I wrote last year that "The future is Dubai". But now the future has changed its stripes - and Dubai is in free fall Can't say I'm sorry.
The future is Dubai.
Dr. Who tipped me off.
They cylindrical space station
Circling the earth
Its occupants watching
While Earth
Explodes.
Marianne’s grandson
Has always lived in a high rise.
His friend moved to a house.
“What do you mean
There’s no elevator.
How do you
get out?”
The millionaire in Mumbai
Building a sixty story high palace
For himself, his family
And his
six hundred staff.
The Dubai theme park
The world recreated in miniature.
You can buy
For a very large sum
A small piece of one of the continents
Or you can look down on the whole
From one of the multistory
Luxury
Hotels.
Water – we make our own
Floods – we are high in the sky
Air – pollution be damned, ours is clean.
The rest of you out there?
Too bad.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Palestine - no new mindset
In his speech to State Department Employees on January 22 President Obama revealed that his thinking about the war in Gaza contains all too much of the old mindset on this conflict.
Hamas, said the President, “must meet clear conditions: recognize Israel's right to exist; renounce violence; and abide by past agreements”. There is no call for Israel to recognize Palestine’s right to exist, renounce violence; and abide by past agreements.
The speech contains a number of statements that indicate a sense of the weighing of several factors:
“The terror of rocket fire” suffered by “innocent Israelis” was given the same weight as a “future without hope for the Palestinians”. The "loss of Palestinian and Israeli life” were evidently of an equal level of deep concern. The “substantial suffering and humanitarian needs in Gaza”; the need of Palestinian civilians for “immediate food, clean water, and basic medical care”, and the fact that they have “faced suffocating poverty for far too long” were mentioned. However any long-term causes of this suffering were not.
The President stated what he sees as the terms of the outline for a durable cease-fire, involving steps to be taken by Hamas and Israel. However, these demands suggested a limited viewpoint. “Hamas must end its rocket fire; Israel will complete the withdrawal of its forces from Gaza.” There is no requirement that Israel end its attacks on Palestinian territory, withdraw its forces and its settlers from Palestinian lands, and end its efforts to destroy Palestinian lives and livelihoods.
The US and its allies also have a role in bringing about a ceasefire - and here too the old mindset is clear: “the United States and our partners will support a credible anti-smuggling and interdiction regime, so that Hamas cannot rearm”. Meanwhile the US and its allies will undoubtedly continue to arm and rearm the Israeli Defense Forces.
The US must also, the President stated, “extend a hand of opportunity to those who seek peace” and called for Gaza's border crossings to be opened to allow relief to reach “innocent Palestinians” and to restore the flow of commerce. But rather than permitting Gazans to rebuild their economy and restore a normal level of commercial activity, the United States will look to foreign donors for “short-term humanitarian assistance and long-term reconstruction for the Palestinian economy”, assistance that will be provided to and guided by the Palestinian Authority. Not, in other words, to Hamas, which is still to be viewed as a terrorist organization, not as the duly elected government of the Palestinian people.
The President believes that “lasting peace requires more than a long cease-fire" and affirmed his "active commitment to seek two states living side by side in peace and security.” But lasting peace requires something other than the old mindset, and I find it hard to believe that George Mitchell, or any other US statesperson, can honestly mediate a fair and just resolution as long as thinking in Washington remains unchanged. As a mediator I find it hard to believe that the old mindset will lead to lasting peace.
Hamas, said the President, “must meet clear conditions: recognize Israel's right to exist; renounce violence; and abide by past agreements”. There is no call for Israel to recognize Palestine’s right to exist, renounce violence; and abide by past agreements.
The speech contains a number of statements that indicate a sense of the weighing of several factors:
“The terror of rocket fire” suffered by “innocent Israelis” was given the same weight as a “future without hope for the Palestinians”. The "loss of Palestinian and Israeli life” were evidently of an equal level of deep concern. The “substantial suffering and humanitarian needs in Gaza”; the need of Palestinian civilians for “immediate food, clean water, and basic medical care”, and the fact that they have “faced suffocating poverty for far too long” were mentioned. However any long-term causes of this suffering were not.
The President stated what he sees as the terms of the outline for a durable cease-fire, involving steps to be taken by Hamas and Israel. However, these demands suggested a limited viewpoint. “Hamas must end its rocket fire; Israel will complete the withdrawal of its forces from Gaza.” There is no requirement that Israel end its attacks on Palestinian territory, withdraw its forces and its settlers from Palestinian lands, and end its efforts to destroy Palestinian lives and livelihoods.
The US and its allies also have a role in bringing about a ceasefire - and here too the old mindset is clear: “the United States and our partners will support a credible anti-smuggling and interdiction regime, so that Hamas cannot rearm”. Meanwhile the US and its allies will undoubtedly continue to arm and rearm the Israeli Defense Forces.
The US must also, the President stated, “extend a hand of opportunity to those who seek peace” and called for Gaza's border crossings to be opened to allow relief to reach “innocent Palestinians” and to restore the flow of commerce. But rather than permitting Gazans to rebuild their economy and restore a normal level of commercial activity, the United States will look to foreign donors for “short-term humanitarian assistance and long-term reconstruction for the Palestinian economy”, assistance that will be provided to and guided by the Palestinian Authority. Not, in other words, to Hamas, which is still to be viewed as a terrorist organization, not as the duly elected government of the Palestinian people.
The President believes that “lasting peace requires more than a long cease-fire" and affirmed his "active commitment to seek two states living side by side in peace and security.” But lasting peace requires something other than the old mindset, and I find it hard to believe that George Mitchell, or any other US statesperson, can honestly mediate a fair and just resolution as long as thinking in Washington remains unchanged. As a mediator I find it hard to believe that the old mindset will lead to lasting peace.
Monday, January 19, 2009
In honor of today
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
. . . When company comes."
Tomorrow
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful
I am
And be ashamed —
I, too, am America.
— Langston Hughes (1934)
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
. . . When company comes."
Tomorrow
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful
I am
And be ashamed —
I, too, am America.
— Langston Hughes (1934)
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
bombing prisoners in a cage
There are 4 points I want to make today about the situation in Gaza.
1. Israel is bombing prisoners in a prison camp
Gaza is a tiny strip of land with about one-and-a-half million Arabs, half of them refugees. It is one of the most crowded places on earth. Civilians in the Gaza Strip are fenced in -- the sea on the west and heavily guarded borders on the land perimeter. As Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian surgeon working at a Gaza hospital, put it, the aerial bombardment of Gaza is like "bombing 1 1/2 million people in a cage." (LA Times)
2. Gazans are being collectively punished for their choice of Hamas in a free and fair election
In January 2006 Hamas was elected in a fair and free election. The election was monitored by a number of international observers, including President Jimmy Carter and declared free and fair. So Hamas is a democratically elected government of the Palestinian people and the representative of the Palestinian people in Gaza, as well as the West Bank. Israel, supported by the US and the EU (shame on them both) refused to recognize the Hamas-led government. Israel then proceeded to isolate Gaza, to destroy the infrastructure of Palestinian government, withhold supplies, and tax revenues owed to the Palestinian people.
3. Who starts the violence?
A recent statistical analysis by three academics (one at MIT, one at Harvard and one from Tel Aviv University) found that an overwhelming majority of lulls in violence since 2000 (when the second intifada began) ended when Israelis killed Palestinians, sparking renewed tit-for-tat violence. According to Nancy Kanwisher, Johannes Haushofer and Anat Biletzki, "79% of all conflict pauses were interrupted when Israel killed a Palestinian, while only 8% were interrupted by Palestinian attacks." The pattern was "more pronounced for longer conflict pauses. ... Of the 25 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than a week, Israel unilaterally interrupted 24, or 96%."
(also from the LA Times story)
And finally:
4. Palestinians, apparently, have no right to self-defense.
The resolution passed in Congress recently supports Israel’s right to self-defense. No such right apparently belongs to the imprisoned population of Gaza. The slaughter will continue until Israel is asked to commit to the right of existence of the people of Palestine!
1. Israel is bombing prisoners in a prison camp
Gaza is a tiny strip of land with about one-and-a-half million Arabs, half of them refugees. It is one of the most crowded places on earth. Civilians in the Gaza Strip are fenced in -- the sea on the west and heavily guarded borders on the land perimeter. As Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian surgeon working at a Gaza hospital, put it, the aerial bombardment of Gaza is like "bombing 1 1/2 million people in a cage." (LA Times)
2. Gazans are being collectively punished for their choice of Hamas in a free and fair election
In January 2006 Hamas was elected in a fair and free election. The election was monitored by a number of international observers, including President Jimmy Carter and declared free and fair. So Hamas is a democratically elected government of the Palestinian people and the representative of the Palestinian people in Gaza, as well as the West Bank. Israel, supported by the US and the EU (shame on them both) refused to recognize the Hamas-led government. Israel then proceeded to isolate Gaza, to destroy the infrastructure of Palestinian government, withhold supplies, and tax revenues owed to the Palestinian people.
3. Who starts the violence?
A recent statistical analysis by three academics (one at MIT, one at Harvard and one from Tel Aviv University) found that an overwhelming majority of lulls in violence since 2000 (when the second intifada began) ended when Israelis killed Palestinians, sparking renewed tit-for-tat violence. According to Nancy Kanwisher, Johannes Haushofer and Anat Biletzki, "79% of all conflict pauses were interrupted when Israel killed a Palestinian, while only 8% were interrupted by Palestinian attacks." The pattern was "more pronounced for longer conflict pauses. ... Of the 25 periods of nonviolence lasting longer than a week, Israel unilaterally interrupted 24, or 96%."
(also from the LA Times story)
And finally:
4. Palestinians, apparently, have no right to self-defense.
The resolution passed in Congress recently supports Israel’s right to self-defense. No such right apparently belongs to the imprisoned population of Gaza. The slaughter will continue until Israel is asked to commit to the right of existence of the people of Palestine!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
what is happening in Gaza?
The reaction of so many so-called leaders to what is happening in Gaza chokes me.
I learnt as a child that many Jews were ashamed of the widespread acceptance of the appalling situation in the Warsaw Ghetto and other horrors imposed by the Nazis on Jewish populations under their control. Yet many in Israel and elsewhere seem to have internalized the lesson as meaning that they now must retaliate with violence regardless of circumstances. They seem not to be able to walk in the shoes of another population imprisoned, cut-off, surrounded and suffering deprivation, starvation and bombardment.
An op ed by Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia in Thursday's New York Times provides a background to recent events that is all too sadly missing from Mainstream Media's coverage. IT also includes this statement:
This war on the people of Gaza isn’t really about rockets. Nor is it about “restoring Israel’s deterrence,” as the Israeli press might have you believe. Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”
A detailed description of life in Gaza before and after the recent renewal of hostilities is provided by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. You can read a summary, or download a full copy, at http://www.anera.org/aboutUs/ANERA-Gaza_Compare.php
The violence against humanity was bad enough before December 27th. Afterwards it shames every human being that we can tolerate such inhumane violence without protest.
Make your voice heard:
1. Go to Change.gov to let the Obama transition team know that you demand:
• Pressure on Israel for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire
• Unimpeded access of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and a lifting of Israel's siege
• An investigation into Israel's misuse of U.S. weapons as a first step toward ending arms transfers to Israel
2. Contact your congressional representatives
You can do so easily from this address: http://tools.advomatic.com/11/Gaza-Ceasefire-Now [ABOUT J STREET: J Street is the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement. J Street was founded to promote meaningful American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israel conflicts peacefully and diplomatically. We support a new direction for American policy in the Middle East and a broad public and policy debate about the U.S. role in the region. info@jstreet.org
Alternatively: US Campaign to End the occupation: http://www.endtheoccupation.org/form.php?modin=137
Or
http://www.avaaz.org/avaaz_gaza_congress_action
I learnt as a child that many Jews were ashamed of the widespread acceptance of the appalling situation in the Warsaw Ghetto and other horrors imposed by the Nazis on Jewish populations under their control. Yet many in Israel and elsewhere seem to have internalized the lesson as meaning that they now must retaliate with violence regardless of circumstances. They seem not to be able to walk in the shoes of another population imprisoned, cut-off, surrounded and suffering deprivation, starvation and bombardment.
An op ed by Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia in Thursday's New York Times provides a background to recent events that is all too sadly missing from Mainstream Media's coverage. IT also includes this statement:
This war on the people of Gaza isn’t really about rockets. Nor is it about “restoring Israel’s deterrence,” as the Israeli press might have you believe. Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”
A detailed description of life in Gaza before and after the recent renewal of hostilities is provided by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. You can read a summary, or download a full copy, at http://www.anera.org/aboutUs/ANERA-Gaza_Compare.php
The violence against humanity was bad enough before December 27th. Afterwards it shames every human being that we can tolerate such inhumane violence without protest.
Make your voice heard:
1. Go to Change.gov to let the Obama transition team know that you demand:
• Pressure on Israel for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire
• Unimpeded access of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and a lifting of Israel's siege
• An investigation into Israel's misuse of U.S. weapons as a first step toward ending arms transfers to Israel
2. Contact your congressional representatives
You can do so easily from this address: http://tools.advomatic.com/11/Gaza-Ceasefire-Now [ABOUT J STREET: J Street is the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement. J Street was founded to promote meaningful American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israel conflicts peacefully and diplomatically. We support a new direction for American policy in the Middle East and a broad public and policy debate about the U.S. role in the region. info@jstreet.org
Alternatively: US Campaign to End the occupation: http://www.endtheoccupation.org/form.php?modin=137
Or
http://www.avaaz.org/avaaz_gaza_congress_action
Monday, January 5, 2009
Keynes in the ascendancy again?
I suspect not, but as an unapologetic anti-Friedmanite and pro-Keynesian, I love to read this:
Paul Krugman, this year’s Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, writes:
For many years most economists believed that preventing another Great Depression would be easy.
In 2003, Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago, in his presidential address to the American Economic Association, declared that the “central problem of depression-prevention has been solved, for all practical purposes, and has in fact been solved for many decades.”
Milton Friedman, in particular, persuaded many economists that the Federal Reserve could have stopped the Depression in its tracks simply by providing banks with more liquidity, which would have prevented a sharp fall in the money supply. Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, famously apologized to Friedman on his institution’s behalf: “You’re right. We did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.”
It turns out, however, that preventing depressions isn’t that easy after all. Under Mr. Bernanke’s leadership, the Fed has been supplying liquidity like an engine crew trying to put out a five-alarm fire, and the money supply has been rising rapidly. Yet credit remains scarce, and the economy is still in free fall.
Friedman’s claim that monetary policy could have prevented the Great Depression was an attempt to refute the analysis of John Maynard Keynes, who argued that monetary policy is ineffective under depression conditions and that fiscal policy — large-scale deficit spending by the government — is needed to fight mass unemployment.
The failure of monetary policy in the current crisis shows that Keynes had it right the first time. And Keynesian thinking lies behind Mr. Obama’s plans to rescue the economy.
THANK YOU MR. KRUGMAN.
Paul Krugman, this year’s Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, writes:
For many years most economists believed that preventing another Great Depression would be easy.
In 2003, Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago, in his presidential address to the American Economic Association, declared that the “central problem of depression-prevention has been solved, for all practical purposes, and has in fact been solved for many decades.”
Milton Friedman, in particular, persuaded many economists that the Federal Reserve could have stopped the Depression in its tracks simply by providing banks with more liquidity, which would have prevented a sharp fall in the money supply. Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, famously apologized to Friedman on his institution’s behalf: “You’re right. We did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.”
It turns out, however, that preventing depressions isn’t that easy after all. Under Mr. Bernanke’s leadership, the Fed has been supplying liquidity like an engine crew trying to put out a five-alarm fire, and the money supply has been rising rapidly. Yet credit remains scarce, and the economy is still in free fall.
Friedman’s claim that monetary policy could have prevented the Great Depression was an attempt to refute the analysis of John Maynard Keynes, who argued that monetary policy is ineffective under depression conditions and that fiscal policy — large-scale deficit spending by the government — is needed to fight mass unemployment.
The failure of monetary policy in the current crisis shows that Keynes had it right the first time. And Keynesian thinking lies behind Mr. Obama’s plans to rescue the economy.
THANK YOU MR. KRUGMAN.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Straws in the wind – Labor
While Bush takes a last swipe at labor in his proposal to bailout GM and Chrysler, there are signs of a change in the climate for workers.
For several decades
* Working people have been treated like enemies, a class to be preyed upon.
* Labor unions were ferociously attacked.
* Jobs were shipped overseas by the millions.
* People were hired as temps or consultants so benefits could be denied.
In the words of Leo Gerard, president of the steelworkers union: “Washington will bail out those who shower before work, but not those who shower afterwards.”
Promising developments
A labor secretary, Hilda Solis, who is pro-labor: she “is pro-worker to her core, a politician who knows what it’s like to walk a picket line”.
More than 200 laid-off workers staged a successful six-day sit-in at a factory in Chicago, demanding and eventually getting severance pay and benefits that they were owed by law.
In Tar Heel, N.C., last week workers, after a brutal 15-year struggle, succeeded in organizing the notorious Smithfield Packing slaughterhouse, the largest hog-killing and processing plant in the world.
From Bob Herbert
For several decades
* Working people have been treated like enemies, a class to be preyed upon.
* Labor unions were ferociously attacked.
* Jobs were shipped overseas by the millions.
* People were hired as temps or consultants so benefits could be denied.
In the words of Leo Gerard, president of the steelworkers union: “Washington will bail out those who shower before work, but not those who shower afterwards.”
Promising developments
A labor secretary, Hilda Solis, who is pro-labor: she “is pro-worker to her core, a politician who knows what it’s like to walk a picket line”.
More than 200 laid-off workers staged a successful six-day sit-in at a factory in Chicago, demanding and eventually getting severance pay and benefits that they were owed by law.
In Tar Heel, N.C., last week workers, after a brutal 15-year struggle, succeeded in organizing the notorious Smithfield Packing slaughterhouse, the largest hog-killing and processing plant in the world.
From Bob Herbert
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