Tag Archives: politics

On Bernie Sanders

Senator Sanders seems like a decent enough guy. His long Senate career, while not really distinguished, is still honorable and trouble-free. There’s very little that you can say about him that’s to his discredit. This makes him different from the other major candidates. He describes himself as a “Democratic Socialist”, which sounds like a European political party. No one can really explain what that means. So if we’re going to criticize him, we’ll have to focus on his proposals.

His main platform, as I’ve seen in his recent TV spots, is to punish the Big Banks, increase taxes on the major corporations, and use the additional revenue gained thereby to provide universal health care and free college tuition to everyone. That’s a decidedly European socialist economic plan.

Would it work here?
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On Ted Cruz

Backpfeifengesicht.

It’s a German word that roughly translates as “a face in need of a fist”, or “a face that needs to be punched”. It’s come up quite often in discussing Ted Cruz, to the point where a neurologist has discussed Cruz in an article on how people react to facial expressions.

Unusual facial expressions put us off. Cruz’ odd face only partly explains why no one likes him. From his college roommate to his Senate colleagues, people hate him with a passion.

And that’s even before considering his politics.
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On Hillary Clinton

Now that we’re in the heart of primary season, and everyone is gathering in my home state for primaries next week, it’s a good time to take a bit of a closer look at the four main candidates.

I’ll do them in alphabetical order, just because I want to.

I was thinking about being fair and even-handed here, but then I realized that this is my personal, private space, and I don’t need to. So let me come right out and state that I consider myself a pragmatic left-of-center Democrat, so I favor Clinton, with Sanders as a close second.
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Ask the Candidates – 1a

I hadn’t realized it at the time, but I posted the questions on the 70th anniversary of George Kennan’s “Long Telegram”. After the dust of WWII had settled, it was becoming clear that the United States’ chief rival in the near future would be the Soviet Union. Kennan, the American “charge d’affaires” at the Moscow Embassy, was asked to provide answers to a couple of questions about the Soviet Union’s general outlook and policies.

His response was much longer (thus the name) and more insightful than anyone had any right to expect. It described the Soviet Union perfectly, and his recommendations became the center of the “Truman Doctrine” of containment that kept communism in check in the opening phase of the Cold War.

One wonders if there is anyone today in the State Department providing a similar analysis of Islamic terrorism, and if there is anyone in government ready and willing to listen.

Anyway, here are my answers to the questions I asked last time. Of course, I’m cheating. I only asked questions that I felt I could give good answers to….
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Ask the Candidates – 1

Recently, President Obama had some strong  words for Donald Trump. Referring to his lack of governmental experience, especially in foreign policy, he said that being president “requires being able to work with leaders around the world in a way that reflects the importance of the office, and gives people confidence that you know the facts, and you know their names, and you know where they are on a map, and you know something about their history.” [1]

Well.

Given that it seems a lot of the candidates this time around are actually rather inexperienced in foreign affairs, it’s probably worth it to subject them to a little pop quiz on their knowledge of those matters. One would hope that at some point, now that all the preliminaries are out of the way and we’re into the serious part of campaign season, the media will eventually get around to asking these sorts of serious questions.

I’m focusing on the Middle East, since that’s where most of the “action” is at the moment. However, anyone wanting to be a leader should know that a crisis can arise anywhere at any time (Whatever happened to those schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram, anyway?).

Please note, there aren’t really any “right” or “wrong” answers – only “good” and “bad” ones. Since it’s unfair for an anonymous blogger to ask these questions without being willing to answer them himself, I’ll post my own answers in a week or so. Keep in mind I am no foreign policy expert; what I am aware of comes simply from reading newspapers (and their websites) and a sincere interest in what’s going on in the world at large.
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The 2016 Presidential Campaign – 1

Being the first in a series of posts and commentaries on the 2016 Presidential Campaign

I’ve been holding off here on commenting on the presidential campaign since so far, it’s been too uncertain with candidates coming and going, and the standings in the polls changing so often. But now as the primaries are starting, things are getting serious, and it’s time to take a look at the main candidates.

Personally, I consider myself to be a little “left of center”, a moderate liberal or a liberal moderate if you will. I’m not registered as one, but I almost always vote Democratic. So all my thoughts will be colored that way, despite my efforts to be as fair and even-handed as I can.

In alphabetical order, here’s what I have to say on the four main candidates:

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