Well, yes, Charles, the World is a dangerous place. You start here with "terrorism" but never mention the word "Islam." You do enlighten us, however, that "terrorism itself is simply an extension of the tremendous terror..." so, thanks for that, terrorism being an extension of...terror. But who is "myopic" here: Trump for recognizing the connection that even a blind man could see, Islam+Terrorism; or you, who skips past Islamic Terrorism to direct our attention to other catastrophes, such as...climate change. You're joking, right? Right? Charles?
10
Gosh, for a journalist who regularly sings the praises of President Obama, Mr. Blow was able to run up a pretty sizable list of failures.
Accountability?
Accountability?
7
Trump's speech about he atrocities in Brussels is being used in a video by ISIS as proof of how successful their attacks were. Trump is an agitator. Trump is not a leader. He doesn't follow the advice of Teddy Roosevelt. Trump talks loudly.
9
Until President Obama admits that ISLAMIC TERRORISM exists and is a threat to all civilized people,terrorist attacks will continue. Obama has to do something concrete about it, When ISIS burned to death a Jordanian fighter pilot they had captured; King Abdullah immediately responded by bombing ISIS strongholds in Syria. It worked.
5
This column of course fails to specify what "serious leaders" should do about terrorism. Since 2009 when Obama took office ISIS has grown from virtually nothing to a worldwide terror network and is killing literally tens of thousands and committing genocide against Christians and others. The last time that happened was 1939 and the response of Churchill was the response of a real leader. Obama like Chamberlain, just considers these evils an inevitable part of the modern world. That's a lie. These things are the result of ideologies and in this case the evil Ideology lurking within Islam. Failure to see this will lead to further slaughter and genocides. Holland's reaction in France was that of a leader. Obama's reaction is that of a petulant teenager with an absent father problem.
7
"This is the new normal. This is the new world of terrorism." Even if terrorism isn't the response certainly has.
Obama has given the same speech for Charlie Hebdo, Paris, and now Brussels:
We will strengthen our resolve.
We will not rest
Will do everything necessary
Don't blame muslims. That inspires terrorism.
Variations on this theme appear in EU governments.
Buildings get illuminated in the appropriate colors
Western civilizations blame themselves for not being inclusive, trying to or failing to get immigrants to assimilate. They play up the Western Civilization guilt and privilege cards.
Je Suis Charle, Paris, Brussels, whatever place is next.
ridiculous hashtag campaigns.
IOW, the West puts their weakness, political correctness, and complete inability to deal with terrorists on any level. Now that inspires more terrorist acts. Anyone who proposes otherwise gets a fresh bigot Islamophobe label.
"When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, they will naturally want to side with the strong horse. When people of the world look upon the confusion and atheism of the West, they see that Islam is the strong horse."
-Osama bin Laden-
Obama has given the same speech for Charlie Hebdo, Paris, and now Brussels:
We will strengthen our resolve.
We will not rest
Will do everything necessary
Don't blame muslims. That inspires terrorism.
Variations on this theme appear in EU governments.
Buildings get illuminated in the appropriate colors
Western civilizations blame themselves for not being inclusive, trying to or failing to get immigrants to assimilate. They play up the Western Civilization guilt and privilege cards.
Je Suis Charle, Paris, Brussels, whatever place is next.
ridiculous hashtag campaigns.
IOW, the West puts their weakness, political correctness, and complete inability to deal with terrorists on any level. Now that inspires more terrorist acts. Anyone who proposes otherwise gets a fresh bigot Islamophobe label.
"When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, they will naturally want to side with the strong horse. When people of the world look upon the confusion and atheism of the West, they see that Islam is the strong horse."
-Osama bin Laden-
6
Come on Charles, how is a candidate who conducted cabinet-level and top secret national business on a private server to avoid transparency and line the pockets of her so-called charity fit the bill for "This is a serious time in need of serious leaders. This country needs now, more than ever, its most stable and steady hands to lead it through a world that has become incredibly dangerous."?
Regarding “Terrorism remains highly concentrated with most of the activity occurring in just five countries — Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria", who surrendered Iraq and Afghanistan to terrorists after these countries were won at immense cost in American blood and treasure and has stood by for several years as Syria disintegrated? Hint, it is the same clown who invited Raul Castro to critique our social problems.
Unserious, indeed!
Regarding “Terrorism remains highly concentrated with most of the activity occurring in just five countries — Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria", who surrendered Iraq and Afghanistan to terrorists after these countries were won at immense cost in American blood and treasure and has stood by for several years as Syria disintegrated? Hint, it is the same clown who invited Raul Castro to critique our social problems.
Unserious, indeed!
11
obviously this is a passive aggressive put down of Trump and Cruz as being "not serious"; what stellar results have the supposedly somber and grown up leadership achieved so far? San Bernadino, Paris, now Brussels. sometimes a bully like a terrorist can only be dealt with via a little bombast or braggadocio. especially if they back it up with action. so please stop fretting and shaking Charles, it will be okay.
4
This column echoes Capehart's column in the Washington Post, which is said, essentially "well you know, terrorism is happening in the Third World too so don't think you're so special, you racists."
You have to start somewhere and that place should be Iraq, where American forces know the ground and could wipe out ISIL in six months. We did it in 2007 after Democrats had declared the war lost and Iraq was pacified for nearly five years. It had a functioning democracy and could have set the example of a free Arab republic for the rest of the region. Then the feckless Obama gave it back.
We have a responsibility to the Iraqis. We liberated them from the man responsible for the deaths of more Muslims than any who ever lived. His totalitarian state made it impossible for them to know the rules and customs of self-government, but they tried. We have a responsibility to the families of those who died there in American uniform. When Obama gave back much of Iraq to the terrorists he basically told those families their sons and daughters had died in vain, because it was the "wrong war."
We need to go back in there and begin the job of wiping the vermin out. Obama needs to understand that his legacy will have been to lose the war on terror, or at least facilitate countless defeats in that war if he doesn't begin to show some leadership. The strategy of "leading from behind" seems to have morphed into a"You first" plea to our allies in the region. It's embarrassing.
You have to start somewhere and that place should be Iraq, where American forces know the ground and could wipe out ISIL in six months. We did it in 2007 after Democrats had declared the war lost and Iraq was pacified for nearly five years. It had a functioning democracy and could have set the example of a free Arab republic for the rest of the region. Then the feckless Obama gave it back.
We have a responsibility to the Iraqis. We liberated them from the man responsible for the deaths of more Muslims than any who ever lived. His totalitarian state made it impossible for them to know the rules and customs of self-government, but they tried. We have a responsibility to the families of those who died there in American uniform. When Obama gave back much of Iraq to the terrorists he basically told those families their sons and daughters had died in vain, because it was the "wrong war."
We need to go back in there and begin the job of wiping the vermin out. Obama needs to understand that his legacy will have been to lose the war on terror, or at least facilitate countless defeats in that war if he doesn't begin to show some leadership. The strategy of "leading from behind" seems to have morphed into a"You first" plea to our allies in the region. It's embarrassing.
7
This is not the "new world of terrorism" this is Barack Obama's failed presidency wreaking havoc on Europe because of a fully destabilized Middle East, an emboldened Iran and a President too busy taking selfies to notice.
Trying to equivocate and conflate the events in Paris, Brussels, San Bernardino, Ft. Hood and Knoxville to some sort of new normal, is a cheap contractor-sloppy attempt to paint over the Obama doctrine that got us here.
We do not have to accept ISIS as the new normal, with an actual President in the White House, we can mend global alliances and defeat ISIS. I agree things look grim as Obama does the wave with Raul Castro and dances the tango in Argentina while cities burn and our European allies mourn.
But there's a better day coming, and it will be the day Barack Obama leaves the White House, packs up and goes away. As a Black lawyer in Washington DC, hoping to reclaim what's left of my racial heritage and pride after 8 years of Obama, I'd be glad to help him pack.
Trying to equivocate and conflate the events in Paris, Brussels, San Bernardino, Ft. Hood and Knoxville to some sort of new normal, is a cheap contractor-sloppy attempt to paint over the Obama doctrine that got us here.
We do not have to accept ISIS as the new normal, with an actual President in the White House, we can mend global alliances and defeat ISIS. I agree things look grim as Obama does the wave with Raul Castro and dances the tango in Argentina while cities burn and our European allies mourn.
But there's a better day coming, and it will be the day Barack Obama leaves the White House, packs up and goes away. As a Black lawyer in Washington DC, hoping to reclaim what's left of my racial heritage and pride after 8 years of Obama, I'd be glad to help him pack.
7
This fundamentally Marxist analysis of what is happening is likely to simplistic. The Middle East has produced nothing the world outside of oil for generations. The Arab World was once the intellectual and tolerant leaders in the globe but that was centuries ago. Perhaps the lack of liberalism and the lack of success, not jobs is at least as important.
7
Well done Charles! The Brussels attack highlights that there are children and grown-ups running for President. I pray that most Americans are able to discern the adult and choose wisely in November.
2
terrorism and immigration is often considered a national security threat. global warming is not. but is just as much if not more so. consider that the most effected are often poor people. the very same we that do not get the attention or rapid response when a calamity happens. in this country. just look at New Orleans. it's an example of to little and to slow. the non-poor population would not tolerate similar. it is the poor, disadvantaged who feel that they are offered nothing who are more likely to turn to a demigod or movent that offers them more. this aspect of our treatment of so many in Europe and Africa will spill over to the US. the Republican candidates, and party, don't care. why should they? they have the money and means to live in their own bubble. until their bubble is punctured.
1
Am I missing something? It seems that there is swift global indignation over terrorist attacks in Europe but scarcely a whimper at the carnage that continually unfolds in Africa and the Middle East.
3
More jobs would be nice, but these terrorists are not interested in working. They don't shout out, " I want a job" before they blow themselves up. They shout out, "Allahu akbar (god is greatest)." When are we going to admit that Islam tends to creates terrorists? Yes, I know, the terrorists are the minority and most Muslims are decent people. Most of them are not sex offenders, but they commit a lot of those types of crimes throughout Europe at disproportionate rates. Clearly a lot of Muslims hate us simply because we are not Muslim. They think they can victimize western women at will and get away with it. Europe is finally waking up to the fact that importing large numbers of middle eastern types is asking for trouble. I hope America learns this lesson before we do the same. We don't want another Molenbeek in America. Islam needs to reform itself. It will probably take hundreds of years, but in the meantime lets let them live in the middle east. It won't stop them from coming west to blow us up, but at least they will have to cross an ocean to do it
6
Terrorism almost always grows on the fields of social injustice and a lack of perspective in the course of unfulfilled lives. Add discrimination, racism and a lack of relevance and one has sown the seeds to create the monsters who blow themselves up.
Augment this lethal concoction with the instigators who promise these suicide assassins eternal awards and the kind of notoriety they could otherwise never attain and a newly spawned terrorist will step forward to do his evil deed.
We must seriously think about dealing with the root cause of terrorism and find solutions before we run to the camps of tough-talking saber-rattlers.
Augment this lethal concoction with the instigators who promise these suicide assassins eternal awards and the kind of notoriety they could otherwise never attain and a newly spawned terrorist will step forward to do his evil deed.
We must seriously think about dealing with the root cause of terrorism and find solutions before we run to the camps of tough-talking saber-rattlers.
1
While the increasing number of deaths due to terrorism is horrible, the good news is that once the effects of global warming really start to kick in, these petty arguments over religion and conflicts primarily localized to the middle east will seem quaint in retrospect.
1
work and wealth are not zero sum activities. the world's poor are not that way because those of us who have jobs and a higher standards of living are preventing them from achieving the same. the poor of the world are that way because they live in countries where their governments are either corrupt, inept, communist, or a combination of those, and deny their citizens the individual liberties that have allowed the rest of us to create the wealthy societies we live in.
2
If things are only getting worse, why do we insist on continuing the same course? Is it a reasonable strategy to rely on the arc of the moral universe bending towards justice?
War is terrible and is acknowledged as a last resort, and yet humans have been at war almost constantly for 5,000 years. What does that tell you? It tells me that at this point, Europe needs to take the fight to those who are trying to destroy it, no matter the cost, and that the U.S. needs to stand by its allies.
War is terrible and is acknowledged as a last resort, and yet humans have been at war almost constantly for 5,000 years. What does that tell you? It tells me that at this point, Europe needs to take the fight to those who are trying to destroy it, no matter the cost, and that the U.S. needs to stand by its allies.
This is one of the best articles I have read from Charles Blow. The noted references were well documented with no contentious overtones. I must say that Mr. Blow was spot on with this article. He pretty much summed it up with his last statement, " We can’t put our fate and the world’s into the hands of leaders with small minds and big mouths. This election and everything the next president will face is “for all the marbles.” Personally, I believe America's biggest challenge and biggest threat is the 19 trillion national debt. My fear is that we are in so deep, no presidential candidate can save us.
2
If, as this cited CEO says, "The primary will of the world...is first and foremost to have a good job," this is because countries like the US work to ensure that there is no other way for the overwhelming majority individuals and communities to survive without submitting to an order based on markets; to the point that markets set the value of life and the world. People shouldn't have to submit to their valuation based on their property (including their labor), inheritance (or lack thereof), our ability to prostitute ourselves in order to better immerse ourselves in a consumer-oriented society. People don't want jobs per se; we're forced to want jobs because there's no other way to meaningfully participate in the world without running afoul of some law, policy, or rule that demands our insertion into the matrix. What we really want is meaningful participation in the world. But of course, a CEO wouldn't understand that; and if he did, he certainly wouldn't let anyone know.
4
I'm sorry, but this stuff about climate change and terror being linked is sheer nonsense. I mean, terrorism has been a core part of pretty much every extreme ideology since always. Communists like Stalin and Lenin were engaged in it. The climate was not markedly changing in pre-industrialization Russia. That is but one example. There are many.
But also, calling economic competition "a war for global jobs" and comparing it to WWII is insulting to readers' intelligence. Workers are not just "workers" in the economy, they are also consumers and sometimes producers. Most often, competition--for market share, jobs, profits, etc.--create outcomes that create plusses and minuses. WWII created basically no winners, killing more than 30 million people (directly or indirectly). It was a global tragedy of epic proportions. The analogy is not as tragic, but still an epic fail.
But also, calling economic competition "a war for global jobs" and comparing it to WWII is insulting to readers' intelligence. Workers are not just "workers" in the economy, they are also consumers and sometimes producers. Most often, competition--for market share, jobs, profits, etc.--create outcomes that create plusses and minuses. WWII created basically no winners, killing more than 30 million people (directly or indirectly). It was a global tragedy of epic proportions. The analogy is not as tragic, but still an epic fail.
3
An excellent column from Mr. Blow, as usual. But there is an underlying reality he does not mention that accounts for every ill he catalogues: there are too many human beings on this planet, fighting for a limited resource pool in the broadest sense. Whether that be jobs, clean water, food, housing, enough money to survive, much less thrive, dignity, peace, all of that.
Reduce the human population by 2/3 and watch so many of these problems diminish or even disappear. Yet we just keep reproducing, like bacteria in a Petri dish.
So do we give up? No. But we need to understand that we are applying band-aids to a problem that needs radical surgery. And we aren't doing anything at all to stem the source of it all, because religious zealots won't let us. In this country and too many other places on earth, opposition to abortion, contraception, education about family planning, and, yes, gay marriage is assuring an even bleaker future for more and more superfluous human beings. Toss in the rapid increase in the replacement of human labor with robots, drones and other technological advances, and the future looks dismal indeed.
Reduce the human population by 2/3 and watch so many of these problems diminish or even disappear. Yet we just keep reproducing, like bacteria in a Petri dish.
So do we give up? No. But we need to understand that we are applying band-aids to a problem that needs radical surgery. And we aren't doing anything at all to stem the source of it all, because religious zealots won't let us. In this country and too many other places on earth, opposition to abortion, contraception, education about family planning, and, yes, gay marriage is assuring an even bleaker future for more and more superfluous human beings. Toss in the rapid increase in the replacement of human labor with robots, drones and other technological advances, and the future looks dismal indeed.
7
Blows opinions are typically full if idiocies but this one in singular in it's stupidity. The "progressives" believe that terrorism is a result of climate change and a scarcity of jobs? So I guess from that perspective destroying the coal industry is the solution to terrorism?
6
Yeah, well, young people who have the initiative to get themselves educated or learn a trade still have a good shot at employment success. If they only complete high school or less, they will have to take whatever comes along. The future doesn't have to be as bleak as Mr. Blow depicts it. People like Trump and Cruz are best ignored.
3
Charles makes a good point that these are dangerous times and require serious leaders. I assume he is taking a shot at Trump when he mentions that we can't put our fate in the hand of leaders with small minds and big mouths.... His idea of a serious leader seems to be Hillary Clinton - a lady who set up an unsecure email server in her bathroom - from which she processed our nation's foreign policy and to secret national security information for four years. not the kind of serious leader I want.
7
Another press party is underway. The U.S. press is making much more of this terrorist attack than the Europeans because those countries have been fighting with each other since the beginning of time. Fractured Europe is exactly what the United States would look like if WE allow the money masters to continue to try to put their agenda into play - states rights over federal. States are much easier to control and manipulate, as we have learned in Michigan, Kansas, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina and all the other states that are trying to overturn Roe v Wade and LGBT rights that were granted by OUR United States Supreme Court. The same people want women at home, barefoot and pregnant, and a gun in every hand. WE must stop the BIG democracy-destroying money masters. NOW. In every election in the foreseeable future.
4
When did they let you out?
7
rights are not granted by a court or by a government. rights are inherent to you as an individual and no one can give or deny you them. That you believe the government can and needs to grant you rights shows you do not really understand how those rights work.
and by the way, you do want big democracy-destroying money masters, you just want them to have the same beliefs that you do so you're more than happy to give them your power for the feeling that they will protect you.
and by the way, you do want big democracy-destroying money masters, you just want them to have the same beliefs that you do so you're more than happy to give them your power for the feeling that they will protect you.
5
The connection between terrorism and scarcity of jobs makes sense to me. For this reason, I am uncomfortable with the idea of "bringing home" jobs that we have exported (outsourced) to workers in the third world. . Rather than taking away these jobs from workers in India, Vietnam, etc, Isn't the better solution to demand strict regulations for worker safety and workplace conditions in these countries and enforce a minimum raise, say of $15.00 per hour in businesses and factories abroad with whom we do business? This is not to say that Americans won't be able to reclaim these jobs but if they do so it will be because they have competed and been found to do them better.
3
I'm curious how you think demanding that a company increase it's labor costs will work in reality. How can an American company demand another country to raise their minimum wage? And why, if costs were equal, would they not bring the jobs home and have higher quality goods?
by the way, the countries that you mentioned, India and Vietnam, don't seem to be having regular terrorist attacks, so not sure what raising the incomes in those countries will do for the citizens in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria.
by the way, the countries that you mentioned, India and Vietnam, don't seem to be having regular terrorist attacks, so not sure what raising the incomes in those countries will do for the citizens in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria.
1
I was disheartened to find in an otherwise excellent article the reference to terrorists and "mad men." This reinforces the belief that this could not possibly be "us" and that we are not part of the problem. And this contradicts other parts of the article.
If scarcity, caused by human-created structures that "we" put in place and that in some ways do contribute to brutal behavior, then the behavior, while extreme and worthy of condemnation, is not "mad." It is reacting to perceived and very real "wrongs" that has been done and in ways that are at hand and get notice. These structures we created worsen inequity. We impose Western value systems in coercive ways and done for decades. We have felt free to invade nations and/or foment coups, often for reasons that have little to do with threats to our viability as a nation and with little understanding of or empathy for the peoples on the receiving end.
Unfortunately, I see no solution. We are so far down this path. We wrap ourselves in our rightness and our goodness and our exceptionalism. Where and how might change begin? Are those in power who designed and benefit from the structures suddenly going to say, "Okay, let's rethink all this"? And who would believe? Yes, we must change, but first, it is a time for all of us to look inward and reflect.
If scarcity, caused by human-created structures that "we" put in place and that in some ways do contribute to brutal behavior, then the behavior, while extreme and worthy of condemnation, is not "mad." It is reacting to perceived and very real "wrongs" that has been done and in ways that are at hand and get notice. These structures we created worsen inequity. We impose Western value systems in coercive ways and done for decades. We have felt free to invade nations and/or foment coups, often for reasons that have little to do with threats to our viability as a nation and with little understanding of or empathy for the peoples on the receiving end.
Unfortunately, I see no solution. We are so far down this path. We wrap ourselves in our rightness and our goodness and our exceptionalism. Where and how might change begin? Are those in power who designed and benefit from the structures suddenly going to say, "Okay, let's rethink all this"? And who would believe? Yes, we must change, but first, it is a time for all of us to look inward and reflect.
4
To face reality, to accept change, we know the right thing to do. It's just we have
difficulty getting a handle on life struggling like children to the end.
We need to grow up and get a job, enjoy what's on our plates, work, pray and love. Nothing new! The best, Tommy Flanagan
difficulty getting a handle on life struggling like children to the end.
We need to grow up and get a job, enjoy what's on our plates, work, pray and love. Nothing new! The best, Tommy Flanagan
1
Charles Blow, I appreciate your op-ed and I think you are correct. I think of the present state of the world as a biological species overgrowing its population. When something happens to the environment that allows a species to expand population-wise, the population goes sky-high, and then there is not enough food, environment gets polluted with the species, and the population hurtles downwards. Humans are not much different than other species. We don't have enough food, jobs and we have caused global climate change. Our population will plummet, unfortunately.
4
Based on the descriptions given by Mr. Blow, the terrorism problem looks less like a "war" problem, and more like a criminological, or epidemiological problem. Perhaps we ought to abandon the language of war, with its glorification of the perpetrators as combatants, and start considering how we might treat this as a disease epidemic.
I fail to see how the military, however powerful, can be a useful substitute for good detective work. We tried "regime change"; we tried "bombing them to smithereens". What next?
I fail to see how the military, however powerful, can be a useful substitute for good detective work. We tried "regime change"; we tried "bombing them to smithereens". What next?
2
"We tried "regime change"; we tried "bombing them to smithereens". What next?"
How about a full scale, all out nuclear attack?
How about a full scale, all out nuclear attack?
4
We should try not importing Muslims that hate us.
3
Serious leaders? If the GOP had any guts, all of them would be worrying about how to spare this country.
All of them should be out in public saying "Donald Trump is unfit to be president! Temperamentally unfit, unfit because he has no relevant experience for the job, unfit because he lacks any meaningful education that would inform his policies. In other words, he's the most unfit person ever to run for president. I'll never vote for him."
Why aren't they doing this? Scared that Trump will attack them on Twitter? "Staying above the fray" so their 'political viability' isn't impacted?
This cowardice tells you everything you need to know about Paul Ryan, who appears to condemn Trump but won't say his name, even when directly asked.
Mitt Romney is despicable but I give him a lot of credit for coming out and saying Trump is unfit. Where are the rest of them?
Dangerous world, indeed.
All of them should be out in public saying "Donald Trump is unfit to be president! Temperamentally unfit, unfit because he has no relevant experience for the job, unfit because he lacks any meaningful education that would inform his policies. In other words, he's the most unfit person ever to run for president. I'll never vote for him."
Why aren't they doing this? Scared that Trump will attack them on Twitter? "Staying above the fray" so their 'political viability' isn't impacted?
This cowardice tells you everything you need to know about Paul Ryan, who appears to condemn Trump but won't say his name, even when directly asked.
Mitt Romney is despicable but I give him a lot of credit for coming out and saying Trump is unfit. Where are the rest of them?
Dangerous world, indeed.
6
This could have been avoided if the world had enforced their border control laws and had concentrated on not letting illegals and refugees. The refugee problem could have been avoided if they had stayed in their own countries and did their own fighting. It's their problem so they should take ownership of it instead of expecting other nations to be the social welfare and infrastructure gravy train for muslim nations whilst the rich in those nations get richer. If they want our help then they should give us oil or pay us for our help. They charge us for their oil.
5
DEATHS Caused by terrorists worldwide were almost 34,000 in 2014, only slightly more than the number of deaths caused by firearms in a single year in the US. So before we start going into histrionics about the threat of foreign enemies, we'd best attend to ways of neutralizing our native born terrorists. Anywhere else in the world if the country had a chance to reduce terrorist deaths by nearly 50% by eliminating domestic terrorism, the feat would be greeted as a great victory. Here in the US it is greeted by the bellowing, hollering, chest-thumping macho culture that is so extreme that it only represents 25% of the members of the NRA. So let's drastically increase gun safety so we can build upon the successes we achieve with domestic terrorists and use them against foreign terrorists. We must get our own house in order if winning against foreign enemies is to achieve its goals thoroughly. Leaving domestic terrorism to fester is going to be lead to our downfall as a nation. Meanwhile, politicians would do well to close their mouths and open their ears to what Hillary has to say, since she's got more firsthand experience in learning how to fight terrorism successfully. I'd trust any opposing candidate who would show a program to follow Hillary's model based on hard work and success. It's far easier to be lazy as a political party and play the role of armchair generals. Analysis based on hindsight is 100% accurate. But it's a bubble that easily bursts.
2
"The global war for jobs determines the leader of the free world" What? China is not exactly a shining example of freedom. The problem is that Capitalism requires war to function. The problem with war is that you will be taking, not giving. The Biosphere is collapsing, it is not just Global Warming. Our current approach to doing anything about this would best be described as adolescent. So, if the "Jobs" are about killing the planet as this article refers to, then what you are describing is the insanity. What everyone needs is Work that has Meaning that gives and connects them to the whole. There is more than enough work to go around if we can find the ability to face truth instead of leaving most of it out. Just to have a "Job" is part of the problem.
1
This is a good-hearted article, but when it cites a writer who claims that the "will of the world is first and foremost to have a good job," one should ask this question ... did the author, Jim Clifton, interview any women, any mothers, grandmothers, sisters, wives? Did he venture behind the veils and screens and cooking smoke? Did he ask any woman, obscured behind the walls, behind her veils, behind her assertive brothers and husbands and fathers, whether she most aspired to land a job? What are the aspirations of women around the world (half the human population)? I suspect they might be: to get an education, to come out from behind the smoke, and to protect and feed their children, to save their own bodies from the wear and tear of many pregnancies, to be free of domestic and religious abuse, and to keep their families intact. Are we really talking about the Will of the World? Or the Will of Boys and Men?
8
Gloomy but realistic list of problems.
I recommend that we not fight violence with more violence. Modern States should consider diplomacy and convening parties to resolved differences. First priority for diplomacy should be the theocracies currently at odds, e.g. Sunni and Shia sects of Islam. It is never easy but certainly theocratic leaders can convene to discuss how they can bring violence to an end & use their resources to create a better life for their countries.
There are several BIG international projects that could provide the incentive for a more prosperous and stable future. For example, the capital held by these theocracies could be invested in food, water, transportation, communications and electric energy production using solar satellites in space orbit beaming electricity to Earth. This electricity could be used for better living but could mainly be used to make synthetic gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from air and water. The satellites can be launched cheaply, less than 1% of chemical rockets using Maglev in a vacuum launch tube. Maglev can also be used to create a no wheels transport for freight shipments at low rates. Brookhaven Lab celebrated the 50th anniversary of the invention of Superconducting Maglev by Drs. James Powell & Gordon Danby.
https://www.bnl.gov/video/index.php?v=514
Replacement of fossil fuels with Maglev & synthetic fuels from air and water could begin to achieve the paradise promised by the gift of human intelligence.
I recommend that we not fight violence with more violence. Modern States should consider diplomacy and convening parties to resolved differences. First priority for diplomacy should be the theocracies currently at odds, e.g. Sunni and Shia sects of Islam. It is never easy but certainly theocratic leaders can convene to discuss how they can bring violence to an end & use their resources to create a better life for their countries.
There are several BIG international projects that could provide the incentive for a more prosperous and stable future. For example, the capital held by these theocracies could be invested in food, water, transportation, communications and electric energy production using solar satellites in space orbit beaming electricity to Earth. This electricity could be used for better living but could mainly be used to make synthetic gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from air and water. The satellites can be launched cheaply, less than 1% of chemical rockets using Maglev in a vacuum launch tube. Maglev can also be used to create a no wheels transport for freight shipments at low rates. Brookhaven Lab celebrated the 50th anniversary of the invention of Superconducting Maglev by Drs. James Powell & Gordon Danby.
https://www.bnl.gov/video/index.php?v=514
Replacement of fossil fuels with Maglev & synthetic fuels from air and water could begin to achieve the paradise promised by the gift of human intelligence.
1
Bombast is hollow. Braggadocio is meaningless.
Really? It may be inadequate, but I'm not sure that it's hollow and meaningless.
Americans respond pretty frantically when bombast and braggadocio are directed at America by extremists. Who wasn't sicked by the Jihadi John snuff propaganda? There was a measurable change in public sentiment caused by ISIS propaganda, nevermind that ISIS was already engaged in horrifying genocide include mass slaughter of men, the elderly and children, with sex slavery for women and girls.
Why wouldn't we expect that our words, our propaganda, our bombast and braggadocio, have an impact on the people in the Middle East? Of course it does. The fact is, these things do matter, and need to be considered for their affect, because the reaction doesn't seem to be what we're hoping for.
Really? It may be inadequate, but I'm not sure that it's hollow and meaningless.
Americans respond pretty frantically when bombast and braggadocio are directed at America by extremists. Who wasn't sicked by the Jihadi John snuff propaganda? There was a measurable change in public sentiment caused by ISIS propaganda, nevermind that ISIS was already engaged in horrifying genocide include mass slaughter of men, the elderly and children, with sex slavery for women and girls.
Why wouldn't we expect that our words, our propaganda, our bombast and braggadocio, have an impact on the people in the Middle East? Of course it does. The fact is, these things do matter, and need to be considered for their affect, because the reaction doesn't seem to be what we're hoping for.
13
I am convinced now that pretty much everyone in the world has a "funny Uncle" because blowing things up seems to be their signal accomplishment in life.
maybe there is at least one of those retarded humans for many families with a lot of neglected boys in them?
maybe there is at least one of those retarded humans for many families with a lot of neglected boys in them?
Wouldn't it be nice if the graduating classes at our Ivy League universities pledged themselves -- not to Wall Street to enhance their personal worth, but to Main Street to provide good, sustainable, jobs that don't require polluting the water and taking the tops off mountains to make stuff we don't need.
1
Nobody ever talks about Irish Republican Army terrorism, except for Representative Peter King, who applauds it. Lets not forget almosts 4,000 innocents lost their lives to a ridiculous myth, the same ridiculous myth Israeli colonists use to justify stealing Palestinian land. Per an Englishman, the trouble is not in the stars, it is within ourselves. There is little one can do about anonymous individuals spreading terror, but America can do much targeting Americans providing money and arms to IRA terrorists, recall the FBI and Whitey Bulger loading a boat with machine guns, ammunition, and explosives in Boston Harbor for the IRA, preventing American police departments from going to the occupied territories and Jerusalem to learn how to "fight terror" , and finally barring all Americans from travel to the occupied territories without visas from the Palestinian authority.
1
We can’t put our fate and the world’s into the hands of leaders with small minds and big mouths.
Why not? Because the type of super-natural leader you're espousing doesn't even exist, first of all. So all that leaves us with then are more of very same that got us to the state you describe we're in. I'm voting for the one that gives me the biggest laugh, because that's all that's really left anymore and not beyond my grasp to attain. Remember the saying: Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may . . . . Taking this all so seriously gets tiresome, for sure.
Why not? Because the type of super-natural leader you're espousing doesn't even exist, first of all. So all that leaves us with then are more of very same that got us to the state you describe we're in. I'm voting for the one that gives me the biggest laugh, because that's all that's really left anymore and not beyond my grasp to attain. Remember the saying: Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may . . . . Taking this all so seriously gets tiresome, for sure.
2
The notion, it does not deserve to be called an idea, that there is or ever will be a scarcity of things that absolutely need to be done to promote the Common Good and General Welfare is a product of the present broken system of rule by the Elite "Job Providers".
Government of for and by the People or Democracy is the only system that concerns itself with providing for the Common Good. For this it collects taxes from everyone to provide the necessary funds. This system depends on things like honesty, integrity, compassion, and love for all.
The totally corrupt who have take control of the Peoples government and are running the place like a plantation, who actually foster things like slavery, the illusion of of right makes right, those who actually are demented enough to believe that their role in our collective life is to have all the wealth and power and to provide jobs for us, these individuals and their delusions of superiority are the problem. They never have, never will be interested in fixing it.
For example, the present health system works beautifully for them. It is making a new billionaire everyday. The do not want it "fixed" so that it takes care of the Common good.
More of the same,while we are provided with an incremental illusion of progress to keep us quiet, wont make it.
Government of for and by the People or Democracy is the only system that concerns itself with providing for the Common Good. For this it collects taxes from everyone to provide the necessary funds. This system depends on things like honesty, integrity, compassion, and love for all.
The totally corrupt who have take control of the Peoples government and are running the place like a plantation, who actually foster things like slavery, the illusion of of right makes right, those who actually are demented enough to believe that their role in our collective life is to have all the wealth and power and to provide jobs for us, these individuals and their delusions of superiority are the problem. They never have, never will be interested in fixing it.
For example, the present health system works beautifully for them. It is making a new billionaire everyday. The do not want it "fixed" so that it takes care of the Common good.
More of the same,while we are provided with an incremental illusion of progress to keep us quiet, wont make it.
6
To those who like to place all the blame at the feet of President Obama, I ask you; will you be the first to sign your children up for the ground war?
President Obama has defined who we should be in the future: a cautious nation, not prone to invasions or intervention when it only suits the war profiteers; a coalition building nation that has the moral and economic authority to gather the civilized world together to act in harmony to thwart these menaces; a nation that knows the difference between a real dangerous security threat and a cult made up of zealots and thugs.
I can imagine the tales told to young Muslim and Arab boys by their fathers; all the decades of waiting for the Western nations to stop meddling with their borders and forcing upon them allegiances they detest.
I can hear stories of the terror of the smart bombs raining down on Baghdad in 1992. Of western armies poisoning their wells.
I can also imaging enough of these young men getting tired of being terrorized and organizing to fight back.
Had we forced Saudi Arabia into building a working economy with a working infrastructure for all its people, had we not installed the Shah into Iran, had we not backed up Saddam in Iraq the entire region would look different.
We could do a lot worse than follow the caution displayed by our President and hope for a time when the West will go into the Middle East with jobs and building programs and education for all. Instead of our brand of jihad.
President Obama has defined who we should be in the future: a cautious nation, not prone to invasions or intervention when it only suits the war profiteers; a coalition building nation that has the moral and economic authority to gather the civilized world together to act in harmony to thwart these menaces; a nation that knows the difference between a real dangerous security threat and a cult made up of zealots and thugs.
I can imagine the tales told to young Muslim and Arab boys by their fathers; all the decades of waiting for the Western nations to stop meddling with their borders and forcing upon them allegiances they detest.
I can hear stories of the terror of the smart bombs raining down on Baghdad in 1992. Of western armies poisoning their wells.
I can also imaging enough of these young men getting tired of being terrorized and organizing to fight back.
Had we forced Saudi Arabia into building a working economy with a working infrastructure for all its people, had we not installed the Shah into Iran, had we not backed up Saddam in Iraq the entire region would look different.
We could do a lot worse than follow the caution displayed by our President and hope for a time when the West will go into the Middle East with jobs and building programs and education for all. Instead of our brand of jihad.
8
Okay Bob, where does the buck stop during the Obama presidency? Or are Obama apologists too busy passing it?
10
If you blame terrorism on "the madness of madmen," you aren't going to get anywhere in trying to combat it. Terrorists have ideologies and, in terms of their own beliefs, act rationally. What we must do is figure out why they believe what they do, or colloquially, what makes them tick. Remember the dictum, "Know thy enemy?" It's as true today as it was when Sun Tzu articulated it in the 6th century BCE.
4
None of the serious multi dimensional complex problems Charles Blow mentions can be solved at the level of the problem. Terrorism can't be solved by only eradicating terrorists.
All problems small or large have a beginning, a source, a root. What we observe on the surface is only the outward expression of hidden causes. And until we begin to think in those terms and consider problems as signs of something amiss and then going after the underlying causes we will keep barking up the wrong trees.
We commonly think in terms of cause regarding diseases like Polio. Before the Polio virus was discovered and how it was spread we were at it's mercy and many died as a result. After discovery of the virus, immunization was created to protect us.
One common factor regarding terrorism, for example, is terrorists are human beings who started out as babies, just as we all do. Also, not everyone of those babies who grew up and was unfortunately disadvantaged or even maltreated strap bombs to their bodies. So, if the way a twig is bent so shall it grow then it's necessary to ask what's the differences between a "people making factory" that creates a would-be killer from a factory that produces someone who takes another path. And that view might explain the reason that so often brother's and family members become terrorists. The twigs in that family got bent the same way. So, maybe type of upbringing is one of many factors that must be addressed to eventually reduce terrorism.
All problems small or large have a beginning, a source, a root. What we observe on the surface is only the outward expression of hidden causes. And until we begin to think in those terms and consider problems as signs of something amiss and then going after the underlying causes we will keep barking up the wrong trees.
We commonly think in terms of cause regarding diseases like Polio. Before the Polio virus was discovered and how it was spread we were at it's mercy and many died as a result. After discovery of the virus, immunization was created to protect us.
One common factor regarding terrorism, for example, is terrorists are human beings who started out as babies, just as we all do. Also, not everyone of those babies who grew up and was unfortunately disadvantaged or even maltreated strap bombs to their bodies. So, if the way a twig is bent so shall it grow then it's necessary to ask what's the differences between a "people making factory" that creates a would-be killer from a factory that produces someone who takes another path. And that view might explain the reason that so often brother's and family members become terrorists. The twigs in that family got bent the same way. So, maybe type of upbringing is one of many factors that must be addressed to eventually reduce terrorism.
2
bkay, you are completely right to focus on the root causes of terrorism and completely right in pointing out that there are forces in play from birth to maturity to death that shape each individual's choices, both freely made and coerced.
The first thought that came to mind was the photo of the Palestinian baby dressed as a suicide bomber that was found in Hebron about 10 years ago. The family described the photo as a "joke." Some joke.
The clear root cause of Islamic terrorism is Wahabbist oriented Islamic fundamentalism as practiced in the Sunni Middle East. People growing up in that culture are indoctrinated from cradle to grave in this oppressive, misogynistic and fearful culture. With the advent of the internet and the exportation of Sunni clerics, primarily from Saudi Arabia, we have a very deep tap root for the growing tree of Islamic terrorism.
There are no other people or cultures on the planet today that are as predatory in their stalking of innocents as these people. The children who grow up to be terrorists may have been innocent at birth, but their culture conditioned them to become the barbarians of their adult life.
We cannot say that poverty is the root cause because there are impoverished people throughout the world who do not commit mass murder in the name of a cleric's interpretation of god.
Theirs is a belief system the civilized world thought it left behind 500 years ago.
The first thought that came to mind was the photo of the Palestinian baby dressed as a suicide bomber that was found in Hebron about 10 years ago. The family described the photo as a "joke." Some joke.
The clear root cause of Islamic terrorism is Wahabbist oriented Islamic fundamentalism as practiced in the Sunni Middle East. People growing up in that culture are indoctrinated from cradle to grave in this oppressive, misogynistic and fearful culture. With the advent of the internet and the exportation of Sunni clerics, primarily from Saudi Arabia, we have a very deep tap root for the growing tree of Islamic terrorism.
There are no other people or cultures on the planet today that are as predatory in their stalking of innocents as these people. The children who grow up to be terrorists may have been innocent at birth, but their culture conditioned them to become the barbarians of their adult life.
We cannot say that poverty is the root cause because there are impoverished people throughout the world who do not commit mass murder in the name of a cleric's interpretation of god.
Theirs is a belief system the civilized world thought it left behind 500 years ago.
1
If one looks at humanity's future it's difficult to see how even thoughtful policies and leadership can manage the explosion of population. The more people that crowd our finite planet the cheaper each human life becomes. I pray for all our grandchildren.
3
You're right about the cause, but prayer certainly isn't the answer. It's the equivalent of throwing up your hands and then doing nothing.
So far it has worked about as well as anything else.
We do need serious leaders who give our global problems profound thought , develop realistic plans and then implement them resolutely.
Our President is such a leader and in a recent global poll was adjudicated the most popular political leader in the world.
So Mr Trump we are winning in one respect.
While to some our President attending a baseball game on the day of the tragedy was optically wrong , I saw it as a clear message to ISIS, " you only gain power if we cower"
What I would like to see is our President banging European leaders heads together to get them to coordinate their intelligence and have resources to deal with it.
I would like him to intensify efforts to resolve the Syrian civil war and create a safe zone for Syrians so they can live in their own country.then turn our collective resources onto ISIS in Syria
Last but not least rally the support of " free riders" in the middle east to support Iraq in retaking Mosul which will be a significant blow to ISIS
Our President is such a leader and in a recent global poll was adjudicated the most popular political leader in the world.
So Mr Trump we are winning in one respect.
While to some our President attending a baseball game on the day of the tragedy was optically wrong , I saw it as a clear message to ISIS, " you only gain power if we cower"
What I would like to see is our President banging European leaders heads together to get them to coordinate their intelligence and have resources to deal with it.
I would like him to intensify efforts to resolve the Syrian civil war and create a safe zone for Syrians so they can live in their own country.then turn our collective resources onto ISIS in Syria
Last but not least rally the support of " free riders" in the middle east to support Iraq in retaking Mosul which will be a significant blow to ISIS
1
Do you notice how much time you spend "wishing" Barack Obama would do things differently? Better? At all?
I "wish" Obama would resign. That alone would be a sign of America's strength and resolve to really fight ISIS.
I "wish" Obama would resign. That alone would be a sign of America's strength and resolve to really fight ISIS.
3
Dang, what makes you think "War" is a good metaphor for stimulating job creation, and nurturing and sustaining the communities that these job gardens might grow in? I recommend you read Jane Jacobs "The Nature of Economies" for a rather different perspective. War on this, war for that, war, war, war.
7
OK, Charles. Who would you recommend for President and can they get elected?
4
Charles cleverly left out his choice. To me he was pointing toward Bernie Sanders. Is Sanders electable? Sure ... if you, all the other yous who read this, and I vote for him. Sanders gave a rousing speech in Los Angeles on 3/23/16, which is on youtube. I thought he successfully made the point to the audience ... he is the one. Sanders.
4
We should start reacting to terrorist incidents in ways that do not play into terrorism’s hands, it may seem hard. A free media feels a duty to report events, as politicians feel a duty to show they can protect the public. That it’s hard to show restraint is no excuse for actively promoting terror. Everyone involved in this week’s reaction, from journalists to politicians to security lobbyists, has an interest in terrorism. There is money, big money, to be made, the more terrifying it is presented, the more money. Terrorism has become a business.
Meanwhile the emerging climate problem is on an entirely different scale. The problem is that we may well be heading towards a number of critical "tipping points" in the global climate system. In the near future, more "fortunate" countries, such as the US and most of Europe, may well look like something approaching militarized countries, with heavily defended border controls designed to prevent millions of people from entering, people who are on the move because their own country is no longer habitable, or has insufficient water or food, or is experiencing conflict over increasingly scarce resources. These people will be the "climate migrants". Indeed, anyone who thinks that the emerging global state of affairs does not have great potential for civil and international conflict is deluding themselves.
Meanwhile the emerging climate problem is on an entirely different scale. The problem is that we may well be heading towards a number of critical "tipping points" in the global climate system. In the near future, more "fortunate" countries, such as the US and most of Europe, may well look like something approaching militarized countries, with heavily defended border controls designed to prevent millions of people from entering, people who are on the move because their own country is no longer habitable, or has insufficient water or food, or is experiencing conflict over increasingly scarce resources. These people will be the "climate migrants". Indeed, anyone who thinks that the emerging global state of affairs does not have great potential for civil and international conflict is deluding themselves.
8
i agree with many of the posters here and i too wonder why and how we can put Capitalism ahead of even our own survival and that of our planet's as well? It is a puzzle that perplexed Mark Twain too and reading his third and last auto bio book he describes Republicans as being all about themselves and money and not much else. So history may not repeat itself but there sure are a lot of echoes! (i think Twain said that) Press on and Mind The Gap!
7
What total nonsense to conflate capitalism with the rise of terrorism. Such comments underscore the failure of our education systems to understand how societies organize themselves to create economic growth. Economic growth and corresponding jobs do not emerge out of some great cosmic soup.
Terrorism emerges from people who believe they have a righteous cause to subordinate other people who are not the same as the terrorists. That is the issue.
Terrorism emerges from people who believe they have a righteous cause to subordinate other people who are not the same as the terrorists. That is the issue.
5
i respectfully disagree. When capitalism becomes the absolute issue of life as opposed to a balanced socially organized society it's bound to ignore or displace millions of people without capital means to attain even a simple life. That breeds anger just as much as any "righteous" cause and gives terrorists the recruits they need to continue. i agree that education is the key to battle and subdue terrorism.
Mr. Blow speaks of "jobs wars" while others speak of "resource wars" and other iterations of the same theme. That theme can be summarized in three words: too many people.
It astounds me - and has done so for decades - that the voices who point to overpopulation as the ultimate root of just about every major crisis humankind faces today are like "voices in the wilderness". Continued population growth is sustainable only if resources, including jobs as a "resource" - can keep pace. They can't. Not in the long run, and now it seems, not even in the short run.
The world's population in 1927 was about 2 billion, with the extrapolated expectation that it would take 123 years to add another 1 billion. In 1987, the population had reached 5 billion, with an extrapolation that it would take only 13 years to add another 1 billion. Now it's 2016 - 29 years later - and the population is roughly 7.5 billion... up 2.5 billion. We're right on schedule!
Is population control *and* reduction a chimera? Yes. We human beings are a plague of locusts with highly much more highly developed brains than bugs. But we refuse to use them.
It astounds me - and has done so for decades - that the voices who point to overpopulation as the ultimate root of just about every major crisis humankind faces today are like "voices in the wilderness". Continued population growth is sustainable only if resources, including jobs as a "resource" - can keep pace. They can't. Not in the long run, and now it seems, not even in the short run.
The world's population in 1927 was about 2 billion, with the extrapolated expectation that it would take 123 years to add another 1 billion. In 1987, the population had reached 5 billion, with an extrapolation that it would take only 13 years to add another 1 billion. Now it's 2016 - 29 years later - and the population is roughly 7.5 billion... up 2.5 billion. We're right on schedule!
Is population control *and* reduction a chimera? Yes. We human beings are a plague of locusts with highly much more highly developed brains than bugs. But we refuse to use them.
15
Mr. Blow,
Please write about the Arizona election, where the polling places in Maricopa County were reduced from 200 to 60. Before the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, this could not have happened.
This is a dangerous world.
Please write about the Arizona election, where the polling places in Maricopa County were reduced from 200 to 60. Before the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, this could not have happened.
This is a dangerous world.
21
That's at least within a legitimate journalistic purview, as opposed to lecturing readers as to their moral responsibility as human beings. We already have plenty of self-righteous politicians that are more and happy to do that.
Maybe that's why things are such as Charles describes, to begin with?
Maybe that's why things are such as Charles describes, to begin with?
1
The only candidate sane enough to lead this nation in this time of fear is a Democrat. Among the Dems still running, she will be our first female president. Hillary is the one for 2016. She is the one steady hand at the helm who has for decades taken on a barrage of assaults against her character and stability and yet has forged ahead. She is Churchillian in stature, our Liberal Iron Lady of sorts, who will command thoughtfully, with prudence and due diligence in matters of world affairs we are presently challenged with. There is every reason for Americans to feel secure in this thought.
DD
Manhattan
DD
Manhattan
17
she will be our first female president
------
so?
------
so?
1
Serious leader indeed is needed, but a student of history also. The ME has long been overrun by powerful neighbors while led internally by opportunists of both secular and religious ilk.
However!, the vast majority of terrorism occurs inside the ME, not elsewhere, killing each other with zeal, funded by the arms/oil/religious cash flow triangle.
Let's leave these people alone for a few centuries to settle their own cultural problems.
However!, the vast majority of terrorism occurs inside the ME, not elsewhere, killing each other with zeal, funded by the arms/oil/religious cash flow triangle.
Let's leave these people alone for a few centuries to settle their own cultural problems.
3
"Let's leave these people alone for a few centuries to settle their own cultural problems."
They have had more than a few centuries to settle their differences and still have not done so. Accordingly, a few more centuries will probably not make any diffference.
They have had more than a few centuries to settle their differences and still have not done so. Accordingly, a few more centuries will probably not make any diffference.
4
We are living in this world with more perplexities and ambiguities. The terrorism based on religious extremist ideology has triggered the minds of all men. To combat it, major powers must stand together with the protecting shield. Here, no negotiation has to be attempted with ISIS because this time might makes right. It is only the brand teaching the kids hate others which will bring turmoil tomorrow. They never come in power by the use of persuasion and example. Terrorism is not threatening Western or Eastern.
1
Considering that no other candidate has ever gone against the will and desire of corporate America to outsource, offshore, invert, etc., I consider this article an endorsement of you know who.
4
Thank you for the thoughtful editorial, Mr. Blow. We are in a "Hundred Years' War' with radical Islam. It is the result of centuries of exploitation by potentates and dictators. There is a deep envy and resentment of the open, successful societies of the West, and a desire to bring the violence and resulting loss of rights to our doorstep. We all know the outcome-radical Islam will eventually lose. How we manage this low level world war will determine whether there is a positive resolution or a new dark age. The self-serving leaders have consistently denied prosperity to their people. The resulting hopelessness offers millions of soldiers for this massive fifth column. It is indeed, ultimately, about jobs.
33
You are right sir, we need qualified, serious leaders.
Instead, we have the choice of a bombastic lout, a two faced religious zealot, and a smarmy politician, who will say or do anything to get the job she feels she deserves.
Woe to my country that we have descended so low.
Instead, we have the choice of a bombastic lout, a two faced religious zealot, and a smarmy politician, who will say or do anything to get the job she feels she deserves.
Woe to my country that we have descended so low.
3
You are forgetting that may still have the choice of a qualified, serious leader. If we're lucky, we will be able to cast our ballots for Gov. John Kasick.
1
Sometimes in life the only choices are bad.
The US must settle for the 'least bad' candidate this round, then work to get more and better qualified people to engage in the necessary tasks of governing, at all levels.
THAT is the uphill journey before the voters.
The US must settle for the 'least bad' candidate this round, then work to get more and better qualified people to engage in the necessary tasks of governing, at all levels.
THAT is the uphill journey before the voters.
1
Thank you Charles Blow for an extraordinary essay. Not only is it spot on, it has numerous facts that are new to this reader and probably to many. I am referring especially to your focus on the statistics for the number of job seekers in the world versus the number of jobs.
It is a relief that you finally mention climate change.
My only improvement to your piece would be to have pointed out that others, such as Tom Friedman, have written that it was a serious drought, almost certainly exacerbated by climate change, that contributed directly to the uprising in Syria and that conflagration.
I propose a new national tax on all businesses to fund a national jobs program for all Americans, especially young people, that goes up when unemployment rises, and goes down, to zero, as the real national unemployment rate reaches 4 or 5 per cent. We are at risk of losing a whole generation of workers, some of whom will become future terrorists out of pure frustration.
Unfortunately, with such a program, we would have to secure our borders from all illegal immigration. It's about our marbles.
It is a relief that you finally mention climate change.
My only improvement to your piece would be to have pointed out that others, such as Tom Friedman, have written that it was a serious drought, almost certainly exacerbated by climate change, that contributed directly to the uprising in Syria and that conflagration.
I propose a new national tax on all businesses to fund a national jobs program for all Americans, especially young people, that goes up when unemployment rises, and goes down, to zero, as the real national unemployment rate reaches 4 or 5 per cent. We are at risk of losing a whole generation of workers, some of whom will become future terrorists out of pure frustration.
Unfortunately, with such a program, we would have to secure our borders from all illegal immigration. It's about our marbles.
5
Teach a man to fish.... Some have been saying for years that the solution to unrest and terrorism is to educate and employ the young men of these countries in turmoil, and to promote women in the workplace and government. Such efforts are not glamorous, and results not immediate or simple. Threatening torture and war is so much more entertaining, appealing to base emotion. This election will be critical to the world's future in so many ways. Thank you for an excellent column, and please expand on the ideas within it in future columns.
1
"This is a serious time in need of serious leaders." That says a whole lot about President Obama and Hillary Clinton. President Obama has been fiddling, or watching a baseball game, while the world burns. Is that a serious leader? I guess it is "cool" for the President not to show any concern about the latest act of terror; after all, it is only standard fare in the Muslim world.
What did Hillary do as Secretary of State? Travel. The Russian reset button, the Arab Spring and the destruction of Libya and the great Syrian uprising all occurred on her watch. What serious leading did she do? What serious leading did Obama do, beside drawing his red lines?
Yes Charles, this is a serious time in need of serious leaders. Unfortunately, it is quite clear that neither President Obama nor Secretary Clinton is that serious leader.
What did Hillary do as Secretary of State? Travel. The Russian reset button, the Arab Spring and the destruction of Libya and the great Syrian uprising all occurred on her watch. What serious leading did she do? What serious leading did Obama do, beside drawing his red lines?
Yes Charles, this is a serious time in need of serious leaders. Unfortunately, it is quite clear that neither President Obama nor Secretary Clinton is that serious leader.
6
Good Luck with your republican serious leaders. Which one will you choose; Ted Cruz, The Don, or maybe you would like to go back to Great statesman, George W. Bush.
7
Not a bad article. But where is the leadership? Obama's greatest failure is his inability, perhaps his unwilling ness, to define America's role in the world you describe.
Thanks
Thanks
4
The President actually does have a well-defined and thought-out foreign policy, one that has kept this country out of additional wars, scaled down the wars your former governor got us into for no valid reason, and the President has prevented all foreign terrorist attacks in the United States. Additionally, the President hunted down and killed OBL, among hundreds of other terrorists and terrorist leaders, and all after Bush failed to do so.
It is important to remember that these conflicts have a history that goes back centuries. The West in moments of hubris has believed it could enforce democracy and make some kind of peace stick. But we are dealing with a region that is at least as arrogant and aggressive as we are. Coupled with the fact that it is a house viciously divided. So all our forays have not taught us yet that they will not yield. This a part of the world that invented slavery, that believes in putting its enemies underfoot, and there are many there who have an such a deep ongoing hatred for us - their historical enemy - that I doubt many of us can really comprehend it magnitude. For now at least it is bleak. You can be a Trumpian blowhard and bring back crusade mentality. Or you can try the old shell game of self-blaming and trying to make nice. But neither will work because the US continues to project itself into the world through technology and finance as a colonialist. So the aggression is subtle, but US elite bloat from the tithes while the world toils for just enough to eat.
1
It's unclear whether your statement of 'a region at least as arrogant and aggressive as we' refers to the Middle East, or you're speaking of Belgium.
Sorry if I was unclear. When you look at the centuries of marauding and invading done by the countries of the Middle East, North Africa and the Ottomans it is clear they have always had a deep sense of entitlement and the sense of superiority to subjugate us.
1
". . . The will of the world is first and foremost to have a good job. Everything else comes after that.” If the rhetoric of the Democratic Party establishment acknowledged this essential truth emphatically and consistently, I might credit them with caring about it. (Bernie Sanders does care about it, is not part of the Democratic Party establishment and is therefore exempt from this criticism.)
1
Dear Charles, please be careful with your language. With a simple, hopefully inadvertent line you reinforce a political world view and more importantly, an inaccurate one. Two simple examples:"Syria is a failed state" and "Libya is a disaster."
While both statements are true, a more accurate statement would be that US and Saudi proxy wars have turned Syria into a "failed state" and the disastrous US bombing campaign has destroyed Libya.
The first rule of journalism is getting the facts right. We may disagree on their meaning, but American readers are notoriously deprived of accurate information. For some it doesn't matter. For them Obama will always be America's first Muslim president. But for most of us we need to face our past policies head on in order to make sensible choices for the future. The moral implications of what we have done cannot be discussed here. But the facts can be and must be.
While both statements are true, a more accurate statement would be that US and Saudi proxy wars have turned Syria into a "failed state" and the disastrous US bombing campaign has destroyed Libya.
The first rule of journalism is getting the facts right. We may disagree on their meaning, but American readers are notoriously deprived of accurate information. For some it doesn't matter. For them Obama will always be America's first Muslim president. But for most of us we need to face our past policies head on in order to make sensible choices for the future. The moral implications of what we have done cannot be discussed here. But the facts can be and must be.
2
?The US and Saudi Arabia exclusively are responsible for Syria's condition today?
2
Let us not forget the crisis in Syria started with a drought, a drought caused by global warming, or weirding if you prefer.
Blow is right. Serious leaders. We should follow historic precedent. Nero played the fiddle and sang while Rome burned. It's apt that the purported leader of the free world, Obama, go to baseball games and dance the Tango while Western Civilization is assaulted. It makes a lot of sense and the contrast between photos of destruction and death and Obama's junket are sure to discourage ISIS and embolden our allies....
3
President Obama addressed the Brussels Murders in a most appropriate fashion. He was serious and fully dressed. Compare that with Saint Ronnie Reagan:
http://thedailybanter.com/2016/03/if-youre-outraged-over-obama/
http://thedailybanter.com/2016/03/if-youre-outraged-over-obama/
5
Barack messed this one up and why would you compare him to Reagan who I am sure you would consider a failure. Come on, dancing the night away shows ISIS that Barry is not a serious leader and is loathe to put a coalition together to take them on. He is only capable of political executive decisions.
3
Jobs matter, obviously. To have good jobs in our own country requires political leadership that is concerned with the working class more than the investor class. It's easy to export entire industries to cheaper labor markets for the benefit of the investor class, but what happens to societies when the working class is so plainly disserved? We are seeing some of the consequences in the anger and resentment of working people, especially those nearer the low end of the economic scale. Trump has tapped into those feelings. Demagogues find fertile ground in the anger, fear and resentment of the people.
1
". . . The will of the world is first and foremost to have a good job. Everything else comes after that.” If the rhetoric of the Democratic Party establishment acknowledged this essential truth emphatically and often, I might credit them with caring about it. (I exempt Bernie from this criticism. )
2
Trump has treated terrorist threats like he is on the mat holding a mic in a WWE wrestling match, Vince McMahon in the wings nodding. In his current stump speeches about terrorism, Trump appeals to the audience's base comic book instincts, something he probably learned during his tenure with wrestling shows on TV. The world is not a comic book, or a clownish wrestling match; there are nuances and real consequences to words and actions. Trump aim to humiliate like he learned to do on those shows. He know s how to provoke anger, to stir the base, to create momentum. He knows ratings and polls and "winning," but nothing about measured diplomacy, temperance, humility, respect, and graciousness. Trump would be a disaster. We all know it. Hillary must showcase his incompetence and highlight her experience, her wisdom during the general election. We can't afford to have a WWE master of ceremonies as the President of the United States.
7
"He explained that of the world’s five billion people over 15 years old, three billion said they worked or wanted to work, but there were only 1.2 billion full-time, formal jobs..." If this is true it's a very good argument for improving every country's health care system, living standards, education, and providing birth control for women (since men don't seem to like the idea of controlling themselves). Being born or being pregnant and increasing the number of people on this earth is not a blessing if many of those people wind up unable to participate in their country's economy, provide for themselves or their families, or enjoy a decent life.
Many of the problems and conflicts we are seeing now are due to limited resources. Bringing more people into the world doesn't help when we don't take care of the lives that already exist. The repeated terrorist attacks, incomprehensible shooting sprees, man made famines and conflicts ought to be taken as signs that the countries of this world need to get together and learn how to live in harmony with the resources we have instead of exploiting everything until there's nothing left but dust, desert, or worse. Of course persuading those who think that climate change is a joke, anyone who isn't of the proper ethnic group should be shot, etc., could be a difficult task. Perhaps we could quarantine them all together so they learn about cooperation the hard way.
Many of the problems and conflicts we are seeing now are due to limited resources. Bringing more people into the world doesn't help when we don't take care of the lives that already exist. The repeated terrorist attacks, incomprehensible shooting sprees, man made famines and conflicts ought to be taken as signs that the countries of this world need to get together and learn how to live in harmony with the resources we have instead of exploiting everything until there's nothing left but dust, desert, or worse. Of course persuading those who think that climate change is a joke, anyone who isn't of the proper ethnic group should be shot, etc., could be a difficult task. Perhaps we could quarantine them all together so they learn about cooperation the hard way.
2
Many Americans have no frame of reference in which to understand Mr. Blow's global analysis of terrorist destruction and threat, illustrating ably that the simple-minded rhetoric of GOP emperors with no clothes as empty but dangerous.
The mainstream television news show's infrequent, and perfunctory mention of a brutal terrorist attack in say, Nigeria. reinforces the perception of many Americans that these occurrences are not important and have nothing to do with them.
There seems to be in this country an epidemic lack of curiosity about what is actually happening in the rest of the world .
This willful ignorance is dangerous causing them to believe as fact the profoundly uninformed, mindless braying of GOP presidential hopefuls.
There seems to be no mainstream television news personality with the credibility and journalistic ability of Edward R. Murrow, for instance, to provide the general public a much needed global perspective countering, with in depth reporting, the stomach turning misinformation now being disseminated by many in the GOP.
It has been alarming to watch some feckless, millionaire television anchors for month provide an unchallenged platform for the most outlandish rantings of GOP politicians, their goal seeming only to be in having the "get" for ratings.
One can only hope that there are enough Americans out there who are thoughtful and informed to assure that an election catastrophe does not occur..
The mainstream television news show's infrequent, and perfunctory mention of a brutal terrorist attack in say, Nigeria. reinforces the perception of many Americans that these occurrences are not important and have nothing to do with them.
There seems to be in this country an epidemic lack of curiosity about what is actually happening in the rest of the world .
This willful ignorance is dangerous causing them to believe as fact the profoundly uninformed, mindless braying of GOP presidential hopefuls.
There seems to be no mainstream television news personality with the credibility and journalistic ability of Edward R. Murrow, for instance, to provide the general public a much needed global perspective countering, with in depth reporting, the stomach turning misinformation now being disseminated by many in the GOP.
It has been alarming to watch some feckless, millionaire television anchors for month provide an unchallenged platform for the most outlandish rantings of GOP politicians, their goal seeming only to be in having the "get" for ratings.
One can only hope that there are enough Americans out there who are thoughtful and informed to assure that an election catastrophe does not occur..
21
Personally, I just go with NPR, the BBC, CSPAN, and Al Jazeera America. MUch better coverages.
7
Although we often tend to think of the world from a destructive militarized perspective, we need to change that perspective by planning and implementing policies that build up rather than destroy.
Our country's major systems are crumbling after years of neglected maintenance and renewal, and our children are literally, as those in Flint, Michigan, in serious danger. Our roads and buildings need attention. Our children cannot afford educations and many go to bed hungry each night.
There are a plethora of potential jobs to be funded and worked in our own crumbling country.
And we must, if we are to continue as a regenerative country, planet, focus seriously on climate change, which threatens our survival as a species. We need concentrated education, innovation, retrofitting and building of renewable energy sources if our country, the planet, is to continue on.
So, we clean our own house while sending aid as we can. We stop with the warmongering, stop becoming entangled in nefarious wars, manipulations and coups in other countries. If we are going to be helpful, lets be helpful, by putting our greedy end games to rest and getting to work in America and around the world with regeneration, rather than degeneration, as our highest priority.
Retire Trump and Clinton, while moving forward in transition, whereby we elect a leader who will use discernment rather than knee jerk reaction when dealing with contemporary problems of the world: Bernie Sanders.
Our country's major systems are crumbling after years of neglected maintenance and renewal, and our children are literally, as those in Flint, Michigan, in serious danger. Our roads and buildings need attention. Our children cannot afford educations and many go to bed hungry each night.
There are a plethora of potential jobs to be funded and worked in our own crumbling country.
And we must, if we are to continue as a regenerative country, planet, focus seriously on climate change, which threatens our survival as a species. We need concentrated education, innovation, retrofitting and building of renewable energy sources if our country, the planet, is to continue on.
So, we clean our own house while sending aid as we can. We stop with the warmongering, stop becoming entangled in nefarious wars, manipulations and coups in other countries. If we are going to be helpful, lets be helpful, by putting our greedy end games to rest and getting to work in America and around the world with regeneration, rather than degeneration, as our highest priority.
Retire Trump and Clinton, while moving forward in transition, whereby we elect a leader who will use discernment rather than knee jerk reaction when dealing with contemporary problems of the world: Bernie Sanders.
7
What is missing from this discourse is the realization that there are no military solutions to problems such as this. Even though the U.S. and our allies in the region have fewer "boots on the ground", much of what has been done so far has reduced high density communities to rubble, that are no longer able to support human life. So, we now have huge floods of refugees fleeing to other countries because they have no place to go to just survive. Obvious increasing the use of military force will only make the region more uninhabitable thereby increasing the number of refugees. It is time to cease such a failed policy by de-militarizing these areas of conflict. All civilized nations should unite to enforce a complete and total arms embargo, as well as to encourage open discussions between all factions based on mutual tolerance. Only those involved in such conflicts --not the U.S.-- can resolve differences that span centuries.
3
Who will enforce the de-militarization? These monsters are beheading and laying waste to all that oppose them. Anyone who doesn't attempt to stop them with everything at their disposal and stands around carping about man's inhumanity to man is a guilty as sin fool and a human disgrace.
2
"We can't put our fate and the world's into the hands of leaders with small minds and big mouths." Charles, that may be the best description to date of the best the Republican Party has to offer.
And you address, tangentially and indirectly, the contributing influences of climate change and over-population. Two more areas where the Republican party's head remains firmly buried in the sand up to its shoulders.
Well done, sir.
And you address, tangentially and indirectly, the contributing influences of climate change and over-population. Two more areas where the Republican party's head remains firmly buried in the sand up to its shoulders.
Well done, sir.
24
"This is a serious time in need of serious leaders."
Said without even a hint of irony, as our current president dances frivolously and enjoys baseball games in the most tone-deaf way possible while Brussels burns and murdered Americans are mourned.
Oh, but he did allot 50 seconds of his speech in Cuba to the latest atrocities. At least we know that he's heard about it!! What a relief!
Said without even a hint of irony, as our current president dances frivolously and enjoys baseball games in the most tone-deaf way possible while Brussels burns and murdered Americans are mourned.
Oh, but he did allot 50 seconds of his speech in Cuba to the latest atrocities. At least we know that he's heard about it!! What a relief!
6
I disagree. I don't think every deranged terrorist attack should cause the leader of the free world to dignify that terror by changing his schedule.
Before you criticize President Obama, tell me this also. Do you know what he is doing behind closed doors to globally hunt down and kill these killers?
Before you criticize President Obama, tell me this also. Do you know what he is doing behind closed doors to globally hunt down and kill these killers?
3
Our current President has already proved he know how to multitask, not so much his predecessor who golfed and boated his way through crises in blissful ignorance. BTW when Obama went to Newtown CT after the mass shooting there (which happened here in the USA) he was called an "opportunist" by the same people who are criticizing him now.
6
Exactly what would you have him do that he is not doing and by what means and the rationale behind their successful outcomes? Unless you can back your assumptions of his ineffectuality, it seems you are just venting your dislike of Obama.
4
If it's true that "“The war for global jobs is... for all the marbles" then the outcome is squarely in the hands of capitalism. This will be a challenge because capitalism has brought us to the economic brink we now teeter on. Capitalism will need to recognize that there is another kind of profit in addition to monetary profit and that is social profit. If CEO's continue to strangle jobs, wages, and economic security for average people by focusing on short-term profits, by outsourcing jobs, exploiting other people's resources and making risky bets with other people's money then they surely are as reprehensible as people who commit other types of violence in the world. Capitalism has flesh and blood consequences. Throughout its history capitalism has produced an endless list of products and byproducts, among them oppression, poverty, and disenfranchisement. Either capitalism wakes up or, in the future, the current global unrest will look like a peaceful day at the beach on a perfect sunny day.
15
Bernie, is that you?
3
Then consider us doomed. The Masters of the Universe (Wall Street) will happily conspire in the extinguishing of civilization if it means they get a good quarterly statement, and then they will brag about it.
Elect Clinton or Trump and this surely continues unabated.
Elect Cruz and we go to war in a new Crusades as he exercises Dominionism with the power of the U.S. military at his command.
Elect Bernie and we can start to turn things around.
Elect Clinton or Trump and this surely continues unabated.
Elect Cruz and we go to war in a new Crusades as he exercises Dominionism with the power of the U.S. military at his command.
Elect Bernie and we can start to turn things around.
4
It's either Bernie or Debs. Hard to tell them apart...
2
“Although there is little agreement about direct causality, low per capita incomes, economic contraction, and inconsistent state institutions are associated with the incidence of violence."
What this country should be doing and hasn't, is enforcing the laws we have to ensure that American citizens get a job before anyone else. We could start by fining anyone who hires an undocumented worker or abuses the guest worker programs that replace American workers with cheaper workers from other countries. This is what the democrats fail to address. You don't have to round up illegals, round up the people who employ them and the problem goes away. I can wander around my neighborhood anytime and tell you who they are. That means anyone hiring a laborer, nanny, manicurist, factory worker, roofer, gardener, housekeeper, dishwashers and yes, engineers. Those jobs used to be done by Americans, sometimes these were first jobs and led to careers. These are not jobs we won't do, these are jobs that employers have figured out that they can work around the law and pay less for. Why would a contractor pay for a laborer and train them, when they can pick up an illegal at Home Depot and pay them less and not worry if they fall off the roof. But employers benefit from this shadow economy and this lessens the opportunity for labor to organize. Fine them the first time, jail them the next, give Americans back their jobs.
What this country should be doing and hasn't, is enforcing the laws we have to ensure that American citizens get a job before anyone else. We could start by fining anyone who hires an undocumented worker or abuses the guest worker programs that replace American workers with cheaper workers from other countries. This is what the democrats fail to address. You don't have to round up illegals, round up the people who employ them and the problem goes away. I can wander around my neighborhood anytime and tell you who they are. That means anyone hiring a laborer, nanny, manicurist, factory worker, roofer, gardener, housekeeper, dishwashers and yes, engineers. Those jobs used to be done by Americans, sometimes these were first jobs and led to careers. These are not jobs we won't do, these are jobs that employers have figured out that they can work around the law and pay less for. Why would a contractor pay for a laborer and train them, when they can pick up an illegal at Home Depot and pay them less and not worry if they fall off the roof. But employers benefit from this shadow economy and this lessens the opportunity for labor to organize. Fine them the first time, jail them the next, give Americans back their jobs.
7
It seems to me the focus here on "formal jobs" reflects a lack of perspective. This is an industrial or post-industrial concept, and while many, perhaps most, humans in the world live in such a society, many do not. I doubt those living in hunter-gatherer, pastoral, or nomadic societies are looking for "formal jobs." I doubt many of those whose families own farms or ranches are looking for "formal jobs." In fact, many persons throughout the history of human civilization have not found it necessary to look for jobs.
While this probably represents a minority of humans today, let's take off the blinders.
While this probably represents a minority of humans today, let's take off the blinders.
2
People are moving into big cities all over the world looking for an escape from rural poverty. They are mainly jumping from the frying pan (loss of arable land and water, Monsanto controlled sterile seed stock) in to the fire of complete destitution.
1
Yes, many challenges, but no convincing argument that the US should first and foremost adopt a very narrow definition of 'national interest'. Syria is a European problem, and as the largest economic block on the planet it can not claim to not have the resources to deal with it. It's military budget falls far short of 2% of GDP, never mind the 6% or so the US spends. China and Russia have legitimate interests, as does the US, and when looking at interests, rather than a moralizing high horse, then there should be a possibility of finding livable compromises. The Middle East at large should determine its own winners and losers; we need to get out of the habit of declaring every conflict ours, simply because it is there. Climate change is real, but a lot of the other issues Mr Blow cites, could well do with a different paradigm. The US does not need to, and should not be the world's policeman.
1
"The country needs its most stable and steady hands to guide it" From everything Mr. Blow has ever written, we know he is writing about Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Trump will point out that she voted for the war in Iraq. That not only splattered and dislocated million of women and children in the region, but it has led to more recruitment of terrorists. Those are not the "most stable and steady hands". Another leader's hands were trying to guide us away from this disaster because they could envision the carnage. Mrs. Clinton's vision is far clearer than the Republicans--but is it good enuf?
6
In answer to your question, yes. She is good enough and the only candidate who is addressing this incredibly important issue with a thoughtful response.
3
Yes, carpet bombing and water boarding do not create anything in the world but chaos, which seems to be the "conservative" money masters' agenda. We can no longer rely on corporations or leaders to "create" jobs and it is time for average people around the world to join together and build a new model for businesses that are employee-centered, socially and economically sustainable, serve local needs and have no outside predatory investors to siphon off the rewards. I remember reading an old folk story in high school called "Stone Soup". "Some travelers come to a village, carrying nothing more than an empty cooking pot. Upon their arrival, the villagers are unwilling to share any of their food stores with the hungry travelers. Then the travelers go to a stream and fill the pot with water, drop a large stone in it, and place it over a fire. One of the villagers becomes curious and asks what they are doing. The travelers answer that they are making "stone soup", which tastes wonderful, although it still needs a little bit of garnish to improve the flavor, which they are missing. The villager does not mind parting with a few carrots to help them out, so that gets added to the soup." Other villagers come by and also add ingredients until "Finally, a delicious and nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by all." As Ms. Hillary Rodham Clinton said many years ago, "It Takes A Village" - today more than ever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Soup
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Soup
3
There is little question that the political wars we are observing are tied to an increasingly visible rift between the haves and the have nots, reinforced by the support of those who see what they have slipping away. Serious leaders know this. Yet, there are too many power hungry political posers who spew incendiary rhetoric for political gain, with no clue how to solve increasingly complex real world problems.
We continue to reelect people to Congress who rarely work, and when they do, rarely do anything except raising money for the next election campaign. We spend over $5 billion a year on a do-nothing Congress. We consider presidential candidates based on rhetoric that appeals to our basest instincts, rather than those who might have a chance of actually solving problems and elevate us above our differences. We demand judges who masquerade as, and promise to behave like mullahs, pushing our country toward theocracy while condemning such regimes elsewhere.
Until we take ourselves and governing seriously, and make governing rather than politics a priority, we will continue to live in a dangerous world, one over which we have increasingly little control. We have to stop resorting to divisive rhetoric simply to make ourselves feel better, and need to demand that our would-be leaders act like adults, do their jobs, or get out of the way so that serious people can deal with our serious problems. It's up to us which, sadly. doesn't provide me with much comfort.
We continue to reelect people to Congress who rarely work, and when they do, rarely do anything except raising money for the next election campaign. We spend over $5 billion a year on a do-nothing Congress. We consider presidential candidates based on rhetoric that appeals to our basest instincts, rather than those who might have a chance of actually solving problems and elevate us above our differences. We demand judges who masquerade as, and promise to behave like mullahs, pushing our country toward theocracy while condemning such regimes elsewhere.
Until we take ourselves and governing seriously, and make governing rather than politics a priority, we will continue to live in a dangerous world, one over which we have increasingly little control. We have to stop resorting to divisive rhetoric simply to make ourselves feel better, and need to demand that our would-be leaders act like adults, do their jobs, or get out of the way so that serious people can deal with our serious problems. It's up to us which, sadly. doesn't provide me with much comfort.
7
1. All of the states identified by Mr Blow that are most plagued by terrorism in the world are being assaulted by Sunni Islamic terrorism. The root cause of the behavior of these pathological barbarians (words chosen carefully by dictionary definitions) is the cradle to grave indoctrination of Sunni Wahhabist fundamentalist culture.
2. Jobs and the corresponding quality of life enabled by jobs is a necessary but insufficient way to combat theocratic terrorism. (Sharia = theocracy, whether practiced nationally or practiced within a mosque). Creating jobs requires educated individuals who put their intellectual and financial capital at risk in order to create more capital; eg, a return on their investment. Yes, that's capitalism and the reason why it works is the reason why the migrants want to live in western societies.
3. Theocratic societies do not educate their people in anything other than religious dogma. The leadership classes of those societies send their children to western countries to be educated. For the rest, religious education does not prepare them for anything but to be apprentice suicide bombers.
Serious statesmen are needed at this time. Neither Mr Trump nor Mr Cruz are statesmen, although both are deadly serious wannabe leaders. Our country neither afford their authoritarian intent nor afford the tolerance of Sharia demanded by Islamic fundamentalists.
2. Jobs and the corresponding quality of life enabled by jobs is a necessary but insufficient way to combat theocratic terrorism. (Sharia = theocracy, whether practiced nationally or practiced within a mosque). Creating jobs requires educated individuals who put their intellectual and financial capital at risk in order to create more capital; eg, a return on their investment. Yes, that's capitalism and the reason why it works is the reason why the migrants want to live in western societies.
3. Theocratic societies do not educate their people in anything other than religious dogma. The leadership classes of those societies send their children to western countries to be educated. For the rest, religious education does not prepare them for anything but to be apprentice suicide bombers.
Serious statesmen are needed at this time. Neither Mr Trump nor Mr Cruz are statesmen, although both are deadly serious wannabe leaders. Our country neither afford their authoritarian intent nor afford the tolerance of Sharia demanded by Islamic fundamentalists.
5
But Hillary and Bill have a Saudi on the payroll of the "Clinton Foundation," a person who was paid by this organization while working for HRC at State. Are you serious about Trump and Cruz, or just indulging in wishful thinking about the apparent alternative?
2
Sorry bdr, but I'm completely serious about Trump and Cruz even while I sympathize somewhat with your reservations about the Clintons.
Trump and Cruz are just too much like the Germans of the 1930s for my comfort level. As much as I think the Clintons lie too easily, they are a much better alternative to this bad choice.
In my view, for what its worth, life is a series of making choices even when the alternatives are not ideal. In this year's election, Trump or Cruz would be a for who we are as American people while the Clintons (cuz we'll get them both) would be a moralistic aggravation but served by pragmatic self interest. My 2 cents.
Trump and Cruz are just too much like the Germans of the 1930s for my comfort level. As much as I think the Clintons lie too easily, they are a much better alternative to this bad choice.
In my view, for what its worth, life is a series of making choices even when the alternatives are not ideal. In this year's election, Trump or Cruz would be a for who we are as American people while the Clintons (cuz we'll get them both) would be a moralistic aggravation but served by pragmatic self interest. My 2 cents.
If the upcoming election is "for all the marbles" it's embarrassing to note that the two leading contenders for the GOP's nomination have plainly lost all of theirs. Under the circumstances if this nation does not elect a Democrat in the fall it will clearly deserve the derision and opprobrium of the world. American prestige and (for what it's worth) American authority will be lost and very possibly for good.
18
American prestige and authority were lost in January 2009.
3
Perhaps the use of War is pass as a policy option in the world we live in in this 21st Century. ISIS can be bombed as are other areas where potential or actual terrorists collect but there are no government leaders to surrender, sign the paper and end the motivations. And as Charles Blow nicely indicates there are rising issues of discontent on the horizon that will stress the fabric of human society. President Obama is acting as a transitional agent, continuing what has been done before but wisely trying to ease out of the use of accelerated destruction as an option.
This election could be a turning point in either direction and there are only the Democratic candidates who seems to be disinclined to rush to arms.
This election could be a turning point in either direction and there are only the Democratic candidates who seems to be disinclined to rush to arms.
This election could be a turning point in either direction and there are only the Democratic candidates who seems to be disinclined to rush to arms.
This election could be a turning point in either direction and there are only the Democratic candidates who seems to be disinclined to rush to arms.
5
It took the West 1450 years after major religious revolution to come up with Renaissance, Humanism, Reformation, Secular Humanism, Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment and ongoing Industrial Revolution.
The side effects of those pieces of progress tend to be about 50 % good, 50 % bad. Solving BIG problems, unexpectedly produces NEW problems. Ya can't plan!
Those surprising civilisational “babies”, born over several hundred years’ time, emerged alongside several hundred years of cruel, and ultimately pointless mass, and individual murders and violence—committed in God's name—by "fors" and "againsts" (Savonarola, Zwingli, Calvin, the Inquisition, the Wars of Religion...).
The invention of another monotheistic religion, about 1450 years ago (!), which revolutionised the part of the world IT was born into, and spread to, reorganised trade with the Far East, enabled consolidation of power Westward across Africa, caused new rivalries/synergies, built Cairo and Baghdad…
Big differences between Christianity and Islam are that: 1) Arabic rose to literary excellence at the same time its religious texts were compiled, so the religious, political and scientific vocabulary of extant Arabic intermingle more, than in later languages that only “received” Christianity; 2) the spread of Islam and Arabisation ACCOMPANIED Arabs’ foreign conquests; Christianity, at first, SUBVERTED incoming foreign conquerors.
Is blind terror by duped kids reaction against underlying intellectual ferment?
The side effects of those pieces of progress tend to be about 50 % good, 50 % bad. Solving BIG problems, unexpectedly produces NEW problems. Ya can't plan!
Those surprising civilisational “babies”, born over several hundred years’ time, emerged alongside several hundred years of cruel, and ultimately pointless mass, and individual murders and violence—committed in God's name—by "fors" and "againsts" (Savonarola, Zwingli, Calvin, the Inquisition, the Wars of Religion...).
The invention of another monotheistic religion, about 1450 years ago (!), which revolutionised the part of the world IT was born into, and spread to, reorganised trade with the Far East, enabled consolidation of power Westward across Africa, caused new rivalries/synergies, built Cairo and Baghdad…
Big differences between Christianity and Islam are that: 1) Arabic rose to literary excellence at the same time its religious texts were compiled, so the religious, political and scientific vocabulary of extant Arabic intermingle more, than in later languages that only “received” Christianity; 2) the spread of Islam and Arabisation ACCOMPANIED Arabs’ foreign conquests; Christianity, at first, SUBVERTED incoming foreign conquerors.
Is blind terror by duped kids reaction against underlying intellectual ferment?
1
The world today is animalistic, has little to do with culture, civilization.
We are constantly told parents love their children--that having children is even an act of reason. But then we see so many people having children while living in abject poverty. What love of children is there THERE? Rather children in such a situation seems more an act of animal instinct, or if reason exists, children to do nothing more than take up the burden of struggling adults--your child as your way out...hopefully. But in actuality your child in such a situation more often than not just another struggling person.
That parents love their children seems an act of civilization, something declared once a society has emerged from abject poverty and struggle for survival. Civilization denies children are born of mere instinct or exist solely to take up the burden of parents--we speak of loving them and allowing them to exist for themselves. Perhaps that is the ideal, but civilization today appears to be little about love and individuality (and it is primarily great individuals who create culture, civilization) and rather more about groups protecting their interests: "Fall more and more in line with group, collective, protect claims; say you love your children but instill in them ruthlessness, love of group interests; point out that without such, parents will do nothing more than breed children like dogs, will act of instinct, and that the best children can hope for is to take up burden of parents."
We are constantly told parents love their children--that having children is even an act of reason. But then we see so many people having children while living in abject poverty. What love of children is there THERE? Rather children in such a situation seems more an act of animal instinct, or if reason exists, children to do nothing more than take up the burden of struggling adults--your child as your way out...hopefully. But in actuality your child in such a situation more often than not just another struggling person.
That parents love their children seems an act of civilization, something declared once a society has emerged from abject poverty and struggle for survival. Civilization denies children are born of mere instinct or exist solely to take up the burden of parents--we speak of loving them and allowing them to exist for themselves. Perhaps that is the ideal, but civilization today appears to be little about love and individuality (and it is primarily great individuals who create culture, civilization) and rather more about groups protecting their interests: "Fall more and more in line with group, collective, protect claims; say you love your children but instill in them ruthlessness, love of group interests; point out that without such, parents will do nothing more than breed children like dogs, will act of instinct, and that the best children can hope for is to take up burden of parents."
So the world is coming to an end.
I have not seen one presidential candidate with a mind big enough to deal with the scope of that problem. All of them look pretty small with no exceptions. Slamming Reps ignores that Dems are failing to deliver on is a promise of putting America first and securing our environment. If government can't do that what is the point? Thanks for nothing Dems.
Stepping back, I believe one of the core issues are that governments around the world are failing their people. Leaders are corrupt and are stealing from the people and only look out for themselves. The UN as an institution is full of these people so it has become a liability that needs reform. Money is passing through the hands of people that should not be allowed to touch it but the rationale is that it is about sovereignty.
We need to hit the reset button on how we secure our country and our people what we expect from other countries and their leaders especially with respect to how they treat their people.
I have not seen one presidential candidate with a mind big enough to deal with the scope of that problem. All of them look pretty small with no exceptions. Slamming Reps ignores that Dems are failing to deliver on is a promise of putting America first and securing our environment. If government can't do that what is the point? Thanks for nothing Dems.
Stepping back, I believe one of the core issues are that governments around the world are failing their people. Leaders are corrupt and are stealing from the people and only look out for themselves. The UN as an institution is full of these people so it has become a liability that needs reform. Money is passing through the hands of people that should not be allowed to touch it but the rationale is that it is about sovereignty.
We need to hit the reset button on how we secure our country and our people what we expect from other countries and their leaders especially with respect to how they treat their people.
4
Odd that net immigration is currently about zero, the stock market's through the roof and unemploment's way down, then, isn't it?
1
"The primary will of the world is to have a good job". Stated differently, It means that the primary will of the world is to have a full stomach. No one understood this better than President Charles de Gaulle.
I grew up in France during the Algerian uprising of the fifties, and after De Gaulle took the fateful decision to give Algeria its independence, hundreds of thousand of Algerians (who, technically were French citizens) poured into France. I was, to my knowledge, the first mass migration of Muslims into a western society. The French viewed them as second class citizens, and even coined a word to identify them; "les pieds noirs", or the black feet. How to integrate them into French Society was a major problem. When asked by reporter at the time if encouraging them to vote would facilitate their transition, De Gaulle famously replied: "Indeed it would, but in good conscience, I cannot ask someone to walk to a voting booth on a empty stomach."
The rest is history. De Gaulle instituted the greatest job integration program of the time for the "returning" Algerians. By the seventies, they were almost fully integrated in French society.
The world could learn. Spreading democracy or opening one's doors to refugees, may be a worthy goal, but the unbridled capitalism that the west, and particularly the US, instinctively exports with it, or demand others to accept, does not nothing to fill the peoples' stomach. It breeds resentment. And resentment breeds terrorism.
I grew up in France during the Algerian uprising of the fifties, and after De Gaulle took the fateful decision to give Algeria its independence, hundreds of thousand of Algerians (who, technically were French citizens) poured into France. I was, to my knowledge, the first mass migration of Muslims into a western society. The French viewed them as second class citizens, and even coined a word to identify them; "les pieds noirs", or the black feet. How to integrate them into French Society was a major problem. When asked by reporter at the time if encouraging them to vote would facilitate their transition, De Gaulle famously replied: "Indeed it would, but in good conscience, I cannot ask someone to walk to a voting booth on a empty stomach."
The rest is history. De Gaulle instituted the greatest job integration program of the time for the "returning" Algerians. By the seventies, they were almost fully integrated in French society.
The world could learn. Spreading democracy or opening one's doors to refugees, may be a worthy goal, but the unbridled capitalism that the west, and particularly the US, instinctively exports with it, or demand others to accept, does not nothing to fill the peoples' stomach. It breeds resentment. And resentment breeds terrorism.
6
I don't think you know who the "pied noirs" were. They were the million Europeans who lived in Algeria.
3
Not mentioned here is no. 1 worldwide problem of overpopulation. Aside from China,no country has addressed the issue. It is the root of climate change, refugee flight to wealthier countries, never ending Mideast conflicts etc. Since World War II the world has become infinitely more habitable with eradication of wars, disease and famine that used to effect and kill millions. The average number of children in most Arab families is ten in many countries. UNWRA supports Mideast refugees who now number in the range of five to ten million counting Syrian refugees. This includes 5 million Palestinians.
All fo the issues addressed by Mr. Blow are crucial for the next President to address. Aside from Hillary all we get from the GOP side is appeals to people's worst instincts like carpet bombing, exclusion of people of one religion, patrols of Muslim neighborhoods and unconditional support of Natanyahu .
Mr. Trump has hit a nerve that has been covered up by the GOP until now- outsourcing of US jobs and insourcing of foreign IT workers. Trump's solutions will only lead to world wide economic instability and conflict but they must be addressed and not covered up and hidden like Romney did in 2012. For those who are not seduced by the demagoguery of Trump, the President has been beating the drums of job creation through energy independence, green jobs,and vocational training partly subsidized by employers. Yet Chicago has an unemployment of nearly 50% with young Black males.
All fo the issues addressed by Mr. Blow are crucial for the next President to address. Aside from Hillary all we get from the GOP side is appeals to people's worst instincts like carpet bombing, exclusion of people of one religion, patrols of Muslim neighborhoods and unconditional support of Natanyahu .
Mr. Trump has hit a nerve that has been covered up by the GOP until now- outsourcing of US jobs and insourcing of foreign IT workers. Trump's solutions will only lead to world wide economic instability and conflict but they must be addressed and not covered up and hidden like Romney did in 2012. For those who are not seduced by the demagoguery of Trump, the President has been beating the drums of job creation through energy independence, green jobs,and vocational training partly subsidized by employers. Yet Chicago has an unemployment of nearly 50% with young Black males.
3
Well, actually we do get from Hillary unconditional support of Netanyahu and the agenda of US/Israeli domination of the Middle East for its oil -- a stance which practically guarantees endless war for the United States in that region.
4
From A Christmas Carol:
Christmas Present warns Scrooge,
"This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,
and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy,
for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the
writing be erased..."
What would Dickens say today? Does Bob Cratchit not deserve better pay and working conditions? Does Tiny Tim have to die because he has a pre-exsting condition and lacks universal healthcare coverage?
Human beings everywhere want to work, provide the necessities of life for themselves and their famiiies, make a contribution to society, have equal justice before the law, and enjoy dignity regardless of economic status.
The devaluation of American labor and export of jobs by "Corporate Persons" impoverishes families and communities across America while enriching the fortunate few.
Christmas Present warns Scrooge,
"This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,
and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy,
for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the
writing be erased..."
What would Dickens say today? Does Bob Cratchit not deserve better pay and working conditions? Does Tiny Tim have to die because he has a pre-exsting condition and lacks universal healthcare coverage?
Human beings everywhere want to work, provide the necessities of life for themselves and their famiiies, make a contribution to society, have equal justice before the law, and enjoy dignity regardless of economic status.
The devaluation of American labor and export of jobs by "Corporate Persons" impoverishes families and communities across America while enriching the fortunate few.
9
Your column is sensible, but on the front page of the Times today there is a snide and misleading piece about Clinton's comments dismissing the vicious nonsense by Trump and Cruz. After three workman-like paragraphs describing what she said, the article goes "Yet in her own policy prescriptions..." That lead-in alerts the reader that Clinton is contradicting herself, that in her own policy prescriptions she supports what she has just dismissed. But that isn't what the article then says; it then talks about her support for Obama. How is yer support for Obama's policies a contradiction? Didn't her talk at Stanford show the difference between a calm, competent, and knowledgeable appraisal of the terrorist situation, as you advocate here, and the primitive, purely emotional, and totally nauseating proposals by the GOP leaders? Why is there a "yet" there?
10
Blow is correct about the importance of this election. So why would we elect somebody who was complicit in creating this mess and who could not tell the truth to America about terror attacks? Over the past 8 years, every single diplomatic decision has been made by emotion and ideology and been an utter failure.
3
Mr. Blow - I share your well put sentiments.
But...
... your chosen candidate for the Presidency, Ms. Clinton played a huge part in this by (a) authorizing the Iraq war and, even worse, by being the driving factor together with the French government, by turning Libya into another Iraq and Syria - all in the name of commerce.
But...
... your chosen candidate for the Presidency, Ms. Clinton played a huge part in this by (a) authorizing the Iraq war and, even worse, by being the driving factor together with the French government, by turning Libya into another Iraq and Syria - all in the name of commerce.
10
Libya was turned into another Iraq by the Libyan people, not by our government or by the French. In the name of preventing the certain slaughter of demonstrators in Benghazi we gave the citizens of Libya the opportunity to establish a better society. Thusfar, they've failed to do so.
7
The thought that America can affect global terror when she cannot control (or even seem to care about) the high level of violence within her own borders seems a reach. The repetitive reactions of the world to 1st world terror violence seems very close to US reactions to multiple shootings here at home. We no longer even react to the constant "noise" of over 100 deaths a week by homicide in the US or to the ongoing violence worldwide.
6
The real problems are that our ideals and wishes have outpaced our capacity to deal with the problems that they cause. We want free movement of people, but we do not know how to cope with the reality that some of those people come to cause harm. We want a broader range of cheaper goods, but we do not know how to deal with the loss of jobs that globalization causes. We need to strike a reasonable balance between what we can do, and what we should do. Just because something is possible, does not mean it is good or will be beneficial.
As regards, the article's conclusion, the problem is not "small minds and big mouths." We need politicians who are in touch with reality who have the knowledge and wisdom to make the difficult choices that need to be made regardless of what opinion polls say, and, unfortunately, there are too few of them around.
As regards, the article's conclusion, the problem is not "small minds and big mouths." We need politicians who are in touch with reality who have the knowledge and wisdom to make the difficult choices that need to be made regardless of what opinion polls say, and, unfortunately, there are too few of them around.
2
Thoughtful remarks, as usual. We do live, indeed, in an upside-down world, where opportunism by charlatans seems ripe for misinformed folks in search for meaning, and jobs of course. The explosion of information, and the 'obligatory' comparing oneself with other's (luck and property) gives rise to a wave of discontent and dislocation. As you say, we need leaders of substance. Demagogues need not apply.
1
I would like to see more reporting on the effects of climate change on the development of political instability and terrorism. For instance, there has been a growing wheat shortage in Syria for the past 8 years due in part to altered precipitation patterns, and even before the onset of the Syrian war, substantial numbers of Syrians were fleeing due to food shortages. Deprivation leads to "fighting over the marbles."
We see the same thing in the US, as income for the bottom 80% has been stagnant or worse for that past 30 years, the poverty numbers have climbed, and people feel more and more powerless against the power of big money. So folks are getting angrier and angrier and start lashing out incoherently, culminating in the growth of political terrorism embodied by the Republicans in Congress and, of course, the yellow wig guy's approval of his chumps attacking protesters.
We see the same thing in the US, as income for the bottom 80% has been stagnant or worse for that past 30 years, the poverty numbers have climbed, and people feel more and more powerless against the power of big money. So folks are getting angrier and angrier and start lashing out incoherently, culminating in the growth of political terrorism embodied by the Republicans in Congress and, of course, the yellow wig guy's approval of his chumps attacking protesters.
5
I don't know if it is for all the marbles. History shows us that there have been more dangerous periods, but I do agree that we need competent leaders. Of course, we always need competent leaders. Basically, the world is complicated and we need leaders who can think of creative and evidence based approaches to handling the world's problems.
3
Resource resource scarcity, climate change and labor surplus: the big challenges ahead can't be solved without cooperation. Few of our leaders--both business and government-- seem to have the needed temperament.
1
The Republican Party threat to our country is more imminent, more real than the threat of ISIS terrorism. The idea of a Republican in the White House is scarier than all of the threats Charles points out, because not only would a Republican president mishandle and exacerbate all of the other threats, a Republican president would actively harm us by making America un-American.
5
Everyone who participates in the charade that death is just a transition to a "better place" contributes to the mentality of martyrdom.
4
Please Google " Hillary Clinton intelligence surge nytimes" and you'll see a much more convincing plan for dealing with ISIS than what Mr. Blow has mentioned here as he speaks to what the presidential candidates in this years election from the Republican Party are offering: "myopic nativism, the threat of torture, and another thing he left out, the glowing glass sands. (Just so we get this straight, it's The Donald, John 'Special K' Kasich, and Lyin' Ted Cruz that he's referring to as the presidential candidates in this country "responding to the expansive globalism," of these terroristic threats.
4
ALL the marbles? Where has our leadership been for 7 years? Two-thirds of our federal govenrment act like young children, no accountability, emotion-based decisions, and pointing fingers. Yes the world is getting more connected, we are exposed in a open society. Let us have serious debate / discussions on viable solutions. The 4th estate could encourage and provide a forum, instead they want to sell tickets to the circus. America is a great nation. bk - sd
4
another cheap shot by Blow attempting to use the terror attack in Brussels to denigrate Republican candidates. But, all of the problems cited by Mr. Blow have come under Obama's (and HRC's) watch. Because we have refused to intervene, the middle east as a whole looks more and more like a failed region. Obama called ISIS the JV and let them run wild, gather supporters and extend their reach so that it is now global. We have not conducted a full scale air attack -- a few sorties a day at best -- and we are doing little if any to reduce ISIS's reach. So let's not blame Republicans.
I do agree with the job situation. This is a global problem with multiple causes, technology being a leader in that regard. We need productive growing economies across the world that provide opportunity for all people. but that won't happen without some visionary work. And how much have the Democrats done in that regard?
Finally, I'd drop global warming as a bogey man. the terrorism we are experiencing, the refugees, have nothing to do with global warming. I know it's the progressive thing to say, but you can't solve a problem unless you know what causes it -- and climate change has nothing to do with job shortages or terrorism.
I do agree with the job situation. This is a global problem with multiple causes, technology being a leader in that regard. We need productive growing economies across the world that provide opportunity for all people. but that won't happen without some visionary work. And how much have the Democrats done in that regard?
Finally, I'd drop global warming as a bogey man. the terrorism we are experiencing, the refugees, have nothing to do with global warming. I know it's the progressive thing to say, but you can't solve a problem unless you know what causes it -- and climate change has nothing to do with job shortages or terrorism.
3
Have you already forgotten the claim by Mitch McConnell that the most important job the Republicans had was to ensure that Obama was a one-term President? Do you agree with McConnell and other republicans that we must wait until a new president is elected before considering a Supreme Court Justice? President Obama proposes many solutions to our world problems but the Republican Congress just turns it's back and does nothing to help effect those solutions. Of course it's not JUST the Republicans that are the problem, we the citizens that elected these foot-dragging do-nothings are also complicit.
4
There happens to be an article in this week's New Yorker about Tunisia - not one of the worst 5 in Mr. Blow's article - that, simply because both of them basically take the blinders off, amplifies many of his points.
Mr. Blow's focus on jobs is absolutely correct! That article about Tunisia zeroes in on what happens when a college graduate is all but forced to work in the underground economy. There aren't enough jobs for people with good language skills to survive on tourism CASH as guides. Many of them wind up in Syria - simply out of desperation.
Worst of all - from an American perspective - is that the U.S. is on a somewhat parallel track. 8 years or so after the economy "bottomed out," college grads in this country 30 years old, give or take a few - are NOT "back on track" toward the good life. Black or white, straight arrows or troubled, it's like musical chairs with - arguably - half the chairs removed.
This isn't "just" about Google or Amazon, but IBM's "work smarter, not harder" - not a political message on its face - has hollowed out our economy. For every Zuckerberg billionaire, there are at least a million people trying to make $40K income work in NYC and 10 million people in the U.S. alone with jobs or non-jobs bringing in half that amount. If you do the math, it's hard to see how America makes it to 2100. Turning the clock back to taxation "impact" a la Eisenhower years would solve this problem in this country, but who among us believe that it's in the cards?
Mr. Blow's focus on jobs is absolutely correct! That article about Tunisia zeroes in on what happens when a college graduate is all but forced to work in the underground economy. There aren't enough jobs for people with good language skills to survive on tourism CASH as guides. Many of them wind up in Syria - simply out of desperation.
Worst of all - from an American perspective - is that the U.S. is on a somewhat parallel track. 8 years or so after the economy "bottomed out," college grads in this country 30 years old, give or take a few - are NOT "back on track" toward the good life. Black or white, straight arrows or troubled, it's like musical chairs with - arguably - half the chairs removed.
This isn't "just" about Google or Amazon, but IBM's "work smarter, not harder" - not a political message on its face - has hollowed out our economy. For every Zuckerberg billionaire, there are at least a million people trying to make $40K income work in NYC and 10 million people in the U.S. alone with jobs or non-jobs bringing in half that amount. If you do the math, it's hard to see how America makes it to 2100. Turning the clock back to taxation "impact" a la Eisenhower years would solve this problem in this country, but who among us believe that it's in the cards?
3
A scattered column for a scattered world. We can try to be the cops of the world but it backfires. We seem unable to police our own neighborhoods without oppression of our citizens. Whatever made us think we are the boss of the Middle East. The boss of the rest of the world? We are the oppressors.
The oppressed will fight back.
Baseball is good. War is bad.
6
I always enjoy the thought provoking columns you write Charles, but I have to say with this one, you have topped yourself. Bravo.
I agree, that globally, the problem is that the lows are to low and highs are too high creating instability. But we've known this. I keep going back to the principles laid out in Acemoglu & Robinson's "Why Nations Fail".
It's one thing to compare Trump like leadership to Berlusconi, but I would go further and compare him to Saudi Arabia and the fanatics that lead the most troubled nations. But I would add Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, McConnell, Ryan, as well as the backbone of GOP leadership too. It's not so much what they believe and do as how that builds into the very skeleton of society the weakness of eating off one's own leg to support the rabid notions held by the head that's doing the chewing with no ability to observe the big picture.
I heard an in unusual place, the saying: the harder the head, the more soft the backside. In context was meant about intractable stubbornness to compromise by young people, women and African Americans to the order kept by the authority of the Establishment in the late 60's.
Much of the rancor that's rocking this presidential election is the second wave, picking up where the reforms of that great change by those left behind behind that great change with the added disenfranchised created by globalism.
Terrorists would be nowhere without the modernity of cell phones, cheap electronics and cheap easy travel.
I agree, that globally, the problem is that the lows are to low and highs are too high creating instability. But we've known this. I keep going back to the principles laid out in Acemoglu & Robinson's "Why Nations Fail".
It's one thing to compare Trump like leadership to Berlusconi, but I would go further and compare him to Saudi Arabia and the fanatics that lead the most troubled nations. But I would add Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, McConnell, Ryan, as well as the backbone of GOP leadership too. It's not so much what they believe and do as how that builds into the very skeleton of society the weakness of eating off one's own leg to support the rabid notions held by the head that's doing the chewing with no ability to observe the big picture.
I heard an in unusual place, the saying: the harder the head, the more soft the backside. In context was meant about intractable stubbornness to compromise by young people, women and African Americans to the order kept by the authority of the Establishment in the late 60's.
Much of the rancor that's rocking this presidential election is the second wave, picking up where the reforms of that great change by those left behind behind that great change with the added disenfranchised created by globalism.
Terrorists would be nowhere without the modernity of cell phones, cheap electronics and cheap easy travel.
1
"There is starting to be a sad, somber repetitiveness to the horror of terror attacks and the world’s reaction to them."
Starting? Charles, are you serious? We have lived with terrorism, both international and domestic, for decades. Don't you see that our leaders are impotent to deal with these problems? And not because they are incapable people. They simply live inside the box to which they confined themselves.
Starting? Charles, are you serious? We have lived with terrorism, both international and domestic, for decades. Don't you see that our leaders are impotent to deal with these problems? And not because they are incapable people. They simply live inside the box to which they confined themselves.
3
NO. We all do! I know it's incendiary and I do not believe myself to be "anti-Zionist" or even close, ... but did how many voices in the U.S. were raised, much less heard when that wall went up. Whatever its effectiveness or rationale, there's no getting away from acknowledging that it was one country's saying, "No, you can't decide your own destiny, ... but we're sure not going to give you anything like the life our citizens enjoy."
In Belgium (or Michigan) or 100 other places, it isn't quite so "brutal," but just imagine yourself viewing day-to-day life as insulting or demeaning. Maybe, you'd not get violent, but it wouldn't shock you if a neighbor or relative did get violent.
I only take issue with you because MOST OF US "live inside some box." I suspect Mr. Blow - and I say this not jokingly - thinks "outside his" more than most of us. But when "inside" and "outside" are as different as they've become - are you "inside" the E.U. as a would-be immigrant ... or in Turkey, just outside it?! are like night & day,
... desperation is inevitable. Now add the catalysts of hatred (however generated) and the means to kill and an "open society" and the wonder is that these events are as rare as they ... have been.
I know there are no easy answers. What's scary is that - just like Germany in the 1930's - 1/2 of more of the U.S. population thinks there ARE relatively easy answers. We saw what happened when W mis-under-estimated the downside in Iraq. This is 10x more ominous.
In Belgium (or Michigan) or 100 other places, it isn't quite so "brutal," but just imagine yourself viewing day-to-day life as insulting or demeaning. Maybe, you'd not get violent, but it wouldn't shock you if a neighbor or relative did get violent.
I only take issue with you because MOST OF US "live inside some box." I suspect Mr. Blow - and I say this not jokingly - thinks "outside his" more than most of us. But when "inside" and "outside" are as different as they've become - are you "inside" the E.U. as a would-be immigrant ... or in Turkey, just outside it?! are like night & day,
... desperation is inevitable. Now add the catalysts of hatred (however generated) and the means to kill and an "open society" and the wonder is that these events are as rare as they ... have been.
I know there are no easy answers. What's scary is that - just like Germany in the 1930's - 1/2 of more of the U.S. population thinks there ARE relatively easy answers. We saw what happened when W mis-under-estimated the downside in Iraq. This is 10x more ominous.
4
Actually, Ed, we humans are open dissipative systems. We must be in constant contact with our environment. Being inside the box is a very unnatural condition for us and requires special socialization and acculturation. In other words, nobody is doing this to us; we do it to ourselves and we bear the responsibility for doing it. There is a way not to be in the box. How? That's a longer story and not for this newspaper. It exists in its own box that it constructed for itself. And we all will pay the price.
"We can’t put our fate and the world’s into the hands of leaders with small minds and big mouths."
So that rules out Hillary and Bernie.
So that rules out Hillary and Bernie.
5
What is missing in Charles' message is the issue of overpopulation. The continued high birth rates in poor countries not only contributes to environmental degradation, famine and political destabilization but economies cannot produce nigh jobs to accommodate the increasing population. Those couples that have more than two children are putting a risk the stability of the globe and human civilization. technology has created the false god that any problem can be addressed when the evidence is to the contrary. When I hear that the Catholic Church and other religious groups are against birth control and are against paying for birth control as part of a health plan all I see is continued population growth and economic and political destabilization in many parts of the world.
2
I must strongly disagree when you say about acts of terrorism like Brussels, "This is the new normal" and therefore, like gun massacres here at home, we should docilely accept endless terrorist massacres abroad, and even here as with San Bernardino. Unfortunately, the problem in dealing with ISIS, the source of most terrorism, is that "Syria is [not] a failed state." It still has Russian-backed Bashar al-Assad in power. What we urgently need, as you note, is a "serious leader" with the bold, courageous American vision to broker a peace conference to establish a new, probably federated Syrian state composed of a new Kurdish province (that already exists there) and finally get off the failed regime-change bandwagon and allow Bashar al-Assad and his shia Alawites their own state province. This is the political vision that has been totally lacking that would let the West led by NATO with Russian cooperation finally to eradicate ISIS in Syria, Iraq, and Libya. America is and has been truly "the land of the free and the home of the brave." Now is not the time to succumb to the fear of terrorism and build Fortress America, but to forcefully address ISIS-led terrorism as serious American leadership has in the past.
4
On the other hand, 2015 was reported by the Atlantic to be the best in history for the average human being. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/12/good-news-in-20...
Terrorism is up, but violent crime is down in the US with 600,00 fewer in 2014 than in 1995, a 35% decrease. Violent killings of police officers are also markedly lower than previous years, where the more likely cause of death is automobile related.
Citing the Global Terrorism Index, The Atlantic notes: ''... for all that terrorism deaths have increased since 2012, they remain responsible for perhaps three hundredths of one percent of global mortality. All collective and interpersonal violence together accounted for around 1.1 percent of total deaths in 2012. Rabies was responsible for three times as many deaths as terrorism that year. Stomach cancer killed more people than murder, manslaughter, and wars combined.''
So yes, terrorism is a scourge. But as President Bush reminded us after 9/11 and President Obama reminded us the other day, terrorists win when they convince us to alter the way we live and what be believe to be important.
The terrorism fear mongers we hear in America today are the few who really are just trying to get elected or many more seeking to drive up their TV ratings/newspaper sales.
We need to be adults about this and need adult leaders to move us forward.
Terrorism is up, but violent crime is down in the US with 600,00 fewer in 2014 than in 1995, a 35% decrease. Violent killings of police officers are also markedly lower than previous years, where the more likely cause of death is automobile related.
Citing the Global Terrorism Index, The Atlantic notes: ''... for all that terrorism deaths have increased since 2012, they remain responsible for perhaps three hundredths of one percent of global mortality. All collective and interpersonal violence together accounted for around 1.1 percent of total deaths in 2012. Rabies was responsible for three times as many deaths as terrorism that year. Stomach cancer killed more people than murder, manslaughter, and wars combined.''
So yes, terrorism is a scourge. But as President Bush reminded us after 9/11 and President Obama reminded us the other day, terrorists win when they convince us to alter the way we live and what be believe to be important.
The terrorism fear mongers we hear in America today are the few who really are just trying to get elected or many more seeking to drive up their TV ratings/newspaper sales.
We need to be adults about this and need adult leaders to move us forward.
28
Best not to lose perspective on the difference between succumbing to stomach cancer and the effects of a coordinated bombing at a major international airport and a subway station that happens to be nestled between NATO and EU headquarters. Those bombs killed over 30 but also wounded 300, many grievously. How many will carry psychological scars forever as a result?
Of course people will get on with their lives. What choice do they have? But there is need for action, and the need is urgent. Yes, it needs to be smart, grownup action, not Cruz or Trump action, but urgency is not a bad thing.
Of course people will get on with their lives. What choice do they have? But there is need for action, and the need is urgent. Yes, it needs to be smart, grownup action, not Cruz or Trump action, but urgency is not a bad thing.
Perspective: since 2001 approx. 350 Americans have been killed world wide by foreign terrorists; in that same period Americans have killed 400,000 other Americans with sidearms and large capacity semi-automatic rifles.
Where does the terrorism really come from.
The NRA is the world's best funded terrorist organization.
Where does the terrorism really come from.
The NRA is the world's best funded terrorist organization.
1
Senator Bernie Sanders, a serious and responsible leader in this dangerous world, was cheated of an honest election this past week, and American voters in Arizona were defrauded. The disgraceful and deceptive primary in Arizona was designed and implemented by a Koch brothers selected governor, a failed ice cream salesman, who signed a draconian budget that drastically cut funding for ballots, reduced the number of polling places, discouraged voter turnout, and frustrated the will of the people. Sanders supporters, urged to vote on primary day, were informed of Hillary Clinton's early victory based on projections of results from mail in ballots. Voters were turned away after standing in line for hours. Arizona disgraces itself again. How are we to avoid another rigged, duplicitous election, reminiscent of 2000?
209
Not only that, "Serious People" laughed at Sanders when he said in one of the early debates that one of the greatest threats to world security is climate change. Golly, it turns out that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said basically that, and the NYT editorial board agrees!
2
If you want to change this you must come out and vote the entire Democratic slate in November and allow no sane citizen to sit at home. Otherwise, you can buy tickets to a Trump or Cruz inauguration.
3
kathleen, we have to make sure in the remaining states up for election, Bernie's supporters get all the clearance they need. Get out the vote. And to all those who have women senators in the Capital please write to them to BACK OFF urging Bernie to drop off the race. These women senators had signed a pledge urging Hillary to run for President so they are doing everything they can to coronate the first woman President, at all cost. The DNC chairwoman being the worst and most unethical of the lot.
(mom)
(mom)
10
"The global war for jobs determines the leader of the free world.” I would say not only the free world but the world as a whole. China stands top benefit greatly here, as we've exported most of our manufacturing class jobs to them. Or are sending them to Mexico and other places. Like the biblical Esau, we've sold our birthright for a bowl of pottage and penury. And we wonder why everything else seems so out of control? We cling to the myth of our former greatness as if we still have it. Ordinary people are realizing that they've been sold down the river so little wonder that there is a populist appeal to "Make America Great Again." One can only hope that people realize that it is going to take far more than feel good slogans.
20
The future of jobs is only tangentially related to terrorism and is a subject worthy of far more detailed and careful consideration.
Over the next three to five decades, we face a potential crisis of redefining what work is, how it is compensated and how people can qualify to take new jobs, which are likely to be almost nothing like what employment has been for the last 100 yrs. This is not a crisis yet, at least not in the main, but making the transition from our traditional definition of jobs to allow for broader employment is very likely to become a crisis over the decades.
Looking back 50 yrs., or even 25, many of the jobs that people do now did not exist. Other jobs are shrinking dramatically in numbers employed and many forms of employment appear to be on their way to extinction. Our capacity to reduce forms of employment exceeds our present ability to create new ones and to educate people quickly to take the new jobs. Yet, the total wealth of our society indicates an ability to provide employment for most people who want to work.
All of this will likely clash with hidebound ways of viewing the world, which in turn could cause enormous social and political conflicts. Meanwhile, our current politics debates stale issues that have little or nothing to do with preparing for this uncertain and difficult future.
Over the next three to five decades, we face a potential crisis of redefining what work is, how it is compensated and how people can qualify to take new jobs, which are likely to be almost nothing like what employment has been for the last 100 yrs. This is not a crisis yet, at least not in the main, but making the transition from our traditional definition of jobs to allow for broader employment is very likely to become a crisis over the decades.
Looking back 50 yrs., or even 25, many of the jobs that people do now did not exist. Other jobs are shrinking dramatically in numbers employed and many forms of employment appear to be on their way to extinction. Our capacity to reduce forms of employment exceeds our present ability to create new ones and to educate people quickly to take the new jobs. Yet, the total wealth of our society indicates an ability to provide employment for most people who want to work.
All of this will likely clash with hidebound ways of viewing the world, which in turn could cause enormous social and political conflicts. Meanwhile, our current politics debates stale issues that have little or nothing to do with preparing for this uncertain and difficult future.
9
And that steady hand is first and foremost Hillary Clinton who makes all the other candidates look like little boys playing with toys.
24
This is a small world none of us are safe.
Trump and his hateful messages needs to stop obviously Republicans have lost their ways. Then comes Ted Cruz with his own hateful messages and attacking the wife of Trump, how low does it get ?
And now all the republican political insiders are endorsing Ted Cruz the one they all despise.
We need someone who would unite the Country not divide.
There is no place of HATE .
Trump and his hateful messages needs to stop obviously Republicans have lost their ways. Then comes Ted Cruz with his own hateful messages and attacking the wife of Trump, how low does it get ?
And now all the republican political insiders are endorsing Ted Cruz the one they all despise.
We need someone who would unite the Country not divide.
There is no place of HATE .
8
The irony about the lack of jobs is that it's not as if there isn't work to be done, of course: children who need teachers; communities who need police officers with leadership skills, not just guns blazing; highways that want repair and paving; rails and trains to be built.
What we lack is will and vision and compassion. "Small minds and big mouths": yes, lots of those.
What we lack is will and vision and compassion. "Small minds and big mouths": yes, lots of those.
33
Alas, the"new normal" is this new world of terrorism! The madness of religious zealots cannot be overcome except by destruction of the prisoned homelands of the New Caliphate in the Middle East. This is James Baldwin's "the Fire Next Time" in extremis, Maajid Nawaz's "global jihadist insurgency". We need serious leaders, not the Trump, Cruz, Kasich triumvirate of useless stoogery and ignorance of American foreign policy. A big mouth is Trump's ticket to ride. Reading your list of the crises facing our world today, Charles Blow - refugees fleeing Syria, resurgence of Taliban, North Korea a state run by a madman, Iran and its missile launches, China building new island territories in the South China Sea, the disaster of Libya, Russia's two-headed eagle amok, and global warming and climate change that will do all of us in, regardless of nationality, race, ethos, religion or the lack thereof. Fire and ice. Water, water everywhere and not a potable drop for the billions of people on this earth to drink! We the people are considering whom to vote for in 8 months. The Brussels massacre this week is just one of the unprognosticated grievous events that have occured in this presidential election year. There will be more fearsome unexpected upheavals, and blood, too. Not one of the present Republican contenders (or hopefuls, like Mitt Romney and Lindsay Graham and Jeb Bush) is a seasoned winner in whom to put our trust and votes. Our fate as a nation is at stake.
8
I expect then u would also agree that Obama was not the seasoned winner our country needed in 2008. Perhaps we should have elected HRC and things would be much better now. I guess we will never know. The issues facing us today are massive and look to be almost insurmountable. I can't really point to any foreign policy wins for our current administration over the past 7 years. Iran is looking like a disaster, no progress in North Korea, open borders everywhere, rule of law at an all time low ( see sanctuary cities) , Libya, Syria, Russia and the like are just the start of my list. I listen to all of the speeches and quite frankly am. To very impressed by any of them. HRC sounds good but she also sounded good as sec of state and not much was accomplished under her watch. So yes, we need a winner or better yet a leader for the next 4 years. I'm not sure any have surfaced yet which is a shame.
2
Blow, what world do you live in thinking 'global condemnation and solidarity'?
When all is said and done this is a Muslim problem that needs to be solved by Muslim's. Maybe I do not watch the right news channels but I missed any of the Gulf and Arab states providing condemnation. You never find any condemnation if the Arabic press. Why? Yes, there is a no quick and easy fixes for the madness. What is it? Get the Muslim countries to get in front of the problem and be so on a daily basis.
When all is said and done this is a Muslim problem that needs to be solved by Muslim's. Maybe I do not watch the right news channels but I missed any of the Gulf and Arab states providing condemnation. You never find any condemnation if the Arabic press. Why? Yes, there is a no quick and easy fixes for the madness. What is it? Get the Muslim countries to get in front of the problem and be so on a daily basis.
5
That's awful to think that Gulf and Arab states did not respond to the terrorist attack in Brussel, especially since it's not true.
Bahrain: Ministry of Foreign Affairs "affirms the support of the Kingdom of Bahrain for the Kingdom of Belgium, in facing violence, extremism and terrorism whatever its source or motivation."
Iran: President Hassan Rouhani “Firmly condemn terrorist attacks in Brussels. Deepest condolences to the government and people of Belgium,"
Qatar: Foreign ministry "strongly condemns the criminal bombing, which contradicts with all human values and principles, and aims to terrorise the unsuspecting innocents
United Arab Emirates: A statement released by Anwar bin Mohammed Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, expressed condemnation of "these cowardly terrorist acts which targeted innocent civilians", reiterating the UAE's determined stance and rejection of all forms of violence and terrorism.[126]
Bahrain: Ministry of Foreign Affairs "affirms the support of the Kingdom of Bahrain for the Kingdom of Belgium, in facing violence, extremism and terrorism whatever its source or motivation."
Iran: President Hassan Rouhani “Firmly condemn terrorist attacks in Brussels. Deepest condolences to the government and people of Belgium,"
Qatar: Foreign ministry "strongly condemns the criminal bombing, which contradicts with all human values and principles, and aims to terrorise the unsuspecting innocents
United Arab Emirates: A statement released by Anwar bin Mohammed Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, expressed condemnation of "these cowardly terrorist acts which targeted innocent civilians", reiterating the UAE's determined stance and rejection of all forms of violence and terrorism.[126]
2
On "those who have apocalyptic dreams of watching the world burn," recall "I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out" (Ted Cruz, December 2015, proposing to carpet bomb ISIS-controlled territory).
4
this is the most sensible column I've read in weeks. Maybe months. Years?
9
This speaks for the passage of the TPP.The United States cannot live in a cocoon and block trade with other nations and remain a world power. If you are under 45 years old the only place you read about opening relations with China in the 1970's is in history books.Today China is challenging us for world dominance while at the same time our economies are interdependent. We cannot hide in the sand.
If the United States does not establish trading relationships with these other countries China will and we will be left out in the cold.
Unskilled jobs will be lost because of TPP. We can choose to cut off our nose to spite our face by backing out of the agreement and handing it over to China or we can go through with it and simultaneously pass legislation that provides free two years of college or trade school to anyone who academically qualifies. THe second option gives displaced workers the opportunity to raise their skills, and thus their standard of living, as we solidify our economic ties with these other countries before China does..
The UAW and other unions are looking out for their own interest and not the interest of their members. History shows as education rises union membership falls. It is time unions reinvent themselves in this new century.... http://lstrn.us/1GBRddV
If the United States does not establish trading relationships with these other countries China will and we will be left out in the cold.
Unskilled jobs will be lost because of TPP. We can choose to cut off our nose to spite our face by backing out of the agreement and handing it over to China or we can go through with it and simultaneously pass legislation that provides free two years of college or trade school to anyone who academically qualifies. THe second option gives displaced workers the opportunity to raise their skills, and thus their standard of living, as we solidify our economic ties with these other countries before China does..
The UAW and other unions are looking out for their own interest and not the interest of their members. History shows as education rises union membership falls. It is time unions reinvent themselves in this new century.... http://lstrn.us/1GBRddV
4
Despite what I'm reading in the always inflammatory comment thread Mr. Blow delivers a great and timely article.
It is instructive to step back and correctly assess the current terror landscape where one finds it has never been broader than it is today. Parts of Africa are in flames and its people are suffering extraordinary numbers of deaths at the hands of Islamic terrorists, to say nothing of the carnage in Turkey, Western Europe and the profligate battles of the Gaza Strip, etc.
Add to this the struggle for resources (jobs) and climate destruction that Mr. Blow rightly showcases and we've got a virtual Armageddon on our hands. The true challenge for us is how to ensure we've even got a future to look towards.
Fifty years ago as a young child blissfully playing army with my friends in the woods or playing ball I never would have thought our world would come to this. It's heartbreaking to see what we're doing to ourselves. We've got to find a way out of this to save ourselves and our planet.
It is instructive to step back and correctly assess the current terror landscape where one finds it has never been broader than it is today. Parts of Africa are in flames and its people are suffering extraordinary numbers of deaths at the hands of Islamic terrorists, to say nothing of the carnage in Turkey, Western Europe and the profligate battles of the Gaza Strip, etc.
Add to this the struggle for resources (jobs) and climate destruction that Mr. Blow rightly showcases and we've got a virtual Armageddon on our hands. The true challenge for us is how to ensure we've even got a future to look towards.
Fifty years ago as a young child blissfully playing army with my friends in the woods or playing ball I never would have thought our world would come to this. It's heartbreaking to see what we're doing to ourselves. We've got to find a way out of this to save ourselves and our planet.
23
It is saddening to know none of this should come as s surprise. In the 1980's he US military was preparing for urban warfare and considered that would be the next battlefield. Our intelligence services have been predicting the crisis we are to face for a long time:
https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/Demo_Trends_For_We...
We seem to refuse to use the tools available to us.
https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/Demo_Trends_For_We...
We seem to refuse to use the tools available to us.
3
Suffering breeds desperation and extreme desperation breeds violence. Always has, always will. There are known cases of well off individuals that become terrorists such as the Saudi 9/11 attackers and the San Bernardino shooters, but there are many more that come from horribly impoverished areas. One of the main recruiting techniques of ISIS is that they offer paradise. A person must live in terrible dire straits to consider ISIS as a step up.
Recall that the beginning of turmoil in Egypt was a bread shortage. People took to the streets and the Arab spring was born. It didn't spring very well.
Severe inequality, rampant poverty and a complete lack of hope are absolutely drivers of desperate people seeking a better life. ISIS uses these factors to recruit and it works. They keep coming to join up.
The supply siders of the world need to think about this when they push for more tax cuts for the 0.1% and multinational corporations. The world does not need more billionaires. It needs jobs, enough food to eat, and for people to not live under fear and oppression. Tax cuts don't do that.
Recall that the beginning of turmoil in Egypt was a bread shortage. People took to the streets and the Arab spring was born. It didn't spring very well.
Severe inequality, rampant poverty and a complete lack of hope are absolutely drivers of desperate people seeking a better life. ISIS uses these factors to recruit and it works. They keep coming to join up.
The supply siders of the world need to think about this when they push for more tax cuts for the 0.1% and multinational corporations. The world does not need more billionaires. It needs jobs, enough food to eat, and for people to not live under fear and oppression. Tax cuts don't do that.
27
This very provocative article got me to thinking about population control. As a 50 year old, this was an issue that used to command much attention. I would like to hear the current American presidential candidates take up the discussion again. China is loosening their one child policy and Europe and Japan are suffering from an aging population, but our planet is experiencing problems that can probably be traced back to the simple fact of too many humans. Can capitalism sustain jobs for billions of humans? Can the climate stabilize if our population continues to grow, even at a slower pace? Will terrorism increase as more humans vie for fewer resources? Is it too late to even have this discussion?
18
And, "We can't seem to feed the world as it is, so when will the food wars begin, or have they already begun?"
With the advent of clean water, sewage disposal and antibiotics the population of the world is exploding. Yes I know there are countries where those are in short supply or non existent. Failed states have exploding populations which cannot be cared for under the existing state structures.
So what is the problem? Population or jobs. The problem is state failure where small groups life like kings and the rest of the country gets their drinking water from the same ditch they use for sewage disposal.
Sovereignty and the United Nations with authoritarian states hiding behind "sovereignty" then inflict their carnage on their neighbors and the rest of the world.
So what is the problem? Population or jobs. The problem is state failure where small groups life like kings and the rest of the country gets their drinking water from the same ditch they use for sewage disposal.
Sovereignty and the United Nations with authoritarian states hiding behind "sovereignty" then inflict their carnage on their neighbors and the rest of the world.
5
The serious leaders made this mess , maybe it's time for the less serious but more honest.
6
A couple of counterpoints to Mr. Blow:
So called "myopic nativism" has made Japan a very safe place. And I'd call Obama a pretty serious leader and he's done little to make America a safer place. However, I definitely agree with Blow about Hillary's hollow bombast and braggadocio; can it Hill unless you have real plans.
Join gays and women everywhere and just say no to Islam.
So called "myopic nativism" has made Japan a very safe place. And I'd call Obama a pretty serious leader and he's done little to make America a safer place. However, I definitely agree with Blow about Hillary's hollow bombast and braggadocio; can it Hill unless you have real plans.
Join gays and women everywhere and just say no to Islam.
8
When you deal with an electorate that is deaf and finds great appeal in bombast and braggadocio, positive reactions aren’t likely to be found. Right now, in this chaotic pre-election foolishness, no one seems to be getting through to the Republican voters and in the meantime, the Democrats are not getting a whole lot done in a positive vein.
What it will take to bring America back to earth is beyond me. I just hope it happens at all.
What it will take to bring America back to earth is beyond me. I just hope it happens at all.
1
So as long as we refuse to strengthen secular laws we will face continued violence and an erosion of the rights of citizens at the benefits of protecting the rights of migrants and perceived xenophobia. I'd not vote for anyone but Hillary Clinton, and President Obama has done a wonderful job with a Congress who refuses him at every step, purely out of racism and political revenge. However, the fear inflicted on us from the far left that somehow we are cruel and disrespectful towards Muslims, is the biggest lie of all. The right has a hand in this too. The red state Christians in the United States are nearly no different than extreme Muslims: uneducated, tribal, fearful of progress, feeling inferior, practicing their brand of extremism... their way or hell, and politicians here fearful of not winning a vote letting them get away with it. That's how Donald Trump saw his opportunity. Ban organized religion and we'd be on a good start. That won't happen, mainly because of the United States and its crazy obsession with Christianity.
5
If you are looking for "serious leaders" to lead this "dangerous world," you'd find slim pickings among the US presidential candidates.
"Donald Trump Won't Rule Out Using Nukes Against ISIS," reads a Fortune headline.
"We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized," said Cruz, to which NYPD Comm. Bratton responded by saying, "He doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
Those are two not-so-serious GOP "leaders" vying to become POTUS, a job which will give them access to the so-called nuclear button. Kasich has about as much chance of getting the GOP nomination as someone getting struck by a meteor.
Then there is Mrs. Clinton, who contributed her share to Libya being "a disaster." Now Candidate H. Clinton doesn't want "to stumble into another costly ground war in the Middle East." Will President H. Clinton would be so cautious given her past support for a "muscular" foreign policy?
Lastly we have Senator Sanders, who said, "it is very easy for politicians to go before the people and talk about how tough we are, and we want to wipe out everybody else. But I think if we have learned anything from history is that we pursue every diplomatic option before we resort to military intervention."
If you don't want to put the fate of the US "into the hands of leaders with small minds and big mouths," Sanders just may be the answer.
"Donald Trump Won't Rule Out Using Nukes Against ISIS," reads a Fortune headline.
"We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized," said Cruz, to which NYPD Comm. Bratton responded by saying, "He doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
Those are two not-so-serious GOP "leaders" vying to become POTUS, a job which will give them access to the so-called nuclear button. Kasich has about as much chance of getting the GOP nomination as someone getting struck by a meteor.
Then there is Mrs. Clinton, who contributed her share to Libya being "a disaster." Now Candidate H. Clinton doesn't want "to stumble into another costly ground war in the Middle East." Will President H. Clinton would be so cautious given her past support for a "muscular" foreign policy?
Lastly we have Senator Sanders, who said, "it is very easy for politicians to go before the people and talk about how tough we are, and we want to wipe out everybody else. But I think if we have learned anything from history is that we pursue every diplomatic option before we resort to military intervention."
If you don't want to put the fate of the US "into the hands of leaders with small minds and big mouths," Sanders just may be the answer.
28
"All the marbles" going to the one who "lost his marbles"?
No, sorry folks (the commenters here), the US is not the "cause" of the wars of the past decades, nor of the other evils of the world today. Yes, the American plutocrat-led political-industrial complex has done little to ameliorate the world's problems, but Koch et al. are just a drop in the bucket in relation to the scale of vast problems befalling this planet.
And don't forget, there are a number of other countries (Germany's armaments industry, Russian totalitarianism etc) doing their part to perpetuate and promote global crises.
No, Iran became Iran not because of Eisenhower, but rather because its population grew from 18 million in 1950 to almost *80 million* today, a breathtaking rate of growth without any coordinated economic growth to sustain that growth (Islam would forbid this).
Yes, it's much easier to blame the US as the manipulating evil-doer for Iran becoming Iran, much more difficult to "blame" such unrestrained procreation. Blaming the US will not even get you close to the real causes of Iran's dysfunctional malaise...
And don't forget, there are a number of other countries (Germany's armaments industry, Russian totalitarianism etc) doing their part to perpetuate and promote global crises.
No, Iran became Iran not because of Eisenhower, but rather because its population grew from 18 million in 1950 to almost *80 million* today, a breathtaking rate of growth without any coordinated economic growth to sustain that growth (Islam would forbid this).
Yes, it's much easier to blame the US as the manipulating evil-doer for Iran becoming Iran, much more difficult to "blame" such unrestrained procreation. Blaming the US will not even get you close to the real causes of Iran's dysfunctional malaise...
10
Excellent deliniation of the threats we and our children face. Real, urgent and difficult problems. As you point out the last thing we need is a loose cannon at the helm.
I applaud Obama for the deliberate, realistic and thoughtful way he has approached all these problems. He is making progress without creating additional problems. You may be unhappy with him as President but he is doing the most an intelligent and responsible person can do to help the majority of the people he is tasked to serve in spite of the irrational, immoral and self serving obstructionism of the GOP.
I applaud Obama for the deliberate, realistic and thoughtful way he has approached all these problems. He is making progress without creating additional problems. You may be unhappy with him as President but he is doing the most an intelligent and responsible person can do to help the majority of the people he is tasked to serve in spite of the irrational, immoral and self serving obstructionism of the GOP.
12
Very well said. And while these events unfold what is Donald Trump doing? Tweeting threats to reveal embarrassing personal details of the wife of Ted Cruz.
One might think Trump would look in the mirror and ask himself, can I really do this, am i fit for this, is this a responsibility i can handle? Who am i kidding?
One might think Trump would look in the mirror and ask himself, can I really do this, am i fit for this, is this a responsibility i can handle? Who am i kidding?
4
"This is a serious time in need of serious leaders." Right, emphatically NOT the kind that are both hung up on and bound helplessly by political correctness. You know, the kind that leaves them unable to even SAY the term "Islamic terrorist" (the democrat party). The kind that insist that any temporary halt to Islamic immigration to this country until we can figure out how a Pakistani woman got into this country who was ranting about jihad on facebook and commits terrorist acts is xenophobic and bigoted. The kind that insist that any attention payed to Muslims in this country is impermissible profiling. Until we have a leader (Trump for example) willing to take on the forces of political correctness we will be stuck in the same ol "somber repetitiveness" and useless gestures (we stand in solidarity with Belgium) the democrats have given us and will continue to give us if HRC becomes President.
5
With 62 people wealthy with as much wealth as HALF or the world's population, people, especially in developed countries, should be making more and working less.
Stop treating the world like a deadly Monopoly game where one must triumph over all the others and convince you that he's entitled to do so, and we might just buy this planet enough time for the civilizing influences and the increasingly less violent world that having dignity creates.
Stop treating the world like a deadly Monopoly game where one must triumph over all the others and convince you that he's entitled to do so, and we might just buy this planet enough time for the civilizing influences and the increasingly less violent world that having dignity creates.
"This is a serious time in need of serious leaders."
Noble sentiment. However, peoples anger at these repeated incidents with 24/7 media coverage turns into a blind rage. The Republicans will exploit this for all it is worth. People are not interested in serious responses rather they want to strike back in the most forceful terms. If we want to see our future and the society we will become, all we have to do is study Israel under Netanyahu.
Noble sentiment. However, peoples anger at these repeated incidents with 24/7 media coverage turns into a blind rage. The Republicans will exploit this for all it is worth. People are not interested in serious responses rather they want to strike back in the most forceful terms. If we want to see our future and the society we will become, all we have to do is study Israel under Netanyahu.
1
Time for America and the West to take HARD LINE approaches to terrorism!
Police and military responses come to late to STOP these increasing horrific carnages that are rapidly spreading from the middle-east to the west!
If more rapid preventive measures are not launched quickly what we just saw happen in Brussels will look like kids stuff and will only embolden those who have empty lives, indoctrinated with hatred and fanaticisms to infiltrate everyday crowds and cause even more deadlier and larger caualties as they seek more effective WMD
It must be understood and clearly recognized that these perpetrators are criminal murderers NOT noble liberators and regardless to well meaning liberals the ONLY way to combat and prevent future attacks is BRAVE,BOLD new tactics, sacrificing some liberties will be a small price to pay!
Police and military responses come to late to STOP these increasing horrific carnages that are rapidly spreading from the middle-east to the west!
If more rapid preventive measures are not launched quickly what we just saw happen in Brussels will look like kids stuff and will only embolden those who have empty lives, indoctrinated with hatred and fanaticisms to infiltrate everyday crowds and cause even more deadlier and larger caualties as they seek more effective WMD
It must be understood and clearly recognized that these perpetrators are criminal murderers NOT noble liberators and regardless to well meaning liberals the ONLY way to combat and prevent future attacks is BRAVE,BOLD new tactics, sacrificing some liberties will be a small price to pay!
2
We need very serious leaders now and in the future in every country. As far as terrorism goes our President needs to show the American people this can not be solved by war in any form. We are fighting an idea in the world of the internet and social media where hate and misinformation can be spread to millions in an instant with the touch of a keyboard. ISSI can make an infomercial for recruits and broadcast it to the world from anyplace at any time. The solution is education that the West is not a bad place full of infidels coupled with an ongoing campaign by the Muslim community against this. Their religious leaders must preach this is not the way into heaven. The West must show by example. We can not bomb, torture, deport Muslims. Close mosques and support countries that suppress them and then say " See, we are nice guys"
2
I have never heard one, single solitary positive or optimistic idea or comment from any of the current GOP frontrunners. They thrive on fear. They thrive on anger. Theirs is a message of unrelenting pessimism. Is this all we have to look forward to?
They either have no idea of the danger(s) their comments pose, or they don't care, or both.
Of all the times that we need strong, mature, measured and intelligent leadership, this is the peak moment.
We need a voice of reason. One of optimism. That's not what the two top GOP clowns are serving up. Their goal is victory via apocalypse.
VOTE.
They either have no idea of the danger(s) their comments pose, or they don't care, or both.
Of all the times that we need strong, mature, measured and intelligent leadership, this is the peak moment.
We need a voice of reason. One of optimism. That's not what the two top GOP clowns are serving up. Their goal is victory via apocalypse.
VOTE.
7
I seem to recall that the US and the Soviet Union stepped back from the brink of mutual destruction not because of reason or ideology, but because we found we shared a love of our children. When one looks at the practitioners of terrorism, whether those terrorists come from the Middle East, Europe, Charleston or Oklahoma City, one sees largely lonely teenagers and twenty-somethings almost exclusively heterosexual male. One wonders whether this problem would exist if more were employed and had girlfriends and the prospect of a life, and yes, children. A society which cannot provide a future is doomed to failure. And Europe proves that merely transplanting people into cultural, religious, or ethnic isolation into another country will not a future provide.
5
It goes to character...if Hillary wasn't as bought-and-paid for, dare I say corrupted by corporate money and influence, as witnessed by her record supporting policies harming working class people she might prove attractive...but her record combined with her flip-flopping is evidence that her heart is just not in the right place.
As to Trump, his character is non-existent...witness both his inflated ego and brand/company valuation. Imho, he's all braggadocio and bluster!
Senator Sanders is open, honest, authentic, consistent & humble. His character, his policies, his vision and most of all his voting record are what make me confident, not 'anxious', about his ability to lead this country out of the corruption, inequality, war-mongering, and rigged economy that have marked my life in the Army as well as my working career!
As to Trump, his character is non-existent...witness both his inflated ego and brand/company valuation. Imho, he's all braggadocio and bluster!
Senator Sanders is open, honest, authentic, consistent & humble. His character, his policies, his vision and most of all his voting record are what make me confident, not 'anxious', about his ability to lead this country out of the corruption, inequality, war-mongering, and rigged economy that have marked my life in the Army as well as my working career!
6
Sanders also has absolutely no foreign policy experience, scant knowledge of international affairs, and seemingly little interest in either. If Paris, Turkey, and Brussels—just to name three examples out of many—have taught us anything the last few months, it's that we need someone willing and able to engage intelligently with the world outside our borders. We are not an island.
1
Charles, actually, the invisible or the disposable people, the people we don't care about or we don't have no desire to know that they exist, have been dying in this world for a very long time.
Combined figures, like 50 million people dying in the civil wars in Rwanda & Darfur & even in Vietnam and many other countries in Asia and Africa or the Middle East, are just mere statistics for us.
We only pay attention only when the killings, how small, occur in the Western Hemisphere.
As social scientists, it's unbearable for me to see the total disparity in our responses to all the tragedies in the world.
In another article in New York Times, I just read about the author's admonition to Obama's reluctance to get engaged in the wars of the world .
Why should Obama, who came to power to stop the hegemony, start another war by killing another 2 to 3 million 'invisible or disposable' people in the Middle East or Africa like Bush/Cheney did and forced Obama to continue with perpetual wars .
And all our Republican candidates mainly Racist Trump and Racist Cruz talk about nothing but hatred, racial profiling of the Blacks (stop n' frisk) and hateful surveillance of the Muslim communities just because 3 or 4 terrorists blew up in Brussels and then 'carpet-bombing ' the entire Middle-East killing millions of women and children .
In other words, more hatred, more conflicts, more wars just to please their prejudiced supporters.
Is this what America all about ?
I don't think so.
Combined figures, like 50 million people dying in the civil wars in Rwanda & Darfur & even in Vietnam and many other countries in Asia and Africa or the Middle East, are just mere statistics for us.
We only pay attention only when the killings, how small, occur in the Western Hemisphere.
As social scientists, it's unbearable for me to see the total disparity in our responses to all the tragedies in the world.
In another article in New York Times, I just read about the author's admonition to Obama's reluctance to get engaged in the wars of the world .
Why should Obama, who came to power to stop the hegemony, start another war by killing another 2 to 3 million 'invisible or disposable' people in the Middle East or Africa like Bush/Cheney did and forced Obama to continue with perpetual wars .
And all our Republican candidates mainly Racist Trump and Racist Cruz talk about nothing but hatred, racial profiling of the Blacks (stop n' frisk) and hateful surveillance of the Muslim communities just because 3 or 4 terrorists blew up in Brussels and then 'carpet-bombing ' the entire Middle-East killing millions of women and children .
In other words, more hatred, more conflicts, more wars just to please their prejudiced supporters.
Is this what America all about ?
I don't think so.
8
This has to be the most clueless column I've seen yet from Charles Blow. Does Charles Blow honestly believe that these murdering ISIS thugs are going to willingly trade their bombs and machine guns for a paycheck and humdrum 9 to 5 existence? Not a chance. What keeps driving ISIS is their insatiable bloodlust which manifests itself in the form of beheadings and blood soaked massacres. The ISIS terrorists have cleverly marketed themselves as romantic folk heroes who are sticking it to the evil West. And guess what?? It works.
Just remember that every attack only manages to send Donald Trump's poll numbers climbing higher and higher. And you then have the audacity to wonder why Americans continue to vote for Trump in the primaries. Maybe, Trump's supporters reason that takes an over the top demagogue to take out this crazed gang of thugs.
Just remember that every attack only manages to send Donald Trump's poll numbers climbing higher and higher. And you then have the audacity to wonder why Americans continue to vote for Trump in the primaries. Maybe, Trump's supporters reason that takes an over the top demagogue to take out this crazed gang of thugs.
5
Do you or Trump have a plan to eliminate ISIS and terrorists? Is it possible Trump may take drastic actions that cause more death and destruction?
As history shows us invasion and occupation of ME states do not work. Obama has taken the only reasonable path - containment and taking back ISIS held land.
Charles Blow is correct - we need an realistic and experienced president. Vote for Hillary.
As history shows us invasion and occupation of ME states do not work. Obama has taken the only reasonable path - containment and taking back ISIS held land.
Charles Blow is correct - we need an realistic and experienced president. Vote for Hillary.
Terrorism is a rational response to institutionalized warfare and state exploitation. Until the rich, white, male power elite get that through their thick skulls and make it clear that government should represent everyone equally terrorism will continue unabated. Terrorism may well even escalate as the problems swept under the rug to privilege the privileged reassert themselves at the expense of the exploited.
5
I suggest you go to the middle east and create some safe spaces for your little offended snowflakes, who in turn can start a revolution with a hash tag.
4
Indeed, 'all the marbles', and that emphatically includes the environment.
Those realities eliminate the Republicans from consideration for any rational voter who cares about our nation, our world, and our futures.
Bernie ? Hillary ? This election is about much, much more than corrupt bankers..... valid as that issue is.
Those realities eliminate the Republicans from consideration for any rational voter who cares about our nation, our world, and our futures.
Bernie ? Hillary ? This election is about much, much more than corrupt bankers..... valid as that issue is.
4
One of the ironies of life in a free society arises from the tendency of crisis conditions to promote the rise of demagogues at the very time the society requires a very different kind of leadership. The Depression produced Huey Long, and our age has nurtured Trump and Cruz.
Their diagnosis of our malaise, as befits charlatans, identifies scapegoats as responsible for our unhappy condition. Once we have expelled these miscreants from the body politic, as ancient doctors drained "excess" blood from patients, the disease will magically disappear, and we will be great again. The appeal of a narrative that blames "outsiders," such as illegal immigrants and Muslims, for national problems lies in its simplicity and its denial of our own share in the responsibility for those difficulties.
Clinton and Sanders, with their emphasis on the culpability of the economic elite and their insistence that complex problems demand an activist government, refuse to pander to the American prejudice that "outsiders" always cause our problems.
FDR's New Deal worked well enough to blunt the appeal of Long. This election will determine whether Clinton or Sanders will earn the opportunity to implement policies with a realistic potential to improve our condition. Or will the sour siren song of Trump deceive enough voters to elevate a demagogue to the presidency. Surely it is no exaggeration to suggest that the future of the country hangs in the balance.
Their diagnosis of our malaise, as befits charlatans, identifies scapegoats as responsible for our unhappy condition. Once we have expelled these miscreants from the body politic, as ancient doctors drained "excess" blood from patients, the disease will magically disappear, and we will be great again. The appeal of a narrative that blames "outsiders," such as illegal immigrants and Muslims, for national problems lies in its simplicity and its denial of our own share in the responsibility for those difficulties.
Clinton and Sanders, with their emphasis on the culpability of the economic elite and their insistence that complex problems demand an activist government, refuse to pander to the American prejudice that "outsiders" always cause our problems.
FDR's New Deal worked well enough to blunt the appeal of Long. This election will determine whether Clinton or Sanders will earn the opportunity to implement policies with a realistic potential to improve our condition. Or will the sour siren song of Trump deceive enough voters to elevate a demagogue to the presidency. Surely it is no exaggeration to suggest that the future of the country hangs in the balance.
157
"... Sanders, with [his] emphasis on the culpability of the economic elite and [his] insistence that complex problems demand an activist government, refuse[s] to pander to the American prejudice that 'outsiders' always cause our problems."
Not so. From Popper's "The Open Society": "[The conspiracy theory of society] is the view that an explanation of a social phenomenon consists in the discovery of the ... groups who are interested in the occurrence of this phenomenon, and who have planned and conspired to bring it about."
"This view arises from the mistaken theory that, whatever happens in society -- especially happenings such as war, unemployment, poverty, shortages, which people dislike -- is the result of the direct design by ... powerful groups. ... In its modern forms it is a typical result of the secularization of a religious superstition. The belief in the Homeric gods whose conspiracies explain the history of the Trojan war is gone. ... But their place is filled by sinister pressure groups whose wickedness is responsible for all the evils we suffer.
"People who sincerely believe that they know how to make heaven on earth are most likely to adopt the conspiracy theory, and to get involved in a counter-conspiracy against nonexistent conspirators. For the only explanation of their failure to produce their heaven are the evil intentions of the devil who has a vested interest in hell."
This is a phenomenon of the Left as much as, if not more than, the Right.
Not so. From Popper's "The Open Society": "[The conspiracy theory of society] is the view that an explanation of a social phenomenon consists in the discovery of the ... groups who are interested in the occurrence of this phenomenon, and who have planned and conspired to bring it about."
"This view arises from the mistaken theory that, whatever happens in society -- especially happenings such as war, unemployment, poverty, shortages, which people dislike -- is the result of the direct design by ... powerful groups. ... In its modern forms it is a typical result of the secularization of a religious superstition. The belief in the Homeric gods whose conspiracies explain the history of the Trojan war is gone. ... But their place is filled by sinister pressure groups whose wickedness is responsible for all the evils we suffer.
"People who sincerely believe that they know how to make heaven on earth are most likely to adopt the conspiracy theory, and to get involved in a counter-conspiracy against nonexistent conspirators. For the only explanation of their failure to produce their heaven are the evil intentions of the devil who has a vested interest in hell."
This is a phenomenon of the Left as much as, if not more than, the Right.
First, Hillary is a hair's breadth away from already clinching the Dem. nomination. Even Bernie is saying that. He is now running to promote his "movement." Trump is the one who may not be allowed to run by the establishment of the GOP. If Trump is their nominee, it is common sense that he loses to Hillary. He won't get enough angry white men to turn out to overcome the demographics of the electorate. The press is making Trump out to be some imminent danger to the country. Even if he were elected it would be more of an embarrassment than tragedy. Heck, he might even be more likely to reform health care in a positive way than Hillary. At one time he supported single payer. Who knows what he supports now, on any issue? No one, not even Trump knows what a Trump presidency would look like. I suspect it would look like a three ring circus. Mostly sound and fury signifying nothing, but rather amusing.
Just for the record, according to your world view, were Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt and Churchill Demagogues? Some would say they were courageous leaders who took up to evil.
1
Maybe the terrorists have learned the American motto: nothing succeeds like excess. Or maybe they think we're so war weary that we'll withdraw from this “sad, somber repetitiveness” and choose to live the American dream rather than the nightmares unfolding half a world away. As always, however, America must stand with democracies, and certainly, with its allies in NATO. As always, however, callous cynics like Cruz and Trump jump at any opportunity to grab a delegate or two; and as always, they mislead their supporters into thinking that brutal, simplistic ranting is a sign of greatness.
Both Clinton and Sanders looked like the adults in the room with their statements on the outrages in Brussels. Bernie, as too often, sounded like the uncle to be avoided at Thanksgiving; to be avoided because we’ve heard his stories of socialism from long ago; to be avoided because he morphs more and more into the angry old man who has lots of complaints and no realistic remedies. Clinton’s speech on foreign policy was superb. But, this I know, everything is relative. So I can say, paraphrasing Mario Cuomo: I live in poetry, and vote in prose. And vote in prose I will because the alternatives are too shocking.
Both Clinton and Sanders looked like the adults in the room with their statements on the outrages in Brussels. Bernie, as too often, sounded like the uncle to be avoided at Thanksgiving; to be avoided because we’ve heard his stories of socialism from long ago; to be avoided because he morphs more and more into the angry old man who has lots of complaints and no realistic remedies. Clinton’s speech on foreign policy was superb. But, this I know, everything is relative. So I can say, paraphrasing Mario Cuomo: I live in poetry, and vote in prose. And vote in prose I will because the alternatives are too shocking.
111
Clinton can often impress with her mastery of detail and argument, and she is a strong speaker and debater. The problem is that she so often lacks vision behind her arguments. While it can be impressive to hear someone so versed in different options about no-fly zones and air strikes, the dazzling details can obscure the fact that *none* of our efforts in the Middle East or Afghanistan have proven to do anything other than to maim and kill people on all sides, increase recruiting for terrorism, and burn through money. I am not interested in hearing Clinton praised because her solutions are less gonzo than the Republicans' "tougher than thou" rants. We Americans need to understand that even if we can hit upon the most brilliant plan in the world for peace and international cooperation, we will fail at it if we insist on forcing it upon others. Obama has demonstrated this wisdom (in fits and starts). Sanders is the only candidate who really gets it.
1
We should at least have leaders who understand what terrorist organizations want, and what they should get. What they want is opponents who are militaristic blowhards, who will vow to kill families and make sand glow with radiation. Who will invade their countries. A terrorist's fondest hope is to fight against a clear enemy, represent his feverish, paranoid view of history and religion, convert other "victims" to the cause, and die in the effort.
What terrorists should get is completely different. They should be subjected to intense, professional, local intelligence, produced by as broad a group of nations as possible working together, followed by quiet, appropriate arrests and assassinations on an individual basis. What they should "get" most of all, however, is a modern world that stays true to its principles, protects and extends freedom and rights of self-expression, and acts in conformity with accepted international laws. In the long run, this is the only way to defeat terrorism.
What terrorists should get is completely different. They should be subjected to intense, professional, local intelligence, produced by as broad a group of nations as possible working together, followed by quiet, appropriate arrests and assassinations on an individual basis. What they should "get" most of all, however, is a modern world that stays true to its principles, protects and extends freedom and rights of self-expression, and acts in conformity with accepted international laws. In the long run, this is the only way to defeat terrorism.
197
Are you serious? What did Hitler want? A supine West or a bellicose Churchill? Evil movements almost always want domination and that requires supine and timid enemies.
1
“The war for global jobs is like World War II: a war for all the marbles. The global war for jobs determines the leader of the free world.”
Yep. I've been saying this for years.
We need to fundamentally reform the economic system so that it lifts all boats - including the boats of both emerging market and advanced industrial workers. We need to recognize that we are all in this together, and that cooperation and collaboration offers the only feasible road forward - especially in an era of looming catastrophic climate change.
Our existing economic model seeks to impoverish workers around the world so that a tiny economic elite can become ever richer at the expense of everyone else.
No good can come from this. None - especially in an era of looming catastrophic climate change, in which cooperation and collaboration will be more necessary than ever before.
It is almost as if our global economic elite has a death wish, and is willing to take the rest of the sentient world with it on its ride to the abyss, just so long as it can continue living extravagantly until the last possible moment.
Yep. I've been saying this for years.
We need to fundamentally reform the economic system so that it lifts all boats - including the boats of both emerging market and advanced industrial workers. We need to recognize that we are all in this together, and that cooperation and collaboration offers the only feasible road forward - especially in an era of looming catastrophic climate change.
Our existing economic model seeks to impoverish workers around the world so that a tiny economic elite can become ever richer at the expense of everyone else.
No good can come from this. None - especially in an era of looming catastrophic climate change, in which cooperation and collaboration will be more necessary than ever before.
It is almost as if our global economic elite has a death wish, and is willing to take the rest of the sentient world with it on its ride to the abyss, just so long as it can continue living extravagantly until the last possible moment.
54
Pursuing their self interest aggressively and having superior means of seeking to shape society to meet their needs and desires, the mega-rich do, indeed, risk self destruction, as you indicate. This is an out of balance situation in which people would be wise to surrender some measure of power over others to seek better solutions, the common good. The super rich are convinced beyond all measure that they are right and their only answer, in politics and wealth accumulation, is more, more, more.
1
The global elites are never touched by the outside world. They have staff to do that for them. I suspect that, like despots everywhere, they are surrounded by people who would never tell them the truth. We only hope it ends badly for them; we know it will end badly for the rest of us.
The effects of climate change cannot be held at bay. Miami is awash in seawater, but the governor can no more say "climate change" than Marie Antoinette could say "give the people bread." Keep fiddling, Scott, and maybe no one will notice you are loosing your state inch by inch.
As for a measured response to the terror we export daily to the Middle East, we have someone who shows restraint now, but he is on his way out. Sanders would show equal restraint because he sees the long term effects of doong otherwise are terrible. As for Hillary, it will be bombs away!
The effects of climate change cannot be held at bay. Miami is awash in seawater, but the governor can no more say "climate change" than Marie Antoinette could say "give the people bread." Keep fiddling, Scott, and maybe no one will notice you are loosing your state inch by inch.
As for a measured response to the terror we export daily to the Middle East, we have someone who shows restraint now, but he is on his way out. Sanders would show equal restraint because he sees the long term effects of doong otherwise are terrible. As for Hillary, it will be bombs away!
3
Imagine how different things might be had we followed our initial invasion of Afghanistan with paving crews, and septic tanks, and clean water lines. Imagine that we had put these people to work with good pay. They would be too tired and too proud of their handiwork to blow it up.
There is profit to be made in infrastructure building as well as bomb building.
There is profit to be made in infrastructure building as well as bomb building.
That is why we cannot elect Hillary, Donald or Cruz. Hillary enthusiastically voted for the war in Iraq--the greatest single contributor to the proliferation of terrorism in the Middle East. She urged the President to bomb Libya, chuckling after, "We came, We saw, He died." Libya is a hotbed of ISIS terrorist activity. She urged the President to send troops into Syria. Fortunately, Obama resisted. She criticized him.
Hillary is a war hawk. Her speech to AIPAC on Monday is saber rattling. She has never seen a dispute she does not believe can best be settled by death and destruction. As President, she would continue her mistaken belief we can kill our way out of terrorism.
The truth is our war policy has created the terrorist world world we live in. Without our involvement, there would be no terrorists aiming attacks at the U.S. and Europe. Al Qaeda did not exist before "shock and awe" but they sure came flooding in after. The same holds true of ISIS.
Bernie Sanders is the only candidate who offers a moderate foreign policy. Not electing him will only make the world a more dangerous place.
Hillary is a war hawk. Her speech to AIPAC on Monday is saber rattling. She has never seen a dispute she does not believe can best be settled by death and destruction. As President, she would continue her mistaken belief we can kill our way out of terrorism.
The truth is our war policy has created the terrorist world world we live in. Without our involvement, there would be no terrorists aiming attacks at the U.S. and Europe. Al Qaeda did not exist before "shock and awe" but they sure came flooding in after. The same holds true of ISIS.
Bernie Sanders is the only candidate who offers a moderate foreign policy. Not electing him will only make the world a more dangerous place.
101
ScottW: Please read the Senate Resolution HRC voted for. It required Bush to use diplomatic means to resolve the "WMD" issue, and it required W to go back to the UN for agreement on war. He did not do those things. Please, unless you're a Republican, stop repeating GOP propaganda.
8
Hillary a war hawk??
I don't think so.
Bias and disassembling never make for an intelligent conversation.
I don't think so.
Bias and disassembling never make for an intelligent conversation.
6
and yet he (Sanders) will not be elected. He will not be nominated. Which will leave you with a choice to be made. In your comment you mention "Donald" and Cruz in passing and then take all of your space to malign Clinton. You cannot seriously equate her with "Donald" and Cruz. You exaggerate the case for her being a "war hawk" and you emulate the demagogues who will run against her by selective (and third-hand) "quotation". You are also wrong that Al Qaeda/ ISIS "did not exist" before America's exploits. They have existed in different forms for thousands of years.
2
The most telling fact in the column is the scarcity of good jobs. We are only here for a short time. Each of us is only a statistical blip on the long arc of evolution. What do we do with our allotted time on this planet?
If a young person, usually a male, has nothing to do, he will gravitate to someone or some cause that promises him glory if he just follows that person or cause.
We've seen this act play out before, particularly in the last century, when young men were drawn to the siren song of despots. The final act is usually brutally played out, with devastating results.
Beware of false prophets promising to make us great again.
If a young person, usually a male, has nothing to do, he will gravitate to someone or some cause that promises him glory if he just follows that person or cause.
We've seen this act play out before, particularly in the last century, when young men were drawn to the siren song of despots. The final act is usually brutally played out, with devastating results.
Beware of false prophets promising to make us great again.
194
Look here's another Gallup poll.
(by Carl Herman) "... Gallup International’s poll of 68 countries for 2014 found the US as the greatest threat to peace in the world, voted three times more dangerous to world peace than the next country.
Among Americans, we overall voted our own nation as the 4th most dangerous to peace, and with demographics of students and 18-24 year-olds also concluding the US as the world’s greatest threat.
Opinion aside, we can objectively evaluate the US threat to peace, as younger Americans seem to be doing:
Current US wars are not even close to lawful. Two US treaties require that military armed attack is only lawful when another nation’s government attacks your nation first (or is an imminent threat). These treaties are crystal-clear in letter and intent.
The US has a history of lying to begin unlawful Wars of Aggression. In fact, this is business as usual when the history is comprehensively and objectively examined.
US “leaders” lie about the above easily-verified facts, then joke about killing millions. Their behavior is therefore best describes as “psychopathic” threat to world peace..."
(by Carl Herman) "... Gallup International’s poll of 68 countries for 2014 found the US as the greatest threat to peace in the world, voted three times more dangerous to world peace than the next country.
Among Americans, we overall voted our own nation as the 4th most dangerous to peace, and with demographics of students and 18-24 year-olds also concluding the US as the world’s greatest threat.
Opinion aside, we can objectively evaluate the US threat to peace, as younger Americans seem to be doing:
Current US wars are not even close to lawful. Two US treaties require that military armed attack is only lawful when another nation’s government attacks your nation first (or is an imminent threat). These treaties are crystal-clear in letter and intent.
The US has a history of lying to begin unlawful Wars of Aggression. In fact, this is business as usual when the history is comprehensively and objectively examined.
US “leaders” lie about the above easily-verified facts, then joke about killing millions. Their behavior is therefore best describes as “psychopathic” threat to world peace..."
13
The world is a mess and the usual American methods for fixing, resolving, eliminating or fighting evil in the world no longer work.
Part of the American malaise is the recognition that we can't manage the world as we used to. Couple that sense of impotence with job loss, and you have our very angry electorate increasingly responsive to the loudest and tallest voice in the room.
Our Democratic candidates, Sanders and Clinton have a better grasp of realpolitik in this age than anyone on the crazy GOP side. Will the public realize this in November?
Part of the American malaise is the recognition that we can't manage the world as we used to. Couple that sense of impotence with job loss, and you have our very angry electorate increasingly responsive to the loudest and tallest voice in the room.
Our Democratic candidates, Sanders and Clinton have a better grasp of realpolitik in this age than anyone on the crazy GOP side. Will the public realize this in November?
37
I'm with you until the last paragraph. Hillary has taken several decisive actions with horrible effects, creating a vacuum for growing terrorism. She voted for the War in Iraq. Bernie opposed it. She was for bombing Iraq. Bernie opposed it. She wanted to send ground troops to Syria. Bernie opposed it.
I don't care what she says now. Her actual record speaks for itself and her saber rattling speech to AIPAC was chilling. Our relationship with Iran did not start to warm until she left as Sec. of State and if elected, you can guarantee it will chill again. Because that is the way Israel wants it.
One candidate is a war monger. The other is not. Those are the inconvenient truths about Hillary Clinton.
I don't care what she says now. Her actual record speaks for itself and her saber rattling speech to AIPAC was chilling. Our relationship with Iran did not start to warm until she left as Sec. of State and if elected, you can guarantee it will chill again. Because that is the way Israel wants it.
One candidate is a war monger. The other is not. Those are the inconvenient truths about Hillary Clinton.
38
Only Trump and Sanders are talking about jobs.
7
I agree with you until the last bit. Surely you jest about Clinton having a better grasp of realpolitik. She's a full blown war hawk that just wants to feed the military industrial machine. I'd feel much safer with the crazy orange buffoon in charge simply because he's not beholden to those interests rather than a dishonest untrustworthy pawn like Hillary.
6
"People can be killed, towns can be reduced to rubble, but ideas die slow deaths."
Doing that inspired and spreads these ideas. That is where the problem came from.
This is blowback from Western destruction of the Middle East. It was supposed to be "creative destruction." This is what it created.
That isn't just blame. It is a signpost for the future. Doing those things made the problem. Continuing them will only make it worse.
Doing that inspired and spreads these ideas. That is where the problem came from.
This is blowback from Western destruction of the Middle East. It was supposed to be "creative destruction." This is what it created.
That isn't just blame. It is a signpost for the future. Doing those things made the problem. Continuing them will only make it worse.
100
I think this is correct. There's not a lot that western leaders can do about these terrorist attacks. 10 madmen can create horrific havoc in a city, and they can act semi-autonomously. No campaign of assassinations, mass bombing or "boots on the ground" can stop them; in fact, this approach is likely to increase the probability of their occurrence.
6
I respect the valid argument that the ill-advised use of military force can and has created motivation for terrorism. Following your example, let's put aside how exactly we allocate blame. I'm always curious as to how an active terrorist organization (Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, etc.) can be responsibly fought. ISIS, for example controls a considerable territory. I'm not saying the U.S. has to be the one to do it necessarily, but at the least, those regions most directly endangered, Syria, (now) Libya, Turkey, Western Europe must have some offensive response, yes? A heart's and minds campaign and intelligence gathering are good long term and defensive strategies, but it still begs the question of how to take territory (think Mosul, Raqqa, etc.) away from an unbelievably violent, fanatical and utterly intransigent force. I don't have a good grasp of how that might be accomplished on any reasonable timeline without the use of military force (including bombs if necessary). I also don't know how such force can be effectively used while simultaneously guaranteeing civilian lives will not be lost and the occupied cities themselves will not be destroyed. With no sarcasm whatsoever, I would genuinely like to know what effective (and it MUST be effective) options there are for eliminating the PHYSICAL threat ISIS poses to others other than force. If such a method exists, it should be put into practice immediately.
Blow has been one of my favorite columnists lately. He talks about the demagogue, Trump, and I agree with that view. He is that. So why would a person vote for him anyway? I'll get to that.
First, let me address what Blow says about jobs. It is true, that most adults want to work for money. There are 2 things that are important in this exchange: the result of the work and the money workers receive. It is a win/win/win/win situation. Everyone wins, and everyone wants to work.
How effective can the US be in world affairs if it isn't willing to take an honest, domestic view about its job situation? We have high unemployment according to many measures, as many as 10 million people or more that want to work that can't because of trade policy. Elites like to point to the employment of foreigners, but is it genuine? No, it is profit-driven altruism, which is the worst kind of false altruism. It damages us all.
However, people want jobs that matter and make them feel like they matter. They don't want to work for employers that make them feel bad about themselves. They'd rather turn to terrorism than work for someone that makes them feel used.
There's a conflict between capitalism and religion today. The religious side wants to feel appreciated even if they work. And increasingly, they can't.
Back to Trump. Why vote for the demagogue? Sometimes it is just about shaking things up. Let us workers feel good about our work again. Reward hard work. That is all.
First, let me address what Blow says about jobs. It is true, that most adults want to work for money. There are 2 things that are important in this exchange: the result of the work and the money workers receive. It is a win/win/win/win situation. Everyone wins, and everyone wants to work.
How effective can the US be in world affairs if it isn't willing to take an honest, domestic view about its job situation? We have high unemployment according to many measures, as many as 10 million people or more that want to work that can't because of trade policy. Elites like to point to the employment of foreigners, but is it genuine? No, it is profit-driven altruism, which is the worst kind of false altruism. It damages us all.
However, people want jobs that matter and make them feel like they matter. They don't want to work for employers that make them feel bad about themselves. They'd rather turn to terrorism than work for someone that makes them feel used.
There's a conflict between capitalism and religion today. The religious side wants to feel appreciated even if they work. And increasingly, they can't.
Back to Trump. Why vote for the demagogue? Sometimes it is just about shaking things up. Let us workers feel good about our work again. Reward hard work. That is all.
4
"However, people want jobs that matter and make them feel like they matter. They don't want to work for employers that make them feel bad about themselves. They'd rather turn to terrorism than work for someone that makes them feel used."
Um, you are saying that people who have bad bosses turn to murder? You may want to go talk to someone because that is a troubling statement.
Um, you are saying that people who have bad bosses turn to murder? You may want to go talk to someone because that is a troubling statement.
2
There was always a conflict between capitalism and Christianity, but politicians always found ways to hide the conflicts. God and Caesar hand in hand!
1
Yes, the military industrial complex is out of hand. We need to vote out the big supporters or scare them enough into switching America's gears to plowshares. Clinton encouraged the war in Syria and voted to go into Iraq which started or at least escalated the whole mess. So in my mind she's out. Bernie Sanders voted against that. Trump ( an elite insider) and the rest are belicose and dangerous, representing lots of oil and gas interests along with both parties enjoying the support of big banks funding the oil wars. Time for a change. Vote Bernie Sanders.
72
Please read the Senate's Iraq resolution on which Clinton and dozens of others voted. That Senate Res called on Bush to use all diplomatic means to resolve the problem of Saddam's "WMD." If diplomacy failed, the Res added, Bush must go to the UN to get clearance for use of force in Iraq. Bush did neither of these things. He withdrew the inspectors from Iraq (Read Hans Blix, for heaven's sake!) He opened a covert air war weeks before Congress voted. Had he been a Democrat, he'd have been impeached.
But the greater sins were to follow. He appointed Gerry Bremer as his pro-consul in Iraq. That idiot's policy of de-Baathification included insulting the professional Iraqi generals who stood ready to help with the administration of post-invasion Iraq. Those insults led to the guerrilla war that has plagued Iraq ever since, and some of the insulted officers helped to midwife ISIS. Who voted for that? Stop this nonsense that Clinton voted for it.
But the greater sins were to follow. He appointed Gerry Bremer as his pro-consul in Iraq. That idiot's policy of de-Baathification included insulting the professional Iraqi generals who stood ready to help with the administration of post-invasion Iraq. Those insults led to the guerrilla war that has plagued Iraq ever since, and some of the insulted officers helped to midwife ISIS. Who voted for that? Stop this nonsense that Clinton voted for it.
7
Blow's column today is nothing more than a bromide - full of gas and offering no relief.
The crescent of the Muslim world from north Africa, through the Middle East and up through central Asia is string of failed state. The mass of people are either enthralled or inured to the repressive, soul-crushing version of Islam shoved down their throats by a narrow-minded, puritanical theocracy. Some of this goes down easier when coated in oil wealth, but it is still there, all the same.
Without a more open society, there is no hope of this region ever being able to grow and provide the jobs for all those willing to work. Thus, the viscous cycle will just keep feeding on itself. Until the people themselves throw off their chains of bondage that is fanatical Islam, there is nothing we in the West can do - as has been proven by our ineffectual involvement in the region since the 19th century.
It is time for the West to turn its back on certain nations of the Muslim world and their philosophy and social mores that are antithetical to our Western values and beliefs. If that means closing the borders and returning those who are a threat, as well as those who harbor them, back to their homeland, so be it.
As Blow is so quick to point out in previous columns, we here in the US have enough home grown problems to contend with. We don't need to be importing more.
6:40am
The crescent of the Muslim world from north Africa, through the Middle East and up through central Asia is string of failed state. The mass of people are either enthralled or inured to the repressive, soul-crushing version of Islam shoved down their throats by a narrow-minded, puritanical theocracy. Some of this goes down easier when coated in oil wealth, but it is still there, all the same.
Without a more open society, there is no hope of this region ever being able to grow and provide the jobs for all those willing to work. Thus, the viscous cycle will just keep feeding on itself. Until the people themselves throw off their chains of bondage that is fanatical Islam, there is nothing we in the West can do - as has been proven by our ineffectual involvement in the region since the 19th century.
It is time for the West to turn its back on certain nations of the Muslim world and their philosophy and social mores that are antithetical to our Western values and beliefs. If that means closing the borders and returning those who are a threat, as well as those who harbor them, back to their homeland, so be it.
As Blow is so quick to point out in previous columns, we here in the US have enough home grown problems to contend with. We don't need to be importing more.
6:40am
15
You do realize, do you not, that you first accused the Muslim world of being a closed society and thus needing to be more open ... and, second, suggested the solution was for us to close our own society and borders.
My neighbor has built a castle and is preparing for war; he is wrong in doing so, but therefore, I must do the same.
Perhaps you are right that we must fend off war in its infancy by closing our Western worlds. But let's not sugar coat the hypocrisy.
My neighbor has built a castle and is preparing for war; he is wrong in doing so, but therefore, I must do the same.
Perhaps you are right that we must fend off war in its infancy by closing our Western worlds. But let's not sugar coat the hypocrisy.
1
They are failed states because of Western imperialism and colonialism. The Crusades were bad enough, with rampaging armies afflicting the Middle East, but one offshoot was Frankish Syria, a colony that stood for years and enriched its rulers and their backers in France. In modern times, American interference in Iran and later, in other oil-bearing countries, marks us as enemies of crass exploiters. As for failed states, what stands between the US and that status at this time?
1
I did not propose closing the borders to all immigrants, just those from certain Muslim countries that historically have been feeders to terrorist groups.
For the US and Europe to continually extend a helping hand to ungrateful extremist is foolhardy, if not down right suicidal.
For the US and Europe to continually extend a helping hand to ungrateful extremist is foolhardy, if not down right suicidal.
1
Terrorism is an effective weapon because of the way people react to terrorist acts.
In 2015, there were 372 mass shootings in the US (that is, shootings in which 4 or more people were injured), and over 13,000 people were killed with firearms. I do not by any means intend to trivialize the loss of life on 9/11, but the fact is that the number of people killed with firearms in the US in 2015 was over four times the number of people killed in 9/11. But the response to 9/11 was to launch two wars causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands more people, the destabilization of the Islamic world, and the draining of trillions of dollars out of our economy, while the national reation to the 13,000 plus shooting deaths is at most an expression of mild irritation.
This is not to say that the under-reaction to domestic gun deaths is especially admirable, but the point is that people ought to take a step back and ask themselves whether they are being sensible and balanced in how they react to terrorism. The self-inflicted damage resulting from US reaction to 9/11 almost certainly exceeded the wildest dreams of its perpetrators. Let’s not do that again.
In 2015, there were 372 mass shootings in the US (that is, shootings in which 4 or more people were injured), and over 13,000 people were killed with firearms. I do not by any means intend to trivialize the loss of life on 9/11, but the fact is that the number of people killed with firearms in the US in 2015 was over four times the number of people killed in 9/11. But the response to 9/11 was to launch two wars causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands more people, the destabilization of the Islamic world, and the draining of trillions of dollars out of our economy, while the national reation to the 13,000 plus shooting deaths is at most an expression of mild irritation.
This is not to say that the under-reaction to domestic gun deaths is especially admirable, but the point is that people ought to take a step back and ask themselves whether they are being sensible and balanced in how they react to terrorism. The self-inflicted damage resulting from US reaction to 9/11 almost certainly exceeded the wildest dreams of its perpetrators. Let’s not do that again.
534
Actually, the number of firearm deaths annually in the U.S. is around 33,000 people killed----not just 13,000 killed--- when self-injury is included.
1
We consider - or at least appear to from all the evidence - accept mass murder by our own citizens as an acceptable exchange for the "right" to amass arsenals in our homes. If I am free to own twenty guns, then I am okay with a neighbor shooting fifteen people - just as long as I am not one of them.
See? Really easy to understand. Terrorists speak a different language; shooters are just the guy next door.
See? Really easy to understand. Terrorists speak a different language; shooters are just the guy next door.
3
We need to remember that all the carnage done to other Americans by Americans with American made firearms is profitable to the firearms manufacturers.
Same with unnecessary wars in the Middle East, or anywhere else for that matter. There are profits involved and we know how sacred profits are to our fundamentalist politicians and their handlers.
Same with unnecessary wars in the Middle East, or anywhere else for that matter. There are profits involved and we know how sacred profits are to our fundamentalist politicians and their handlers.
5
“Terrorism remains highly concentrated with most of the activity occurring in just five countries — Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria. These countries accounted for 78 percent of the lives lost in 2014."
Oh, Charles. You (rightly) take a swipe at the "solutions" Republicans candidates for President offer to the terrorist threat, and conveniently ignore the Democratic front runner's fingerprints in the countries where most of the terrorism is taking place. It's this type of thinking that gives a pass to the very "leaders" who created the problems we're trying to solve.
Oh, Charles. You (rightly) take a swipe at the "solutions" Republicans candidates for President offer to the terrorist threat, and conveniently ignore the Democratic front runner's fingerprints in the countries where most of the terrorism is taking place. It's this type of thinking that gives a pass to the very "leaders" who created the problems we're trying to solve.
17
It is rather generous to credit HC with creating the problems Blow describes. The Middle East mess has been way more than four years in the making. Admittedly, Secretary of State Clinton and our other "leaders" have failed to solve many of them, as have our leaders for a century.
1
"The Middle East mess has been way more than four years in the making." I would say themes began early in the 7th century when you know what was founded by you know who...
1
It's interesting that Blow omits Israel when listing
militaristic, unstable states possessing nuclear weapons.
militaristic, unstable states possessing nuclear weapons.
87
Paat is obviously unaware that Israel is so militaristic it sends volunteers to help Syrian refugees in Jordan and Iraq; it is so militaristic that it warns civilians in Gaza of impending attacks, and that it is so militaristic it sent its army into Gaza to forcible remove Jewish settlers from that territory--only to receive thousands of deadly Hamas rockets in return. Paat is also obviously unaware that Israel has been the only democracy in the Mideast for sixty-seven years.
11
while what you point out to support your argument about israel's benevolence to it's arab neighbors may be true, you should also point out that by allowing the building of jewish settlements in the occupied territories, it is communicating to the world that it will never give up those areas to establish a palestinian state.
1
Yes, bias leads one to ignore facts every time.
3
From all that I've read, it appears that Mr. Blow is correct in his assessment that we are facing unprecedented challenges due to the scarcity of resources and the scarcity of jobs. There is one aspect of this scarcity that the column overlooks, however. The effects of scarcity are exacerbated by the deregulated capitalism that is embraced by conservatives and neo-liberals, both of whom have a deep and abiding faith that "the market" will sort all of this out. Here's how the market will sort it out: the small group of oligarchs who already control many of the scarce jobs and who are using the oversupply of workers to race to the bottom on wages will seize control of the scarce resources like water and sell them for a profit to their underpaid employees. In doing so they will increase corporate profits and reward their shareholders.
So far there is only one candidate who is speaking out against the current economic system of deregulated capitalism... but his ideas about a social democracy seem to make him "unelectable" in the eyes of pundits even though they seem to be gaining traction among voters. Maybe, just maybe, Bernie Sanders ideas about equity and justice make more sense than "the magic of the market". Here's hoping that in the net few weeks his ideas about how to fix the economy get as much coverage as Mr. Trump's "ideas" about fixing immigration and Mr. Cruz' "ideas" about patrolling Muslim neighborhoods...
So far there is only one candidate who is speaking out against the current economic system of deregulated capitalism... but his ideas about a social democracy seem to make him "unelectable" in the eyes of pundits even though they seem to be gaining traction among voters. Maybe, just maybe, Bernie Sanders ideas about equity and justice make more sense than "the magic of the market". Here's hoping that in the net few weeks his ideas about how to fix the economy get as much coverage as Mr. Trump's "ideas" about fixing immigration and Mr. Cruz' "ideas" about patrolling Muslim neighborhoods...
129
Bernie scares the elites, including the NYT and the DNC. They both profit from an uninformed electorate. Bernie speaks truth to power and Power clearly withers in the sunlight he shines on them.
They prefer endless wars with endless ways to soak the government through military contracts. Wars sell "papers" for news organizations, gives contracts, contractors give campaign cash to get more sweetheart deals, and a small sliver of the population gets employed carrying weapons in strange lands until they come home in a box. Now, that's democracy at work! That's the fabulous Invisible Fist of the marketplace robbing the country blind.
How many military contractors have contributed to Hillary? How many of them has she helped after they "donated" to the Clinton Foundation? How much hay will Trump make from the sweetheart deals she helped shepard through while secretary of state? Think about it friends. Hillary has no teflon coating because she isn't honest, she isn't trusted, she isn't liked, and she is a warmonger.
They prefer endless wars with endless ways to soak the government through military contracts. Wars sell "papers" for news organizations, gives contracts, contractors give campaign cash to get more sweetheart deals, and a small sliver of the population gets employed carrying weapons in strange lands until they come home in a box. Now, that's democracy at work! That's the fabulous Invisible Fist of the marketplace robbing the country blind.
How many military contractors have contributed to Hillary? How many of them has she helped after they "donated" to the Clinton Foundation? How much hay will Trump make from the sweetheart deals she helped shepard through while secretary of state? Think about it friends. Hillary has no teflon coating because she isn't honest, she isn't trusted, she isn't liked, and she is a warmonger.
"The effects of scarcity are exacerbated by the deregulated capitalism"
Aren't they also exacerbated by people exercising their "reproductive rights" and having lots of children? It wasn't capitalism which produced overpopulation.
(I am not defending unregulated capitalism - just pointing to another issue).
Aren't they also exacerbated by people exercising their "reproductive rights" and having lots of children? It wasn't capitalism which produced overpopulation.
(I am not defending unregulated capitalism - just pointing to another issue).
2
In the face of a sea of interlocking problems, requiring patience, vision, and a marathoner's determination, fools turn to simplistic solutions, and worse, simplistic slogans. Thinking things through is hard work, and sadly, it seems much of mankind is not equipped for that. Much easier to believe that the obstacles you face are look those of a wrestler in the WWE: a few snarls and insults at your opponent, a little boasting, one or two body slams and you win.
Obama never had a chance. That he was black only made it worse.
Obama never had a chance. That he was black only made it worse.
20
when assessing Obama's legacy, few will dispute that he was patient.
5
Obama has accomplished far more than any of his predecessors I can think of.
Two Roosevelts, Truman, Nixon, and Clinton all failed to enact any health care advance.
Castro and Cuba have seen 9 U.S. presidents come and go without any rapprochement, Heeeeree's Barack..........
Two Roosevelts, Truman, Nixon, and Clinton all failed to enact any health care advance.
Castro and Cuba have seen 9 U.S. presidents come and go without any rapprochement, Heeeeree's Barack..........
2
"32,685 in 2014"
Not good, but more people die in auto accidents every year, if another perspective can be added.
I will not live my life in fear, as the GOP wants me to do. I will not surrender to terrorists or to the GOP.
Not good, but more people die in auto accidents every year, if another perspective can be added.
I will not live my life in fear, as the GOP wants me to do. I will not surrender to terrorists or to the GOP.
62
I finally agree with Mr. Blow but where to find a serious leader on this side of the ocean is doubtful at best. Obama does the wave at a baseball game in Cuba then dances in Argentina while Brussels is recovering from a massive act of terrorism is disgraceful. The presidential potentials give vague speeches we have heard over and over again. Yes Mr. Blow we need serious leaders. I hope one emerges.
12
A gratuitous attack on Obama, but I suspect this is not your first time. A sitting president must do multiple tasks. Obama can open up Cuba, and condemn terrorism at the same time.
216
what he said was impressive. considering how things are improving around us, I wonder what he will say next...
4
I really can not see what the President can do for Brussels at this time. If he had cut his trip short and returned to the oval office what would you of had him do?
50
Western nations looking down on terrorism from their moral high ground should take a look at their own state terrorism inflicted on the world, especially the Middle East and Africa. The dark history of colonialism and slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries, (Belgium's atrocities in the Congo stagger the imagination,) the carving up of the Middle East after WW I, up to the "Shock and Awe" US invasion of Iraq, have led us to where we are today. The colonialism never ended; it changed forms to fit into a hypocrite morality. We are now living, and in some cases dying, with the results of centuries of exploitation.
Mr Blow is right about jobs. People who think they have nothing to live for find it easy to find something to die for.
Mr Blow is right about jobs. People who think they have nothing to live for find it easy to find something to die for.
91
Th jobs situation right here has people dying in the streets, either from gun wounds or from exposure. We have our own Taliban in the guise of survivalists with Bibles. We really don't have to look abroad to see what our values do to average people. Without jobs there is no hope, no security, nothing to lose, and most importantly, no reason to go on living.
If we do nothing or only tweak around the edges, the day will come when the tide of anger and despair rises to the level of present danger that simply not covering it in the news will not be able to tamp down.
If we do nothing or only tweak around the edges, the day will come when the tide of anger and despair rises to the level of present danger that simply not covering it in the news will not be able to tamp down.
2
Much of the radicalism in the Middle East is a response to the US's 63 year, and counting, Crusade of Morons.
Eisenhower deposes elected Iranian government, installs a brutal dictator. Results in the 36 year rule of the ayatollahs.
Reagan arms Afghan fundamentalists who change their name to the Taliban, who proceed give bin Laden sanctuary, al Qaida a home.
Andover Prep guy cheerleader, Viet Nam dodger Boy George Bush leads The Charge of The Fools Brigade into Iraq. Gives al Qaida another Field of Dreams. Concentrates captured AQ at Camp Bucca where they form ISIL.
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is insane.
Eisenhower deposes elected Iranian government, installs a brutal dictator. Results in the 36 year rule of the ayatollahs.
Reagan arms Afghan fundamentalists who change their name to the Taliban, who proceed give bin Laden sanctuary, al Qaida a home.
Andover Prep guy cheerleader, Viet Nam dodger Boy George Bush leads The Charge of The Fools Brigade into Iraq. Gives al Qaida another Field of Dreams. Concentrates captured AQ at Camp Bucca where they form ISIL.
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is insane.
445
We haven't had a legitimate foreign intervention since WW2 for that matter, and to expect us to learn anything from past mistakes is naive. The Pentagon blank check must forever remain blank.
15
Yep...that why we have all those terrorists from Central and Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia too, right? Face it - the problem is with Arabian Islam.
2
We handed Iraq over to the Iraqis and offered democracy to them on a plate. The Shia's loved it, the Sunni's did not. Once the U.S. left Iraq, the Shia just slaughtered their Sunni enemies in the same way Saddam slaughtered his enemies when he took over. All we did was oust one set of barbarians to be replaced by another. This is the pattern that is being repeated around the middle east. Democracy, peace and decency are not just dying to break out in the middle east if America will just stop meddling. This idea is a farcical myth and completely without merit. The middle east is not the victim of American intervention. It is the victim of Islam and hundreds of years of ignorance and repression by their religious beliefs and religious leaders. They are not a liberal progressive culture. They are a culture of repression and hatred for the other, even if that "other" is just another Muslim sect.
Charles missed a response to Brussels. It would be “frozen inability to do anything about it because it requires a diversion of resources from safety nets to military capacities needed to defend oneself”. To do otherwise in Europe today could result in blood in the streets.
He’s right, of course, that there are no easy answers. Coalitions won’t do it because coalition partners can’t contribute enough firepower to be meaningful and a real response means that the U.S. still must overwhelmingly dominate; and this administration certainly hasn’t the appetite for THAT. We keep crashing on the rocks of the inevitable conclusions that America doesn’t want to be the global policeman anymore but any other role for us that denies the world such a policeman inevitably results in massive destabilization. Or policing by Russian or Chinese standards of justice largely only within their spheres of influence.
What to do if you’re an American president who just wants to be left alone to Europeanize our culture and economy, and wants to take the money to do that from our military? Authorize another drone strike, I guess, in sheer frustration.
Charles argues for adult leaders with vision. The options we have are bombastic demagogues and the architect of the Libyan failure and the Sec. of State who missed seeing Arab Spring, then watched it die largely for lack of our support.
Then, there’s that old Stones ditty, “You can’t always get what you want …”
He’s right, of course, that there are no easy answers. Coalitions won’t do it because coalition partners can’t contribute enough firepower to be meaningful and a real response means that the U.S. still must overwhelmingly dominate; and this administration certainly hasn’t the appetite for THAT. We keep crashing on the rocks of the inevitable conclusions that America doesn’t want to be the global policeman anymore but any other role for us that denies the world such a policeman inevitably results in massive destabilization. Or policing by Russian or Chinese standards of justice largely only within their spheres of influence.
What to do if you’re an American president who just wants to be left alone to Europeanize our culture and economy, and wants to take the money to do that from our military? Authorize another drone strike, I guess, in sheer frustration.
Charles argues for adult leaders with vision. The options we have are bombastic demagogues and the architect of the Libyan failure and the Sec. of State who missed seeing Arab Spring, then watched it die largely for lack of our support.
Then, there’s that old Stones ditty, “You can’t always get what you want …”
6
@ Richard - Richard your statement: "It would be “frozen inability to do anything about it because it requires a diversion of resources from safety nets to military capacities needed to defend oneself”. To do otherwise in Europe today could result in blood in the streets."
You clearly are not studying the discussions going on in Germany and Sweden, the two countries taking in the greatest number of asylum seekers per capita population. Instead you simply fabricate a sentence based on your ideology.
I follow very closely the serious discussion going on in Sweden focused on three related essentials: Maintenance of social services especially health care, decent treatment of the 200,000 asylum seekers who entered Sweden in 2015, and improvement of the methods that must be developed to hold terrorism in check while maintain a free democratic society.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen-USA-SE
You clearly are not studying the discussions going on in Germany and Sweden, the two countries taking in the greatest number of asylum seekers per capita population. Instead you simply fabricate a sentence based on your ideology.
I follow very closely the serious discussion going on in Sweden focused on three related essentials: Maintenance of social services especially health care, decent treatment of the 200,000 asylum seekers who entered Sweden in 2015, and improvement of the methods that must be developed to hold terrorism in check while maintain a free democratic society.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen-USA-SE
19
Larry:
Sweden isn't Europe (less than 10 million among more than 500 million in the EU); and France, Italy and Spain, immensely more populous countries, are experiencing precisely the issues I described. What's more, the German people are seriously questioning the wisdom of Mrs. Merkel's immigration policies and may very well force a drastic modification in them.
Sweden isn't Europe (less than 10 million among more than 500 million in the EU); and France, Italy and Spain, immensely more populous countries, are experiencing precisely the issues I described. What's more, the German people are seriously questioning the wisdom of Mrs. Merkel's immigration policies and may very well force a drastic modification in them.
4
Rick thinks he's writing in some ridiculous right wing publication where the average reader cannot locate Iraq on a map.
History did not begin on January 20, 2009.
The idea that Obama is somehow weak on terrorism because he is hesitant to send the same soldiers to their fifth deployment is absurd.
Keyboard commandos like Rick, who, like myself, were fortunate to turn 18 the year the Vietnam War ended and did not have to die in some miserable far-off jungle, are always gung ho with OTHER PEOPLES' CHILDREN.
Also insane is Rick's conclusion that Obama wants to turn us into Europe, (God forbid---universal healthcare) and is somehow siphoning funds from the military when we continue to spend upwards of $600,000,000.00 per year on the military welfare state.
History did not begin on January 20, 2009.
The idea that Obama is somehow weak on terrorism because he is hesitant to send the same soldiers to their fifth deployment is absurd.
Keyboard commandos like Rick, who, like myself, were fortunate to turn 18 the year the Vietnam War ended and did not have to die in some miserable far-off jungle, are always gung ho with OTHER PEOPLES' CHILDREN.
Also insane is Rick's conclusion that Obama wants to turn us into Europe, (God forbid---universal healthcare) and is somehow siphoning funds from the military when we continue to spend upwards of $600,000,000.00 per year on the military welfare state.
11
President Obama has failed. He has about ten months left in office, and
he has the curse of a lame duck reflection staring at him. He will be unable
to lessen the burdens of a diminishing U.S./Israel and the Iranian/U.S. treaty.
Other festering problems, like terrorism, remain.
he has the curse of a lame duck reflection staring at him. He will be unable
to lessen the burdens of a diminishing U.S./Israel and the Iranian/U.S. treaty.
Other festering problems, like terrorism, remain.
6
You offer no proof of Obama's failure. It's his fault that madmen explode bombs in Brussels? Or the Middle East remains inane for thousands of years?
66
Failed at what? Fixing the destabilization of the Middle East sparked by the previous administration's invasion of Iraq based on lies about WMDs?
76
On the contrary. Mr Obama has succeeded where so many before him have not. In fact by historical standards, his work in Afghanistan and Iraq are nothing short of miraculous.
Thousands of years of intervention and history shows us this area is a quagmire. No one has succeeded and many have tried. Intervention in the Middle East has brought down Empires.
A fact the Bush Regime might have acknowledged had anyone bothered to take a single measured thought before rushing in like madmen, with reflections of vast wealth to be reaped reflected in their eyes.
Thousands of years of intervention and history shows us this area is a quagmire. No one has succeeded and many have tried. Intervention in the Middle East has brought down Empires.
A fact the Bush Regime might have acknowledged had anyone bothered to take a single measured thought before rushing in like madmen, with reflections of vast wealth to be reaped reflected in their eyes.
8
Finally! We have a tendency to treat climate change, refugees (and other migrants), economic insecurity, terrorism, authoritarianism, war, and overpopulation as discrete individual problems when they are, in fact, inextricably intertwined. And, yes, they require global leadership by enlightened, informed men and women who grasp the complexity of these issues and the reality that they impact all of humankind. Thank you Charles Blow!
126
It seems increasingly obvious that wealth and work are incompatible. There's no shortage of work that needs doing. Housing, healthcare, safe water and air, schools, infrastructure, conservation, safe energy, conflict prevention, human rights (specially for women) everything necessary for survival or a basic quality of life represents almost an endless list of work likely exceeding the global population seeking work. But there's no present way to pay for it because our economies are organized so almost all work is intended to efficiently generate wealth for owners.
Capitalism is predicated on scarcity, including scarcity of work to control wages so wealth is maximized for those who have and control it. Markets are mechanisms to price scarcity and determine value. As scarcity is diminished through technology, equitable distribution of resources and knowledge, new social arrangements, the need for markets to set value is lessened.
All this of course is communism which requires absolute conformity and submission to the larger enterprise with suppression of individuality and personal freedom. The progress of civilization is finding the right balance and forming the necessary consensus to drive the fundamental changes required to decouple wealth from work. I think it's inevitable. Maybe not for decades but eventually.
Every act of terror, every bomb is a message that wealth is a small lifeboat drifting in an ocean of desperate, drowning people.
Capitalism is predicated on scarcity, including scarcity of work to control wages so wealth is maximized for those who have and control it. Markets are mechanisms to price scarcity and determine value. As scarcity is diminished through technology, equitable distribution of resources and knowledge, new social arrangements, the need for markets to set value is lessened.
All this of course is communism which requires absolute conformity and submission to the larger enterprise with suppression of individuality and personal freedom. The progress of civilization is finding the right balance and forming the necessary consensus to drive the fundamental changes required to decouple wealth from work. I think it's inevitable. Maybe not for decades but eventually.
Every act of terror, every bomb is a message that wealth is a small lifeboat drifting in an ocean of desperate, drowning people.
315
"As scarcity is diminished through technology"
And the technological boom of the last 200 years was driven by...capitalism (and to some extent by the space and arms races). Your "analysis" is contradictory. A capitalist would say that the system uses the motivation of the markets (which have been in existence long before "capitalism") to create an efficient system of exploiting natural resources, labor, etc. for the common good. Far more efficient than, say, communism, whether in Russia, China or Cuba, proved to be.
And If you've been watching the oil market, for example, the ridiculousness of your assertion would be obvious.
Perhaps what you're trying to say is that there are people and corporations (and governments) who try to manipulate the markets for their personal gain at the expense of everyone else. But this is a critique of human imperfection, not of capitalism, unless you can demonstrate that capitalism enables this type of behavior more than other economic systems.
And the technological boom of the last 200 years was driven by...capitalism (and to some extent by the space and arms races). Your "analysis" is contradictory. A capitalist would say that the system uses the motivation of the markets (which have been in existence long before "capitalism") to create an efficient system of exploiting natural resources, labor, etc. for the common good. Far more efficient than, say, communism, whether in Russia, China or Cuba, proved to be.
And If you've been watching the oil market, for example, the ridiculousness of your assertion would be obvious.
Perhaps what you're trying to say is that there are people and corporations (and governments) who try to manipulate the markets for their personal gain at the expense of everyone else. But this is a critique of human imperfection, not of capitalism, unless you can demonstrate that capitalism enables this type of behavior more than other economic systems.
3
president Obama and Ben Carson could have easily drowned, but they didn't. however, their success wasn't guaranteed either. the combination of opportunity and real effort is the difference. don't say it's not possible, at least in our country.
2
Simple,
Obama was never in danger of "drowning" in poverty. He had a pretty middle class upbringing. Opportunity is not generally available in this country any longer. We are the developed nation with the greatest inequality and least social mobility. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you are living in the distant past.
Obama was never in danger of "drowning" in poverty. He had a pretty middle class upbringing. Opportunity is not generally available in this country any longer. We are the developed nation with the greatest inequality and least social mobility. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you are living in the distant past.
4
"We can't put our fate and the world's into the hands of leaders with small minds and big mouths."
This may be the best one sentence distillation of the threat posed by the current Republican candidates now on offer.
This may be the best one sentence distillation of the threat posed by the current Republican candidates now on offer.
340
"We can't put our fate and the world's into the hands of leaders with small minds and big mouths."
Nor can we put our fate and the world's into the hands of leaders with small fingers.
Nor can we put our fate and the world's into the hands of leaders with small fingers.
1
Didn't you really mean..."we can't put our fate and the world's into the BRAINS of leaders with small HANDS and big mouths"...
1
Charles tries to mix in too many things in this column. Yes, no doubt we need serious leaders, and in the immediate political context that means the Democrats and not the bombast/braggadocio of the Republicans. But then the column picks up the question of "global jobs," quoting his source's conclusion: “The war for global jobs is like World War II: a war for all the marbles. The global war for jobs determines the leader of the free world.” A very disturbing statement to say the least. I think Charles is positing that one root of a lot of problems including jihadism among Islamic youth and resentment among American working families is the absence of good jobs, and that the serious leaders of the world are going to have to figure out solutions to this worldwide "jobs" (I would replace this word with "incomes") problem. This "let's figure it out" mentality is the optimistic scenario that I would associate with Charles Blow. The quoted conclusion by Blow's source, however, is madly pessimistic. It suggests that we are in a fierce zero sum game where the reduced number of jobs ("the marbles") will be fought for among nations a la WW II. If that is what is in store for us (the world as a whole), I think we're finished.
5
The very idea of the peace and security of the world being endangered by the lack of jobs is an obscenity. We live in a world of excess. We live in a world where there is no shortage of food and shelter. Nowhere in Maslow's hierarchy of needs is the word job mentioned.
We have a planet in need of tender loving care and a population in need of affirmation and purpose.
What we have is Western economic model that created efficiency and means of production that require ever fewer people to provide the physical necessities.
We need more artists, philosophers, poets, companions, mentors, volunteers,students musicians and citizens. We need a new economic model that recognizes our reality we need evolution or we need to start over again. We have reached the society we sought to create and we the machine of its creation suddenly realize the goal when reached causes us to find purpose in the goal not the quest.
The story of Flint Michigan should make us all realize that it is the economy that is the problem. In the richest country in the world we have a city needing infrastructure, schools, cleanup, and labour. We have a man made disaster despite the needs being exactly what Charles Blow describes as the biggest problem :jobs.
In world in need of more PhDs in 18th century literature we have leaders calling for more engineers and technicians. Yet what is needed is more research scientists who follow their muse. We need creativity we have enough computers.
We have a planet in need of tender loving care and a population in need of affirmation and purpose.
What we have is Western economic model that created efficiency and means of production that require ever fewer people to provide the physical necessities.
We need more artists, philosophers, poets, companions, mentors, volunteers,students musicians and citizens. We need a new economic model that recognizes our reality we need evolution or we need to start over again. We have reached the society we sought to create and we the machine of its creation suddenly realize the goal when reached causes us to find purpose in the goal not the quest.
The story of Flint Michigan should make us all realize that it is the economy that is the problem. In the richest country in the world we have a city needing infrastructure, schools, cleanup, and labour. We have a man made disaster despite the needs being exactly what Charles Blow describes as the biggest problem :jobs.
In world in need of more PhDs in 18th century literature we have leaders calling for more engineers and technicians. Yet what is needed is more research scientists who follow their muse. We need creativity we have enough computers.
42
Lots of needs, Moe, all dear to my heart. But where's the money to come from? We seem to have created an inbred sub-species of greed and schlock. Remember that it was Newt Gingrich who cut funding for the NEA and PBS. We need a project for the return of Congress to the American people.
5
While I absolutely agree about the need for more artists, philosophers, poets and social scientists, I disagree that we have excess in general. What we have are a class of elite hoarders and an underclass of destitution.
6
dEs
Europe is well into its second year of negative interest rates. Canada's new budget is filled with infrastructure projects, education spending and aid to seniors. The Western Democracies are working it out.
Those wars in the mid-East were America's way of saying we have far too much money and no way of spending domestically lets see how we can burn it.
I live on the border and can see how money is defined on both sides of the border. In Canada money is becoming less and less a necessity where on the US side money becomes more and more your identity.
Take a look at the Canadian budget presented this week as we go forward into the future money becomes an abstraction and becomes significant only on a global level.
When the US can build toilets in Afghanistan at the price of 20 years salary for each head money seems rather abstract.
Congress has never belonged to the American people and the height of middle class wealth occurred in 1965 when Democracy reared its ugly head and people protested a war of greed in South East Asia.
Canada is headed to negative interests and the discussion has started on how best to store money
When the world economy is based on a commodity (money ) that exists in far too much abundance dealing with the abstraction becomes our major task.
We need philosophers not accountants.
Europe is well into its second year of negative interest rates. Canada's new budget is filled with infrastructure projects, education spending and aid to seniors. The Western Democracies are working it out.
Those wars in the mid-East were America's way of saying we have far too much money and no way of spending domestically lets see how we can burn it.
I live on the border and can see how money is defined on both sides of the border. In Canada money is becoming less and less a necessity where on the US side money becomes more and more your identity.
Take a look at the Canadian budget presented this week as we go forward into the future money becomes an abstraction and becomes significant only on a global level.
When the US can build toilets in Afghanistan at the price of 20 years salary for each head money seems rather abstract.
Congress has never belonged to the American people and the height of middle class wealth occurred in 1965 when Democracy reared its ugly head and people protested a war of greed in South East Asia.
Canada is headed to negative interests and the discussion has started on how best to store money
When the world economy is based on a commodity (money ) that exists in far too much abundance dealing with the abstraction becomes our major task.
We need philosophers not accountants.
5
The smoke from the bombs in Brussels was still drifting skyward when the American Right blamed it all on [President] Obama. To their short-sighted annoyance, the president isn't doing nearly enough to defeat them. Europe has Paris and Brussels; we have San Bernardino. No reasonable person doubts that new, hellish venues are planned here.
President Obama is laboring to do his responsible best, both domestically and with our "allies" (see his interview in The Atlantic for more on "free riders"); however, unless the ISIS nest is destroyed, the hatching vipers will slither away to new places, and with their venom, spread their killing poisons.
We are indebted to the president who "kept us safe" for the Manhattan project (no pun intended) that eventually produced ISIS. When arrogance and ignorance trump (again, no pun intended) vigilance, then a couple of towers on Lower Manhattan come down and people are either incinerated or die in a red mist on the street thousands of feet below.
ISIS may be insoluble. Middle East nation-states refuse to denounce them. The president's "free riders" look the other way (I'm looking at you, House of Saud) and open their vast treasuries to extremists of Islam who are still living in the sixth century.
Neither Donald Trump nor Ted Cruz nor John Kasich have the first grasp of the complexities of this out-of-control group. They would destroy it. They don't say how because talk is easy. But we know ISIS "is all Obama's fault."
Right, W (and Cheney)?
President Obama is laboring to do his responsible best, both domestically and with our "allies" (see his interview in The Atlantic for more on "free riders"); however, unless the ISIS nest is destroyed, the hatching vipers will slither away to new places, and with their venom, spread their killing poisons.
We are indebted to the president who "kept us safe" for the Manhattan project (no pun intended) that eventually produced ISIS. When arrogance and ignorance trump (again, no pun intended) vigilance, then a couple of towers on Lower Manhattan come down and people are either incinerated or die in a red mist on the street thousands of feet below.
ISIS may be insoluble. Middle East nation-states refuse to denounce them. The president's "free riders" look the other way (I'm looking at you, House of Saud) and open their vast treasuries to extremists of Islam who are still living in the sixth century.
Neither Donald Trump nor Ted Cruz nor John Kasich have the first grasp of the complexities of this out-of-control group. They would destroy it. They don't say how because talk is easy. But we know ISIS "is all Obama's fault."
Right, W (and Cheney)?
148
I'm not sure which is worse. W or JV.
2
Just to pile on a bit, I always wonder why the GOP that shills for the Military Industrial Complex imagine it is the United States President's responsibility to keep the world safe. Is he President of the "World"? Europe is a grown up collection of nations. They have their own mechanisms in place to combat "bad things". And yet this is somehow Mr. Obama's fault?
What happened in Brussels is a complex issue. As ever the Republicans want to reduce it to the childhood game of cops and robbers. Judging by the myriad Trump followers, it's working.
What happened in Brussels is a complex issue. As ever the Republicans want to reduce it to the childhood game of cops and robbers. Judging by the myriad Trump followers, it's working.
4
Overpopulation has to be addressed and that in turn means confronting beliefs shared by major religions, many which run counter to observablr reality. This will be difficult at best, but if not approached, and in fact if not overcome, all of us religious or not will be put in the position where an afterlife of whoever's invention is the only option.
By no measure is this reasonable, which should give any person who thinks some pause.
By no measure is this reasonable, which should give any person who thinks some pause.
26
Responsible Reproduction should be the (international) mantra for the 21st Century, for people having babies who have no business doing so - lacking, as they do, the means and/or maturity - is at the root of almost all social ills.
4
Patrick,
You are spot on. But to address the problem will require that we come to grips with the bitterest of truths and admit that oft repeated ideological claims are just words...
You are spot on. But to address the problem will require that we come to grips with the bitterest of truths and admit that oft repeated ideological claims are just words...
The lack of good jobs is at the heart of the rise of the Trump movement. It is also at the heart of the Sanders campaign. Of these two men, of course, only Sanders is fit to be President. His diagnosis of the problem gets to another central element to the malaise across the globe: the abject failure of American-style capitalism. An economic philosophy devoted to exploitation and greed creates many of the problems that we have to solve collectively and offers none of the solutions. A well-regulated and controlled capitalist system is desirable; the chaotic mess we have created, which benefits only the very rich at the expense of everyone else, is unsustainable.
The US has frequently proven that its foreign policy establishment is grossly incompetent. Hearing Hillary Clinton shamelessly and frighteningly pander to AIPAC the other day (Israel is the victim in its conflict with the Palestinians? Really? Lots of dead, impoverished, dispossessed Palestinians may argue otherwise) underlined exactly how poor the choices are for the American Presidency. Sanders is the only option that seems to possess both decency and a certain level of wisdom.
The US has frequently proven that its foreign policy establishment is grossly incompetent. Hearing Hillary Clinton shamelessly and frighteningly pander to AIPAC the other day (Israel is the victim in its conflict with the Palestinians? Really? Lots of dead, impoverished, dispossessed Palestinians may argue otherwise) underlined exactly how poor the choices are for the American Presidency. Sanders is the only option that seems to possess both decency and a certain level of wisdom.
261
Sanders is the voice of one who sees in the land of the willfully blind.
The abject failure of American style capitalism? Really? Is that Sanders's core message? If so, it will not sell to the majority of Americans. Sure, American capitalism has its problems. What economic system doesn't? (Not, the world cannot all be like Norway, but the US is right behind them in per capita GDP, a rather important measure regarding quality of life, which is pretty dang good here, all things considered.) Democracy has its problems, too, but as Churchill pointed out, it's "the worst form of government, except for all the others."
I wish we could restore Eisenhower era tax rates as much as the next guy, but it won't happen anytime soon, no matter who's president. To bet otherwise is foolish.
I wish we could restore Eisenhower era tax rates as much as the next guy, but it won't happen anytime soon, no matter who's president. To bet otherwise is foolish.
2
Where were Senator Sanders and all the other "liberal elites" when BIG democracy-destroying money interests started taking over America when Wall Street enthroned Ronald Reagan? They were riding the gravy train. They could have stopped this then and didn't. They sold out, too. Now is the time to vote for the MOST QUALIFIED CANDIDATE WITH THE MOST NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL CAPITAL - Ms. Hillary Rodham Clinton. The first female President in America's 240 year HIS story. Let's make it OUR story.
3
"We can’t put our fate and the world’s into the hands of leaders with small minds and big mouths. This election and everything the next president will face is “for all the marbles.”"
We should be putting our collective fate in the hands of people who are all that and also not beholden to the moneyed interests that have swayed policy makers all too often. We should consider the effect of our collective greed and our support for oppressive regimes, in the interest of our commercial interests, and not the collective good of the nations they rule over.
The appeal of terrorist organizations always includes a history of oppression on the part of those who join them. Merely bombing ISIS out of existence isn't the answer. As Medgar Evers most famously said, "you can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea."
Here is Bernie Sanders' interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper on Monday. This is one of the rare times when Sanders was given an opportunity to talk about foreign policy, including his views on Israel, Palestine, human rights, and... ISIS. http://wp.me/p2KJ3H-28b
We should be putting our collective fate in the hands of people who are all that and also not beholden to the moneyed interests that have swayed policy makers all too often. We should consider the effect of our collective greed and our support for oppressive regimes, in the interest of our commercial interests, and not the collective good of the nations they rule over.
The appeal of terrorist organizations always includes a history of oppression on the part of those who join them. Merely bombing ISIS out of existence isn't the answer. As Medgar Evers most famously said, "you can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea."
Here is Bernie Sanders' interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper on Monday. This is one of the rare times when Sanders was given an opportunity to talk about foreign policy, including his views on Israel, Palestine, human rights, and... ISIS. http://wp.me/p2KJ3H-28b
92
The rub is an idea, even if it wrong, can't be killed.
5
Ian,
Exactly. It's about the underlying conditions for that idea to thrive in. You could bomb all of Syria and the ISIS-held parts of Iraq right now and you still would not eradicate ISIS. Where did ISIS come from? Who promoted and supported it? Why? Who is attracted to it? Why? What are the living conditions of the people who join it? What is the history?
It's fine to talk about air strikes and no-fly zones. We did that in other places, most recently in Libya. How did that work out?
Exactly. It's about the underlying conditions for that idea to thrive in. You could bomb all of Syria and the ISIS-held parts of Iraq right now and you still would not eradicate ISIS. Where did ISIS come from? Who promoted and supported it? Why? Who is attracted to it? Why? What are the living conditions of the people who join it? What is the history?
It's fine to talk about air strikes and no-fly zones. We did that in other places, most recently in Libya. How did that work out?
28
Is that the best you can come up with Rima? Besides you hero proposes to do what Obama is now doing--nothing. Absolutely nothing. Bernie Sanders has absolutely no foreign policy experience and he doesn't have a clue as to how he real world works.
The attack in Belgium had nothing to do with real or imagined oppression. ISIS terrorists kill for sport to see how many innocent people they can take out with one blow.
The attack in Belgium had nothing to do with real or imagined oppression. ISIS terrorists kill for sport to see how many innocent people they can take out with one blow.
9
and so, candidate clinton, adds her own bluster, "calling for," as the nyt first draft column headline rightly has it, an "intelligence surge," sounding just like weathermen/women (the ones on tv!) "calling for" rain or sun", themselves having nothing to do with either...in this vein, the pols "call for"
fair tax policies, equal opportunity, infrastructure repair and renewal, two eggs, over easy, rye toast and coffee...
nothing happens...nobody, it seems, is up for heavy lifting or long hours...what we have here is a privileged class of place holders, keeping the "college of corporations" (see"network" again) safe from we the people....a one page tax form that treats everyone over a poverty line - set it where it has to be - the same, is not that hard to imagine (guess why it won't fly pas the congress)...equal opportunity for work and education needs only oversight, ok strict oversight, move in to places where it's not happening and block traffic until it does (every school gets the same everything, reform the system later if that's your thing, put everyone without work to work for a living wage fixing the infrastructure)...even unintended consequences, usually grim, may start looking good...full employment and fair taxes will easily handle to costs of college in state institutions and medical care for all.
as for intelligence...stop talking, pay attention.