ummary --
After Iraq, we may be tempted to turn inward. That would be a mistake. The American moment is not over, but it must be seized anew. We must bring the war to a responsible end and then renew our leadership -- military, diplomatic, moral -- to confront new threats and capitalize on new opportunities. America cannot meet this century's challenges alone; the world cannot meet them without America.
Barack Obama is a Democratic Senator from Illinois
and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
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COMMON SECURITY FOR OUR COMMON HUMANITY
At moments of great peril in the last century, American leaders such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy managed both to protect the American people and to expand opportunity for the next generation. What is more, they ensured that America, by deed and example, led and lifted the world -- that we stood for and fought for the freedoms sought by billions of people beyond our borders.
As Roosevelt built the most formidable military the world had ever seen, his Four Freedoms gave purpose to our struggle against fascism. Truman championed a bold new architecture to respond to the Soviet threat -- one that paired military strength with the Marshall Plan and helped secure the peace and well-being of nations around the world. As colonialism crumbled and the Soviet Union achieved effective nuclear parity, Kennedy modernized our military doctrine, strengthened our conventional forces, and created the Peace Corps and the Alliance for Progress. They used our strengths to show people everywhere America at its best.
Today, we are again called to provide visionary leadership. This century's threats are at least as dangerous as and in some ways more complex than those we have confronted in the past. They come from weapons that can kill on a mass scale and from global terrorists who respond to alienation or perceived injustice with murderous nihilism. They come from rogue states allied to terrorists and from rising powers that could challenge both America and the international foundation of liberal democracy. They come from weak states that cannot control their territory or provide for their people. And they come from a warming planet that will spur new diseases, spawn more devastating natural disasters, and catalyze deadly conflicts.
Friday, April 17, 2009
The Race Problematic, the Narrative of Martin Luther King Jr., and the Election of Barack Obama
Abstract
On November 4, 2008 Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. He became the first Black person to be nominated for and win the presidency as the standard bearer of one of the two major political parties in the United States. Obama's Democratic Party primary and caucus campaign for the nomination and his general election campaign confronted both overt and subtle attributions to his race and derisions to race as a determining factor in the outcome to the election. However, Obama did not run race-specific campaigns. Other than self-identifying as a Black man, Obama did not call specific attention to his race or race in general. This essay is an attempt to analyze the race problematic as it played out within Obama's quest to become the first Black person to run for and win the presidency as the standard bearer of one of the two major political parties in the United States. My effort is to interrogate the race problematic within the paradigm of Martin Luther King Jr.'s narrative of a beloved community and Barack Obama's odyssey of winning the presidency while not propounding his identity as a Black man.
On November 4, 2008 Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. He became the first Black person to be nominated for and win the presidency as the standard bearer of one of the two major political parties in the United States. Obama's Democratic Party primary and caucus campaign for the nomination and his general election campaign confronted both overt and subtle attributions to his race and derisions to race as a determining factor in the outcome to the election. However, Obama did not run race-specific campaigns. Other than self-identifying as a Black man, Obama did not call specific attention to his race or race in general. This essay is an attempt to analyze the race problematic as it played out within Obama's quest to become the first Black person to run for and win the presidency as the standard bearer of one of the two major political parties in the United States. My effort is to interrogate the race problematic within the paradigm of Martin Luther King Jr.'s narrative of a beloved community and Barack Obama's odyssey of winning the presidency while not propounding his identity as a Black man.
The Race Problematic, the Narrative of Martin Luther King Jr., and the Election of Barack Obama
Abstract
On November 4, 2008 Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. He became the first Black person to be nominated for and win the presidency as the standard bearer of one of the two major political parties in the United States. Obama's Democratic Party primary and caucus campaign for the nomination and his general election campaign confronted both overt and subtle attributions to his race and derisions to race as a determining factor in the outcome to the election. However, Obama did not run race-specific campaigns. Other than self-identifying as a Black man, Obama did not call specific attention to his race or race in general. This essay is an attempt to analyze the race problematic as it played out within Obama's quest to become the first Black person to run for and win the presidency as the standard bearer of one of the two major political parties in the United States. My effort is to interrogate the race problematic within the paradigm of Martin Luther King Jr.'s narrative of a beloved community and Barack Obama's odyssey of winning the presidency while not propounding his identity as a Black man.
On November 4, 2008 Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. He became the first Black person to be nominated for and win the presidency as the standard bearer of one of the two major political parties in the United States. Obama's Democratic Party primary and caucus campaign for the nomination and his general election campaign confronted both overt and subtle attributions to his race and derisions to race as a determining factor in the outcome to the election. However, Obama did not run race-specific campaigns. Other than self-identifying as a Black man, Obama did not call specific attention to his race or race in general. This essay is an attempt to analyze the race problematic as it played out within Obama's quest to become the first Black person to run for and win the presidency as the standard bearer of one of the two major political parties in the United States. My effort is to interrogate the race problematic within the paradigm of Martin Luther King Jr.'s narrative of a beloved community and Barack Obama's odyssey of winning the presidency while not propounding his identity as a Black man.
Critical Thinking: Some Cognitive Components
Creativity, discovery, and independent thought, while processes that we all admire, are more talked about in educational circles than productively integrated into well conceived and executed teaching patterns. A prime difficulty lies in the complexity of these cognitive abilities and our lack of understanding of the component behaviors which they comprise. In an effort to press us toward a more explicit utilization of such notions as critical thinking, the author offers an analysis in behavioral terms that are immediately relevant to the classroom.
Obama the Mideast Peace-Maker?
Since the publication of my retrospective article on Israel in the fall 25th anniversary issue of World Policy Journal, a few colleagues have wondered if I considered revising my somewhat "pessimistic outlook" (the way one of my correspondents put it) about the chances of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian with Barack Obama in office. So have I changed my tune?
First, what I was trying to do in my WPJ article was to highlight the gap between the high expectations that many of us seemed to share regarding the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in 1991 (the end of the Cold War, increasing globalization, etc.) with the depressing reality of today's Holy Land—post-9/11, post-Iraq War, and amidst the present global economic crisis. If anything, my retrospective reflected my sense of realism about the ability and willingness on the part of Israelis and Palestinians—with or without outside intervention—to settle their differences and achieve peace in the near future.
Leon Hadar, a research fellow in foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, is the author of Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
More by Leon T. Hadar
I was not encouraged after reading David Unger's article in the same issue of WPJ that seemed to be trying to lift our spirits by forecasting that "by 2033, two states, Israel and Palestine, will be living side-by-side in uneasy peace." Unger makes all the right arguments to support his thesis that a resolution of their conflict would serve the long-term interests of both the Israelis and Palestinians. But same arguments that focus on the horrific human and economic costs of a long and protracted conflict and the potential enormous benefits resulting from a peace agreement could apply to the national, ethnic, and religious clashes over Cyprus, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Nagorno-Karabakh, Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and Darfur. These are just few of the regional disputes that have remained unresolved and to some extent "frozen," neither full-blown war nor peace. The main reason for that reality is that, for most players in these conflicts, the costs of challenging the status-quo outweigh the perceived benefits of taking action to end the dispute (either through military victory and/or a peace settlement).
This kind of cost-benefit analysis explains why President George W. Bush and his aides decided after 9/11 not to invest too much time or resources in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Operating under the assumption (or self-delusion) that the promotion of the "Freedom Agenda" in the Middle East, starting with Iraq, would create the conditions for resolution of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians (witness the oft-repeated neoconservative argument that the "road to Jerusalem leads through Baghdad").
Indeed, Bush's advisors were committed to the axiom that what is good for America is good for Israel (and vice versa). They argued that a Pax Americana in the region would also tilt the balance of power in favor of Tel Aviv, forcing the Palestinians to accept an arrangement that would favor Israeli interests. Hence, it made no sense to spend Washington's diplomatic capital by pressing Israel, a so-called "strategic ally in the war on terror" to relieve the pressure from, and to make concessions to, the Palestinian leadership. Instead, Washington decided to "park" the Palestinian issue while trying to remake the Middle East by force.
However, by moving beyond the Palestinian-Israeli issue and dealing with the threat of "Islamo-fascism," the Bush administration has pursued policies that have only exacerbated Israel's relations with other Arab countries. Hence, it tried dissuade Israel from pursuing Turkish-backed negotiations with Syria (a junior member of the Axis of Evil). Bush also gave Israel the green light to attack the Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, leading to a war that ended with a strategic stalemate and possibly tipped the balance of power against the American-Israeli alliance.
In any case, when Bush's Middle East "Freedom Agenda" crashed into the reality of the Hamas's electoral victory in Palestine and the strengthening of Iran and its satellites in the region, the administration decided to placate the members of the Saudi-led Arab-Sunni coalition by going through motions of a grand peace-process in Annapolis earlier this year. This same Saudi coalition, based on neoconservative wishful thinking, was expected to form a "strategic consensus" with Israel to contain Iran.
But even a U.S. administration committed to resolving the conflict would have found it close to impossible to move toward an agreement at a time of weak political leadership on both sides. Although there were indications that the two sides could probably agree on the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Israel-Palestine border issue, there was no sign of the narrowing of the gap between the two national communities over the core existential issues that have separated them, such as the fate of Jerusalem and of the "right of return" of the 1947 Palestinian refugees.
At the same time, it seems that many members of the Reality-Based Community who mocked Bush neocons for their grand designs of transforming Iraq and remaking the Middle East have joined with the Hope-Based Community in proclaiming their high expectations of President Obama bringing peace to the Holy Land. There are hopes among many Obama watchers that the new president will take steps to repair America's ties with the Middle East by withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and opening a diplomatic dialogue with Iran. Thus having strengthened U.S. status in the Middle East, Obama might be in position to embrace a more activist strategy aimed at bringing about Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation.
Of course, much of what the new president will be able to achieve on the foreign policy front will depend on the administration's ability to contain the American and global economic downturn. The Great Depression redux would make it less likely that the U.S. would launch into any major diplomatic or military moves. But if the economic recession proves to be more manageable than expected, the Obama administration could embrace a more ambitious agenda in the Middle East—accelerating the withdrawal from Iraq through a regional framework that could include Iran.
First, what I was trying to do in my WPJ article was to highlight the gap between the high expectations that many of us seemed to share regarding the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in 1991 (the end of the Cold War, increasing globalization, etc.) with the depressing reality of today's Holy Land—post-9/11, post-Iraq War, and amidst the present global economic crisis. If anything, my retrospective reflected my sense of realism about the ability and willingness on the part of Israelis and Palestinians—with or without outside intervention—to settle their differences and achieve peace in the near future.
Leon Hadar, a research fellow in foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, is the author of Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
More by Leon T. Hadar
I was not encouraged after reading David Unger's article in the same issue of WPJ that seemed to be trying to lift our spirits by forecasting that "by 2033, two states, Israel and Palestine, will be living side-by-side in uneasy peace." Unger makes all the right arguments to support his thesis that a resolution of their conflict would serve the long-term interests of both the Israelis and Palestinians. But same arguments that focus on the horrific human and economic costs of a long and protracted conflict and the potential enormous benefits resulting from a peace agreement could apply to the national, ethnic, and religious clashes over Cyprus, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Nagorno-Karabakh, Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and Darfur. These are just few of the regional disputes that have remained unresolved and to some extent "frozen," neither full-blown war nor peace. The main reason for that reality is that, for most players in these conflicts, the costs of challenging the status-quo outweigh the perceived benefits of taking action to end the dispute (either through military victory and/or a peace settlement).
This kind of cost-benefit analysis explains why President George W. Bush and his aides decided after 9/11 not to invest too much time or resources in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Operating under the assumption (or self-delusion) that the promotion of the "Freedom Agenda" in the Middle East, starting with Iraq, would create the conditions for resolution of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians (witness the oft-repeated neoconservative argument that the "road to Jerusalem leads through Baghdad").
Indeed, Bush's advisors were committed to the axiom that what is good for America is good for Israel (and vice versa). They argued that a Pax Americana in the region would also tilt the balance of power in favor of Tel Aviv, forcing the Palestinians to accept an arrangement that would favor Israeli interests. Hence, it made no sense to spend Washington's diplomatic capital by pressing Israel, a so-called "strategic ally in the war on terror" to relieve the pressure from, and to make concessions to, the Palestinian leadership. Instead, Washington decided to "park" the Palestinian issue while trying to remake the Middle East by force.
However, by moving beyond the Palestinian-Israeli issue and dealing with the threat of "Islamo-fascism," the Bush administration has pursued policies that have only exacerbated Israel's relations with other Arab countries. Hence, it tried dissuade Israel from pursuing Turkish-backed negotiations with Syria (a junior member of the Axis of Evil). Bush also gave Israel the green light to attack the Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, leading to a war that ended with a strategic stalemate and possibly tipped the balance of power against the American-Israeli alliance.
In any case, when Bush's Middle East "Freedom Agenda" crashed into the reality of the Hamas's electoral victory in Palestine and the strengthening of Iran and its satellites in the region, the administration decided to placate the members of the Saudi-led Arab-Sunni coalition by going through motions of a grand peace-process in Annapolis earlier this year. This same Saudi coalition, based on neoconservative wishful thinking, was expected to form a "strategic consensus" with Israel to contain Iran.
But even a U.S. administration committed to resolving the conflict would have found it close to impossible to move toward an agreement at a time of weak political leadership on both sides. Although there were indications that the two sides could probably agree on the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Israel-Palestine border issue, there was no sign of the narrowing of the gap between the two national communities over the core existential issues that have separated them, such as the fate of Jerusalem and of the "right of return" of the 1947 Palestinian refugees.
At the same time, it seems that many members of the Reality-Based Community who mocked Bush neocons for their grand designs of transforming Iraq and remaking the Middle East have joined with the Hope-Based Community in proclaiming their high expectations of President Obama bringing peace to the Holy Land. There are hopes among many Obama watchers that the new president will take steps to repair America's ties with the Middle East by withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and opening a diplomatic dialogue with Iran. Thus having strengthened U.S. status in the Middle East, Obama might be in position to embrace a more activist strategy aimed at bringing about Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation.
Of course, much of what the new president will be able to achieve on the foreign policy front will depend on the administration's ability to contain the American and global economic downturn. The Great Depression redux would make it less likely that the U.S. would launch into any major diplomatic or military moves. But if the economic recession proves to be more manageable than expected, the Obama administration could embrace a more ambitious agenda in the Middle East—accelerating the withdrawal from Iraq through a regional framework that could include Iran.
Beware the Cult of Obama
You've met them. They may be friends of yours, or family members. You may even be one of them (in which case you'll hate this column). I'm referring to those who've heard the Call of Obama.
Tucker Carlson compares it to a dog whistle: Inaudible to most, but irresistible to those who can hear it.
Obama "walks into a room and you want to follow him somewhere, anywhere," George Clooney gushed to Charlie Rose.
"I'll collect paper cups off the ground to make [Obama's] pathway clear," Halle Berry recently told the Philadelphia Daily News, "I'll do whatever he says." (Does Michelle know about this?)
[A]ny conservative who thinks cultishness is exclusively a leftist phenomenon ought to take a good long look in the mirror.
Hollywood stars aren't known for their political wisdom. More disturbing is how starstruck the mainstream media has become. Hardball host Chris Matthews isn't the only one who gets a "thrill" up his leg at the very thought of our new president.
Last summer, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford wrote that "Many spiritually advanced people I know … identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who … can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet."
The Politico recently ran a 900-word article entitled "The Power of Obama's Hand," reverentially describing how the president "uses touch to control and console simultaneously," laying hands on supporters and opponents alike.
And in February, author Judith Warner used her New York Times blog to confess that "The other night I dreamt of Barack Obama. He was taking a shower right when I needed to get into the bathroom to shave my legs."
Instead of keeping that information to herself, Warner "launched an email inquiry," which revealed that "many women—not too surprisingly—were dreaming about sex with the president." Those of us who like to point out that the Emperor has no clothes now have to worry that when we do, we may give rise to a new round of lurid cougar fantasies.
Conservatives like to think they're above this sort of thing. Their attitude is summed up by the subtitle of Jerome Corsi's recent bestseller: Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality.
But any conservative who thinks cultishness is exclusively a leftist phenomenon ought to take a good long look in the mirror. Because many of those who decry the "cult of Obama" are the same people who made a flight-suited action figure hero out of such common clay as George W. Bush.
Peggy Noonan called Bush's post-9/11 address to Congress "a God-touched moment and a God-touched speech." Fred Barnes wrote that "the stage was set for Bush to be God's agent of wrath." National Review Online ran ads for the Bush "Top Gun" action figure, and an article about how wonderful it was to have a presidential superhero to complement your GI Joe collection.
Tucker Carlson compares it to a dog whistle: Inaudible to most, but irresistible to those who can hear it.
Obama "walks into a room and you want to follow him somewhere, anywhere," George Clooney gushed to Charlie Rose.
"I'll collect paper cups off the ground to make [Obama's] pathway clear," Halle Berry recently told the Philadelphia Daily News, "I'll do whatever he says." (Does Michelle know about this?)
[A]ny conservative who thinks cultishness is exclusively a leftist phenomenon ought to take a good long look in the mirror.
Hollywood stars aren't known for their political wisdom. More disturbing is how starstruck the mainstream media has become. Hardball host Chris Matthews isn't the only one who gets a "thrill" up his leg at the very thought of our new president.
Last summer, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford wrote that "Many spiritually advanced people I know … identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who … can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet."
The Politico recently ran a 900-word article entitled "The Power of Obama's Hand," reverentially describing how the president "uses touch to control and console simultaneously," laying hands on supporters and opponents alike.
And in February, author Judith Warner used her New York Times blog to confess that "The other night I dreamt of Barack Obama. He was taking a shower right when I needed to get into the bathroom to shave my legs."
Instead of keeping that information to herself, Warner "launched an email inquiry," which revealed that "many women—not too surprisingly—were dreaming about sex with the president." Those of us who like to point out that the Emperor has no clothes now have to worry that when we do, we may give rise to a new round of lurid cougar fantasies.
Conservatives like to think they're above this sort of thing. Their attitude is summed up by the subtitle of Jerome Corsi's recent bestseller: Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality.
But any conservative who thinks cultishness is exclusively a leftist phenomenon ought to take a good long look in the mirror. Because many of those who decry the "cult of Obama" are the same people who made a flight-suited action figure hero out of such common clay as George W. Bush.
Peggy Noonan called Bush's post-9/11 address to Congress "a God-touched moment and a God-touched speech." Fred Barnes wrote that "the stage was set for Bush to be God's agent of wrath." National Review Online ran ads for the Bush "Top Gun" action figure, and an article about how wonderful it was to have a presidential superhero to complement your GI Joe collection.
Will Obama Bring 'Change' to Bush's War on Terror? Hopefully
President-elect Barack Obama has affirmed his commitment to bring the war in Iraq to a close and to refocus our attention on Afghanistan. To do both, Obama must do more than fix ambitious timelines or offer hazy plans with muddy particulars. He must stick to his campaign pledge that would fundamentally shift the ideological orientation of America's foreign policy establishment: ending the Iraq mission will require engaging Iran, solving Afghanistan will mean dialogue with terrorists.
Obama will certainly bring "change" if he commits to engage directly with Iran. In his judgment, the stability we seek in Iraq is impossible unless we make a concerted effort to induce the actors surrounding Iraq to be responsible stakeholders. To Obama, that can come about only if we engage Iran openly, maturely, and without preconditions.
Since 1979, when a group of Iranian students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran, the United States has attempted to isolate Iran internationally. Occasionally, the interests of Tehran and Washington overlapped, most recently, when Iran quietly supported America's effort to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. But today, Iran has a budding nuclear program, the region's largest population, an expansive ballistic missile arsenal, and it extends its reach through sponsorship of an effective proxy, the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hizbullah. America's thirty year strategy of isolating Tehran's clerical regime clearly hasn't worked. If diplomatic avenues remain closed, stability in Iraq will remain impossible.
Malou Innocent is a Foreign Policy Analyst at the Cato Institute.
More by Malou Innocent
Under an Obama administration, pulling ourselves out of Iraq means injecting ourselves deeper into Afghanistan, which the President-elect says should be America's "biggest national security priority." His plan is to withdraw U.S. combat forces from Iraq within 16 months and possibly leave 60,000 behind for support. Obama is in luck. This week, the Iraqi parliament approved the Status of Forces Agreement with the United States, which outlines the conditions under which U.S. troops will be permitted to remain in Iraq. Under the deal, U.S. troops will withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011. A pullout by 2011, endorsed by the Iraqi parliament, is chronologically compatible with Obama's call for a 16-month withdrawal (only 7 months shy). Not only would this plan provide Obama with some wiggle-room on his campaign pledge, but the troop cut from Iraq would free up more troops for Afghanistan.
On the Afghan front in America's so-called "war on terror," the White House and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) are currently reviewing new approaches to stabilize the war-ravaged country. One plan is to peel Pashtun tribes away from hardcore elements of the Taliban, a nuanced policy that will require dialogue with rank and file pro-Taliban insurgents. The incoming Obama administration has indicated it will consider adopting this approach. If it does, Obama would fulfill yet another campaign pledge: actually paying attention to what army generals on the ground have to say. Only weeks ago, CENTCOM chief General David Petreaus said a new U.S. strategy in Afghanistan may include reconciliation with Taliban insurgents. One potential problem with U.S. and NATO efforts in Afghanistan are the militants pouring over the border from western Pakistan. Obama's endorsement of continued unilateral missile strikes and commando raids on Pakistani soil--a continuation of Bush policies--will have ripple effects throughout tribal society, encouraging insurgents to lash out against the government of Pakistan and undermining the authority of sitting Pakistani leaders. Luckily, Barack Obama was broadly welcomed inside Pakistan. If Obama proves capable of improving America's reputation abroad, maybe his policies would be more readily accepted than his predecessor.
Obama will certainly bring "change" if he commits to engage directly with Iran. In his judgment, the stability we seek in Iraq is impossible unless we make a concerted effort to induce the actors surrounding Iraq to be responsible stakeholders. To Obama, that can come about only if we engage Iran openly, maturely, and without preconditions.
Since 1979, when a group of Iranian students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran, the United States has attempted to isolate Iran internationally. Occasionally, the interests of Tehran and Washington overlapped, most recently, when Iran quietly supported America's effort to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. But today, Iran has a budding nuclear program, the region's largest population, an expansive ballistic missile arsenal, and it extends its reach through sponsorship of an effective proxy, the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hizbullah. America's thirty year strategy of isolating Tehran's clerical regime clearly hasn't worked. If diplomatic avenues remain closed, stability in Iraq will remain impossible.
Malou Innocent is a Foreign Policy Analyst at the Cato Institute.
More by Malou Innocent
Under an Obama administration, pulling ourselves out of Iraq means injecting ourselves deeper into Afghanistan, which the President-elect says should be America's "biggest national security priority." His plan is to withdraw U.S. combat forces from Iraq within 16 months and possibly leave 60,000 behind for support. Obama is in luck. This week, the Iraqi parliament approved the Status of Forces Agreement with the United States, which outlines the conditions under which U.S. troops will be permitted to remain in Iraq. Under the deal, U.S. troops will withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011. A pullout by 2011, endorsed by the Iraqi parliament, is chronologically compatible with Obama's call for a 16-month withdrawal (only 7 months shy). Not only would this plan provide Obama with some wiggle-room on his campaign pledge, but the troop cut from Iraq would free up more troops for Afghanistan.
On the Afghan front in America's so-called "war on terror," the White House and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) are currently reviewing new approaches to stabilize the war-ravaged country. One plan is to peel Pashtun tribes away from hardcore elements of the Taliban, a nuanced policy that will require dialogue with rank and file pro-Taliban insurgents. The incoming Obama administration has indicated it will consider adopting this approach. If it does, Obama would fulfill yet another campaign pledge: actually paying attention to what army generals on the ground have to say. Only weeks ago, CENTCOM chief General David Petreaus said a new U.S. strategy in Afghanistan may include reconciliation with Taliban insurgents. One potential problem with U.S. and NATO efforts in Afghanistan are the militants pouring over the border from western Pakistan. Obama's endorsement of continued unilateral missile strikes and commando raids on Pakistani soil--a continuation of Bush policies--will have ripple effects throughout tribal society, encouraging insurgents to lash out against the government of Pakistan and undermining the authority of sitting Pakistani leaders. Luckily, Barack Obama was broadly welcomed inside Pakistan. If Obama proves capable of improving America's reputation abroad, maybe his policies would be more readily accepted than his predecessor.
President Obama: A Realist Interventionist?
Figuring out the direction President Barack Obama's foreign policy will take has become a full-time job for pundits and foreign diplomats in Washington. And a key question on everyone's mind is how exactly Obama will seek to exert influence as the American Empire shrinks.
A clear consensus among Washington cognoscenti on the direction of "Obadiplomacy" has yet to emerge, despite nearly two years of presidential campaigning and a full slate of Cabinet nominees. This points to two possibilities. First, that Obama has a coherent foreign policy vision and a strategy to implement it, but that he and his aides are keeping it top secret—a great skill for those who want to win victories in the games that nations play.
Or that Obama does not have a grand diplomatic strategy à la Cold War containment or the "war on terror." If such is the case, the evolution of foreign policy under Obama could be a process of trial and error, a cost-effective diplomatic approach in which major decisions are made in response to political and economic pressures at home and abroad.
Leon T. Hadar is a Cato Institute research fellow in foreign-policy studies and author, most recently, of Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East.
More by Leon T. Hadar
If the second possibility eventually comes to define the Obama presidency, we can be certain of one thing—the Washington foreign policy elite will not be sated. Whether they are on the right or the left, hawks or doves, liberal internationalists or neoconservatives, foreign policy "professionals" tend to gravitate to grand strategies that reflect their favorite intellectual fads or narratives—like Fukuyama's End of History, Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, Kaplan's Coming Global Anarchy, or the neocon's Islamofascism threat. Intellectuals are drawn to global crusades to promote a collective good that tends to be transfused with a sense of adventure and romance.
But after eight years of foreign policy fantasies, the notion of an Obama administration muddling through foreign policy choices should be welcomed, even by those who will be disappointed if the new president's choices fall short of our high expectations.
In making our predictions about Obama's policies, many of us project our hopes and fears. Many opponents of the neoconservative agenda supported the Obama candidacy based on his opposition to the invasion of Iraq, stated willingness to dialogue with Iran and Syria, and apparent commitment to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Compared to the ideologues and fanatics who were recently in charge of U.S. diplomacy, Obama has seemed a staunch member of the antiwar camp. This explains much of the enthusiasm that he garnered among antiwar bloggers during the Democratic primaries, when he challenged then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, who had voted in favor of the congressional resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq.
But there is a certain element of wishful thinking in this image of Obama. Obama's earlier opposition to the Iraq War corresponded to the constituency he represented as an Illinois State Senator. But he never proposed that his position on Iraq was grounded in any leftwing or progressive anti-interventionist principles. Instead, he reiterated several times during the campaign that he respected the realpolitik types who were responsible for the more traditional diplomacy of the first President Bush. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reports Obama consulted with one of these realist luminaries, former national security advisor Brent Scowcroft, about his foreign policy picks for the new administration.
Some hopes of progressive and libertarian antiwar activists were already dashed when Obama announced he would retain Robert Gates as defense secretary, and nominate Hillary Clinton as secretary of state and retired General James Jones as his national security advisor. The non-interventionists's mood was probably not improved after reading reports about the potential role that former Clinton administration aides like Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross, or Richard Holbrooke—known for their pro-interventionist approaches—might play in the administration. Indeed, those of us who were hoping, wishing, and praying for the making of a new U.S. foreign policy paradigm—that would disengage militarily from the Middle East, end the special relationship with Israel, withdraw from NATO, terminate military pacts with Japan and South Korea, and take a less belligerent approach towards Russia—were bound to be disappointed by many of Obama's selections for his foreign policy team.
But then Obama never stated that he would embrace the non-interventionist agendas of Taft Republicans or McGovern Democrats. President Bush père and President Clinton have been his role models when it comes to diplomacy and national security. And these two were both committed to maintaining the U.S. dominant position in the post-Cold War era, including through the use of military force. It is true that neither Bush père nor Clinton embraced the more ambitious neoconservative policy proposals that called for invading countries in the Middle East and establishing a permanent U.S. military presence there. And while they and their aides had occasionally employed Wilsonian rhetoric, they never had any urge to "liberate" Iraq and implant democracy in the Middle East. Theirs was a pragmatic—or opportunistic—foreign policy that took advantage of the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the only potential challenger of U.S. hegemony, as well as America's economic might, to establish a dominant U.S. position in the Middle East and East Asia, to expand NATO to the borders of Russia, and to continue calling the shots at the United Nations and other multilateral organizations. Under them, Washington was able maintain an American Empire whose military and economic costs were largely acceptable to the U.S. public.
Obama, with the help of the Clintonites and the Scowcrofts, is hoping to recreate that kind of cost-effective Pax Americana. Applying diplomatic means to reach a "grand bargain" with Iran and to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process could permit the United States to withdraw its troops from Iraq and reassert its influence in the region. Creative statesmanship could also help reduce tensions in South Asia and create the conditions for stability in Afghanistan. Working more closely with the European Union (EU), the country could bargain and make deals with the Russians. And then there is America's "soft power," pumped-up by the sex-appeal of Mr. Cosmopolitan Cool himself, which might win the hearts and minds of Muslims everywhere.
Indeed, during his inaugural address, Obama seemed to reiterate the kind of internationalist and realist principles embraced by Bush père while avoiding any mention of "axis of evil' or the term "war on terrorism." Instead, he projected a mix of tough pragmatism and soft idealism. '"We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist," he said, sending a message to Iran, Syria, and other governments Bush II refused to engage and sought to isolate. And he specifically addressed the Muslim world, "To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.".
A clear consensus among Washington cognoscenti on the direction of "Obadiplomacy" has yet to emerge, despite nearly two years of presidential campaigning and a full slate of Cabinet nominees. This points to two possibilities. First, that Obama has a coherent foreign policy vision and a strategy to implement it, but that he and his aides are keeping it top secret—a great skill for those who want to win victories in the games that nations play.
Or that Obama does not have a grand diplomatic strategy à la Cold War containment or the "war on terror." If such is the case, the evolution of foreign policy under Obama could be a process of trial and error, a cost-effective diplomatic approach in which major decisions are made in response to political and economic pressures at home and abroad.
Leon T. Hadar is a Cato Institute research fellow in foreign-policy studies and author, most recently, of Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East.
More by Leon T. Hadar
If the second possibility eventually comes to define the Obama presidency, we can be certain of one thing—the Washington foreign policy elite will not be sated. Whether they are on the right or the left, hawks or doves, liberal internationalists or neoconservatives, foreign policy "professionals" tend to gravitate to grand strategies that reflect their favorite intellectual fads or narratives—like Fukuyama's End of History, Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, Kaplan's Coming Global Anarchy, or the neocon's Islamofascism threat. Intellectuals are drawn to global crusades to promote a collective good that tends to be transfused with a sense of adventure and romance.
But after eight years of foreign policy fantasies, the notion of an Obama administration muddling through foreign policy choices should be welcomed, even by those who will be disappointed if the new president's choices fall short of our high expectations.
In making our predictions about Obama's policies, many of us project our hopes and fears. Many opponents of the neoconservative agenda supported the Obama candidacy based on his opposition to the invasion of Iraq, stated willingness to dialogue with Iran and Syria, and apparent commitment to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Compared to the ideologues and fanatics who were recently in charge of U.S. diplomacy, Obama has seemed a staunch member of the antiwar camp. This explains much of the enthusiasm that he garnered among antiwar bloggers during the Democratic primaries, when he challenged then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, who had voted in favor of the congressional resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq.
But there is a certain element of wishful thinking in this image of Obama. Obama's earlier opposition to the Iraq War corresponded to the constituency he represented as an Illinois State Senator. But he never proposed that his position on Iraq was grounded in any leftwing or progressive anti-interventionist principles. Instead, he reiterated several times during the campaign that he respected the realpolitik types who were responsible for the more traditional diplomacy of the first President Bush. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reports Obama consulted with one of these realist luminaries, former national security advisor Brent Scowcroft, about his foreign policy picks for the new administration.
Some hopes of progressive and libertarian antiwar activists were already dashed when Obama announced he would retain Robert Gates as defense secretary, and nominate Hillary Clinton as secretary of state and retired General James Jones as his national security advisor. The non-interventionists's mood was probably not improved after reading reports about the potential role that former Clinton administration aides like Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross, or Richard Holbrooke—known for their pro-interventionist approaches—might play in the administration. Indeed, those of us who were hoping, wishing, and praying for the making of a new U.S. foreign policy paradigm—that would disengage militarily from the Middle East, end the special relationship with Israel, withdraw from NATO, terminate military pacts with Japan and South Korea, and take a less belligerent approach towards Russia—were bound to be disappointed by many of Obama's selections for his foreign policy team.
But then Obama never stated that he would embrace the non-interventionist agendas of Taft Republicans or McGovern Democrats. President Bush père and President Clinton have been his role models when it comes to diplomacy and national security. And these two were both committed to maintaining the U.S. dominant position in the post-Cold War era, including through the use of military force. It is true that neither Bush père nor Clinton embraced the more ambitious neoconservative policy proposals that called for invading countries in the Middle East and establishing a permanent U.S. military presence there. And while they and their aides had occasionally employed Wilsonian rhetoric, they never had any urge to "liberate" Iraq and implant democracy in the Middle East. Theirs was a pragmatic—or opportunistic—foreign policy that took advantage of the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the only potential challenger of U.S. hegemony, as well as America's economic might, to establish a dominant U.S. position in the Middle East and East Asia, to expand NATO to the borders of Russia, and to continue calling the shots at the United Nations and other multilateral organizations. Under them, Washington was able maintain an American Empire whose military and economic costs were largely acceptable to the U.S. public.
Obama, with the help of the Clintonites and the Scowcrofts, is hoping to recreate that kind of cost-effective Pax Americana. Applying diplomatic means to reach a "grand bargain" with Iran and to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process could permit the United States to withdraw its troops from Iraq and reassert its influence in the region. Creative statesmanship could also help reduce tensions in South Asia and create the conditions for stability in Afghanistan. Working more closely with the European Union (EU), the country could bargain and make deals with the Russians. And then there is America's "soft power," pumped-up by the sex-appeal of Mr. Cosmopolitan Cool himself, which might win the hearts and minds of Muslims everywhere.
Indeed, during his inaugural address, Obama seemed to reiterate the kind of internationalist and realist principles embraced by Bush père while avoiding any mention of "axis of evil' or the term "war on terrorism." Instead, he projected a mix of tough pragmatism and soft idealism. '"We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist," he said, sending a message to Iran, Syria, and other governments Bush II refused to engage and sought to isolate. And he specifically addressed the Muslim world, "To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.".
American Literary History Volume 21, Number 1, Spring 2009 Re-thinking “American Studies after US …
Project MUSE - American Literary History - Re-thinking "American Studies after US Exceptionalism" Project MUSE Journals American Literary History Volume 21, Number 1, Spring 2009 Re-thinking "American Studies after US Exceptionalism" American Literary History Volume 21, Number 1, Spring 2009 E-ISSN: 1468-4365 Print ISSN: 0896-7148 Re-thinking "American Studies after US Exceptionalism" Donald Pease Over the last 15 years, I have devoted a substantial portion of my work to analyzing the discourse of American exceptionalism so as to advocate for a post-exceptionalist American studies.1 After analyzing what I called the Janus face of American Exceptionalism, I concluded that the relations between US citizens' belief in US exceptionalism and the state's production of exceptions to its core tenets might be best described in psychosocial terms as structures of disavowal. By the state's exceptions I referred to measures, like the "Indian Removal Act" and the "Fugitive Slave Law" in the nineteenth century and "Operation Wetback" and the Vietnam War in the twentieth, which violated the anti-imperialist norms that were embedded within the discourse of American exceptionalism. In enabling US citizens to disavow the state's exceptions that threatened their beliefs, the discourse of exceptionalism regulated US citizens' responses to historical events. The standpoint from which I had conducted this analysis correlated the US disavowal of its imperial history with ...
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Re-thinking “American Studies after US Exceptionalism”
A1 - Donald Pease
JF - American Literary History
VL - 21
IS - 1
SP - 19
EP - 27
Y1 - 2009
PB - Oxford University Press
SN - 1468-4365
UR - http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_literary_history/v021/21.1.pease.html
N1 - Volume 21, Number 1, Spring 2009
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Always review your references for accuracy and make any necessary corrections before using. Pay special attention to personal names, capitalization, and dates. Consult your library or click here for more information on citing sources.
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Always review your references for accuracy and make any necessary corrections before using. Pay special attention to personal names, capitalization, and dates. Consult your library or click here for more information on citing sources.
Donald Pease. (2009). Re-thinking “american studies after us exceptionalism”. American Literary History 21(1), 19-27. Retrieved April 17, 2009, from Project MUSE database.
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Donald Pease. "Re-thinking “American Studies after US Exceptionalism”." American Literary History 21, no. 1 (2009): 19-27. http://muse.jhu.edu/ (accessed April 17, 2009).
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Re-thinking “American Studies after US Exceptionalism”
A1 - Donald Pease
JF - American Literary History
VL - 21
IS - 1
SP - 19
EP - 27
Y1 - 2009
PB - Oxford University Press
SN - 1468-4365
UR - http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_literary_history/v021/21.1.pease.html
N1 - Volume 21, Number 1, Spring 2009
ER -
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How the Obama Administration should Regulate the Financial Sector
Abstract:
The Obama Administration will be looking to the financial regulatory apparatus to prevent future economic crises like the one the country is experiencing right now. This is a very ambitious objective to impose on any regulator. Much ink has been spilled in addressing how the financial regulatory apparatus should be constructed going forward. The focus has been on consolidating the multiple agencies with overlapping jurisdictions that oversee the financial services industry. Whatever their final form, we can identify certain key attributes these ultimate financial regulators should have to give them at least some hope of doing the proactive, forward-looking thinking the Administration will need them to perform: the right people at the agencies, enough access to the institutions they regulate, enough information from those institutions to know what is happening, an internal brain trust to analyze and assess that information, and a rapid reaction team to respond to financial emergencies.
The Obama Administration will be looking to the financial regulatory apparatus to prevent future economic crises like the one the country is experiencing right now. This is a very ambitious objective to impose on any regulator. Much ink has been spilled in addressing how the financial regulatory apparatus should be constructed going forward. The focus has been on consolidating the multiple agencies with overlapping jurisdictions that oversee the financial services industry. Whatever their final form, we can identify certain key attributes these ultimate financial regulators should have to give them at least some hope of doing the proactive, forward-looking thinking the Administration will need them to perform: the right people at the agencies, enough access to the institutions they regulate, enough information from those institutions to know what is happening, an internal brain trust to analyze and assess that information, and a rapid reaction team to respond to financial emergencies.
Obama, Education Policy, and the Allure of a Post Race America America
While the idea of a Post Race America is alluring and certainly desirable, as a school law attorney and professor in graduate education, the use of this language concerns me. This is because the notion of a Post Race America has also been used by many to undermine education law enacted to overcome the vestiges of years of institutional racial discrimination. Many opponents of desegregation and affirmative action, for example, have used some articulation of a Post Race America to support their arguments against important measures to ensure equality in public education. Slavery and segregation no longer matter they say and we who are fighting for racial equality are actually perpetuating racial discrimination by continuing to live in a world that has long past.
Bankrupt Thinking on U.S. Bankruptcy
Laurence Kotlikoff's latest article in the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review has instigated a flurry of commentary on the state of domestic policies. Kotlikoff poses the question, "Is the United States Bankrupt?" Despite the colorful language with which he describes the state of affairs, his answer is "no." In Kotlikoff's view, the United States is not yet in bankruptcy, but it's headed that way.
Almost all of the ensuing media discussion of Kotlikoff's argument has failed to focus on his central point. The Wall Street Journal recently provided a lot of mumbo-jumbo about how our national "balance sheet" is healthy and national wealth rising rapidly -- a transparent effort to dispel any doubts that the economy's condition, and by implication Bush policy, is sound. But, again, Dr. Kotlikoff's thesis is about the economy's future condition, not its current one.
Kotlikoff's claim is supported by several carefully calibrated computer analyses that show how the promise to provide many trillions of dollars to today's citizens -- of which $67 trillion are unfunded -- would spell disaster in years to come. Over the next 20 years, 76 million people -- fully one-fourth of the total population -- will transition into retirement, compounding the problem dramatically.
Jagadeesh Gokhale is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former senior adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
More by Jagadeesh Gokhale
Because we believe that the government would somehow secure our retirements, we are saving and investing less of our earnings. Personal saving, which has trended lower since the early 1980s, recently entered negative territory. And the longer the government maintains its unfunded benefit promises, the longer our under-saving behavior is likely to persist.
The impact of public policies on private economic behavior could result in a vicious downward spiral. Two dynamic and mutually reinforcing forces are operating today: First, currently unfunded federal obligations are accruing interest and growing larger over time, making it more difficult to raise the resources to pay for them. Second, the growth of worker productivity is declining and will continue to decline as a result of lower prior saving and capital formation. The pick-up in productivity since the mid-1990s appears to be reversing its course: growth in U.S. output per hour declined from 4.1 percent per year in 2002 to 2.3 percent in 2005. If this slide persists, resources to pay for growing obligations will have to be raised from a smaller future economic pie.
The outcome of these two forces would be higher future tax rates, which would not only further dampen productivity, but also reduce the amount worked -- following the same pattern as Europe since the 1980s. That implies progression toward reduced living standards, if not national bankruptcy.
Scary as this outlook is, the reaction of some pundits is yet scarier: Many have blithely dismissed the analysis as based on unrealistic assumptions. The Wall Street Journal, for example, suggests that Kotlikoff's prognosis rests on the "false assumption that the current level of [entitlement] benefits will ever be paid." That view, however, just replaces one false assumption with another. If one-fourth of Americans join the ranks of retirees, they would gain strong incentives to crush any attempt at scaling back the growth of entitlements.
Nor can the traditional method of cutting federal obligations -- allowing inflation to do it for us -- be employed in the case of Social Security and Medicare entitlements. Social Security is indexed to inflation and Medicare provides "in kind" benefits -- whereby the government pays cash not to retirees but to medical providers for services rendered to retirees. With inflation-linked defaults inoperative and explicit defaults politically infeasible, the only -- temporary and self-defeating -- way to stave off bankruptcy would be to increase taxes on workers. The simple lesson here is that the longer we procrastinate in reforming entitlements -- under faint hopes that faster economic growth will solve our fiscal problems -- the larger future tax hikes will have to be.
There is a yet deeper point that many commentators appear to miss: that well crafted, direct, and immediate fiscal adjustments to curb the current overextension of entitlements would themselves prove to be pro-growth policies. They would reduce the misdirection of private resources into current consumption rather than saving and investment.
Most observers appear to interpret the phrase "faster economic growth" to mean growth at rates faster than today's. Instead, they should compare future growth rates under reformed entitlement policies with those that would result if today's policies were maintained. Future growth would be much slower unless we scale back promised benefits and establish a stable and credible tax structure. These reforms are crucial to the continued health of the economy.
Almost all of the ensuing media discussion of Kotlikoff's argument has failed to focus on his central point. The Wall Street Journal recently provided a lot of mumbo-jumbo about how our national "balance sheet" is healthy and national wealth rising rapidly -- a transparent effort to dispel any doubts that the economy's condition, and by implication Bush policy, is sound. But, again, Dr. Kotlikoff's thesis is about the economy's future condition, not its current one.
Kotlikoff's claim is supported by several carefully calibrated computer analyses that show how the promise to provide many trillions of dollars to today's citizens -- of which $67 trillion are unfunded -- would spell disaster in years to come. Over the next 20 years, 76 million people -- fully one-fourth of the total population -- will transition into retirement, compounding the problem dramatically.
Jagadeesh Gokhale is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former senior adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
More by Jagadeesh Gokhale
Because we believe that the government would somehow secure our retirements, we are saving and investing less of our earnings. Personal saving, which has trended lower since the early 1980s, recently entered negative territory. And the longer the government maintains its unfunded benefit promises, the longer our under-saving behavior is likely to persist.
The impact of public policies on private economic behavior could result in a vicious downward spiral. Two dynamic and mutually reinforcing forces are operating today: First, currently unfunded federal obligations are accruing interest and growing larger over time, making it more difficult to raise the resources to pay for them. Second, the growth of worker productivity is declining and will continue to decline as a result of lower prior saving and capital formation. The pick-up in productivity since the mid-1990s appears to be reversing its course: growth in U.S. output per hour declined from 4.1 percent per year in 2002 to 2.3 percent in 2005. If this slide persists, resources to pay for growing obligations will have to be raised from a smaller future economic pie.
The outcome of these two forces would be higher future tax rates, which would not only further dampen productivity, but also reduce the amount worked -- following the same pattern as Europe since the 1980s. That implies progression toward reduced living standards, if not national bankruptcy.
Scary as this outlook is, the reaction of some pundits is yet scarier: Many have blithely dismissed the analysis as based on unrealistic assumptions. The Wall Street Journal, for example, suggests that Kotlikoff's prognosis rests on the "false assumption that the current level of [entitlement] benefits will ever be paid." That view, however, just replaces one false assumption with another. If one-fourth of Americans join the ranks of retirees, they would gain strong incentives to crush any attempt at scaling back the growth of entitlements.
Nor can the traditional method of cutting federal obligations -- allowing inflation to do it for us -- be employed in the case of Social Security and Medicare entitlements. Social Security is indexed to inflation and Medicare provides "in kind" benefits -- whereby the government pays cash not to retirees but to medical providers for services rendered to retirees. With inflation-linked defaults inoperative and explicit defaults politically infeasible, the only -- temporary and self-defeating -- way to stave off bankruptcy would be to increase taxes on workers. The simple lesson here is that the longer we procrastinate in reforming entitlements -- under faint hopes that faster economic growth will solve our fiscal problems -- the larger future tax hikes will have to be.
There is a yet deeper point that many commentators appear to miss: that well crafted, direct, and immediate fiscal adjustments to curb the current overextension of entitlements would themselves prove to be pro-growth policies. They would reduce the misdirection of private resources into current consumption rather than saving and investment.
Most observers appear to interpret the phrase "faster economic growth" to mean growth at rates faster than today's. Instead, they should compare future growth rates under reformed entitlement policies with those that would result if today's policies were maintained. Future growth would be much slower unless we scale back promised benefits and establish a stable and credible tax structure. These reforms are crucial to the continued health of the economy.
Economic Straight Thinking
Several weeks ago, I wrote "Harm's a Two-Way Street," a column that generated considerable reader response, some of it angry and nasty. The gist of the column was that the liberty-oriented solution to the smoking controversy was through the institution of private property, where the owner of a workplace, restaurant or bar decides whether there would be smoking. The totalitarian solution was to use the brute force of government.
I argued harm is a two-way street. Tobacco fumes might harm someone who is allergic or just finds the odor offensive. The person who smokes and is not permitted to do so is also harmed by being denied a pleasurable experience. Quite a few letters asserted, "Williams, you can't compare the health harm to a nonsmoker to the inconvenience harm that a smoker suffers just because he's not allowed to smoke." No, I can't and wouldn't even try. Why?
Using economic jargon, it is impossible to make interpersonal utility comparisons. Let's try a few. A dollar will bring me more happiness than it will bring you. It's better to like opera music than hip-hop music. Human life is more important than money. There's no objective way to prove any of these statements simply because there is no objective standard for comparison.
Walter E. Williams, the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, is an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute and a syndicated columnist.
More by Walter E. Williams
You might have an opinion, but an opinion is not proof. The same reasoning applies if you said, "The harm I suffer from your smoking is greater than the harm you suffer from not being permitted to smoke." Contrast these statements to: "You are taller than I." For such a statement there are indeed objective standards for falsifying or verifying it -- just get out the measuring instruments.
Another part of the column suggested an owner of a restaurant, workplace or bar might post a sign indicating whether he permitted smoking. After all, private property rights have to do with rights held by an owner to keep, acquire and use property in ways he pleases so long as he doesn't interfere with similar rights held by another. Private property rights also include the right to exclude others from use of property.
Quite a few readers asked, "What if the owner wished to exclude blacks or some other race?" I value freedom of association. An important part of the right of association is the right not to associate for a good reason, bad reason or no reason at all. That's not to say I don't find some forms of association offensive. But the true test of one's commitment to freedom of association doesn't come when he allows others to associate in ways he deems desirable. The true test of his commitment comes when he is willing to allow others to associate in ways he deems offensive.
One might be tempted to think that if owners were free to reject customers by race, segregation would be widespread. But that's nonsense because there's a difference between what people can do and what they'll find it in their interests to do.
I argued harm is a two-way street. Tobacco fumes might harm someone who is allergic or just finds the odor offensive. The person who smokes and is not permitted to do so is also harmed by being denied a pleasurable experience. Quite a few letters asserted, "Williams, you can't compare the health harm to a nonsmoker to the inconvenience harm that a smoker suffers just because he's not allowed to smoke." No, I can't and wouldn't even try. Why?
Using economic jargon, it is impossible to make interpersonal utility comparisons. Let's try a few. A dollar will bring me more happiness than it will bring you. It's better to like opera music than hip-hop music. Human life is more important than money. There's no objective way to prove any of these statements simply because there is no objective standard for comparison.
Walter E. Williams, the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, is an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute and a syndicated columnist.
More by Walter E. Williams
You might have an opinion, but an opinion is not proof. The same reasoning applies if you said, "The harm I suffer from your smoking is greater than the harm you suffer from not being permitted to smoke." Contrast these statements to: "You are taller than I." For such a statement there are indeed objective standards for falsifying or verifying it -- just get out the measuring instruments.
Another part of the column suggested an owner of a restaurant, workplace or bar might post a sign indicating whether he permitted smoking. After all, private property rights have to do with rights held by an owner to keep, acquire and use property in ways he pleases so long as he doesn't interfere with similar rights held by another. Private property rights also include the right to exclude others from use of property.
Quite a few readers asked, "What if the owner wished to exclude blacks or some other race?" I value freedom of association. An important part of the right of association is the right not to associate for a good reason, bad reason or no reason at all. That's not to say I don't find some forms of association offensive. But the true test of one's commitment to freedom of association doesn't come when he allows others to associate in ways he deems desirable. The true test of his commitment comes when he is willing to allow others to associate in ways he deems offensive.
One might be tempted to think that if owners were free to reject customers by race, segregation would be widespread. But that's nonsense because there's a difference between what people can do and what they'll find it in their interests to do.
Agency for energy innovation may be funded under Obama
A new research programme, designed to bypass bureaucratic red tape and bring 'transformative' energy technology to the market, could finally win approval in the United States under a new Obama administration and a Democratic Congress. Supporters have been pushing for the new agency — to be modelled on the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) — since the National Academy of Sciences proposed it in a 2005 report1. Called the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), it would spend as much as a billion dollars a year on energy research to create clean alternatives to fossil fuels.
Congress voted to create ARPA-E in 2007, despite the objections of the Bush administration, but has since failed to provide funding to actually implement the programme, leaving it authorized on paper only. The rec
Congress voted to create ARPA-E in 2007, despite the objections of the Bush administration, but has since failed to provide funding to actually implement the programme, leaving it authorized on paper only. The rec
Time for New Thinking About Poverty
Too many journalists seem unable to break free of their old assumptions, even when new evidence should cause some new thinking. Three articles in the Sept. 22 edition of the Washington Post endorsed the view that giving more money to poor people and poor countries can solve the problem of domestic and global poverty. It's remarkable that so many smart people in our society are unaffected by the evidence that such transfer programs just don't work.
In a front-page article, two reporters talked about the destitute people fleeing Hurricane Katrina and wondered if America would finally face the problem of poverty. They quoted a foundation president who lamented that Americans "ignore the problems of poverty" until a catastrophe happens. They suggested that only a renewed "War on Poverty" could both help the poor and tell us whether Republicans are ready and able to govern.
A column by David Broder, the dean of Washington journalists, likewise deplored the miserly treatment of the poor. Even Lyndon Johnson, he said, the architect of the War on Poverty, "diverted the resources it required to the other war, in Vietnam." Meanwhile, a Post editorial called for more aid to the governments of poor countries. It suggested that rich countries measure their commitment to development by a benchmark that emphasizes the amount of aid along with trade, investment, and other criteria.
In every case the assumption that transfer payments are the solution is not even explicitly stated; it's just taken for granted. But where's the evidence supporting this for welfare and foreign aid?
The United States has spent $9 trillion (in current dollars) on welfare programs since President Johnson launched the War on Poverty in 1965. Critics have challenged this figure, saying it includes more than welfare alone. It does include more than Aid to Families with Dependent Children, now known (hopefully) as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF); it also includes food stamps; Medicaid; the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); utilities assistance under the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP); housing assistance under a variety of programs, including public housing and Section 8 Rental Assistance; and the free commodities program. Clearly, those are all transfer programs for the poor.
Look at Louisiana alone: Michael Tanner, author of The Poverty of Welfare, writes, "The federal government has spent nearly $1.3 billion on cash welfare (TANF) in Louisiana since the start of the Bush administration. That doesn't count nearly $3 billion in food stamps. Throw in public housing, Medicaid, Child Care Development Fund, Social Service Block Grant and more than 60 other federal anti-poverty programs, and we've spent well over $10 billion fighting poverty in Louisiana."
If all that spending didn't cure poverty, then surely more spending isn't the answer. Indeed, maybe it's the problem. Welfare and other aid programs ensnare people, leading them to become dependent on their monthly check rather than finding jobs and starting businesses. In 1960, just before the Great Society's dramatic increases in welfare programs, the out-of-wedlock birth rate in the United States was 5 percent. After 30 years of rising welfare benefits, the rate was 32 percent; young women had come to see the welfare office, not a husband, as the best provider. Welfare created a cycle of illegitimacy, fatherlessness, crime, more illegitimacy, and more welfare.
In a front-page article, two reporters talked about the destitute people fleeing Hurricane Katrina and wondered if America would finally face the problem of poverty. They quoted a foundation president who lamented that Americans "ignore the problems of poverty" until a catastrophe happens. They suggested that only a renewed "War on Poverty" could both help the poor and tell us whether Republicans are ready and able to govern.
A column by David Broder, the dean of Washington journalists, likewise deplored the miserly treatment of the poor. Even Lyndon Johnson, he said, the architect of the War on Poverty, "diverted the resources it required to the other war, in Vietnam." Meanwhile, a Post editorial called for more aid to the governments of poor countries. It suggested that rich countries measure their commitment to development by a benchmark that emphasizes the amount of aid along with trade, investment, and other criteria.
In every case the assumption that transfer payments are the solution is not even explicitly stated; it's just taken for granted. But where's the evidence supporting this for welfare and foreign aid?
The United States has spent $9 trillion (in current dollars) on welfare programs since President Johnson launched the War on Poverty in 1965. Critics have challenged this figure, saying it includes more than welfare alone. It does include more than Aid to Families with Dependent Children, now known (hopefully) as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF); it also includes food stamps; Medicaid; the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); utilities assistance under the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP); housing assistance under a variety of programs, including public housing and Section 8 Rental Assistance; and the free commodities program. Clearly, those are all transfer programs for the poor.
Look at Louisiana alone: Michael Tanner, author of The Poverty of Welfare, writes, "The federal government has spent nearly $1.3 billion on cash welfare (TANF) in Louisiana since the start of the Bush administration. That doesn't count nearly $3 billion in food stamps. Throw in public housing, Medicaid, Child Care Development Fund, Social Service Block Grant and more than 60 other federal anti-poverty programs, and we've spent well over $10 billion fighting poverty in Louisiana."
If all that spending didn't cure poverty, then surely more spending isn't the answer. Indeed, maybe it's the problem. Welfare and other aid programs ensnare people, leading them to become dependent on their monthly check rather than finding jobs and starting businesses. In 1960, just before the Great Society's dramatic increases in welfare programs, the out-of-wedlock birth rate in the United States was 5 percent. After 30 years of rising welfare benefits, the rate was 32 percent; young women had come to see the welfare office, not a husband, as the best provider. Welfare created a cycle of illegitimacy, fatherlessness, crime, more illegitimacy, and more welfare.
Thinking about Drug Legalization
On Thursday, March 17, 1988, at 10:45 p.m., in the Bronx, Vernia Brown was killed by stray bullets fired in a dispute over illegal drugs.[1] The 19-year-old mother of one was not involved in the dispute, yet her death was a direct consequence of the "war on drugs."
By now, there can be little doubt that most, if not all, "drug-related murders" are the result of drug prohibition. The same type of violence came with the Eighteenth Amendment's ban of alcohol in 1920. The murder rate rose with the start of Prohibition, remained high during Prohibition, and then declined for 11 consecutive years when Prohibition ended.[2] The rate of assaults with a firearm rose with Prohibition and declined for 10 consecutive years after Prohibition. In the last year of Prohibition--1933--there were 12,124 homicides and 7,863 assaults with firearms; by 1941 these figures had declined to 8,048 and 4,525, respectively.[3] (See Figure 1.)
Vernia Brown died because of the policy of drug prohibition.[4] If, then, her death is a "cost" of that policy, what did the "expenditure" of her life "buy"? What benefits has society derived from the policy of prohibition that led to her death? To find the answer, I turned to the experts and to the supporters of drug prohibition.
In 1988, I wrote to Vice President George Bush, then head of the South Florida Drug Task Force; to Education Secretary William Bennett; to Assistant Secretary of State for Drug Policy Ann Wrobleski; to White House drug policy adviser Dr. Donald I. McDonald; and to the public information directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, General Accounting Office, National Institute of Justice, and National Institute on Drug Abuse. None of these officials was able to cite any study that demonstrated the beneficial effects of drug prohibition when weighed against its costs.[5] The leaders of the war on drugs are apparently unable to defend on rational cost-benefit grounds their 70-year-old policy, which costs nearly $10 billion per year (out of pocket), imprisons 75,000 Americans, and fills our cities with violent crime. It would seem that Vernia Brown and many others like her have died for nothing.
Some supporters of drug prohibition claim that its benefits are undeniable and self-evident. Their main assumption is that without prohibition drug use would skyrocket, with disastrous results. But there is little evidence for this commonly held belief. In fact, in the few cases where empirical evidence does exist it lends little support to the prediction of soaring drug use. For example, in two places in the Western world where use of small amounts of marijuana is legal--the Netherlands and Alaska--the rate of marijuana consumption is arguably lower than in the continental United States, where marijuana is banned. In 1982, 6.3 percent of American high school seniors smoked marijuana daily, but only 4 percent did so in Alaska. In 1985, 5.5 percent of American high school seniors used marijuana daily, but in the Netherlands the rate was only 0.5 percent.[6] These are hardly controlled comparisons--no such comparisons exist--but the numbers that are available do not bear out the drastic scenario portrayed by supporters of continued prohibition.
Finally, there is at least some evidence that the "forbidden fruit" aspect of prohibition may lead to increased use of or experimentation with drugs, particularly among the young. This phenomenon apparently occurred with marijuana, LSD, toluene-based glue, and other drugs.[7] The case for legalization does not rely on this argument, but those who believe prohibition needs no defense cannot simply dismiss it.
By now, there can be little doubt that most, if not all, "drug-related murders" are the result of drug prohibition. The same type of violence came with the Eighteenth Amendment's ban of alcohol in 1920. The murder rate rose with the start of Prohibition, remained high during Prohibition, and then declined for 11 consecutive years when Prohibition ended.[2] The rate of assaults with a firearm rose with Prohibition and declined for 10 consecutive years after Prohibition. In the last year of Prohibition--1933--there were 12,124 homicides and 7,863 assaults with firearms; by 1941 these figures had declined to 8,048 and 4,525, respectively.[3] (See Figure 1.)
Vernia Brown died because of the policy of drug prohibition.[4] If, then, her death is a "cost" of that policy, what did the "expenditure" of her life "buy"? What benefits has society derived from the policy of prohibition that led to her death? To find the answer, I turned to the experts and to the supporters of drug prohibition.
In 1988, I wrote to Vice President George Bush, then head of the South Florida Drug Task Force; to Education Secretary William Bennett; to Assistant Secretary of State for Drug Policy Ann Wrobleski; to White House drug policy adviser Dr. Donald I. McDonald; and to the public information directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, General Accounting Office, National Institute of Justice, and National Institute on Drug Abuse. None of these officials was able to cite any study that demonstrated the beneficial effects of drug prohibition when weighed against its costs.[5] The leaders of the war on drugs are apparently unable to defend on rational cost-benefit grounds their 70-year-old policy, which costs nearly $10 billion per year (out of pocket), imprisons 75,000 Americans, and fills our cities with violent crime. It would seem that Vernia Brown and many others like her have died for nothing.
Some supporters of drug prohibition claim that its benefits are undeniable and self-evident. Their main assumption is that without prohibition drug use would skyrocket, with disastrous results. But there is little evidence for this commonly held belief. In fact, in the few cases where empirical evidence does exist it lends little support to the prediction of soaring drug use. For example, in two places in the Western world where use of small amounts of marijuana is legal--the Netherlands and Alaska--the rate of marijuana consumption is arguably lower than in the continental United States, where marijuana is banned. In 1982, 6.3 percent of American high school seniors smoked marijuana daily, but only 4 percent did so in Alaska. In 1985, 5.5 percent of American high school seniors used marijuana daily, but in the Netherlands the rate was only 0.5 percent.[6] These are hardly controlled comparisons--no such comparisons exist--but the numbers that are available do not bear out the drastic scenario portrayed by supporters of continued prohibition.
Finally, there is at least some evidence that the "forbidden fruit" aspect of prohibition may lead to increased use of or experimentation with drugs, particularly among the young. This phenomenon apparently occurred with marijuana, LSD, toluene-based glue, and other drugs.[7] The case for legalization does not rely on this argument, but those who believe prohibition needs no defense cannot simply dismiss it.
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