Tag Archive for government

I’ve Had Enough Change

August 9, 2011 Editorials One comment
Emerald’s Gem Box
Emerald Greene Publisher

Our government raised the debt ceiling and said they were going to “cut spending.” The scary thing in all of this was how many of our elected officials were excited over this “breakthrough.”

Raising the debt ceiling – ha – just what America needed.  Now our government can spend more money that we do not have; our national deficit can rise even more; new/higher taxes will be placed upon us common folk; and the economy will sink even lower.

Cutting spending – ha again – the two things I heard the most talk about in cutting spending was our military and Medicare; the two things we don’t need to cut. The military – the ones who keep us free and safe.  Medicare – the ones (people) who gave us life and paved a way for us; and now we are going to take away from them?

Where are the spending cuts for all the money we are giving other countries? It was reported on August 8 that “President Obama has approved $105 million for humanitarian efforts in the Horn of Africa to combat worsening drought and famine. White House press secretary Jay Carney says the money will help provide food, shelter, water and sanitation and health services to those in need” or some cuts on the people that are bleeding this country dry by being on welfare when they are capable of getting out and working like the rest of us (and before you get your pen ready to write me hate mail – I know some people actually need disability or some source of welfare, but we ALL KNOW that the majority of welfare is being spent on citizens who know how to “work the system”); or how about a salary decrease for our Washington officials so they can feel the sting of unemployment and a bad economy like the rest of us.

We, the average American citizen, have to live our lives on a budget.  We only make so much money and we can only spend so much money. We HAVE to pay our electric bills, telephone bills, water bills, gas bills, car expenses and house mortgages and hope there is enough money left at the end of the month to buy groceries for us and our children. If we don’t pay our bills then we suffer the consequences; such as having our utilities disconnected or the car/house repossessed. We don’t have the luxury of raising our debt ceiling. If we don’t have enough money at the end of the month then we either have to get a second (or third) job or downsize our lifestyle. Why isn’t our government held to the same standard as we have to live?

And if our country isn’t falling apart enough, now America has lost its AAA rating and the Dow fell the most it has fallen in two and a half years.

And where is our President?  He is standing before us blaming Bush, blaming the Republicans and blaming the Tea Party. He even made statements referring to the fact that we all go through “bad times;” we have earthquakes and our Dow will rise and fall. Ha again. It’s time he steps up to the plate and acts like a CEO should. He needs to quit blaming others and take responsibility for the mess America is in and do something to start fixing it.

Last week, during a speech, the President said, “When I said, ‘change we can believe in,’ I didn’t say ‘change we can believe in tomorrow,’”

Well, I for one have had enough “CHANGE.”

Until then….see you around the town.

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Revolution

February 8, 2011 Editorials Comments Off

National Security

Joe Boyles , Guest Columnist

What is happening on the streets of Cairo is seismic.  The revolt which began in Tunisia has spread eastward and may soon engulf far more Muslim nations across North Africa and the Middle East.  It is hard to stay in front of fast-changing events like these.
Revolutions are sometimes like wildfires – once begun, they quickly spread and are difficult to contain.  It began with the American Revolution in the late 18th Century.  Actually, our revolution was really misnamed since there was never an intention to overthrow the English government but rather, to secede from its control.
On the heels of our revolt from English rule came a real revolution in France … and it was a mess.  The people took to the streets to protest their horrid living conditions, stormed the central jail (Bastille), and soon forced the monarchy to step down.  What ensued was bloody and out-of-control.  In the early 1790s, more than thirty thousand lost their heads in a bloody rampage that eventually consumed the revolution itself.  What emerged was military rule under Napoleon, twenty years of war across Europe, and a fallen empire.  The French Revolution was an ugly chapter in man’s yearn for liberty.
The Russian Revolution during World War I is a classic study in the danger of a popular revolution being hijacked.  The seeds of anarchy in Czarist Russia had been underway for more than three decades when the popular uprising overthrew Nicholas II.  The moderate Kerensky government was in control for nearly a year when the Communists under Lenin and Trotsky wrestled away control.  Lenin’s movement was small but well organized.  They used terror to restore order and quickly subverted the opposition.  In essence, Lenin hijacked the Russian Revolution and made it his own.  The result was tyrannical rule and the death of tens of millions over the next seventy years.
A few years after the rise of the Communists in Russia, the National Socialists under Adolf Hitler attempted an unsuccessful coup in Southern Germany.  Hitler learned his lesson and over the course of several elections, gradually took power by democratic means.  Once in control, he brutally crushed the opposition and consolidated his stranglehold on industrial Germany.  What followed was arguably the darkest chapter in the history of civilization.
Following World War II, the Soviet Union extended its control over Eastern Europe and installed friendly, puppet governments.  When first Hungarians and later Czechs revolted against their oppressors, the Soviets brutally suppressed the revolts.  But sooner or later, dictators tire and opposition can only be quelled for so long before the simmering pot again boils over.  In the late 1980s, when labor unrest in Poland led to the fires of liberty throughout Eastern Europe, Soviet backed governments and eventually, the Soviet Union itself broke apart.
In South Vietnam, the Kennedy Administration tired of President Diem and sanctioned his overthrow in late 1963.  What ensued was a revolving door of governments that never again established confidence or continuity with the Vietnamese people.  What passed for a government could not withstand the pressure from their northern communist cousins.
In the late 1970s, unrest against the regime of the Shah of Iran boiled over.  The Iranian Revolution turned out to be a theocracy that plagues the world to this day.  Many blame President Jimmy Carter for not properly handling the events that unfolded in Tehran.  Some of that criticism is hindsight.
In looking back over the history, it seems that revolutions turn out badly more often than not.  It is a dangerous period.  The people of Egypt and elsewhere have a legitimate gripe against the tyrannically governments which repress liberty and human rights.  The danger is when opportunists hijack the revolution and replace the hated regime with something that often proves worse and far more dangerous.
Follow-up: To those who weighed in both pro and con to madisonfloridavoice.com under the question, “Why does Joe Boyles hate teachers and women?” I would simply respond that my article in the Carrier on January 26 (Public Sector Unions) never mentioned education and was gender neutral.  Many members of my family are and have been teachers, and I have the greatest respect for their contributions to education including my own.  Those who truly know me appreciate that I hold women in the highest regard.  And thanks to everyone for reading and considering what I have to say.

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Nation Building

February 1, 2011 Editorials Comments Off

National Security
By: Joe Boyles – Guest Columnist

Nation building, the act of creating and fostering a functional government in a foreign land, isn’t a core mission of the American military, but it “comes with the territory.” It has always been with our country, as it was with the British Empire before our nation was founded. Sometimes it is a political football between the parties like it was in the 2000 election – Gore argued that it was an important part of the military’s mission while Bush argued against it. Gore was right.
In our nation’s history from the time of the Civil War forward, our armies have forced civil control on the conquered lands for some period of time, often with mixed results. At the end of the Rebellion in 1865, the North instituted a period of Reconstruction which went particularly bad in the former Confederate states including Florida. Eventually, the North withdrew and allowed Southerners to once again form their own state and local governments.
In America’s one imperial war against Spain in 1898, we instituted government control over The Philippines and quickly discovered that we were not only out of our league but needed to return control back to the people. At the end of World War I, the winning Allies governed the area of Germany west of the Rhine River for several years to provide a protective buffer for France. It went badly.
Our efforts at nation building following World War II went much better. In Germany, our military government was short-lived and a new constitution and representative democracy were soon formed. In post-war Japan under proconsul Douglas MacArthur, the transition to a new democratic and liberal society was even more astounding. The democratic roots of both of these nations and firm allies are the result of American nation building following the ashes of world war. We learned well the lessons from our failure after World War I.
America’s efforts in nation building following the Korean War have proven spectacular. Today, South Korea is an economic bulwark in Northeast Asia. In South Vietnam, we bit off far more than we could chew. The revolving governments following the Diem assassination in 1963 never had the support of the people; we were unable to build any strength of government which could repel their northern brethren.
Since 2000, our two wars in the Middle East have seen different results with respect to building democratic nations which represent the aspirations of the people. In Iraq since 2007, the results have been good if tenuous. Part of this is the result of the people being accustomed to a strong central government. But in Afghanistan where governing is far more tribal, positive results for creating a central democracy have been agonizingly slow. It would appear that for every step forward, there are at least one and sometimes two steps backward.
Our strategy in Afghanistan is counter insurgency, developed in 2008 by the outgoing Bush Administration and implemented by the Obama team. We’re asking our troops, primarily the foot soldiers of our Army and Marines, to take territory from Taliban insurgents and then hold it while we fabricate a functioning government – administration, security, schools, health services, etc.
With this strategy, the iron fist of our military must be housed in a velvet glove. We must separate the enemy from the people and stride carefully. It subjects our troops to greater risk and more casualties. How successful and at what cost are the critical, unanswered questions. History tells us that when Afghanistan is forgotten and left to its own tribal inclinations, the results are bad and sometimes catastrophic – the 9/11 attacks were planned and executed from al Qaeda camps in the Afghan desert.
Today, Muslim North Africa is in flames as the people of Tunisia and Egypt rise up against totalitarian governments. As the Russian Jewish refugee Nathan Sharansky wrote, ‘when you hold a gun to the people’s head, sooner or later your arm will tire.’ What kind of rule will replace the long-standing strong men? Will a Muslim fundamentalist regime such as Iran fill the vacuum? Do we intervene to protect shipping through the Suez Canal? What kind of nation building will NATO be called upon to assist the democratic aspirations of these people? How well positioned is our State Department to handle these challenges?
Nation building is a tough job but an important responsibility. If we intervene and change a regime, we have an obligation to restore order and improve the government. The United States is the premier democracy among the world’s nations. People who are oppressed look to us for leadership and democratic reforms.
We live in a dangerous and sometimes exciting world in the second decade of the 21st Century. The possibilities are endless.

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