StillHopeForAmerica

There are certain aspects of life in the USA that are particularly good, and others that are the opposite. During this trip I shall touch on both, but my overwhelming reaction on this trip is one of hope. America isn’t done yet, and that’s very important to all of us. We need a strong, resilient America, and this country might be bloodied but it remains unbowed.

Perhaps the reason that there’s still hope is enshrined in the slender shape of President Elect Obama. The people here, by and large, are convinced that they have amongst them a man who can and will lead this country back to the summit of world affairs whilst regaining the traction to rediscover and invigorate its moral leadership of the free world.

It remains to be seen whether or not this optimism is well founded although all right thinking people must hope so. There are deep shadows that threaten the horizon and they come in the form of the scandal-plagued Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich who was arrested last week on charges of conspiracy to swap political favors for cash, including an attempt to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama following his presidential election victory.

No one is suggesting that the President Elect has any connection to the Governor’s alleged misbehavior, other than that of geographical proximity. However there is the underlying linkage of the Chicago political machine of the current Mayor Daly that underpins all Democratic shenanigans in the windy city. Barack Obama cut his political teeth against this background, which means his saintly aura might be more than a little tarnished. Personally a little humanity makes the new president much more convincing for me.

Now that interest rates are approaching zero per cent and the great governments of the old industrial powerhouses are totally committed to the financial and industrial salvage operation we have few weapons left to deploy except common sense and our will to win. It has seen us through even bigger crisis than this huge economic downturn, and it will do so again.

TheProposition8Disaster

Many of you won’t know what a Proposition in California means. It usually equates to the ultimate in American statewide democracy. If enough of the electorate agrees on a political proposal it can be forced on the ballot and then be voted on by everyone.

Usually this means that some grass roots, populist ideas can be enacted and generally has been a force for political freedom in the best traditions of the country. But, at the same time Barack Obama was being elected President there was a new Proposition 8 being voted upon which changed the state Constitution to restrict the definition of marriage to a union between a man and a woman and eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry. The proposition does not affect domestic partnerships in California.

The opposing campaigns raised $35.8 million and $37.6 million, respectively, becoming the highest-funded campaign on any state ballot that day and outspending every other campaign in the country in except for the presidential contest. The proponents insist the law should recognize exclusively heterosexual marriage and claimed that failure to reverse the May 2008 Supreme Court ruling that recognized the right of same-sex couples to marry would damage society, require changes to a school curriculum to discuss same-sex marriage, and threaten the free exercise of religion. The opponents argued that eliminating the rights of any Californian and mandating that one group of people be treated differently from everyone else was unfair and wrong.

As far as this writer can ascertain there was no such school curriculum to change as marriage, of any kind, was not and is not taught in California’s schools.

Just as the electorate of the American West were congratulating themselves on the success of their liberal tendency for electing President Obama the State of California was simultaneously taking an amazingly retrograde step. It is a great shame on the backers of Proposition 8 that they consider only heterosexual partnerships should have legitimacy and on any logical basis this argument has no merit. The sexual gender of your bed partner has no bearing on how you run your public life.

I am not gay, and have never been a public campaigner on this or related issues. But it must be obvious to everyone that every adult should have the right to choose his or her partner, and for that partnership to be recognized in law. How you can argue against this is a question that boggles my mind, but let’s voice what this is really about. People who consider themselves devout followers of various religions have interpreted their scriptures to mean that the Lord above does not permit such partnerships, but as they can’t enforce this, they’ll make do by stopping such partnerships being legal.

This is made worse because there are many people in California who waited many years to be able to enter into legal partnerships in their home state, and then did so, only to now find that these partnerships have been unraveled.

Surely we have reached a stage in our civilization where we understand that it cannot be considered a sin for two adults to fall in love with people of the same sex and then commit to a legally binding partnership between them. Such retrograde laws as Proposition 8 will inevitably be overturned but a great many people will suffer more and for no good reason.

GreetingsFromAmerica

Greetings from America and forgive me if the jet lag hampers my fluency and my ability to edit myself. It is warmer and sunnier than back home in freezing England. Leaving home it was cold, dark and icy, arriving here I was greeted by a smiling uniformed man who greeted me with the words, “Welcome to Los Angeles, we hope you enjoy your stay!”

I know its corny, or as we now say in England, cheesy, but it is much more pleasant than the people at terminal 3 of Heathrow who informed me that I was at the wrong terminal as if I should know this by telepathy. Apparently I am not alone in my ignorance, as according to the United Airline ground staff, this error is being repeated all the time. But no one cares, in fact it seems as if the mistake amuses him or her.

The whole trip is made even more pleasant by the fact that I have finally been able to accumulate enough miles to obtain free tickets to America and been able to do so before the benefits expired!

Arriving early the flight was informed that we would be bussed to another building because “Immigration” was not able to deal with us. It was as if our planeload of passengers were a total surprise to “immigration”, which does seem strange as the flight in question are daily and have been running for many years. But you know what jokers these airline people are. The huge line facing the passengers trying to get through the customs hall proved this. It was as if we were in a huge Disney line with the only difference being that there was not going to be any great rides a the end of the line.

Better organized this ordeal could have been half as long and much more efficient. Official America lets itself down by the way it treats its visitors with such disdain, but it’s still a great place.

Everything was made wonderful when our daughter, Sarah, along with her children picked us up without attracting a parking ticket from the traffic cop hovering over anyone daring to pause curbside for more than a second or two. Now I’m sitting in her living room, trying to adjust to the time difference without passing out but fully aware that I will be awake about 3 in the morning, so it would be good if it could be fun.

Perhaps I should indulge in the Night Cold remedy, which could fix my cough and cold and allow me the chance to simply fall asleep. Forgive me if I sound sleepy, normal service will shortly

ObamaWhatWorriesMeNow

Yesterday amongst the subjects I covered was my concern that President Elect Obama is acting as if he is already the President. One of my readers wrote me this;

“ I don’t think you can blame the lack of activity and leadership on the one who takes it because he had to pull the baby out of the bathwater.

These months are precious to restore confidence and avoid sliding into a depression- and it may already be too late – so not to try at this stage, knowing he has to deal with it formally, as of January, would be stupid and reckless.”

My response is that it's Obama's hypocrisy and flagrant disregard for the law and constitution I dislike.

Obama does really not convince me but we all really need to hope.

It's not a good start for him to say one thing and do the other. If he said I really need to bend the rules because we have a huge problem and did exactly what he's doing I'd be fine with it.

It's a blatant disregard for the truth or for our ability to spot the lie that's of great concern. It's also really dangerous for us all if we allow breaches of the constitution when it suits us because we won't be able to do anything about future breaches when it doesn't.

WorryingTimes

Two seemingly disassociated events taking place this week in the US and UK might be inextricably linked. In fact they are potentially of immense political significance.

In the USA President Elect Barack Obama is acting, in all but name, as if he were already the President, whereas, in fact, as he has previously correctly stated, there is only one President at a time, and still, at this time, his name is President George W Bush. We have never had such a lame duck last months of a Presidency as we are currently suffering from, and this is caused by two factors. One, we all have to admit, is that George W Bush has not continued to assert himself prior to his leaving and as a consequence there is a leadership deficit. The other unavoidable conclusion is that the President Elect is so determined to hit the ground running that he has inserted himself into the vacuum.

In the UK the police arrested and questioned a Member of Parliament, Damien Green about his alleged gathering and dissemination of Home Office leaks about immigration. The police not only raided Green’s two homes they also entered his House of Commons office. The police virtually never take such actions, in fact the last time someone attempted to arrest Members of Parliament and enter the territory of the Commons was when Charles I did so with his officers in 1642, and he and his men were ejected and their actions led directly to the English Civil War.

Both of these situations represent well-intentioned leadership that assumes they are always right and certainly never wrong. In the case of the British Prime Minister we have a perfect example of the poacher turned gamekeeper. Gordon Brown is the same man who, when in opposition, built a reputation by obtaining and distributing a constant stream of leaks against the then Conservative government.

Unbelievably the senior politicians to whom the police report in the UK deny all prior knowledge of the police action. I am amongst many others who simply don’t believe this assertion, to the extent that I am calling Minister Jacqui Smith a liar.

Now there will be an investigation by another, supposedly independent police officer to discover the truth. I hope they are able to conduct this investigation quickly and thoroughly, and then whoever authorized and controlled this foolhardy and unacceptable breach of our system should be unceremoniously kicked out of office.

There is, in both countries, an erosion of liberty. In the UK the rate of this shrinking freedom is very alarming, so much so that it is a common discussion amongst the population.

In the USA the jury is still out, as none of us knows the actuality of the Obama Presidency. We can only guess at its shape and style by the tone of its preparation. We all understand his desire to hit the ground running but that does not excuse his pre-emption of Presidential authority and power.

Neither of our countries can afford to allow any further slippage of our constitution or tradition and freedom, too many people have shed too much blood to build them for us.

MumbaiAftermath

Over the last two days there have been a series of linked, murderous terrorist outrages in the Indian city of Mumbai. Over 100 people were murdered and more than 300 have been injured. So far we don’t know the precise nature of the group that perpetrated the attack other than the fact that they appear to be from the Indian sub continent and are followers of Islam, as they claim.

The other inescapable fact is that they were targeting, in particular, citizens of the USA and UK in addition to having invaded a specifically Jewish building.

Already the politically correct apologists in our midst have expressed their view that we “must understand the causes of this reaction on their part.” This is code for polite society to turn off their normal morality button unless and except if it were a member of their own family who is lying dead in a bloodied heap because of this group of murdering thugs.

The PC argument continues with, look at how we have made their (Muslim) people suffer in (substitute whichever suits you) Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Bosnia, Sudan etc. etc. and you will have a better understanding of their anger.

Enough of this nonsense, how about our anger, our rights and our people?

Because these people happen to be Muslim terrorists does not make all Muslims terrorists; but there are clearly enough Muslims who are terrorists to cause the sane part of their society major problems. In addition, there have other Muslims who are sympathetic to their "cause" and identify with their anger who provide back up, finance and emotional support.

It is past time for the common Muslim person who is outraged by such acts of terrorism to take every opportunity to express their outrage and to work with the authorities to help stamp such groups out.

Muslim terrorists have been attacking anyone they could attack without any real reason or acceptable justification for a very long time, and its time it was stopped. We plainly will not stop them by talking to them when their intent is to overthrow your civilization and kill or suppress all non-believers.

Before anyone reading this reaches for his or her electronic pen to assail me with any response supporting or understanding the rights of these killers let me, as calmly as possible, respectfully point out that terrorism such as the Mumbai massacre has it roots way before there was any possible justification.

Before there was a modern state of Israel in 1948 there were massacres of vulnerable parts of the Jewish population more than 20 years earlier, before there was any war in Iraq or Afghanistan there was the first bombing of the World Trade Center, 10 years previously.

We could go on with such facts but the truth is that the Politically Correct idiots don’t want to hear facts when they are inconvenient.

There have even been calls for covert talks with Afghanistan’s Taliban despite their bombings of civilians, random massacres and their recent acid attacks on the faces of their country’s girls and young women who dare to get an education.

Let me make my position clear, these are evil people who are at war with us, and they must be eradicated before they are able to do even greater damage. You don’t make peace at any cost with such people; instead you must consign them to the litter-bin of history.

I understand that such terrorist groups seek a political over-reaction on our part, so that we become the agents of oppression they so much would love us to be. But the truth is that in every major conflict the result of the battle is that we have to grow callouses over our souls for the duration, until we've won the fight, and this will be no different.

It is fashionable to condemn anything that President George W Bush or former Premier Tony Blair did when they were in office, but their successors, Gordon Brown and Barack Obama agree with them that the terrorist threat such attacks represent are still top of their target list.

Such terrorists are our deadly enemy and must be beaten, and if we don’t deal with them, root and branch, they will, one day soon, attack you again; the only difference being it will be a bigger, better organized attack and the target will be nearer to your home.

TimeToChange

I see what you see and hear what you hear. The British and American governments are, like their many colleague governments, doing their best to lead the recovery of our economies.

The holes that our banks have helped to dig are so deep and the damage so immense that just this problem will take a long time and a great deal of luck to fix. But the problems are bigger than this; we’re facing a raft of financial and economic woes that have deeper roots than the immediate recession.

The most important of these is not the lack of consumer spending; much more serious are the balance of trade deficit, the lack of manufacturing in our key strategic industries, the growing foreign control of our power and energy sources, in fact overseas ownership of our countries.

We need immediate encouragement for our people to save for the future, to curb their long term spending on consumer rubbish and focus on our real needs, such as building pension values and investments. Governments and individuals should be encouraged to live within their means.

We must find ways to keep people in their homes and to generate movement in the property market. In the UK this could easily be helped by reducing the taxes and increasing the incentives, even on a temporary basis this would help.

Perhaps one of the most pressing issues that must be unraveled is the sheer size of the public spending in the UK as a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product. This has been growing in this country and elsewhere at an alarming rate and will continue to do so for the immediate future as this is one of the areas of the economy that governments feel might be successfully pump primed as a means of resuscitating the flat lining economy.

The fact is that the government is mortgaging our future as a rescue package for our present and this will linger like a bad smell, possibly for generations. Perhaps we need to swallow hard and take the awful medicine now rather than have to swallow poison later. We should seek solutions that might be less immediately palatable but provide long term and effective solutions. The voters will swing behind whichever politicians generate genuine answers rather than silly quick fixes that we will have to pay for in the long term.