Click here to view this media This is very disturbing news that’s been breaking today. CNN: Investigators asked for help Thursday as they searched for a man seen in a mall in Littleton, Colorado, shortly before what they described as a possible attempt to bomb the shopping center on the anniversary of a shooting spree 12 years earlier at the nearby Columbine High Schoo l. Authorities told reporters at a news conference that the man they are seeking is a “person of interest,” and they asked for help from the news media and public in identifying him. No evidence exists so far of a link to the Columbine shootings, Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink said, but he acknowledged the possibility was on the minds of law enforcement officials. “There’s not a definite link that we have right now to anything at Columbine other than the date,” Mink said, adding that the April 20th anniversary of the shootings “is fresh on everyone’s mind.” A security camera shows the man sought by authorities in the mall just minutes before a security guard noticed a fire. Investigators say that fire may have been part of an attempt to detonate explosives. The incident happened Wednesday at the Southwest Plaza Mall, less than two miles from Columbine High School. It came on the 12th anniversary of the shooting at Columbine that left 12 students and a teacher dead at the hands of two other students, who then killed themselves. Speculating is not an option since it’s too early to tell and the investigation is hitting its stride, but it appears to be a form of domestic terrorism either way.
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Many years ago, at a mutual friend’s wedding, I was chatting with John Von Kannon, fundraiser extraordinaire for the Heritage Foundation. We were discussing the importance of his work since I was performing a similar (but far less successful) task for another political group. “Robert E. Lee deserves all the credit he’s gotten,” Von Kannon explained, “but without his supply wagons he’d have accomplished nothing.” The point is salient: in the world of politics it is the generals who make the headlines, but it is the organizers, naturally overshadowed, who make it all possible. It is commonly accepted that without the National Review magazine and Bill Buckley there would have been no Ronald Reagan. Let the history books be amended to state that without the functional organization of its publisher,
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UN report reveals war crimes on both sides of civil conflict, but Sri Lankans fear it would harm ethnic reconciliation Sri Lanka has warned the UN that publicly releasing a report on alleged war crimes committed as its civil war was ending could harm efforts at post-war ethnic reconciliation. Gamini Peiris, the foreign minister, told reporters that the UN panel had overstepped its mandate and become an investigative rather than an advisory body to the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. The report handed to Ban last week criticised the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels on their conduct and said there were credible war crimes allegations against both sides. The UN has not released the report officially, but media reports have been describing sections of it. “It’s wrong to publish the report. It’s equally wrong and unacceptable to take any steps at all on the basis of any findings or recommendations contained in the report,” Peiris said. “We are very conscious of the fact that the need of the hour is reconciliation. Does [the report] further that objective, or does it make the accomplishment of that objective more difficult than it needs to be?” Ban’s deputy spokesman, Farhan Haq, told media in New York on Wednesday that the report is expected to be released this week and that the secretary general’s senior advisers have “completed their review of the report”. Many Sri Lankans are bemused at the push to investigate war crimes, now that the country is enjoying its first peace in almost 30 years. “We live in peace and harmony and now the UN wants to disturb the peace we achieved by defeating terrorism,” M A V Upul Kumara, a 40-year-old farmer, told Reuters after signing a petition against the report sponsored by the nationalist Jathika Hela Urumaya political party. The UN panel’s report says the conduct of the war was a “grave assault” on international law, alleging that the government and the Tamil Tigers had committed serious violations, including some that could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Tens of thousands of people died in the last five months of the quarter-century war that ended in May 2009. The report accuses the government of large-scale shelling of no-fire zones where it had encouraged the civilians to concentrate, such as hospitals, a UN hub, food distribution lines and near Red Cross ships that came to pick up wounded civilians. It says Tamil Tigers recruited children to its fighting forces, held civilians as human shields, used them as forced labour, and exposed them to danger by firing heavy weapons from nearby positions. The panel also criticises UN bodies and international officials for not acting to protect civilian lives and not publicising casualty figures to show the human toll of the war. The Tamil Tigers fought for 26 years to create an independent state for Sri Lanka’s ethnic minority Tamils. The Sinhalese majority controls the government and armed forces. The UN says that between 80,000 and 100,000 people died during fighting. Sri Lanka also experienced Marxist uprisings in 1971 and 1988-89, which the government crushed violently at the cost of more than 100,000 lives, primarily young, rural members of the Sinhalese community. Sri Lanka United Nations Tamil Tigers War crimes guardian.co.uk
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Department for Education’s figures lead one headteacher to accuse teaching profession of institutional racism There are just 30 black male headteachers in England’s 21,600 state schools, official figures obtained by the Guardian show, triggering accusations that the country’s education system is “institutionally racist”. The Department for Education (DfE) revealed that there are 20 black Caribbean or black African male heads in state nurseries and primaries and 10 in secondary schools. There are none in special schools. The figures from November last year – which do not include academies and which are the latest available – show there are 127 black female headteachers, meaning that one in every 125 heads is a black man or woman. Headteachers are overwhelmingly white – some 94.7% are white British. Just 0.7% are black Caribbean or black African, despite these ethnic groups making up 2% of England’s population. Black people are also under-represented among those that have not yet made it to senior leadership posts in schools – 89.3% of teachers in England’s maintained schools are white British, while 1.5% are black Caribbean or black African, the statistics reveal. Marva Rollins, headteacher of Raynham primary school in Enfield, north London, predicted that it would take another 50 years for the number of black teachers to reach a level that reflects the country’s population. She said it would be another 200 years before the number of black headteachers is broadly in line with the number of black people in England. “These figures show historical inequalities. When I was at school, 50 years ago in Ilford, Essex, it was not on the agenda for black people to become teachers. It was seen to be a profession that was out of reach for us. To some extent, it is still like that. There is institutional racism.” Some of the figures were published this week by the DfE as part of a statistical breakdown on the school workforce; others were requested by the Guardian. It has also been revealed that there are only 19 teachers on one of the main programmes designed to improve aspiring black and ethnic minority headteachers, assistant and deputy heads. The National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services is a quango that runs Equal Access to Promotion, a scheme that started three years ago and is funded jointly by the agency and the National Union of Teachers. It said 60 headteachers had completed another course to help “minorities” advance to headteacher posts and 45 more would start this autumn. Other organisations, such as Future Leaders, provide mentoring and coaching but do not have specific programmes. Toby Salt, deputy chief executive of the National College, said the number of black and ethnic minority teachers on “mainstream training courses” was continuing to rise and that the quango had increased tailored support for minority teachers “as part of our drive to encourage all aspiring heads to step up to school leadership roles”. Rollins said: “Often black teachers feel they can get to middle leadership positions, but no further. It’s down to the perception that many people have that a headteacher is a white male in a secondary school and a white female in a primary school.” Black teachers are often unfairly overlooked and told they are not ready to be heads, she said. She said part of the problem was that selection panels, which choose headteachers, are made up of governors, who are predominantly white. “More black teachers could come forward and try to be headteachers, but they feel trapped in middle management and do not have the guidance to overcome this.” She said black headteachers were “snowed under” by requests from black teachers for mentoring. Chris Vieler-Porter, a former teacher who is researching for a PhD at the Institute of Education, University of London, on the low representation of black headteachers, agreed that the figures were an “indication of institutional racism”. He said: “It is not racism in a conscious or overt way. This is about the everyday assumptions that are made about the capabilities of black teachers.” Nicole Haynes, a black deputy headteacher at a secondary school in London, said: “For the middle-class and educated young black person, the private sector offers more opportunities, financial incentives and fewer obstacles. “Education is still a very traditional institution. How many middle managers are black? Once you enter the teaching profession, there is a lack of promotional opportunities or the roles are quite stereotypical, which will not necessarily lead to senior leadership.” Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said he did not think the education system was institutionally racist. He said the figures showed school governing bodies replicated the kinds of headteachers that they had had in the past. “This is more about inertia than racism,” he said. Earlier this month Arne Duncan, the US education secretary, told a civil rights organisation that fewer than 2% of his country’s schoolteachers were black men. “And we wonder why our boys are struggling. We need to show these kids that they can also educate people just like them when they grow up.” David Cameron provoked a row with Oxford University earlier this month during which the university accepted that only one student identified as “black Caribbean” origin was accepted for undergraduate admission in 2009. Race in schools Primary schools Secondary schools Education policy Schools Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Department for Education’s figures lead one headteacher to accuse teaching profession of institutional racism There are just 30 black male headteachers in England’s 21,600 state schools, official figures obtained by the Guardian show, triggering accusations that the country’s education system is “institutionally racist”. The Department for Education (DfE) revealed that there are 20 black Caribbean or black African male heads in state nurseries and primaries and 10 in secondary schools. There are none in special schools. The figures from November last year – which do not include academies and which are the latest available – show there are 127 black female headteachers, meaning that one in every 125 heads is a black man or woman. Headteachers are overwhelmingly white – some 94.7% are white British. Just 0.7% are black Caribbean or black African, despite these ethnic groups making up 2% of England’s population. Black people are also under-represented among those that have not yet made it to senior leadership posts in schools – 89.3% of teachers in England’s maintained schools are white British, while 1.5% are black Caribbean or black African, the statistics reveal. Marva Rollins, headteacher of Raynham primary school in Enfield, north London, predicted that it would take another 50 years for the number of black teachers to reach a level that reflects the country’s population. She said it would be another 200 years before the number of black headteachers is broadly in line with the number of black people in England. “These figures show historical inequalities. When I was at school, 50 years ago in Ilford, Essex, it was not on the agenda for black people to become teachers. It was seen to be a profession that was out of reach for us. To some extent, it is still like that. There is institutional racism.” Some of the figures were published this week by the DfE as part of a statistical breakdown on the school workforce; others were requested by the Guardian. It has also been revealed that there are only 19 teachers on one of the main programmes designed to improve aspiring black and ethnic minority headteachers, assistant and deputy heads. The National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services is a quango that runs Equal Access to Promotion, a scheme that started three years ago and is funded jointly by the agency and the National Union of Teachers. It said 60 headteachers had completed another course to help “minorities” advance to headteacher posts and 45 more would start this autumn. Other organisations, such as Future Leaders, provide mentoring and coaching but do not have specific programmes. Toby Salt, deputy chief executive of the National College, said the number of black and ethnic minority teachers on “mainstream training courses” was continuing to rise and that the quango had increased tailored support for minority teachers “as part of our drive to encourage all aspiring heads to step up to school leadership roles”. Rollins said: “Often black teachers feel they can get to middle leadership positions, but no further. It’s down to the perception that many people have that a headteacher is a white male in a secondary school and a white female in a primary school.” Black teachers are often unfairly overlooked and told they are not ready to be heads, she said. She said part of the problem was that selection panels, which choose headteachers, are made up of governors, who are predominantly white. “More black teachers could come forward and try to be headteachers, but they feel trapped in middle management and do not have the guidance to overcome this.” She said black headteachers were “snowed under” by requests from black teachers for mentoring. Chris Vieler-Porter, a former teacher who is researching for a PhD at the Institute of Education, University of London, on the low representation of black headteachers, agreed that the figures were an “indication of institutional racism”. He said: “It is not racism in a conscious or overt way. This is about the everyday assumptions that are made about the capabilities of black teachers.” Nicole Haynes, a black deputy headteacher at a secondary school in London, said: “For the middle-class and educated young black person, the private sector offers more opportunities, financial incentives and fewer obstacles. “Education is still a very traditional institution. How many middle managers are black? Once you enter the teaching profession, there is a lack of promotional opportunities or the roles are quite stereotypical, which will not necessarily lead to senior leadership.” Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said he did not think the education system was institutionally racist. He said the figures showed school governing bodies replicated the kinds of headteachers that they had had in the past. “This is more about inertia than racism,” he said. Earlier this month Arne Duncan, the US education secretary, told a civil rights organisation that fewer than 2% of his country’s schoolteachers were black men. “And we wonder why our boys are struggling. We need to show these kids that they can also educate people just like them when they grow up.” David Cameron provoked a row with Oxford University earlier this month during which the university accepted that only one student identified as “black Caribbean” origin was accepted for undergraduate admission in 2009. Race in schools Primary schools Secondary schools Education policy Schools Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk
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Senior Nato military commanders have been pressing for the unmanned planes to strike Gaddafi forces in besieged Misrata The US has approved the use of missile-armed Predator drones to help Nato target Colonel Gaddafi’s forces in Libya. Coalition commanders have been privately urging the Americans to provide the specialist unmanned aircraft, which have become a favoured – if controversial – weapon in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Their ability to hone in on targets using powerful night-vision cameras is considered to be one way of helping rebels in the besieged city of Misrata, where a humanitarian crisis has unfolded in the last week. The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said Barack Obama had approved the use of the Predators, marking a re-escalation of the US contribution to the Nato effort. Gates told a Pentagon news conference that the Predator was an example of the unique US military capabilities that the president is willing to contribute while other countries enforce a no-fly zone. General James Cartwright said that the first Predator missionin Libya had been scheduled for Thursday night but was abandoned due to poor weather. Liam Fox, the British defence secretary, and Sir David Richards, the chief of the defence staff, are due in Washington next week to discuss the situation in Libya with Gates and Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. The use of Predators is one of the topics to be discussed at the Pentagon talks next Tuesday, as well as other specialist equipment that might be provided by the US. David Cameron has again insisted that Nato had no intention of deploying ground troops, but this did not mollify Russia. It condemned the sending of military advisers to Libya by the UK and France, saying this exceeded the mandate of UN security council resolution 1973. “We are not happy about the latest events in Libya, which are pulling the international community into a conflict on the ground,” said the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. “This may have unpredictable consequences.” However, senior Whitehall officials believe the use of drones, also known as UAVs, would not be beyond the remit, or the spirit, of the UN resolution which gave the coalition a mandate to protect civilians. “A UAV with sufficiently high-resolution sensors, were it armed, could fire that weapon in line of sight and still meet the tight rules of engagement,” a military source said. “We have been asking if we can get the US to provide that capability for us. It exists – the question is can we get it to be deployed? UAVs would give you speed of response where you see the regime transgressing the UN resolution,” the source said. The US is understood to have the UAVs in the region already. A Whitehall source said of Tuesday’s talks: “Part of the discussion will be whether there are any niche capabilities that can be used. UAVs are a part of that and the US has expertise in this area. We are focusing a lot of targeting around Misrata and we need to explore what other capabilities we can use.” The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, urged Gaddafi to “stop killing people”, and estimated that 500,000 Libyans had now fled the country. The MoD also sought to counter criticism that Nato is not doing enough for Misrata, saying that the RAF had hit 58 targets around the city in the past three weeks, including 37 main battle tanks. But officials also concede that the difficulties of targeting within the city are considerable. Earlier this week Nato’s commander, Lt Gen Charles Bouchard, described the situation within Misrata as being akin to “a knife fight in a phone booth”. He said Gaddafi forces were hiding on the rooftops of mosques, hospitals and schools, and that they were shielding themselves behind women and children. The military difficulties were underlined when further details emerged of the death of British photographer Tim Hetherington, who was killed on Wednesday in a mortar attack along with a colleague, Chris Hondras. An Oscar-nominated film-maker, Hetherington, 41, wrote in his last Twitter post on Tuesday: “In besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Indiscriminate shelling by Gaddafi forces. No sign of Nato.” His family issued a statement through Vanity Fair, who had hired him on assignment in Libya. “Tim will be remembered for his amazing images and his Academy Award-nominated documentary Restrepo, which he co-produced with his friend Sebastian Junger. He will be forever missed,” the family said. Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter said Hetherington was “about as perfect a model of a war photographer as you’re going to find these days”. Libya Nato Barack Obama Arab and Middle East unrest US foreign policy United States Middle East David Cameron Foreign policy Defence policy Tim Hetherington Documentary Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Senior Nato military commanders have been pressing for the unmanned planes to strike Gaddafi forces in besieged Misrata The US has approved the use of missile-armed Predator drones to help Nato target Colonel Gaddafi’s forces in Libya. Coalition commanders have been privately urging the Americans to provide the specialist unmanned aircraft, which have become a favoured – if controversial – weapon in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Their ability to hone in on targets using powerful night-vision cameras is considered to be one way of helping rebels in the besieged city of Misrata, where a humanitarian crisis has unfolded in the last week. The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said Barack Obama had approved the use of the Predators, marking a re-escalation of the US contribution to the Nato effort. Gates told a Pentagon news conference that the Predator was an example of the unique US military capabilities that the president is willing to contribute while other countries enforce a no-fly zone. General James Cartwright said that the first Predator missionin Libya had been scheduled for Thursday night but was abandoned due to poor weather. Liam Fox, the British defence secretary, and Sir David Richards, the chief of the defence staff, are due in Washington next week to discuss the situation in Libya with Gates and Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. The use of Predators is one of the topics to be discussed at the Pentagon talks next Tuesday, as well as other specialist equipment that might be provided by the US. David Cameron has again insisted that Nato had no intention of deploying ground troops, but this did not mollify Russia. It condemned the sending of military advisers to Libya by the UK and France, saying this exceeded the mandate of UN security council resolution 1973. “We are not happy about the latest events in Libya, which are pulling the international community into a conflict on the ground,” said the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. “This may have unpredictable consequences.” However, senior Whitehall officials believe the use of drones, also known as UAVs, would not be beyond the remit, or the spirit, of the UN resolution which gave the coalition a mandate to protect civilians. “A UAV with sufficiently high-resolution sensors, were it armed, could fire that weapon in line of sight and still meet the tight rules of engagement,” a military source said. “We have been asking if we can get the US to provide that capability for us. It exists – the question is can we get it to be deployed? UAVs would give you speed of response where you see the regime transgressing the UN resolution,” the source said. The US is understood to have the UAVs in the region already. A Whitehall source said of Tuesday’s talks: “Part of the discussion will be whether there are any niche capabilities that can be used. UAVs are a part of that and the US has expertise in this area. We are focusing a lot of targeting around Misrata and we need to explore what other capabilities we can use.” The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, urged Gaddafi to “stop killing people”, and estimated that 500,000 Libyans had now fled the country. The MoD also sought to counter criticism that Nato is not doing enough for Misrata, saying that the RAF had hit 58 targets around the city in the past three weeks, including 37 main battle tanks. But officials also concede that the difficulties of targeting within the city are considerable. Earlier this week Nato’s commander, Lt Gen Charles Bouchard, described the situation within Misrata as being akin to “a knife fight in a phone booth”. He said Gaddafi forces were hiding on the rooftops of mosques, hospitals and schools, and that they were shielding themselves behind women and children. The military difficulties were underlined when further details emerged of the death of British photographer Tim Hetherington, who was killed on Wednesday in a mortar attack along with a colleague, Chris Hondras. An Oscar-nominated film-maker, Hetherington, 41, wrote in his last Twitter post on Tuesday: “In besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Indiscriminate shelling by Gaddafi forces. No sign of Nato.” His family issued a statement through Vanity Fair, who had hired him on assignment in Libya. “Tim will be remembered for his amazing images and his Academy Award-nominated documentary Restrepo, which he co-produced with his friend Sebastian Junger. He will be forever missed,” the family said. Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter said Hetherington was “about as perfect a model of a war photographer as you’re going to find these days”. Libya Nato Barack Obama Arab and Middle East unrest US foreign policy United States Middle East David Cameron Foreign policy Defence policy Tim Hetherington Documentary Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A year ago, Alexander Zaitchik and Rick Perlstein discussed how much attention should be paid to Glenn Beck, and why Democrats seem to have ceded the field on populism. Like Rick Perlstein, I’m baffled by Obama’s unwillingness to engage with any liberal movements outside his organizational control. Why did the White House sidestep the union protests in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and other states? What’s the upside of that strategy? In contrast, Republicans have (at least publicly) embraced their farthest fringe: Historically, grass-roots movements have been an extraordinary resource for Presidents seeking to move history in a new direction. The ability to place oneself at the head of a protest – while also directing its unruly energies – has been a perquisite for successful presidential leadership . One of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s responses to the Great Depression was to give workers the right to collectively bargain. However, some found their unions’ umbrella organization, the American Federation of Labor, too timid. So at a 1935 labor conclave, John Lewis, the leader of the insurgents, strode across the podium to punch the leader of the old guard in the nose, an act that would lead to the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, which turned labor into a social movement. These days, conservatives who seek to discredit the Wisconsin protesters as hooligans point to the alleged damage their posters did to the state capitol’s walls. In 1937, CIO strikers in Flint kept GM from producing all but 125 cars in February of 1937. Now that was unruly. But unlike Obama, FDR supported the strikers, directing GM to negotiate with the union. Eighteen steelworkers were killed in one of the violent labor conflicts that followed; FDR backed away from the CIO and its militant tactics. Be that as it may, his original intervention on the side of the masses – combined with his savvy in distancing himself from their excesses – paid dividends to the Democratic Party. In Wisconsin, there have been no such excesses on the protestors’ side. And yet Obama has kept his distance. Lyndon Johnson achieved a trick similar to FDR’s: In 1964, he cast his lot with the outraged masses of the civil rights movement. That came with its share of political hardships, but Democrats stuck close enough to their guns to produce an African-American loyalty that remains steadfast to this day. Nor is this just a strategy of the left. The Christian right entered national politics in the second half of the 1970s. The nation’s preeminent conservative aspirant for the presidency, Ronald Reagan, had to decide whether to abjure or embrace this powerful new group. He managed to do both. Every year, he addressed the March for Life – but only by telephone, lest he be seen in a photo with zealots. Right-wing social movements, in fact, were an enormous pain in his presidential derrière, but Reagan was far too wise to betray that publicly. Obama is the opposite. The demands of liberal social movements seem to annoy him terribly – when he deigns to actually acknowledge them.This is a curious stance for a leader who has put the semiotics of social movements at the center of his appeal . And maybe, for his reelection, it will work again. But if he wants to truly change, he has to master a crucial precedent: That avoiding unprecedented outbursts of mass mobilization on his side of the ideological divide is not a smart option. The only “social movement” I see Obama in front of is the charge to cut Social Security and Medicare. One minute, he’s attacking Republicans for their “radical” plan , and the next, he’s pushing the need to cut the country’s most popular and needed social programs, only his ideas are Republican-lite. Does he really want that to be his legacy? For our sake, I hope not.
Continue reading …A year ago, Alexander Zaitchik and Rick Perlstein discussed how much attention should be paid to Glenn Beck, and why Democrats seem to have ceded the field on populism. Like Rick Perlstein, I’m baffled by Obama’s unwillingness to engage with any liberal movements outside his organizational control. Why did the White House sidestep the union protests in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and other states? What’s the upside of that strategy? In contrast, Republicans have (at least publicly) embraced their farthest fringe: Historically, grass-roots movements have been an extraordinary resource for Presidents seeking to move history in a new direction. The ability to place oneself at the head of a protest – while also directing its unruly energies – has been a perquisite for successful presidential leadership . One of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s responses to the Great Depression was to give workers the right to collectively bargain. However, some found their unions’ umbrella organization, the American Federation of Labor, too timid. So at a 1935 labor conclave, John Lewis, the leader of the insurgents, strode across the podium to punch the leader of the old guard in the nose, an act that would lead to the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, which turned labor into a social movement. These days, conservatives who seek to discredit the Wisconsin protesters as hooligans point to the alleged damage their posters did to the state capitol’s walls. In 1937, CIO strikers in Flint kept GM from producing all but 125 cars in February of 1937. Now that was unruly. But unlike Obama, FDR supported the strikers, directing GM to negotiate with the union. Eighteen steelworkers were killed in one of the violent labor conflicts that followed; FDR backed away from the CIO and its militant tactics. Be that as it may, his original intervention on the side of the masses – combined with his savvy in distancing himself from their excesses – paid dividends to the Democratic Party. In Wisconsin, there have been no such excesses on the protestors’ side. And yet Obama has kept his distance. Lyndon Johnson achieved a trick similar to FDR’s: In 1964, he cast his lot with the outraged masses of the civil rights movement. That came with its share of political hardships, but Democrats stuck close enough to their guns to produce an African-American loyalty that remains steadfast to this day. Nor is this just a strategy of the left. The Christian right entered national politics in the second half of the 1970s. The nation’s preeminent conservative aspirant for the presidency, Ronald Reagan, had to decide whether to abjure or embrace this powerful new group. He managed to do both. Every year, he addressed the March for Life – but only by telephone, lest he be seen in a photo with zealots. Right-wing social movements, in fact, were an enormous pain in his presidential derrière, but Reagan was far too wise to betray that publicly. Obama is the opposite. The demands of liberal social movements seem to annoy him terribly – when he deigns to actually acknowledge them.This is a curious stance for a leader who has put the semiotics of social movements at the center of his appeal . And maybe, for his reelection, it will work again. But if he wants to truly change, he has to master a crucial precedent: That avoiding unprecedented outbursts of mass mobilization on his side of the ideological divide is not a smart option. The only “social movement” I see Obama in front of is the charge to cut Social Security and Medicare. One minute, he’s attacking Republicans for their “radical” plan , and the next, he’s pushing the need to cut the country’s most popular and needed social programs, only his ideas are Republican-lite. Does he really want that to be his legacy? For our sake, I hope not.
Continue reading …I just don’t get Tony Cordesman at times. Here he is mocking the short-term vision of the US, British, and French politicians relating to the fighting in Libya in an article he titles, “Will the Farce Stay With US?” American connoisseurs of schadenfreude can take some comfort in the parallels between this course of action and the equally naïve and dangerous approach used by the Bush Administration in Iraq. After all, watching a French President,
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