“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Interesting new developments today in Bahrain as Saudi troops have crossed the border into that embroiled nation.
What is most notable about this situation in particular is how it exposes the flaws of US foreign policy in the Middle East. With Iran in one corner warning outside powers not to intervene in the Bahraini protests, and Saudi Arabia in another corner peering anxiously across the sand at disquiet they hope so fervently to keep from their lands, the United States is in a precarious position: continue to implicitly (often unequivocally) support an authoritarian regime (with the old logic, “the devil you know beats the devil you don’t”) or support a grassroots democratic movement in the region.
It’s March, and if you’re like me, it’s your favorite time of the year.
The Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament expanded its field this year to 68 teams, further confounding excited fans eager to find the elusive “perfect bracket.”
The Republican presidential field of 2012 seems equally as numerous and elusive.
To help you, we’ve broken down the list of 2012 hopefuls into their own–well–bracket? It’s about as much fun as you can have with these potential power-pilferers:
In our faith, in our politics, in our finances, in our daily lives–the following passage from the Gospel of Luke is more than a script in a religious book. It is a story and lesson that transcends all walls and borders we have constructed for ourselves, and can bring us closer to that “More Perfect Union” once dreamed of in tougher times:
9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people-robbers, evildoers, adulterers-or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Tactics are often a tricky thing to discern; in war, a commander’s ability to remain one step ahead of opposing forces may well bring victory over defeat.
In politics, victory means the ability–or inability–to push for positive change. When a few hundred men can control the lives of our nation’s military men and women, the livelihood of her selfless public servants and the specter of a powerful economy, political “victory” of open-minds over dangerously closed-minds is perhaps a greater national priority than token “bipartisanship”–a popular whine by Republicans and Democrats when each party isn’t getting their respective way.
Republicans have been quick to implicate Democrats each year in a phantom ploy to capsize capitalism, whining about their pushing of a Welfare State or a Nanny State. This wholesale misleading of the electorate has befallen many a promising progressive and allowed our country to wallow in its current systemic quicksand.
Yet as the Boehner-led 112th Congress makes clear, Republicans have a tactic of their own to gain power of not just the political reigns of power, but the economic strings, as well. They advocate replacing our federal republic with a stateless market structure more accountable to Chinese investors than it is to American citizens. Their tool in this endeavor?
The Emergency State.
Everybody loves the underdog.
We relish a touching Cinderella story from time to time–the bravery and selflessness that come from reaching for a goal when the deck seems stacked highest against you. Legends are whispered to eager children and legacies passed through the generations about the qualities of one man against seemingly impossible odds.
The David and Goliath narrative is so powerful because we intrinsically connect with David–we all remember the chip on our shoulder, the times we’ve had to prove ourselves, the person or group that held us down until we rose from the perilous depths.
Nobody wants to be Goliath. Nobody believes they are Goliath. Not even shot-putters and South Beach bouncers. It seems as though Planet Fitness is cashing in on that sentiment these days:
Yet as much as each individual American identifies with David, one thing is for certain:
The world sees us as Goliath.
It has become necessary for me to write a small treatise regarding events happening this hour in Egypt.
This is necessary because several prominent Republican politicians and short-sighted pessimists have recently stated that the United States should officially support an authoritarian regime in Cairo over one chosen by the people. This comes as no surprise from folks who might believe that the rest of the world exists to supply us with oil and cheap goods; to follow through on such advice would be nothing short of continued disaster in this century for the United States.
Slavery is over. Oppression is not acceptable. Authoritarianism is no longer tolerable.
My triumphant return to the Motley Moose (I know many of you were concerned I had been KIA in a recent raid by Sarah Palin; these rumors were false, but we lost some good meese out there…)!
You can catch the full, original article (with one spiffy photo) here .
I brought this up in an earlier post on my site, The Journeying Progressive, but no one has commented on it directly…didn’t Thomas Jefferson write that we were endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that “among these” are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?