Obama: a brighter shade of pink?

Would I be wrong in thinking that now Obama is free of elections he is showing his true colours and that they are  darker shade of pink?

 

And I mean in the British sense, not the American, where anybody who is not to the right of Genghis Khan is regarded as a dangerous pinko.

 

His inaugural address was very under-reported in the UK so I have had to scrabble around to get a handle on it, but I get the very strong impression that it would have gone down well at a Labour Party conference.

 

The speech was a strong defence of big government and ‘collective action’, a term beloved by those who believe that the state is all and that individuality is a sin. He spoke of ‘preserving our freedoms requires collective action’. Well, we all know what that means – interference by the regime in every aspect of life, which is the position in the UK right now.

 

I would have thought that the biggest problem facing the US is the financial state of the nation, and yet he only mentioned the deficit problem once, so clearly it is not  very high on his list of priorities. He believes that America can keep shovelling money into social programmes and maintaining and improving dependency measures indefinitely without addressing the money nexus.

 

This is exactly what got the UK and the EU generally into the present parlous state. It is like watching a replay of the Blair / Brown disaster of borrowing money to fund welfarism and to create a client electorate. There is now a belated recognition that you have to scale back present commitments or impose huge tax increases. O will not do the one and can’t do the other. The alternative is everlasting deficits.

 

The national debt is already reaching a point of unsustainability. I shudder to think what the state of the nation would look like if the humungous debts of the lower tiers of government were added to the pile. And we know that much of the state and municipal debt is the outcome of officials and politicians milking the public purse to give themselves outrageous pay-cheques and juicy (and unfunded) pension rights. Just like Greece, in fact

 

At the same time he is giving renewed commitment to ‘green’ policies that have already cost vast amounts of money for no discernible benefit, perhaps the most lunatic being converting food – corn – into ethanol under the  stimulus of huge subsidies, thus pushing up feed costs for stock farmers and prices in the shops.

 

As for foreign policy, it would appear that O is just not interested. There was little mention in his speech; nothing about Syria or the Algerian massacre in which there were US casualties. However, he has managed to thoroughly piss-off the UK government by putting his oar in the future of Europe just at a critical time for Cameron, on the eve of his keynote speech on the planned in–out referendum.

 

 

 

To add to this, we then had a threat that unless the UK strengthened its defence capacity it would no longer rank as a partner for intelligence exchange, the logic of which escapes me completely.

 

Obama, UK & In Amenas,,,,,,,,,,,,,

The Torygraph got it right.

 

 

O's message for the UK to remain in the EU was "breathtaking arrogance". Whatever possessed O to involve himself in Britain's internal affairs is beyond my comprehension unless he so dislikes the UK that he wants it to squander national resources by remaining a member. On the other hand, O may just be pandering to the Europeans who somehow adore him.

 

Some analysts believe O's disdain for the UK stems from his Kenyan father's experience under colonial rule. If this is the case, then O should be even more disdainful of France, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Germany not to mention our own colonial endeavors.

 

Now that Algeria's ham fisted efforts at the In Amenas gas facility resulted in American deaths, and now that France has upheld Algeria's actions in this matter, O will have to be careful how he characterizes Algeria's interventions. He cannot mimic France without an uproar from Americans who are appalled at the killing of hostages by both terrorists and the Algerian army.

 

The world press, including al Jazeera, has focused almost entirely on foreign hostage treatment with nary a word about the status of the terrorists involved. In fairness, Algeria has been less than forthright in its reporting of the incident and the numbers and nationalities of people involved.

 

 

Interestingly, those who are involved extend beyond the list of usual suspects. Suddenly, Norway and Japan are intimately confronted with terrorism in the Middle East given the loss of their workers at the facility.

 

 

Clearly, the terrorists are not discriminating and what was once a vendetta against the Western superpowers and so called American imperialism suddenly has a new international face. Quite possibly, the terrorists could not differentiate between the foreigners. Reportedly, they were only interested in mistreating the non-Muslims.

 

The In Amenas incident heightens the prospect of greater entente between France and Algeria. Hollande's outspoken support of the Algerian intervention must have been music to ears of President Bouteflika and his minions in the military. After all, they vowed to concede nothing to the terrorists; a domestically popular concession when their own people were being freed leaving only foreign hostages.

 

 

Moreover, In Amenas is a strategic installation producing some 10% of Algeria's natural gas. That is enough to make the difference between profit and loss in gas sales abroad.

 

Algeria is seriously xenophobic and could not possibly have accepted the invitation of an SAS type of operation from the UK, France or the US. It is likely, however, that any of these forces would have done a better job given their  training, experience and reputation for excellence in their work.

 

 

So doing, would also have taken the burden off of Algeria for bulldozing itself into the terrorist strongholds and killing everyone in sight.

 

 

On the other hand, it would be unfair to simply condemn Algeria for what it achieved. After all, they are committed to uprooting the jihadist and al Qaida militants who not only threaten Mali, but have been a serious threat to Algeria as well.  

 

 

Sex, politics & paradox...

Having now finished reading ‘Thomas Jefferson: the Art of Power’, I am struck by a modern paradox.

 

Jefferson’s father-in-law kept a concubine with whom he had a number of children. One of whom was Sally Hemmings, a light-skinned, long-haired beauty.

 

When Mrs. Jefferson died, Sally took over the matrimonial bed which she occupied for the next 44 years until TJ died.

 

This fact was widely known and much commented upon in the scabrous press of those times.

 

This had no effect on his career whatsoever, and he held high office almost continuously for many years until he became 2-term President.

 

The sexual behavior of politicians was regarded as of little political consequence until comparatively recent times.

 

It was fairly common knowledge in Fleet St and establishment circles that Lord Boothby was a bisexual who pleasured both Dorothy MacMillan and the Kray twin deviant; that Lloyd George was a serial adulterer; that Tom Driberg, in Cap’n Bob’s memorable phrase when  Chairman of the Commons Kitchen Committee, ‘ would bugger the restaurant waiters’; that Hutch the nightclub pianist and singer from the West Indies was in great demand amongst  upper-crust ladies, including Lady Mountbatten, on account of his prodigious endowment; that Princess Margaret would put it about a bit (the joke at the time was that Mag’s lover was on the stage - he had a small part in ‘Charlie’s Aunt).

 

The Profumo affair was not about the goings-on at Cliveden but was about John Profumo, Minister War, sharing his squeeze with a Russian spy, with horrendous implications for national security.

 

In earlier times it would have been regarded as the worst possible taste even to suggest that the great and good actually had sex lives at all. The papers would go out of business if they published anything in the least prurient. Even the NotW, when describing sexual intercourse, would coyly say ‘Intimacy took place”!

 

Cut to the 21^st Century, an age that has never been so promiscuous, and yet any kind of sexual deviation on the part of politicians is seen as a bar to high office. When people are at it like a frog up a pump, why should sexual adventures be seen as anything but part of life’s rich tapestry, and irrelevant in the extreme to a person’s capacity for public affairs?

 

If today’s hypocritical sanctions had been applied in our dirty-minded age, the US would never have emerged in its present form (Jefferson’s master stroke was the Louisiana Purchase which more than doubled the size of the US at a stroke); FDR had a long-term mistress (and looking at Mrs. R one can scarcely blame him); Ike would have been booted out because of his semi-public affair with Kate Somersby, possibly changing the outcome of WW2 and depriving the US of one of its best Presidents.

 

So when it might have mattered, it didn’t, and now it doesn’t matter, it – er- does.

 

A rich paradox indeed.

 

 

The Great Binge-drinking Crisis...

From The Sun to The  Economist, the media has been hyping the binge drinking ‘crisis’.

 

Really?

 

A crisis is the point reached at which you either die or recover. Is that where we have got to, or is it that every difficult issue  today is a ‘crisis’?

 

Let’s get a dose of realism into this.

 

There are two alleged problems – binge drinking by yoof and booze-related health problems amongst the elderly.

 

Drinking by the 15 to 25 age-group has declined markedly in the last few years, by around 30%. The media loves to lurk outside Saturday night watering holes to catch some teen-age slapper lying drunk in a pool of her own vomit, but might I suggest that this is atypical. It is surely not endemic.

 

As to the elderly, it appears to escaped the attention of the preachers that in the last 30 years life expectancy has increased by around 20 years. This means that the average oldie liver has had 2 extra decades of the hard stuff.

 

But accepting that here might just be a problem, what to do?

 

Dave’s characteristically daft idea is minimum pricing. This is just throwing dust in our eyes because he knows that the EU would clobber it. The drinks industry would be delighted if he actually managed to get this through.

 

A starting point might be to adjust the tax ratio between spirits and other alcohol.

 

50 years ago, the national tipple was beer. Spirits were a luxury. The controlled price for a bottle of scotch was about half-a week’s wages for a manual worker.

 

I am not suggesting a return to that kind of price discrimination, but the tax on beer should be slashed (which might also encourage people back into pubs; the traditional night down the local is now just too expensive). The tax on spirits should be raised sufficiently to create a significant price differential and hopefully reduce sales of vodka-based fizzy drinks that are almost exclusively pitched at the young market.

 

This would also benefit the Revenue in these straitened times.

 

The solution to disorderly binge-drinking is simple: enforce the law.

 

It is an offence for a barman to serve a person who is drunk. The licensing authority should be ruthless in barring offending licensees, together with the owners of the business to prevent them simply replacing one manager with another. In short, recidivists should be put out of business, even (or especially) the greedy chains like Pubmaster.

 

It is an offence to be drunk and disorderly or drunk and incapable, but the police do little. I guess they don’t want to clean-up the cells the following morning. In the old days it was a night in the cells, an appearance before the Beak the next morning, 40 shillings fine, and your name in the local rag.

 

Then there’s the liquor licensing laws.

 

The permitted hours are crazy. What possible public good is served by 24 hours licenses? 12 hours a day should be the maximum with 11p.m. as latest closing time.

 

Supermarkets should have to pay a license fee commensurate with their ability to pay. This might discourage them from selling booze cheaper than bottled water.

 

And finally………

 

My belief is that the 1980’s saw the apogee of hard drinking. In those days champagne  at opening time was the real deal during the Big Bang days in the City, and much business was transacted over 3-hour lunches at Simpsons, as I vaguely recall, now replaced by burger-lite and cocaine. Fleet St was fuelled by booze, and the quality of journalism has suffered since it went out of fashion. The Kings & Keys in Fleet St was the real HQ of the DT, and the Printer’s Devil was the haunt of the last of the hot-metal men.

 

Crisis? What crisis?

Al jazeera & Americans......

Long have I whinged over America's absence of any serious TV broadcast of international news. Non-Americans may find this strange as they can tune into CNN International and receive world-wide news almost on demand. The problem is, CNN International is not broadcast in America.

 

 

Instead, CNN offers predigested news items over heavily scripted broadcasts focusing mainly on what's happening in America. Annoyingly burdened with frequent commercials, CNN also provides nightly interview programs hosted by the likes of Piers Morgan and morning news specials hosted by the hyperactive and constantly switched-on Soledad O'Brien.

 

At other times, CNN America indulges its audience with daily pundit panels covering domestic events and typified by lack of depth, misinformation, and worst of all, boredom. Some of the misinformation comes from breaking news stories before the basic who, what, when, where and why of the item is clear. Such stories initially depend upon on eye witness sources for an accounting of events.

 

The several full days CNN spent on the recent Sandy Hook school Shooting in Newtown, Connecticut is an example of consistently getting facts wrong that were supplied by locals. In addition, CNN puts its own liberal spin on most of what it scripts and broadcasts. Seldom does CNN America offer any programming that cannot be understood by a middle-school level student. In another vein, American middle school students have nowhere near the understanding of world events than their counterparts in other developed countries.

 

Enter a first-class, serious, energetic and dedicated international news resource; al Jazeera.

 

Their recent effort to establish themselves as a cable news network has fallen flat owing to American prejudice. Namely, al Jazeera is thought to be pro-Arab, especially in its Arabic broadcasts. Never mind a short, but indicative history of event reporting that is truly international, intelligent, insightful, well presented and professionally reported. It is the latter that this Qatar government-owned satellite broadcast enterprise is attempting to sell to those Americans responsible for licensing cable TV.

 

In spite of its record for excellence, al Jazeera is finding it very difficult to break into the American TV media scene as a player. Having just purchased former Vice-President Al Gores small and unsuccessful satellite TV company, Current TV, al Jazeera hopes to expand the organization into a top ranking competitor to CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, another satellite newscaster owned by the NBC network.

 

No sooner was the deal between Current TV and al Jazeera announced than America's second largest cable telecommunications company, Time Warner Cable, expelled Current TV from its stable of broadcast organizations, thus depriving al Jazeera of Time Warner's large subscriber audience amounting about 12 million households.

 

Although there are other outlets for what is expected to be named, Al Jazeera America, this setback illustrates America's visceral distrust if not antipathy for an Arab-owned newscast company operating in the USA. Subsequent to Time Warner's dropping Current TV, it announced that it would keep the door open for Al Jazeera America to operate within its group.

 

These actions by Time Warner illustrate America's self-imposed isolation in the broadcast industry. In effect, American citizens are being deprived of access to meaningful, if not slanted, world news by prejudice, politics and, worst of all, public opinion. Indeed, public opinion dictates all broadcast activity because the public ultimately decides what it wants to watch. And what the public wants to watch is meticulously measured and published as ratings.

 

Just now, the Fox News company is enjoying high ratings while CNN and MSNBC are not. Efforts to increase ratings include almost anything other than the unbiased reporting of international news. For example, CNN enjoyed an evening of high ratings during its coverage of New Year's eve celebrations in New York's Times Square.

 

This spike was attributed by some to the presenters, Anderson Cooper of CNN and Kathy Griffiths, an off color commedienne, who put on what some considered a sex show. What's even more interesting is that both are gay.

 

Therein lies an important clue to the entire issue of informative versus popular news, versus anything else that happens to be on TV at any given time. For the most part, the public will tune into the most inane and spicy program available.

 

It is doubtful that the USA has a monopoly on this tendency. But that is no excuse for being deprived of complex and in-depth access to world events. Part of a broadcast organizations charter should be the social obligation to inform and educate the public in as unbiased a fashion as possible.

 

Time was, when the States had a pretty good record of achieving this objective, e.g. during the Walter Cronkite era. Today, spin and bias is the name of the game while outlets like MSNBC, CNN and Fox News have taken strong political positions of left, center-left and right respectively.

 

It is likely that even if Al Jazeera America is allowed into the fold, America's news programming will remain flat, biased, and shallow. After all, Al Jazeera America will eventually succumb to the struggle for high ratings and everyone knows what that means.