Martin Luther King's Birthday, Dealing With Jihad, Poor Mimi and Thoughts on 2016 Candidates

                                                           

Dealing with the Jihadists

Putting it succinctly, the angry, impoverished and often unemployed Muslims who attempt to join up with or emulate the aims of the  Islamic State (ISIS) or Al Qaeda are extremely vulnerable to two particular tenets of the Jihadists:  (1) violent retribution to those who insult their prophet, Muhammad, ignoring the fact that at least 75% of the world’s population do not accept him as such, and (2) anti-Semitism because of the presence of the State of Israel on territory which they believe belongs to Muslims. These are two specific issues which fuel their movement, within its broader anti-Western agenda.

Meeting this challenge requires making these people understand that the Western concept of free expression allows people to speak their minds and if they cannot accept this, they must return to an existence in the primitive nomadic tribe-inhabited world of their ancestors where such freedoms did not exist.  There is no room for that mindset in the West, and in countries in other regions which aspire to democracy.  And if they are comfortable with despots, so be it.

It also requires that they recognize that the State of Israel, which aside from its historic justification, has an irreversible legal basis established by the United Nations in 1947 and that the absence of an accompanying Palestinian state is entirely the fault of the Arab nations who refuse to acknowledge the permanent existence of Israel and who have attempted on numerous occasions to destroy it.

Be that as it may, solving these two problems may take decades, if not centuries.  How then, should the West immediately respond to the violence threatened and perpetrated by Jihadist groups such as the Islamic State and Al Qaeda whose agendas includes establishing a world-wide Muslim Caliphate?

Because the United States and its Western allies are reluctant to put troops in any great number on the ground to destroy the Islamic State’s forces and the bases of Al Qaeda, the only immediate answer I see is the thorough and complete “carpet” bombing of all Islamic State installations in Iraq and Syria, as well as all known locations of bases and training grounds for Al Qaeda’s Jihadists throughout the Middle East and Africa.  We have the technology to locate all of the targets in these areas.  Such bombing would be on a scale even greater than that which destroyed the German city of Dresden during World War Two, and must continue over a period of years, not months, until its aims are accomplished.   After the rubble is cleared, in the absence of a political and economic structure, the United Nations should administer all of these areas until realistic borders can be established and a rational basis for the establishment of nations agreed upon.  


Rubble of Dresden after 1945 bombing

As a corollary to the bombing of the Jihadists, Western nations will have to review their relationships with the Arab nations which are our "friends" to some extent but also supporters of the Jihadists at the same time.  Qatar and Saudi Arabia come to mind as nations which cannot be fully trusted and must be taught a lesson, sooner or later.  Meanwhile, Egypt and Jordan, while far from democracy, can be useful allies in view of their unspoken but nonetheless existing acceptance of Israel.  Hopefully, Turkey will eventually be in that category, but right now it is not.

Bombing as described above would force the West to face the same problem the Israelis faced when they attempted to destroy Hamas’ rocket launching facilities in Gaza in 2014.  To do so necessitated bombing raids in which civilians, despite advance warnings to leave an area, would be killed.  Similar warnings preceded the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan during World War Two.  Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, such warnings are usually unheeded.  This is a tough decision, but it should not stop the bombing.

It would be expected that the Muslim Jihadist movement would not sit idly while such bombing is carried out.  Terrorist attacks in the West will occur as retribution.  To deal with this, there would have to be a tightening of security in Europe and North America to the extent that the personal freedoms we now enjoy may have to be temporarily limited, as they were during World War Two, but that is not too great a price to pay to preserve Western civilization.  We see this already happening in Western Europe and the United States will not be far behind.

As a footnote to this, the West must reach some kind of rapproachment with Iran, a nation which is on our side in terms of opposition to both Al Qaeda and ISIS, but not on our side when it comes to replacing the present leader of Syria, Bashir al-Hassad, support of Hamas and Hezbollah, and its continued animosity toward the State of Israel.  The problems of the Middle cannot be solved without the involvement of Iran, and once that nation is firmly committed to peaceful nuclear development, real negotiations for permanent Middle East peace can begin, with Israel as an active participant.  But as I said in the fourth paragraph of this piece, this might take decades, if not centuries.
Jack Lippman
                                                     

Thoughts on Martin Luther King's Birthday

Some years ago, during the late 1940s and the terrible 1950s, there was a Congressional committee dedicated to rooting out subversives.  It was called the House Un-American Activities Committee, or HUAC for short.  Its existence marked some of the darkest days in American democracy.

But we have need for that committee again today, in the second decade of the 21^st century, because there are a lot of “Un-American” activities going on today.  And on this holiday celebrating Martin Luther King, it might be useful to look at some of these activities.

But first, let’s look at the what I feel to be the core of American Democracy.  It appears in the Declaration of Independence  in the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  It appears in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address when the sixteenth President said that “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”  
It  appears in Martin Luther King’s 1963 speech when he said that “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

Get the idea? All men are created equal. Many are quoting Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech today, but I am here including the full text of Lyndon Johnson’s “Voting Rights” speech, two years later, which makes some of the same points.  Of course, the Voting Rights Act was passed.  But I think that, on the day dedicated to Martin Luther King, Johnson’s speech must also be remembered.  Here it is:

 

(Delivered March 15, 1965, Washington, D.C.)

I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy.

I urge every member of both parties—Americans of all religions and of all colors—from every section of this country—to join me in that cause.

At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.

There is no Negro problem. There is no southern problem. There is no northern problem. There is only an American problem.

And we are met here tonight as Americans—not as Democrats or Republicans—we are met here as Americans to solve that problem.

This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, north and south: "All men are created equal" — "Government by consent of the governed" — "Give me liberty or give me death."…

Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in man's possessions. It cannot be found in his power or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his children, provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being….

Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult. But about this there can and should be no argument. Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right.

Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes….

Experience has clearly shown that the existing process of law cannot overcome systematic and ingenious discrimination. No law that we now have on the books—and I have helped to put three of them there—can ensure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it.

In such a case our duty must be clear to all of us. The Constitution says that no person shall be kept from voting because of his race or his color. We have all sworn an oath before God to support and to defend that Constitution.

We must now act in obedience to that oath.

Wednesday I will send to Congress a law designed to eliminate illegal barriers to the right to vote….

To those who seek to avoid action by their National Government in their home communities—who want to and who seek to maintain purely local control over elections—the answer is simple. Open your polling places to all your people. Allow men and women to register and vote whatever the color of their skin. Extend the rights of citizenship to every citizen of this land. There is no constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong—deadly wrong—to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no issue of States rights or National rights. There is only the struggle for human rights.

I have not the slightest doubt what will be your answer….

But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and State of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life.

Their cause must be our cause too, because it is not just Negroes but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome….

This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to all—all black and white, all North and South, sharecropper and city dweller. These are the enemies—poverty, ignorance, disease—they are our enemies, not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too—poverty, disease, and ignorance—we shall overcome.

Well, President Johnson hit the nail on the head in the part of his speech directed to “those who seek to avoid action by their National Government in their home communities – who want to and who seek to maintain purely local control over elections.”  These people are still around, but nowadays they are playing games with early voting hours and the kind of ID required at the polls in order to make it more difficult for certain citizens to vote.  The voting fraud they claim justifies such measures is virtually non-existent.  Their actions are just an Un-American subterfuge to get around the words of the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, and the words of Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson, all quoted above.  Do we need a new House Un-American Affairs Committee to investigate these subversives?

JL

                                                       
                                                           

Opera News

We saw a wonderful performance of La Boheme at the Palm Beach Opera this weekend.  Of course, the final curtain descends as poor Mimi dies of consumption in her lover’s frigid Paris loft, without having received medical care.  Well, it’s 120 years later now, and it is reassuring to know that if the same thing happened today, Mimi and Rudolpho would be eligible for medical care under the French health insurance program, and if the opera took place in the United States, benefits under the Affordable Care Act would have prevented the tragedy … and Musetta would not have had to sell her earrings in an last-minute effort to get money to buy some medicine for poor Mimi. 

JL

                                                        

The 2016 Race

The race for the Republican nomination is now shaping up as a contest between those who will be able to raise sufficient funds to run ... and that limits the contestants to Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush and Chris Christie.  The others (Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, etc.) are to the right of these three and have no chance of raising the necessary money to run, but can influence their right wing advocates to support Romney, Bush or Christie ... rather than sit out the election.  So watch the rightward drift of these three over the next year and a half.  Immigration and taxation will be the major issues since none of them will be willing to get more specific on foreign policy, other than opposing Islalmic radicalism and supporting Israel.

The Democratic nomination is Hillary's for the taking, but in the event for some reason she does not want it, the Democrats will end up choosing between Elizabeth Warren and Vice-President Biden.  Neither would be able to defeat Romney or Bush but either would run a toss-up race against Christie.  But I remain convinced that Hillary will run, but it will be a revamped, centrist candidacy, supporting changes in the Affordable Health Act and stressing spending on environmental and infrastructure issues as ways of strengthening the economy.
JL
                                                  

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