The World Isn't a John Wayne Movie

While I can't say I agree with everything President Obama has done so far, he has fulfilled my expectations on the diplomatic front. Chavez is a democratically elected leader of a large nation, snubbing him achieves nothing. While I hate the Saudi family as much as the next guy, they are key players in the Middle East. Being open to talking with the Iranians is somehow worse than Reagan talking to the Soviets?

Iran may have a horrible government (theocracies tend to be that way...), but they are uniquely positioned to deal with Lebanese extremists, Iraqi Shi'ite extremists, and are religiously at odds with al-Qaida and the Taliban. Yes, Iran has encouraged and supplied violence in Lebanon and Iraq.... so have we. We supplied Israel for slaughters in Lebanon in the '80's, we supplied Hussein for slaughters against Iran/Kurds/Shi'ites, and we currently supply the Northern Alliance (violent mafia) in Afghanistan.

Geopolitics isn't a game where domestic partisanship should deter communication and compromises. Geopolitics isn't a Nintendo, and America doesn't own a Game Genie. Our geopolitics include increased equity in Latin America at the expense of US corporate interests, Russian and Chinese energy holds, destitute Afghans caught between the Northern Alliance and Taliban, the hopeless daily life in Palestine and the political implications it carries throughout the world, and an Africa where even Kenya and South Africa are unstable.

The future will only bring bigger problems. As climate change wreaks havoc on the world's poorest countries, we will see wars over access to water. We will see natural disasters completely destroy governments. We could even see Europe under ice.

Anyone bent out of shape about a hand shake should move to North Korea. I hear they don't mess around with stuff like that.

Let's not forget how awesome we were at diplomacy for the last 8 years --

My Fox News Protest Experience

All this Tea Bag coverage on Fox News lately got me thinking of how Fox News has covered every other protest in America since it went on the air. Mostly it has either ignored or marginalized much larger protests than the tea bag rallies. But it did show up to a small protest of a couple hundred people in Manhattan, Kansas, on November 9, 2006.

I happened to be participating in the protest against war criminal Donald Rumsfeld. It was the day after he announced his "resignation" from the Bush administration (turns out he was fired for not supporting the "Surge").

Fox News has been claiming it has merely been covering the Tea Bag parties, not promoting them. Their coverage of anti Bush rallies were quite different, as I found out first hand.

I was approached by a national Fox News reporter and asked why we even bothered to show up since Rumsfeld was leaving the administration. My response was that criminals and generally evil people should not be allowed to retire in style, for a few reasons:

--Rumsfeld had the power to adequately equip soldiers going to Iraq, but chose not to. This was something many soldiers were furious about. ie soldiers were sent into battle without armored vehicles or proper gear. Families were dipping into savings to give their sons and daughters helmets and vests! I pointed out how despicable that was considering the Pentagon's budget.

--Rumsfeld was the one who sold Hussein his WMD's in the first place, then watched him use them all on the Shi'ites and Kurds.

--Rumsfeld was handing out no-bid contracts to his friends in private businesses to run the war machine. They were stealing money from Americans and committing war crimes against Iraqis.

This was when the reporter paused and asked, "So you don't support the troops?"

Thankfully the interview was never aired, because I went into a fury about him not listening to me and being a propagandist. I'm sure that would have been the part to air if it had been a slower news day.

The kicker came after the camera turned off. The reporter turned out to be a very friendly guy who told me point blank, "Sorry about that, I'm just doing my job." JUST DOING HIS JOB!

I wonder if this guy was "just doing his job" on Wednesday?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jBOqEHrFZ0