Thursday, July 31, 2008

Republicans Return to Personal Attack Mode

Aware that they cannot win campaigns this year on the issues which reflect the disasters of 7 Bush years -- Iraq and a floundering economy -- it is apparent that the Republicans are reverting to the smear tactics that they employed in the 2004 election. This says much about McCain who has tried to present himself as Mr. Nice guy rather than the right wing multimillionaire with money interests (e.g. taxes on the rich) that he is. What do you think?

..........................

McCain Tries to Define Obama as Out of Touch
By JIM RUTENBERG
A full-throttled effort by the McCain campaign to create a
negative narrative about Barack Obama is being coordinated
by veterans of President Bush's 2004 bid.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/us/politics/31campaign.html?th&emc=th

--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

New Depths of the Republican Party?

It looks as if we are beginning to see the real John McCain now -- not exactly a model for one's children. Sad. Having been raised in a Republican family with such examples of decency as Robert Taft and Eisenhower, it is distressing to see this major party sinking to ever lower depths. The most recent indictment of Ted Stevens and McCain's latest stuff more or less tells it all. Ed Kent

......................

Low-Road Express
John McCain has wholeheartedly adopted Karl Rove's
low-minded and uncivil playbook.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/opinion/30wed1.html?th&emc=th

..................
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Friday, July 25, 2008

The White Shoe Gang

My attempt to work with a little gang of kids in West Harlem as an intern from my first student year at Union Theological Seminary stretched my imagination to the limits. Apart from the London kids with whom I had worked in a center as a student, I had never encountered the effects of extreme poverty on kids to such a drastic extent. My kids were always hungry and often tired -- they might be obliged to sleep in a chair rather than a bed in the battered tenements housing younger siblings who got to sleep in the only existing bed with their mother. Fathers were banned by our welfare rules from joining their families and there were no jobs (legal ones) for African American men displaced by the returning war veterans. My academic career was probably rescued with our marriage and move to Oxford studies following my year with the kids two nights a week.

Getting to know each other was not easy at first. They didn't trust me as just another authority figure from outside their world -- "Hey teach . . . " And I had to get inside their worlds to understand the stresses, fears, and griefs. They missed their fathers and grandmothers living still in the South. They sensed hostility coming at them from all directions and the need to protect themselves. They carried makeshift weapons which at one point I managed to persuade them to store in the bottom drawer of my room at UTS.

There were funny moments of misunderstanding. One guy finally asked me why I was wearing girls' shoes? I explained that white tennis shoes were worn by both men and women. The next weekend I got a call from the local precinct asking whether I knew anything about the white shoe gang? I finally figured that they had adopted same -- 'borrowed' from a local shoe store as they could not have afforded to buy them.

I mentioned in an earlier report that our major activity together was baking cakes from mixes I brought. As 12-13s they were hungry. All the usual sports did not work with them. So I figured that I might teach them some defensive moves if attacked, e.g. how to break a strangle hold from behind. One night broke the ice when I dared them all to take me down on a padded floor room used for such. It took them a bit of effort but finally as Gulliver, I was pinned by the group and we all had a good laugh.

My angriest guy, Odell, became the hero cop who filled me in later on the fact that all but 3 had died violently -- Odell was okay and about to retire. Another was working on L.I. and a third was homeless in CA.

Another two that really saddened me were Melvyn and Alvin -- identical twins whom I mixed up occasionally and may have done here. I first met them pinning down a little kid and threatening to burn him with a cigarette. I grabbed them and almost knocked their heads together and gave them a heavy lecture to the effect that big guys like them were supposed to protect little guys, not bully them. They then became the enforcers who protected little guys as threatening guardian angels.

My last sad encounter with the twins or at least one of them was when I ran into him a few years after our return from Oxford. He invited me up to see his family. A little sister asked whether Melvyn/Alvin was going to wear his dress? He then explained that he had become a male prostitute with the gay theater crowd while his brother was doing 15-25 for armed robbery.

As we were leaving in the elevator he reached over and kissed me on the cheek and said that he hoped I would not misunderstand -- that he wanted to let me know that my caring had made a difference for him.

I understood.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Something Is Happening!

To read this morning that Obama is leading McCain in every part of the country including the South signifies that something new is happening in the U.S. -- perhaps one of those qualitative changes that signifies a radical change?

When I was working with a gang of little guys in West Harlem back in the mid 1950s there was one African American cop patrolling the precinct. Nearly all the rest were commuters in from either New Jersey or Long Island. Harlem was an alien land occupied by a foreign military. Even the attitudes of the social workers in Manhattanville Community Center were distancing. A very Germanic psychiatrist insisted that 9/10 of our kids were borderline schizophrenics. And they were treated that way.

What I am seeing now, I hope, is a new United States in which most people are working with diverse others whom they have been getting to know as friends. A few years ago an Obama would have had no chance to win a nomination of a major party. But now we are seeing African Americans performing key jobs in both major parties. A barrier looks to be being shattered before our eyes. Or at least I hope so.

Even Harlem, itself, is being diversified for better or worse with many moving in through the gentrification process. Our family certainly is close to many many African friends. When my wife and I were in college we were likely to have less than a handful of African American classmates. Vassar when I started teaching there in 1963 had 3 lonely African American students out of 1,700!

Let us hope that Obama is bringing us a new day.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
To read this morning that Obama is leading McCain in every part of the country including the South signifies that something new is happening in the U.S. --perhaps one of those qualitative changes that signifies a radical change?

When I was working with a gang of little guys in West Harlem back in the mid 1950s there was one African American cop patrolling the precinct. Nearly all the rest were commuters in from either New Jersey or Long Island. Harlem was an alien land occupied by a foreign military. Even the attitudes of the social workers in Manhattanville Community Center were distancing. A very Germanic psychiatrist insisted that 9/10 of our kids were borderline schizophrenics. And they were treated that way.

What I am seeing now, I hope, is new United States in which most people are working with diverse others whom they have been getting to know as friends. A few years ago an Obama would have had no chance to win a nomination of a major party. But now we are seeing African Americans performing key jobs in both major parties. A barrier looks to be being shattered before our eyes. Or at least I hope so.

Even Harlem, itself, is being diversified for better or worse with many moving in through the gentrification process. Our family certainly is close to many many African friends. When my wife and I were in college we were likely to have less than a handful of African American classmates. Vassar when I started teaching there in 1963 had 3 lonely African American students out of 1,700!

Let us hope that Obama will bring us a new day.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Monday, July 21, 2008

Helping the Little Guys

Thinking back over my jobs in my early student years, I realized that my really productive things had been helping little guys get on with their lives -- such things as camp counseling summers, school monitoring during the rest of the year in my American and British schools, helping groups in community centers both in East London and in lower West Harlem in NYC. All of these kids appreciated having a big brother figure in their shaping their lives. All were eager to please. The occasional bully could generally be persuaded that the job of big guys was to care for little ones, not to abuse them.

The brick wall that I ran into during my last stretch of working with a little gang at the Manhattanville Community Center on West 125th St., Harlem, was that my final group of kids was facing incredibly grim and hopeless futures. To start off they, like the London kids, were partial orphans. But whereas the Londoners had lost fathers in the war, the Harlem kids had had their fathers driven from their homes by our welfare laws which denied men access to welfare homes. Midnight searches would be carried out to make sure no father had snuck home. The cruelty here was that many of these fathers had been drawn from the South to do war jobs and then laid off when the veterans returned to reclaim their positions. So I was as a male figure much more than just big brother. My little gang was always hungry, so we baked cakes rather than doing the usual activities that boys would do -- basketball or whatever. I would bring the cake mixes to work.

One night the guys wanted to have a party with girls invited. I figured no girls would be interested in a party with 12 and 13 year olds. So I drafter my fiancee and a friend from Sarah Lawrence to fill in. The guys danced with them and were models hosts, bringing chairs to wherever they wanted to rest.

This saga ended with our marriage and departure for studies at Oxford the next year. I lost touch with most of the kids, but began to hear sad tales of their fates -- a gay prostitute, doing time for armed robbery. These were kids who had been desperately eager to join a society that had no place for them. In the end 3 of about a dozen survived -- one as a hero cop who filled me in on the rest. All of them had died violently -- the last, Shorty, the little guy who made everyone laugh with his antics by heading out a project window.

While great gains have been made by kids since my days back then -- I have taught many in the City University of NY. Far too many I fear are destined to be destroyed by American society which still has no place for them -- all those deaths and jail sentences. One can only know the frustration by experiencing it or seeing it first hand.

I appreciate the efforts to encourage such kids to take responsibility for their lives, but one must realize that much help in doing so is essential also.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Suicide Nations?

[With all due respect for the anxieties of Israelis in the face of a nuclear threat from Iran, I don't believe that either Israel or Iran is a suicide nation. Presumably most of the individual suicide bombers have either been depressed or fanatics. But I don't believe two nations with abundant young people with so much life ahead of them would risk all with a nuclear war. Talking is what is called for now so that each can reassure the other that it will not pursue self-destruction. Lest we forget, it was we outsiders (U.S. and British oil interests) who sabotaged Iranian democracy under Mossadeq and installed the brutal Shah:

http://www.iranonline.com/newsroom/Archive/Mossadeq/index.html


It is, perhaps, our obligation to make peace possible here as recompense. Benny Morris (below) demonstrates the failure of a well known Israeli to get it. Ed Kent]

Using Bombs to Stave Off War
By BENNY MORRIS
Should a conventional assault by Israel fail to stall the
Iranian nuclear program, a ratcheting up of the
Iranian-Israeli conflict to a nuclear level will most
likely follow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/opinion/18morris.html?th&emc=th
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Legal Rules Control Wealth and Poverty

Years ago as a philosophy grad student I got interested in the concept of property. Much to my amateur surprise I discovered that property does not consist of things and places, but rather the complex of legal rights and powers that enable one to use things, change and control legal rights and duties both of oneself and others. A central figure in the analysis of legal relationships had been Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, an early 20th century legal theorist, who had developed a model of legal concepts well ahead of his time in its sophistication. Hohfeld's death had only allowed him to complete 3 of 8 proposed essays in what was published in his book, Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied to Legal Reasoning, a book rediscovered and still in print.

What I found in Hohfeld is what every lawyer somewhat grasps -- he who writes and controls the rules of law is likely to become the 'owner' of resources -- too often to the exclusion of others. What we saw during the 20th century was a series of swings from the early period of greedy dominance by corporate wealth of our resources which spawned the great depression and then a swing back to a more just distribution of same under FDR and a further tilting once again back to the wealthy with Reagan's attack on government controls of the rules of the game which had protected people not in a position to defend their own rights. We have been watching the climax of this grab of our resources in recent years with the advent of a war for control of oil in the Middle East, the widening split between poverty and wealth in the U.S., and now, perhaps, yet another great depression in the making.

See this as the introduction to a more detail series of comments to come on the abuses of rights and powers affecting specific areas of our economic and personal lives.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Racism? A Picture Is Worth a Thouand Words

The New Yorker magazine is the quintessential voice of liberal NYC.
Thus, its ugly caricature of the Obamas is deeply depressing as a manifestation of the embedded racist attitudes that infect even those who announce themselves to be liberated from inherited racist attitudes. They are not.

Let us get one thing straight. Caricatures of political figures have stock fare for several centuries. What is so unusual here and a first is the ugly attack on Michelle Obama, the wife of a political candidate. I can think of no precedent for this ugliness directed at candidate wives -- and there were many which would have made handy targets along the way.

This is not so much a moral matter as a cautionary warning that we have many a mile and perhaps several generations to go before we rid our nation of such ugliness. Racism is not a deliberate choice. It is a reality spawned by the attitudes that children pick up from their culture -- "Eneny meany miny mo, catch a nigger by the toe." This was the way we chose sides in my childhood school yard in outer suburban Connecticut where no African Americans lived -- except a servant family working for a wealthy gentleman farmer.

My brilliant Nigerian roommate at Yale (who went on to a distinguished medical career) was sensitive to this phenomenon from the body language of those with whom we interacted -- 'They shake my hand and then rush off to wash theirs." He was right. "Negroes' were viewed as 'dirty' in those days. And such a bias rarely dissipates through conscious determination.

Perhaps the New Yorker has taught us an important lesson about the racism pervading this election. I am embarrassed and ashamed that the Obamas have been so targeted. A picture is worth a thousand words?
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Monday, July 14, 2008

The Serious Threat of Terroristic Attacks Here?

[As a child of WW2 -- that now distant event -- I read the following in-depth reports on things including national security which in those days included the slogan, "Loose lips sink ships." I was particularly connected here because one of my uncles with a back too injured to be accepted by our military, joined the Merchant Marine effort to get supplies and equipment overseas in the face of the threats of the Nazi submarine wolf packs lurking along the route. He had at least one near miss. A group of philosophers at the time actually figured that our social pages announcing weddings and engagements of soldiers heading overseas was a security breach alerting spies to the departure dates of our convoys.

In light of the restrictions placed on our normal civil liberties in those days as well as terrible injustices (the incarceration of our West Coast Japanese American citizens), we are currently faced with balancing security and Constitutional rights once again. Certainly torture is out, but what limits should we place on national spying to discover pending terrorist attacks? I am not expert in this area, but I can figure enough to know that we are not living in the world of civil liberties as usual. Some new balance may need to be struck. I imagine that this is what the Senate was facing with the recent security vote. I don't see any blacks and whites there but rather judgments that can legitimately be at odds as to where the lines should be drawn. I don't have much confidence in the Bush administration here -- our ports are wide open. I expect the worst down the line unless we can once again persuade the world at large that we are not a new version of Nazis lite.

We shall see. What do your think? Frank Rich's column touches on some of these issues. Ed Kent]

OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Real-Life '24' of Summer 2008
By FRANK RICH
Are we safe? As Al Qaeda and the Taliban surge this summer, that single question is even more urgent than the moral and
legal issues attending torture.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/opinion/13rich.html?th&emc=th

--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Germany and Japan Also Warred Against Nations to Occupy Them, Senator McCain!

I simply don't get the media's total failure to challenge Senator's false parallel between our post WW2 occupations of Germany and Japan and our current occupation of Iraq. Anyone alive and thinking during WW2 is fully aware of its horrors -- the brutal occupations by Japan of neighboring nations and the Nazi Blitzkrieg wars in Europe -- ending with the death and suffering of many millions -- with torture and murders galore thrown in as well. Those who collaborated with these criminal regimes were later dealt with as were their leaders still alive.

Senator McCain seems totally obvious to the fact that we are the aggressor nation which has now killed many thousands in Iraq and has soiled our reputation with our brutal illegal conduct. For the record there are two absolute prohibitions in our U.S. Constitution -- against slavery and torture. We are on record as boasting the latter and our conduct towards our captives is close to the former.

Will someone try to educate McCain as best as possible. He was one of the dumbest in his training classes for becoming an officer. His mind seems frail and scattered. He tells jokes about things that are horrors -- the U.S. is "whining and complaining" about the effects of our sinking economy? With one or more hundred millions and seven homes presumably staffed by servants, he is far removed from where so many of us are, struggling to pay bills, keep jobs, just staying alive to care for our families -- or out on the streets.

This jolly fellow strikes me as a horror in line with the happy Nazis who followed their leaders back when. I recall their beer fests and singing from the Movietone News portrayals that used to scare us as small children back then. McCain would fit right in.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Sunday, July 06, 2008

McCain's Open Basket Mind?

[I don't remember exactly where the phrase came from, but I recall when we were once studying different types of mentality someone used the expression, "open basket mind" to describe the sort of persons into whose heads were likely to pop all sorts of disparate ideas and who would comparably respond with all sorts of random thoughts without coherence either at the time or over the long run.

Watching McCain's performance over the years this 'maverick' more characteristically looks like the sort of person from whom any number of random thoughts are likely to emerge -- not one who has a coherent world view on things. His positions on almost any issue have been on both sides from time to time and at others are simply incoherent as this following article intimates. He is all for war, but can't keep straight who the 'enemies' are -- Shiites versus Sunnis, Persians versus Arabs, whatever and wherever. Note his confusion over immigration policy -- for immigrants or against? He was against tax cuts for the rich and now is for them precisely when his war is bankrupting us. Check out whatever he has to say as the campaign progresses.

The only coherent pattern that I see is that he wants to be viewed as Mr. Nice Old Guy. He looks to be one of those types who has learned to make it with his personality rather than any agenda of ideas. Beware such types as they tend to turn mean when they find that they are not liked. There was a 19th century pope, Pio Nono, who suffered from the same condition and who set back the Catholic Church horrendously when he panicked at the emergence of democracy in Italy. Ed Kent]

..........................

McCain Battles a Nemesis, the Teleprompter
By MARK LEIBOVICH
A politician who has thrived in informal settings is now
trying to meet the more scripted speaking demands of a
general election campaign.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/us/politics/06mccain.html?th&emc=th
--

"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Friday, July 04, 2008

A Slash and Burn Campaign?

I suspect that we may be seeing a new -- or at least exaggeratedly mean tit for tat political campaign -- now emerging. Both McCain and Obama are serious about winning this election. On most issues they stand poles apart so that we are facing some sort of winner take all situation which will shape national policies for the foreseeable future. McCain does, indeed, seem to have adopted Bush policies that favor the rich at the cost of the rest of us -- cut Social Security and Medicare, not the taxes of the super rich?

The warnings of an ugly assault policy are widespread such as Paul Krugman's column today:

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Rove's Third Term
By PAUL KRUGMAN
The Wesley Clark affair revealed something important about
John McCain. Now we know what a McCain administration would
represent: namely, a third term for Karl Rove.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/04/opinion/04krugman.html?th&emc=th


..................

McCain comes on as Mr. Nice Old Guy, but remember that he is (by marriage) a many times over multi millionaire who needs not worry about the details of surviving life in a financially crippled nation such as we are facing today.

I think I am going to build up a list of positions of these guys so that I and others are not simply duped by a combination of personal charm and the usual media distortions and manipulation business in pursuit of ratings.

Anyone with suggestions is much appreciated and I will pass them along.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Principal Western Role Models Known Only Indirectly

When George Bush indicated that Jesus was his favorite philosopher, I wonder whether he or many Christians themselves realize that we only know of Jesus through reports by believers given long after his death and through the interpretive eyes of such as St. Paul who never met him.

These reports themselves, the Gospels and letters, diverge radically in the pictures they offer of the central figure, as they are written from interpretive perspectives. Mark is the simplest Gospel with the least 'spin'. Matthew was directed to Jewish audiences; John to Hellenic ones. And Luke was constructed to parallel the stages in the life of Moses -- it is the only one with the moving Christmas tale. The Pauline letters, particularly his central one to the Romans, look to reverse the message of compassion and forgiveness of Jesus with hates -- of gays, of Jews, and disrespect for others (particularly women) which skewed the religion over the centuries into one of the most brutal and warring of the lot. We owe the pogroms to St. Paul as Jew hater. Islam at least gave Jews a secure place in its societies until the recent tensions over the recreation of Israel.

A second role model of the Western tradition was Socrates. We don't know much of Socrates directly as he was screened through the Platonic dialogues which portrayed him as a truth seeking character -- also a gay one. He took, as Jesus, was put to death for speaking out. Jesus' death was the most cruel consisting of several days of torture which apparently shook his faith in a divine being -- or that being's support of his self chosen mission to the poor. What were his followers to make of such an ignominious death? They made many things of it and, thus, diverged into warring bodies which in turn tortured and murdered their competitors. At least Socrates died relatively peacefully at a ripe old age, executed with the equivalent of a lethal injection.

Of Moses in turn we have apparently only memories maintained in an oral tradition over many centuries. As Spinoza pointed out, it is to be taken somewhat with a grain of salt, as it was unlikely that Moses could have written his own epitaph before reaching the chosen land. Again a lovely tale -- particularly of him a child rescued.

Of Mohammed we only have the reports taken down by his followers of his sayings -- nothing that he wrote himself, as he was apparently illiterate. I know little of Islam in comparison with Judaism, Christianity and ancient Greek philosophy, so I will not try to report Muslim doctrines. One notes that there is no authoritative interpreter of Islam and that it, too, as the other Western religions, has many diverse versions and interpretations. Osama bin Laden looks to be only one of the latest (deviant?) ones.

Most of us who do serious studies of our religious tradition these days try to stress the best elements that we find in them, but recognize that abundant frauds are increasingly exploiting naive followers in their own interests.

And so it goes.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Things That Obama Has Gotten Wrong

Recent announcements of positions by Obama strike me as sometimes passable and at others wrong. I focus here on two of the latter:

1) Most civilized countries have now abolished the death penalty for good moral and pragmatic reasons. Too many innocents are executed. Wrong doers are all too likely to kill their victims to avoid detection (e.g. a child rapist for which Obama recommends the penalty). The death penalty costs far more than simply life without parole -- monies that could be better used, etc.

2) I grew up in the country with five guns in our home along with an handgun which a cop had given my father with which a murder had been committed. No way is owning a gun a right. It is a privilege which must be earned in several critical ways. Not the least of these is training in using guns along the lines of the requirements for a driver's license. And there is no reason why cities should not be able to restrict such weapons in the public interest. If one wants to use attack weapons, one can join the military.

I will wait and see on the use of religious organizations as non governmental agencies. We may need such, given our horrendous national financial situation.

And there are better ways to control communication operations than ex post facto prosecutions. Military requirements sometimes use prerogative to get a critical threat resolved. I don't know exactly where we are going to draw the lines with the new phenomenon of terrorist.

I support Obama's election, but will criticize when he gets things wrong, as I hope other supporters will do.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net

What Would Jesus Do (in College)?

[When I was a student at Union Theological Seminary in NYC in the late 1950s, American Protestantism was at its height both with its orientation towards social justice and brilliant intellectual leadership of theologians such as the Niebuhrs and Paul Tillich. My particular year a half dozen of us were students who were taking a look see at a possible career in religion through a variety of fellowships we had received that offered that option. None of us in the end stayed with that career. As a group we met weekly with Daniel Day Williams, our resident theologian who had replaced Tillich, but Reinhold Niebuhr and others were cautioning that American Protestantism was moving in weird directions under the inspiration of evangelicals such as Billy Graham -- away from the social gospel and towards self importance with negative overtones towards others that were to emerge as anti-abortion, anti-gay, pro war blicks against 'evil enemies' such as we now see in its culture. This is not to say that all evangelicals are haters. Some such as Jim Wallis of the Sojourners are breaking a bit with negativism, but such is still not the Christian heritage which we studied in detail -- it is make it up as one goes along religion plucked from whatever sources -- ancient and all too contemporary barbarisms -- that can be sold to massive audiences unaware of the best elements of their Christian heritage. How sad.

The following piece also has some intelligent comments following that can be accessed at the website. Ed Kent]

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http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/06/30/progressive


What Would Jesus Do (in College)?

--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FindingHumaneJobs
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurStupidEconomy
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net