No End Reagan

Smith writes in Time “The Age of Reagan didn't begin on Jan. 20, 1981, when he famously declared, "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."  

What does Barack Obama's election mean to you?

Raina Kelley in Newsweek wrote “A Letter to My Son On Election Night” perhaps one has to think especially the parents when they give advice to their children not only during the election time but always.

I enjoyed the article especially these lines “I can mean it when I tell you that the world is available to you……. you have to work and work hard” . I have posted the same article below for the future use.

“What does Barack Obama's election mean to you? It means many things. When you are older, we will talk about how African-American children, like their parents and grandparents, have struggled to overcome the feeling that no matter how hard they study and work and try, there are barriers—some visible, others hidden but still there—that block their way. The feeling that we can rise, but only so far. I did not want you to grow up believing that bitter remnants of the past could hold power over your future. I wanted to be able tell you that it wasn't true—that you could be anything you wanted to be. But I couldn't quite believe it myself. Now I do.

With Obama's election, I can mean it when I tell you that the world is available to you. Yes, I am waxing a bit emotional, so let me temper my exuberance. No election can wipe away racism, and bigotry will show itself to you in ways subtle and not. But it is easier today than it was yesterday to see that racism, once a barrier, is now more like a hurdle. What a fine new addition I have to my mother's arsenal of aphorisms: Son, I can (and probably will) say to you, Barack Obama faced hurdles but succeeded, and you can, too. You are only 4 months old, but already I dream of what a great rocket scientist you'd be. But if you want to be a cattle wrangler, that's OK, too. And if you want to be president? Well, we'll talk.

If you do become president, it won't be just because you won the votes of people who look like you. This election was such a triumph because it tested our nation's fundamental promise of equality—and we as a nation passed. Black Americans did not elect Obama. Americans did. Even if every African-American in the country had voted for him, it would not have been enough. He will enter the White House with the support and good wishes of millions of people of all races, colors and creeds.

Yet this break from the hold of the past, this hope of greater expectations for ourselves, comes with greater expectations on ourselves. We can no longer look to blame outside forces for our failures or rest our shortcomings in the cold comfort of bigotry. If you want to be like Obama, you have to work and work hard. He went to Columbia University and Harvard Law School. He traveled the world and opened his mind. He did not simply dream of being president; he summoned the discipline to get there.

If you could understand any of this, you'd be rolling your eyes at me right now. Hey, I was a kid, too, and it's easy to skip out on homework when no one is looking. But I speak from experience. In eighth grade, I made a contract with myself: I was going to Yale. I drew up a list of everything I would need to do to get in. It wasn't easy; I got C's in chemistry and physics and nearly failed gym (don't laugh—you inherited my genes). But the acceptance letter came.
I worked hard in college and graduated. Along the way, there were plenty of people who doubted me and said unkind things, and not all of them were white. Your black classmates might see you reading a book at recess or raising your hand in class and call you "too white" or "Uncle Tom." Ignore them. Don't let them mess with your mind or steer you from your goals. All of us have to defy stereotypes. Don't be afraid to let go of any part of our color that holds you back. As your grandfather says, "be proud and the black will take care of itself." Too many African-Americans are obsessed with rickety notions of what "real" black people do or don't do. I've been guilty of it myself, and I've been accused of being too white most of my life. Your dad is white, which means technically you are biracial—but that's black in America. I leave that for you to figure out. For now just understand that your race is part of who you are, but it isn't all of who you are. If anyone doubts your "authenticity," you can tell them that you want to be as black as the man behind the desk in the Oval Office”.

Five Reasons Why Obama Victory

“The U.S. can't solve the world's economic or security concerns without Asia's help… Indian leaders, who enjoyed a warming relationship with the U.S. under Bush, may be wary of change”. This was the Commentary by William Pesek in the Bloomberg.

The political endorsement

In India and abroad, some of so called or they only called as liberal or unbiased now become a leader of fallacy and taken economics as religion to promote what they believe rather the facts that speak in the true sense of economics science.

Consider the below endorsements:

Absurdly no required for Proof to prove Mr Surjit S Bhalla is a socialist bunker says “It will mark yet another turning point in American, and world, history. In my view, world financial markets will welcome this change, as will the world. There should be a huge peace dividend with Obama’s election, a dividend not only from past wars, but future wars averted. This is not to say that because Obama is President, there will be peace in the world. Far from it. But what one can state, with some certainty, is that the perception of foreigners, and countries “hostile” to America, will be different once Obama is the President. The perception will be less adversarial, if not one of outright admiration. And the perception of others, by Obama, is considerably different, and better, than President Bush.” As I already posted here.

Second comes an Indian newspaper Mint which just born to walk and started to talk yet towards wrong direction. It says that it “is today formally endorsing Obama as the best person to be elected the next president of the US.”

Third “The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence”.

You Can't Be Half-Socialist

Few things that US citizens should keep in mind before voting quietly says Michael Reagan in Townhall “There's an old saying that you can't be half-socialist any more than you can be half-pregnant; get knocked up with a socialist fetus and you'll have to deliver a full-born Marxist. There's nothing inbetween. Try it, you'll like it, and if you don't, as the lads in the Gestapo used to tell people, they had ways to make them like it………. There's an old saying that you can't be half-socialist any more than you can be half-pregnant; get knocked up with a socialist fetus and you'll have to deliver a full-born Marxist. There's nothing inbetween. Try it, you'll like it, and if you don't, as the lads in the Gestapo used to tell people, they had ways to make them like it.”

Seven wonders that could go wrong in Election Day!

In Time, Michael Scherer writes “7 Things That Could Go Wrong on Election Day”

USA: Greed and Cunning Reap

Writing in ET George Thomas says that “One thing should be kept in mind. Edmund Burke once said: "Folly alone cannot wholly ruin an established empire. Cunning must come to its aid". There seems too much of cunning in the post-globalisation era”. 

EDMUND MORRIS writes in NYT: an interview with former President of USA Theodore Roosevelt, but it is quite unconvincing one.

Theodore Roosevelt, Pundit

By EDMUND MORRIS

Published: October 27, 2008

THE former president, born 150 years ago today, was interviewed in his childhood home at 28 East 20th Street. He has long been a ghostly presence there. The house is now the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site. Due to Roosevelt’s great age, it is difficult to tell how well he hears contemporary questions. But he is as forceful as ever in expressing himself. His statements below are drawn from the historic record and are uncut except when interrupted by his interviewer.

 Q. Happy birthday, Mr. President! Or do you prefer being called Colonel?

ROOSEVELT I’ve had the title of president once — having it twice means nothing except peril to whatever reputation I achieved the first time.

Q. “Colonel,” then. Do you think the Congress elected two years ago as a foil to the Bush administration has fulfilled its mandate?

A. I am heartsick over the delay, the blundering, the fatuous and complacent inefficiency and the effort to substitute glittering rhetoric for action.

Q. Do you blame the House Democratic majority?

A. A goodly number of senators, even of my own party, have shown about as much backbone as so many angleworms.

Q. I hope that doesn’t include the pair running for the presidency! What do you think of Senator John McCain? He often cites you as a role model.

A. He is evidently a man who takes color from his surroundings.

Q. Weren’t you just as unpredictable in your time?

A. (laughing) They say that nothing is as independent as a hog on ice. If he doesn’t want to stand up, he can lie down.

Q. Mr. McCain has always prided himself on his independence. At least, until he began to take direction from chief executives and retired generals —

A. But the signs now are that these advisers have themselves awakened to the fact that they have almost ruined him.

Q. Does his vow to give Joe the Plumber a tax break remind you of Reaganomics?

A. This is merely the plan, already tested and found wanting, of giving prosperity to the big men on top, and trusting to their mercy to let something leak through to the mass of their countrymen below — which, in effect, means that there shall be no attempt to regulate the ferocious scramble in which greed and cunning reap the largest rewards.

Q. In Washington today, Colonel, you’re increasingly seen as the father of centralized, executive, regulatory control.

A. Great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions.

Q. Especially now that we’ve seen the end of another age of laissez-faire economics?

A. These new conditions make it necessary to shackle cunning, as in the past we have shackled force. The vast individual and corporate fortunes, the vast combinations of capital —

Q. Even vaster in your day! John D. Rockefeller was richer than Bill Gates, dollar for dollar.

A. Quite right. (He dislikes being interrupted.) And please, let this now be as much of a monologue as possible.

Q. Excuse me, you were saying that vast combinations of capital ...

A. ... create new conditions, and necessitate a change from the old attitude of the state and the nation toward the rules regulating the acquisition and untrammeled business use of property.

Q. So you approve of the federal bailout?

A. I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary.

Q. Should we condone the huge severance packages paid to executives of rescued corporations?

A. There is need in business, as in most other forms of human activity, of the great guiding intelligences. Their places cannot be supplied by any number of lesser intelligences. It is a good thing that they should have ample recognition, ample reward. But we must not transfer our admiration to the reward instead of to the deed rewarded; and if what should be the reward exists without the service having been rendered, then admiration will come only from those who are mean of soul.

Q. So we should withhold our envy of Richard Fuld, the chairman of Lehman Brothers, for taking home half a billion before his company went down?

A. Envy and arrogance are the two opposite sides of the same black crystal.

Q. Extraordinary image, Colonel. What’s your impression of Barack Obama?

A. Unless I am greatly mistaken, the people have made up their mind that they wish some new instrument.

Q. You’re not afraid that he’s primarily a man of words? Like Woodrow Wilson, whom you once called a “Byzantine logothete”?

A. It is highly desirable that a leader of opinion in a democracy should be able to state his views clearly and convincingly.

Q. Not Mr. McCain’s strong point!

A. Some excellent public servants have not the gift at all, and must rely upon their deeds to speak for them; and unless the oratory does represent genuine conviction, based on good common sense and able to be translated into efficient performance, then the better the oratory the greater the damage to the public it deceives.

Q. Mr. McCain might argue that his life of service and suffering is eloquence enough. Have you read his autobiography?

A. I should like to have it circulated as a tract among an immense multitude of philanthropists, congressmen, newspaper editors, publicists, softheaded mothers and other people of sorts who think that life ought to consist of perpetual shrinking from effort, danger and pain.

Q. Has Mr. Obama not suffered too? Not at the heroic level of Mr. McCain, but in transcending centuries of race prejudice to become a viable presidential candidate — only to be nearly stopped by Hillary Clinton!

A. I think that he has learned some bitter lessons, and that independently of outside pressure he will try to act with greater firmness, and to look at things more from the standpoint of the interests of the people, and less from that of a technical lawyer —

Q. “Technical,” Colonel? He took his law degree straight onto the streets of Chicago and applied it to social problems.

A. He may and probably will turn out to be a perfectly respectable president, whose achievements will be disheartening compared with what we had expected, but who nevertheless will have done well enough to justify us in renominating him — for you must remember that to renominate him would be a very serious thing, only to be justified by really strong reasons.

Q. He doesn’t have Mr. McCain’s foreign policy experience. As president, how would he personify us around the world?

A. It always pays for a nation to be a gentleman.

Q. There’ll be Joe Biden to counsel him, of course. Assuming Mr. Obama can keep track of what he’s saying.

A. (laughing) You can’t nail marmalade against a wall.

Q. Talking of foreign policy, what do you think of Mr. McCain’s choice of a female running mate?

A. Times have changed (sigh). It is entirely inexcusable, however, to try to combine the unready hand with the unbridled tongue.

Q. How will you feel if Sarah Palin is elected?

A. I shall feel exactly the way a very small frog looks when it swallows a beetle the size of itself, with extremely stiff legs.

Q. What’s your impression of President Bush these days?

A. (suddenly serious) He looks like Judas, but unlike that gentleman has no capacity for remorse.

Q. Is that the best you can say of him?

A. I wish him well, but I wish him well at a good distance from me.

Q. One last question, Colonel. If you were campaigning now, would you still call yourself a Republican?

A. (after a long pause) No.

Edmund Morris is working on the third and final volume of his biography of Theodore Roosevelt.

US Move Red shadow!

The today’s Economic Times Editorial says that “A CNN/Opinion Research poll says 51% of the respondents felt Obama had done better while 38% felt McCain had won”.