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A Contrarian View of History and Events
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Doug Wead's blog
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07 October, 2009, 13:19 Obama’s changes. Can you believe in them?
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Once in office, presidents often change their opinion or just “forget” their campaign promises. And they are notorious for saying falsehoods. Of course, we all “forget” and misspeak but because presidents do it in living color on the public stage it can be a little more embarrassing. Obama’s situation is a bit different. We cut him a lot of slack because he is our first African American president and that alone makes us feel good about ourselves. But his changes have come so fast and furiously that he is on the verge of losing respect as a leader. And poll after poll affirms that leadership is the single most important quality we want in a president.
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In 1980, Ronald Reagan made prayer in school and abortion big deals in his campaign, but never touched the subjects or proposed legislation on them in the eight years of his presidency. He called for the abolition of the Department of Education - instead he grew it.
In 1988, George H. W. Bush ran as “the ethics president,” promising to upgrade the office of government ethics and make it answerable directly to the president. But he never did a thing about it. The position remained a low-level slot which answered to the Director of OPM. He also said, “Read my lips, no new taxes,” but he raised them anyway.
In 1992, Bill Clinton ran for health care reform but when his ideas crashed on the rocks in his first year and helped elect a Republican majority in congress the second year he never brought it back again. He ignored it for the rest of his eight years. And btw, he famously said, “I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky.” But we all know about that.
In 2000, George W. Bush ran against nation building, but after the election committed billions of dollars to Iraq and Afghanistan. We know the story of Saddam Hussein’s bogus uranium purchases in his State of the Union address.
So all presidents forget or change their minds or tell lies. Even so, Reagan was a consistent foe to Soviet Imperial expansion and ended the Cold War. Clinton balanced the budget. Bush the younger kept us safe after 9/11. They all have some bragging rights. And they all have moments of leadership. The problem for President Obama, at least for now, is that nothing is clear. No promise is sacred. Everything is on the table. There are no fixed stars to guide his course. His liberalism is indeed open-ended existentialism.
He said he wouldn’t tax the middle class, but his massive infusion of new paper money will eventually amount to a tax on all Americans and will hurt the poor the hardest, as inflation always does. And it looks like he will tax the middle class anyway. He just won’t admit it. He is using devices, such as redefining the middle class as a means to confuse the public.
He promised a non-partisan Washington, but used the economic crisis as a cover for passing a massive political pay-out to unions, gays and democrat shill organizations.
He is on again, off again on tort reform and a “public option” in his health plan.
He promised new jobs through a program that would rebuild the infrastructure, it was one of the few suggestions that critics felt had some merit, but then he set the timetables so far off that no immediate meaningful jobs appeared. It provided little relief for the economic crisis and unemployment is up.
He ran against the Bush fumbling of the mortgage crisis but refuses even to tweak the simplest banking rules that would allow millions of homeowners to stay in their own homes and unleash new investors who which would raise the values of those homes. All of his noise and promises offer relief to a tiny percentage of homeowners. This is a tragic and extravagant lost opportunity.
He ran against the overstretched military that is breaking up families, causing divorces and spiking suicide rates and now he is sending those same boys back again and again. So what is different?
He is against tort reform, he is for tort reform. He thinks the doctors are scamming the system, he thinks doctors are the leading the way. He is for a public option in the healthcare plan, he is against it.
He ran for change you can believe in, but the only things changing are his daily positions. And yes, he has a lot of goodwill, especially in the liberal media, who cast any opposition to any policy or position as racist, although that tactic didn’t work with the International Olympic Committee, leaving the president and his team a bit stunned.
The problem is that some of these changes are beginning to reach critical mass.
From the standpoint of presidential history, once an opinion sets in – positive or negative – it is very hard to erase. So this president should be very careful. He needs to stand for something, whatever it may be. He needs to avoid the reputation of uncertain and unprincipled leadership. It would almost have been better politically for him to have stood up to the doctors yesterday and gotten booed, and let the nation see him as a leader, than to contradict himself again by playing to his audience.
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01 October, 2009, 15:12 Russia: Land of Opportunity
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What country’s individual tax rate tops out at 13%?
Hint: It isn’t the USA where federal and local taxes in New York are projected to reach a 57% bite. If you are rich? Move to Florida or Nevada to avoid State Income Tax. If you wanna be rich? Move to this new “land of opportunity.”
What country’s higher education fosters a curiosity and practical involvement for its student body in free enterprise?
Hint: It isn’t the USA where, ironically, the very corporations who fund university endowments are seen as the enemy by professors and students alike. They are viewed as polluters and exploiters of a beleaguered laboring class. But in this country, this new “land of opportunity,” the professors, themselves, own real estate businesses, factories and sit on the boards of directors of major corporations.
Meanwhile, state corporate taxes in the USA have reached scandalous proportions and all but kill chances for a new, emerging, small business. For example, all fifty states have higher corporate taxes than the nation of France, which has the fifth highest corporate taxes in the world and is frequently held out as the poster child of anti-small business and entrepreneurs. And in this country, the maximum federal and regional corporate tax is 20%.
What country has sensible consumers who pay their bills on time and save their money? Only one in 100 even carries a credit card? Where capital investment potential abounds?
Hint. It is surely not the USA where Americans carry 450 million Visa cards alone and where their credit card debt approaches $2 trillion.
What country is a true melting pot of religion, culture and race, where Muslims, Jews and Christians live and work side by side and their values are openly appreciated?
Hint. Not here in the good old USA, where government and big business restrict language and clothing in schools and the public marketplace. (I have a friend who writes screenplays for television movies. He tells me that “Jesus” cannot be mentioned on one of the networks except as a curse word.)
What country boasts an airline where the stewardesses are still tall, trim, bright and attractive? They still smile at their passengers, and wear elegant white gloves as part of their smart uniforms.
Hint. It isn’t the USA where a $15,000, first class, round trip international ticket on a US airline will get you a bitter, grouchy stewardess, who hates her job, her passengers but has union guarantees that virtually prevent her from ever being fired.
Answer to all the above?
Russia.
Welcome to the new land of opportunity.
Yes, there are still problems galore in Russia. The roads outside of the major cities are still in disrepair. Grade schools are awful. Airline equipment is dated, even for the clever, well-run, Rossiya Airline. The government still struggles to deal with endemic corruption. (If security personnel at the airport will steal your coins going through the x-ray machine, which happened to me, it kinda makes you wonder how vulnerable they would be to a bribe by a terrorist).
The biggest problem of all? Excessive regulation. Perhaps it’s a hangover from the Soviet years that was needed to combat corruption, or maybe it’s just part of the Russian DNA. A new restaurant, for example, faces endless government regulations not only regarding hiring, but even regarding the choice of entrees on a menu also. And such rules not only limit the imagination of their people, they are cleverly exploited by competitors to block the emergence of any newcomers.
In complex industries, like “Direct Sales”, the state parliament Duma is vulnerable to manipulation by big companies who seek monopolies by regulating competitors out of the market. Members of the Duma must be generalists and cannot be experts on everything so some will be innocently led by foreign companies seeking to “clean up” their industry. The result? Expect new regulations that will confine and harass their own Russian workforce and limit their income opportunities, all to the advantage of big foreign corporations.
Nevertheless, Russia under Putin brought law and order to the streets, began an aggressive campaign against corruption and released an entrepreneurial spirit that is quickly producing a growing middle class and a Russian nouveau riche. When the “dreamers” and “doers” outnumber the “takers” Russia will truly explode. The atmosphere is right. Immigrants, the bane of fortress America, are welcome in Russia where they are needed and wanted.
And the Russian Miracle is not just a Moscow–St. Petersburg phenomenon. There are business and cultural zones now popping up all over the Russian landscape. For example, Putin helped the city of Kazan win the 2013 Universiade. The city is being transformed in preparation. Yekaterinburg is a showcase city. Distant Khabarovsk has it all. Booming Black Sea resort Sochi will host the 2014 Winter Olympics and anyone who has visited this exotic city can tell you that it will forever after become one of the world’s glamour spots.
So when President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin sit down together in the coming days to discuss their relationship and their future, they hold the hopes and dreams of millions in their hands. And they are on the verge of history. What has happened in Russia, its diversification, its wise use of the oil boom, its new freedoms for the marketplace now make it a “land of opportunity.” And just in time for a world in global crisis.
26 August, 2009, 14:51 Rand Paul Shakes Down the Thunder
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Just when the national media and the elitist doorkeepers of the G.O.P. thought they had the wiry, incorruptible, troublemaking congressman Ron Paul of Texas locked tightly in their dungeon, never to see the light of day, excluded by their establishment magazines and television networks – well, almost - and counting the hours until the old man kicks the bucket and lets them fight wars and spend money in peace, lo and behold, the congressman has a son.
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Rand Paul. He is the third son to Congressman Ron Paul, that troublemaker from Texas. And believe me, the son is trouble too. And that starts with “T” and that rhymes with “P” and that stands for pool, as in Pool Hall. I mean, Rand Paul.
Rand is a 46-year-old eye surgeon from Bowling Green, Kentucky, and he is in the race for the Senate in Kentucky. And yes, I mean “in the race.” Not just running for money or a bestseller or the lecture circuit. I mean running, as in very possibly winning. As in, look out establishment, here comes the real thing.
Rand Paul has all of the most popular positions of the libertarian-Republican movement and none of the baggage, and he is a powerhouse of a fundraiser. The last bomb has grossed over $700,000 and is climbing as I clack at the key board. (Want to contribute? Go to http://www.randpaul2010.com/)
This news must make the establishment desperate. And terribly frustrated. There will be summits at Camp David, the Greenbrier, the Cheney Ranch in Wyoming and Kennebunkport. The Skull and Bones will retreat to their island for a barbecue and some serious discussion. The network chiefs will dine together in white pants and blue blazers with golden buttons at a nice fish restaurant on Nantucket and brainstorm on how to get Roger Ailes back in the stable and cooperating in keeping the Pauls out of the green room at FOX. While their sun-blackened, anorexic wives will talk about how to benefit the poor, which will seem to them to be just about everybody else who is not at their table.
It must be tough to be in the conspiracy these days. No one reads your newspapers or listens to your highly-paid correspondents. All of your secrets are published online. Is there no end to the mischief that freedom of speech can do in this country? What is the establishment to think? With the multiple television networks making it nigh impossible to keep the ornery truth from occasionally rearing its head and with the Glenn Beck cannon rolling like thunder from one end of the ship to the other, breaking the furniture as it goes. And then there is that darned Internet and Al Gore, a traitor to his class, providing facts at the most inappropriate times. And people asking commonsense, irritating questions about stupid government decisions, and comments popping up like mushrooms after a rainstorm.
Questions like, “Well, okay, why DON’T we audit the Federal Reserve? What is so onerous and evil about that? Would the Soviets launch missiles if we did? Would it cost too much?” And comments like, “The government has spent more money this year than it did in the first 100 years of the Republic.” Ugh, I hate it when my side gets their history wrong.
And now here comes Rand Paul, sounding reasonable and looking like a movie star. Oh groan. But asking the same reasonable questions that his father asked. Where’s the change? We still have the war bigger than ever, we still have lobbyists bigger than ever, we still have the debt bigger than ever, we still have political favoritism and cronyism bigger than ever. New president, new lies. But same direction. Down. Is this change you can believe in? Yes, sadly, it surely is. This is the kind of change some of us feared.
And Rand Paul, the son, has captured the angst of the electorate. He is right on the issues, right on the solutions, and he has even more of something that Ron Paul, the father, doesn’t have. Time. At least one hopes so.
So what will the establishment do with Rand Paul if he gets into the US Senate? Six years? Can you imagine? Believe me, they will do everything, EVERYTHING, in their power to keep him out.
Wanna have some fun? Wanna protest the insanity in government? Wanna let the world know that you are alive and kickin’? Wanna let those powerful journalists who think you can be manipulated know that you are no longer limited to their spoon-fed half truths? Then punch that button one more time. Here it is. http://www.randpaul2010.com/ And add your dollars to the most exciting political game in town. Protest this change in government.
And in the meantime, a memo to Dr. Rand Paul? Don’t you be flying in private planes, ya hear?
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About author
Doug Wead is a presidential historian and New York Times bestselling author. He served in the White House of George Herbert Walker Bush and is the co-founder of Mercy Corps, a relief organization that has distributed $US 1.5 billion of food and medicine around the world.
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10 October, 2009, 01:58
All poloticians lie I guess that if they didn’t they wouldn’t be elected. Better to hear a nice lie than a hard truth.
"So all presidents forget or change their minds or tell lies. Even so, Reagan was a consistent foe to Soviet Imperial expansion and ended the Cold War. Clinton balanced the budget. Bush the younger kept us safe after 9/11. They all have some bragging rights."
Actually the Soviet Union collapse because it was withheld banking loans and depreciation in the value of oil which the Soviet system had it not received banking loans from western banks collapsed under all the regimes.
By the 70’s taking advantage of the Jackson-Vanik amendment the USSR used it as a conduit for the black market economy to keep the Soviet economy afloat.
And it had more to do with estimations of Europe’s future energy demands calculate during the mid 70’s Europe’s future would be dependent on Eurasian oil and gas then under USSR control hence Brezinski/Gates initiative under Carter administration to secretly train and finance Afghan Islamic guerrillas 6 months prior to the Soviet invasion hence it’s strategic position to push into Central Asia and the wars in Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Islamic insurgency in Xinjing and Kashmir. All of which perhaps maybe Kashmiri separatists are supported and financed by the CIA through organisations like NED. No coincidence that Brezinski was and is at the forefront who policy and lobbying against Serbia and Russia.
In fact if you notice all the areas of highest Islamic fighting since the collapse of the USSR they are in geo-political areas with untaped oil reserves to be developed like Algeria.
In the Balkans Clinton and his staff helped facilitate the establishment of international terrorism in Europe including Bin Laden personally meeting the President of Bosnia in 95 as well as Atta and KSM.
As for bush protecting the US after 9/11 the fact that not a single terror cell has been convicted planning attacks against the US on domestic soil or credible evidence for Intel of an attack from abroad and even the CFR admitted the Taliban were not supporting Al Qaeda and Bin Laden did not run the camps in Afghanistan and there is no evidence connecting Afghanistan and Bin Laden to 9/11 (check out his FBI most wanted list on there website). The Taliban itself was created in the mid 90’s by the CIA/ISI.
And all the links lead to the hijackers are the US closest allies Britain, Germany, France, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
So Bush has helped spur the decline of the US dollar by getting it in trillions of dollars in debt by launching pointless protractive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, massive hike in the defence budget and continuing borrowing from abroad .
08 October, 2009, 20:32
Bogdanov,
I think that Gorbachev realized that Russia was militarily extended beyond its economic capacity. Given this fact, a major transition was inevitable. Gorbachev tried to ease Russia out of it’s unsustainable empire status, but when you shift the foundation the building is almost certain to crumble no matter how careful you are. I don’t think Gorbachev’s decision to not intervene as the eastern satellites began defecting was done out of benevolence but with the realization that Russia could simply not afford such a venture.
I believe my country is now rapidly approaching the same position that Russia was in twenty years ago. I think that our own recent decision to not install missiles in Poland and Czech Republic is done largely because of the same circumstances Russia was faced with at the time. Obama is smart enough to realize that we are nearly maxed out and that extending our full military umbrella to those areas will cost far more than the benefits.
Remember how Gorbachev’s new found friends, Reagan/Bush, repaid Russia’s decision to back down by extending the U.S. empire virtually to Russia’s own front door? Well, I think that Medvedev/Putin will respond to my own country’s regression with the same feigned concern. I think Russia’s recent flexing in Georgia and other areas, with little more than token opposition from U.S. is a sign of the times to come.
So, while I agree with your assessment that Gorbachev is probably viewed by most Russians in a negative light, I should point out that if he had not been so realistic about the situation and instead tried to maintain an overextended position for much longer, then the Russia of today would be in a far worse position than it is. You have to break something down first in order to rebuild it better, and Gorbachev’s destruction was actually the precursor to Russia’s phoenix.
And regarding your confusion about U.S. politics, don’t feel bad as I have the same problem. My country is increasingly becoming polarized between extreme capitalism and extreme socialism. When compromise is considered a dirty word, failure is inevitable. The dichotomy is just as absurd on social issues, but it is the economic dysfunction that will bring us down.
08 October, 2009, 03:59
A couple of thoughts...
1. Obama came ahead of his time. America is not ready yet for him. And, therefore, he is not understood by the nation. Americans brought him on the top of the Hill by storm and nowadays seem surprised themselves what they have done. And that confuses Obama. From one hand we won because people wanted to see the change he was talking about. From the other hand, when he is trying to do what he promised, Americans refuse to accept it. This may explain this uncertainty he exhibits these days. I would be freaked out as well.
2. I, personally, think that Obama's purpose and his role in the history of America is not yet defined and understood. It will be known some time later. Similar to Gorbachev, who arrived on the horizon of the struggling Soviet political system as a agent of change and hope. And he triggered the events which dramatically changed the country. In that sense, he, clearly, fulfilled that role -- Russia is quite different today comparing to the moment when he took control of the country. But, ironically, Gorbachev played his role as a Destroyer. And, in the memory of Russians he will remain as a weak leader. He was popular abroad, but unpopular in his country. Because, the country transformation didn't go the way Gorbachev planned originally. And it didn't go the way Russians expected and hoped. And that transformation was painful and ugly. But, at the end, Russia turned to the country which many Russians would, probably, prefer.
So, I am thinking, -- may be Obama's role is to change the American society? And this is not about what Obama wants or what Americans want. Only God knows where it suppose and will go. May be the time has come. Possibly, in 20 years or something Americans will find that they live in pretty much different country. And, they may be pleased by that.
3. I do not completely understand, why Americans are always whining about their Presidents and Governments. Isn't it a Capitalist country where everybody suppose to be responsible for themselves and do not expect anybody else solving their problems? Or this is a State Socialism (like USSR), there government takes responsibility for its citizens? So, I am confused...
07 October, 2009, 12:23
The quality "YOU" want in a president?
His color is of no importance to me,
He makes no changes although he tries.
I do not like him, because he has the hopes of many many American people pinned upon him...
and he is going to fail miserably,
because he has a war on his hands, and the American people just blindly follow a false hope.