May 15, 2008 archive

For Pundits The future Is Placed Squarely In The Past

Thursday’s Headlines: Republican Election Losses Stir Fall Fears: United Way to Target Health, Education and Income: New aid setback as storm nears Burma: Afghanistan: What hope is there for the lost children of the bazaar?: Ancient bust of Caesar found in French river: EU broadens inquiry into drug market: Political clashes underline limits to intelligence reform: Bridging a cultural Gulf promises a new media era in Middle East: Chavez tells Colombia not to build base for US

China airdrop for quake survivors

China is mobilising 30,000 extra troops and 90 more helicopters to help with the rescue operation after Monday’s devastating earthquake.

About 10 million people in Sichuan province have been directly affected by the 7.9 quake that flattened entire villages, state media said.

Nearly 15,000 people are known to have been killed, and another 26,000 are still trapped in the rubble.

Troops and helicopters will bring food and water to rescue survivors.

They will add to the efforts of almost 50,000 soldiers and police already despatched to the region to dig any remaining survivors out of the rubble and bring food, medicine and drinking water to those made homeless.

Winding Mountain Road Becomes Tenuous Lifeline

ZIPINGPU, China, May 14 — The road leading to the epicenter of Monday’s massive earthquake still wasn’t clear of obstacles, but stretches of it had been transformed into major staging areas. As workers arrived to check the safety of an ancient dam, soldiers and rescue teams massed before heading to remote mountain villages where thousands are believed to be trapped.

Trucks, ambulances and buses full of people and supplies jammed the winding mountain road, which is cracked or cratered in some places and narrows to half a lane in others because of rockslides. Some of the vehicles inching back down the road Wednesday were loaded with dazed passengers — those who had been strong enough to walk for hours on wooded paths from otherwise inaccessible mountain towns, carrying a few possessions and memories of devastation unlike anything they had ever seen.

Support disaster relief in Myanmar (Burma) Through the UN

How bad is it to be a Republican?

“Really the mistake they have made is to nationalize these elections when the national image is poisonous for Republicans right now,” explained Craig Shirley, a Republican strategist with Shirley Bannister Public Relations. “What they should do is focus on local affairs. When you are sending in big time politicians from Washington and cater to the national media, you are reminding people why they are upset with the Republican Party in the first place.”

…

“This is as bad as I can remember since post Watergate,” said Shirley. “It was so bad in 1974 after Gerald Ford was nominated for Vice President that there was a special election for his congressional district, which had been Republican since the civil war, and it went Democratic… The fact is that these are comparable races. These are all three seats that have been in GOP hands for a long, long time… Ultimately voters want to know what a politician is going to do for them. What has happened with the Republican Party over the last eight years is that some of the consultants have decided it is too hard to define what we stand for so we are just going to paint Democrats as worse than us.”

…

“This is 1994 all over again,” Frank Luntz, a famed Republican communications consultant, told The Huffington Post. “I was there. I saw it firsthand. The Republicans of 2008 are behaving exactly like the Democrats of ’94 and making exactly the same mistakes. It’s pathetic.”

GOP Adviser: This is ’94 In Reverse, We’re Pathetic

Sam Stein, The Huffington Post

May 14, 2008 04:49 PM

“The political atmosphere facing House Republicans this November is the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than the fall of 2006, when we lost 30 seats (and our majority) and came within a couple of percentage points of losing another 15 seats,” Rep. Tom Davis, a moderate Northern Virginia Republican who previously headed the National Republican Congressional Committee, wrote in a 20-page memo to colleagues.

GOP cancer: Party could lose 20 more seats

John F. Harris, Josh Kraushaar, Politico

Wed May 14, 9:09 PM ET

“Well, this is the floor,” Davis said, stomping on the concrete beneath him. “And we’re underneath the floor.” Without strong medicine, he said, Republicans will lose 25 seats in November. “We’re the airplane flying into the mountain.”

Agitated? Irritable? Hostile? Aggressive? Impulsive? Restless?

By Dana Milbank, The Washington Post

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Economist Dani Rodrik excerpts from economist Robert Kuttner’s (subscription only) article about the transferability of the Danish economic system with interesting results.

Does Denmark have some secret formula that combines the best of Adam Smith with the best of the welfare state? Is there something culturally unique about the open-minded Danes? Can a model like the Danish one survive as a social democratic island in a turbulent sea of globalization, where unregulated markets tend to swamp mixed economic systems? What does Denmark have to teach the rest of the industrial world?

These questions brought me to Copenhagen for a series of interviews in 2007 for a book I am writing on globalization and the welfare state. The answers are complex and often counterintuitive. With appropriate caveats, Danish ideas can indeed be instructive for other nations grappling with the enduring dilemma of how to reconcile market dynamism with social and personal security. Yet Denmark’s social compact is the result of a century of political conflict and accommodation that produced a consensual style of problem solving that is uniquely Danish. It cannot be understood merely as a technical policy fix to be swallowed whole in a different cultural or political context. Those who would learn from Denmark must first appreciate that social models have to grow in their own political soil.

Both Kuttner and Rodrik conclude that while Denmark’s model is not easily transferable, the ideas there are too important to be dismissed by the US.  What is most interesting about this is that while Kuttner is a liberal, Rodrik is more center-right.  Worth reading Rodrik’s post at the least.

If behavioral scientists are concerned solely with advancing their science, it seems most probably that they will serve the purposes of whatever individual or group has the power.

The quote above is from U.S. psychology pioneer Carl Rogers. It is worth pondering his statement as we consider both recent developments in the fight against U.S. torture, and more general considerations about the role of psychologists, physicians, and other scientific and medical personnel in interrogations for Bush’s “War on Terror.”

I was reading the New York Times’s article on the decision by the “Convening Authority” at Guantanamo to drop all charges “without prejudice” against purported sixth 9/11 Al Qaeda hijacker Mohammed al-Qahtani, when my attention was drawn to an ad from the CIA trumpeting the announcement that they were seeking applicants for “National Clandestine Service Careers.” A few clicks later, curious to see what they were offering for my own profession (not that I wish to apply), I found a number of positions open. Here’s one that caught my eye:

It’s been said that Defense Secretary Robert Gates is the “anti-Rumsfeld.”  Soft-spoken, open to input from others, Gates’ reputation as a sane voice and a counter to the bellicosity of earlier Bush years is entrenched in any number of newspaper and TV pundit accounts.

But in fact Gates has recently made himself the point-man of what Tom Englhardt has called “the war in the slum cities of the planet.”  Consistently and forcefully, Gates in recent months has argued and cheer-leaded for a global counterinsurgency war; a war extended into the foreseeable future in which America — having no geo-strategic equal — devotes itself to crushing sparks of militant protest wherever they arise.  Gates’ performance has been remarkable in its lack of ideological cover-stories and for its single-minded devotion to neo-imperial power.

h/t Cute Overload

Some good news out of China …

^kjdrill

Giant Pandas survive earthquake

Authorities confirmed Tuesday that captive animals in two of China’s major panda reserves were alive, according to Xinhua, China’s official news agency.

The Wolong Giant Panda Reserve Center in southwest Sichuan province is home to about 86 giant pandas, who were reported safe Tuesday.

Staff and critters at neighboring Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Center were also reported safe, according to a spokesperson for the Atlanta Zoo, which has two pandas on loan from the wildlife reserve.

^kjdrill

~~~Do not Rec the Pony Panda Party.  This is Open Thread.~~~