. I really like the pope in the movie even so he did not have much in common with the pope that I remembered. Instead of dismissing the movie it made me think. Maybe the impression I had from the pope through the medial was not as accurate as I thought. The movie might have painted a too favorable picture of him. I am sure the truth is somewhere in the middle. It is my sincerely hope that I can do some reading about him and maybe learn more about him. The movie really did inspire me.
I did read some of his writings and Encyclicals’ and they are very good. They are very difficult to read and understand, but they contain a lot of good thoughts. I sometimes wonder if our recent popes are not misunderstood by us, the common people. They are so intellectual and so highly educated that it becomes difficult to understand them.
God asked us to trust him. With the story of Thomas, the Bible sends us the clear message that we need to believe in God and not ask for proof. Maybe we need to start here in our world to give this trust to the people God entrusted his church to. Jesus said min Matthew 16:18: "I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.” John Paul II was a direct successor of Peter.

A great Quote

I came across this quote from D.D. Eisenhower on the opinon page of the Holland Sentinel today. It speaks for itself. I wish everybody would read it, remember and act with this in mind.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.” — Dwight David. Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States.