I have to confess I don't get all the commotion and kerfuffle about the 'non' and 'nee' votes on the EU constitution treaty.
Politicians who at this point insist on a referendum are asking to be bloodied by a protest vote cast by people who know their 'yes' means nothing and their 'no' means 'try harder'.
What's changed, exactly? That the European governments cannot count on those who elected them to back their nod? And this is a crisis? Have an election, already. Why isn't it just "back to the drawing board?" Because this incomprehensible treaty was the best compromise we could have hoped for? Because it is too hopelessly complex for us to understand and thus we should just shut up and do what we're told (I use the "we" as a resident, rather than an voter).
Why exactly is this a crisis? Doesn't "status quo ante" apply here? Is the whole experiment doomed to crash and burn because Europe can't fast-forward expand to the borders of Iran? Somehow I don't think so. Somehow I think that when you sort through all the noise, you'll find the core of what the EU really is and thinks it is. And on that basis things will go forward. And if that's not a lot different from the way it is today, well, that's not necessarily a good thing, but at least it's something people will be prepared to live with.
Call me naive, tell me I'm wrong, convince me this matters. Is the Italian economy going to bring down the Euro? Would the new treaty make any difference? In my opinion there are some HUGE structural problems that the French, the Germans and the Italians need to sort out if even the present scenario is going to work. Maybe EU histrionics are just a convenient smokescreen to steer attention away from the mess behind the curtain.
JERUSALEM -- Because of Israeli roadblocks and travel restrictions in the West Bank, more than half of Palestinian mothers give birth at home instead of risking a ride to the hospital, according to a human rights report released Monday.[Source:Newsday]
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Several dozen Palestinians -- including at least seven newborns -- have died because of delays at checkpoints, B'tselem said.
Body and Soul calls attention to a travesty of tied American aid for AIDS - to receive the aid, it appears that impoverished African countries must relax their rules against the import of genetically modified food.
For a retired writer, Kurt Vonnegut has a lot to say. Lovely stuff.
What are the conservatives doing with all the money and power that used to belong to all of us? They are telling us to be absolutely terrified, and to run around in circles like chickens with their heads cut off. But they will save us. They are making us take off our shoes at airports. Can anybody here think of a more hilarious practical joke than that one?
Smile, America. You�re on Candid Camera.
(via Moby Lives).
Body and Soul reproduces in entirety a speech made by John Brady Kiesling, the former US State Department employee whose resignation letter to Colin Powell reflected the conscience of a nation divorced from its founding principles.
Kiesling makes a convincing argument. You can read in his words a regret at having to leave behind a career that was not always perfect, but on balance gave him the satisfaction of representing "good" in the world. You can read his pain at having that Manichean judgement overturned in his developing sense that the world now perceived him to be an agent of "evil."
If a gun were held to the heads of Europeans, and they were forced to declare between black and white, 80 percent of them would conclude, at least at the moment, that the United States is evil rather than good. I suspect that the percentage of Middle Easterners would be closer to 95 percent; I'm not qualified to speak for Asians or Latin Americans, but the trend seems similar.
This is a man who has been out and met the wide diversity of people that make up the world. Innocent people. Ordinary citizens who now see his country as an lying, inept terrorising state. He has come home from overseas, and now he is telling his countrymen - the counterparts of those who perceive this evil - that it is time for a change. America is being poorly served by its government.
I think it is time and past time to stand up to the schoolyard bullies in Washington, not on partisan political terms but to defend threatened national values and interests. We should demand from the American electorate, from the American business community, from the academic world, a foreign policy based on understanding that the world's interests and our interests are inseparable.
This Guardian story cites examples of how the Bush administration will be punishing its allies who didn't sign on for the war against Iraq.
A visit to Ottawa next week has been cancelled, because Mr Bush is too busy. However, time has been found to host Australia's prime minister...at the presidential ranch in Texas.
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And this year's Mexican Cinco de Mayo holiday, previously marked by the Bush White House, will be toned down or not held at all.
It takes great courage for anyone to offer up "home truths", but especially for a non-American to point a finger at American complacency. Canadian writer Margaret Atwood has the courage, and the credibility, to offer frank comments on America's failure to demand accountability and leadership from its leaders.
If you proceed much further down the slippery slope, people around the world will stop admiring the good things about you. They'll decide that your city on the hill is a slum and your democracy is a sham, and therefore you'll have no business trying to impose your sullied vision on them. They'll think you've abandoned the rule of law. They'll think you have fouled your own nest.