Interesting piece Pat.
Clinton is always topical, as much for his reputation with the ladies as anything else. Still, I'm surprised you didn't compare his post-presidential appreciation index with the way the right wing turned Ronald Reagan into a saint long before he died. Although Reagan’s health made a prolonged series of world tours like Clinton’s out of the question, I think his popularity was as universal in many circles (and not just in the US either) as Clinton’s

Given that the only parallel for popularity you cited was also dead, FDR having died in Office, it can't have been the fact that the 'great communicator' has shuffled off this mortal coil that put him beyond consideration. Not a great flaw by any means but a minor quibble nonetheless. I suspect, amongst women of a ‘certain age’, post presidential Ronnie was pretty swoon inducing too.

Moreover, since ‘being dead’ didn’t rule out FDR as a comparator, what about John F. Kennedy? I’d say his swoon quotient – both before and after his assassination – was every bit as high as Clinton’s.

By the way, that is one impressive 14 woman Doukhobor plough team.

Cheers.

It saddens me greatly that an individual such as Bill Clinton can be viewed as a humanist, disregarding his record as president.

He forced a war on the former Yugoslavia, using the various "intellegence" agencies, and as an result we have a region contaminated with depleated uranium. Many of the combatants were trained by US military personnel, on all sides of the conflict. On top of that the so-called "Al Qaeda" was created under his leadership.

His administration supported the Taliban - the poppy production was a fraction of what it is now, ie. less heroin on the streets. There was recognition by his administration for that.

So, why do we keep forgetting the past? He will never be made accountable for the use of DU in Serbia, and according to the Geneva Convention, a war crime. Is it because he has good speech writers, media created "sex appeal" or the novelty of us spending $329 to $2500 to hear him tell us what we want to hear?

He is just another oppressor, the only difference is he is more "good-looking" than his predecessor or Dubya.

Not to spoil the whole forgiveness angle, but I never had the impression that most Canadians (or, for that matter, most Americans) believed Clinton had done much that required forgiving. Throughout his second term he remained popular in Canada (particuarly compared to his successor); in the U.S., his approval rating at the end of his presidency was higher than that of any other president, including Reagan. Far from plunging, his popularity actually peaked over the course of the sex scandal.

I'm with bike anarchist on this!
Yes, Bill Clinton has personality and charm unlike George W. Bush! And Clinton actually reads books beyond an elementary school level!

However, please remember his failure to act in Rwanda, his bombing of Yugoslvia, his "Wag the Dog" bombings in Afghanistan and Sudan. In Sudan his government bombed a medicine factory!
Also, his cuts in welfare. Etc., Etc.
As Noam Chomsky has said you can make a case for WAR CRIMES against every post WWII US President.

Bill Clinton isn't going to save the world!
We, the citizens of planet earth, will!

Kevan Hudson
Suncheon, South Korea

people actually pay to hear bill can't keep it in his pants clinton?

as a power couple the clintons define everything wrong with america,the stay together for the children mentality of incompetents

and as a war criminal,clinton could take up residence in milosovech's old cell now that it's empty.

and his righteous arrogance is really overwhelming,the people he could have saved but did'nt !

it's scary to see the american sycophancy of political personalities moving north

In terms of sycophantic political personality cults then, I guess one shouldn't be too impressed with PM Harper's surprise trip to Kandahar. His studied casual image - not bothering to do up the buttons on his button-down shirt (that has to be a first) should convince everyone he's a man with a real common touch. I think I prefer Bill Clinton, warts, Lewinsky and all. I hope Stevie has his inhaler, it looks pretty dusty in Afghanistan. I'm surprised Hillier didn't kiss his hand.

I find it disheartening that these Canadians (although the crowd was mostly corporate) support Bill Clinton for PM. I know the ones we have had recently and the one we have now are complete embarassments to our nation but my god lets stop groveling all the time. Some of us obviously can't distinguish between a great leader and a bunch of criminals which is why we have what we have I guess?

And as far as these people being sexy by looks or position ya gotta be pretty needy to even be considering that! On the upside he didn't accuse us of harbouring terrorists or that the people responsible for 9/11 came from Canada the way his wife did.

I am in definite agreement with G West on this one. I find it utterly astonishing that the media have let Harper run office as if he had some divine right to rule without communicating or exchanging in dialogue with the populace that foot his paycheck. Canadians have earned the respect of the international community as responsible and conscientious citizens of the global community - and this gov't will ensure that is erased in one short swoop of insanity. We are now combatants, not peace keepers; we are about to ricochet on our Kyoto commitment after signing the international contract to make this world more livable; we are the only ones to side with the US to vote against Palestinian women and children refugees to return to their homes - and that man (using the term loosely) must have broken some record to break the most campaign promises in the shortest period of time. The only consistency is Harper's failure to communicate. Maybe he should go to Clinton's motivational talks - heck I wouldn't even mind if he did it on the tax payer's tab if he actually learned something about communication and social responsibility.
The only other thing that I have issue with is this sudden onslaught of Johnny Cash references - maybe he is before my time time - but I just don't get it. Is it because of the movie? Why the sudden obsession?

I'd like to second Rob Cottingham's remarks. I don't think Clinton was ever in disgrace with most of his own constituency. The people reviling him were mostly his ideological foes anyway. He has also been lucky in his choice of enemies and, especially, in his successor. Who could fail to feel nostalgia for a President who was usually the smartest guy in the room?

That said, his real disgrace ought to be the shameful pardons he issued on his way out the door. His retreat on gays in the military may have been realpolitik, but it was not his finest hour either.

clinton is no johnny cash. he's just lucky to have been followed by gw bush, who makes old joe clarke look like a genius.

What I never understood -- except in terms of Republican desperation -- was the Lewinski thing. The illogic was never more apparent, than at the height of the U.S. furor over cigars and what exactly is meant by "sex."

On a battlefield tour in France, at the time, I was with a mixed group of British and U.S. people. I couldn't resist asking the U.S. people (one at a time) how they felt about Bill Clinton. (I repeat, we were in France where the president would be considered odd if he didn't have a mistress or two.) The Brits seemed to have no problem accepting a Lewinski factor as virtually irrelevant in the larger picture, either.

But without exception, the U.S. citizens whether Republican or Democrat were outraged. I simply couldn't understand why. "He's a good president," I said. "He's smart. He has enlightened ideas. Your economy is good. Etc."

Didn't matter. It was all visceral. One man put it succinctly (in U.S. terms), explaining "I voted for Bill Clinton. But what he did with Lewinski, he did in the Oval Office. That's not his oval office, it's my oval officeand I will never forgive him!"

Considering the diabolical plots which have been hatched in that very same Oval Office ... it's obviously important to know when a cigar is just a cigar. That cigar probably elected the illustrious warmongering George W. Bush to the oval office.

avicenna,the reference to billy clinton and johnny cash is one of the culture of sychophancy.

both were bad boys that found good ,stand by your man,women,had tubulent lives and somehow got religion,all in the public eye with adoring fans.

the drinking,womanizing,gutterball lifestyle so appreciated by millions of American fans in song was lived by these two on the public stage and endeared them worlwide.so now the world has to live with the bad taste of American trailer trash exporting their mentality.

a man who sang like a frog and a sex addict that could'nt keep it in his pants.

and no one really knows what clinton did,or did not do in office.

because they were to busy gossiping about lewinski and clinton's myriad of other affairs.

the sychophancy of popular culture as i stated was never more true when you find grown women screaming about a person of clinton's moral decrepitude.then again we live in a culture trained like pavlovians eager for the sound of the bell,not knowing what to expect,just waiting til some clown like clinton takes the stage.

the applause sign lights and billys a hero,he gets to cash another cheque.

Avicenna
Let me see, how long has he been in office? Sheessh!

Canada earned it reputation in blood in France, Italy and Korea to name a few places, Peacekeeping was something we did when the time and place was right, the situation in Afghanistan calls for a far more complex response than sitting in a white jeep between two armies. Let me see did the Libs allow debate when they sent the troops over there? Did the NDP demand a debate when they were sleeping with Paul Martin? The only group that has any moral authority to demand a debate on the subject is the Bloc.

Kyoto is going to be money sucking game of “pass the carbon credits” Better to go our own way.

So in since you support the “right of Return” does that mean you will cheer when the Israelis lose their nation again and are forced to roam the globe for another 1,000 years? Because that the choice.

G West
He certainly does make a good salesman, and he was the only Democrat candidate that had the ability to connect with the common person. He was failure as a President. The colossal screwup that was Somalia lands squarely on his shoulders. But I suspect they he will do more good in the role he is in now. Worse come to worse, he always make some coin playing backup Sax.

Clinton was good, but the cardinal rule of common sense is never to believe someone who is getting paid for speaking or writing.

For instance: Clinton said, "... the biggest threat we face today (in health) is the avian flu." (Who's the guy working for?) Uh, no it's not, Bill. It's no bigger a threat than it was ten years ago before anyone heard about it.

I read the Clinton quotes. Basically a bunch of cliches and reworked self-evident drivel. This guy's just trying to get richer, eh you guys. Grow up.

He's gone over to the dark side, sucking up to the Bushes.

But I think he WAS one of the States' best presidents.

Another cardinal rule is to be suspicious of anyone who says more than 821 consecutive things with which noone could possibly disagree.

This is an analogue of the rule in science that anything that cannot be falsified is to be viewed with suspicion. The rationale is that the ideas are so generalized that their validity can be forever verified by slight-handed shifting of the goalposts.

This is Clinton's new polemic style and source of speaking-tour riches.

Colin
Don't think I said anything very different from that, did I? After all, drawing a parallel between Clinton and the 'great communicator' is, in terms of comprehensive shallowness, far from laying it on with a trowel. On the other hand, your claim about the Sax man being the only Democrat with the ability to connect to the 'common person' is clearly wrong. I cited only two examples, John Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt. I would wager that, for a good segment of the African American population of a certain age, Lyndon Johnson had that ability too. Johnson’s administration achieved the breakthrough in the area of civil rights. His legacy is thoroughly compromised by Vietnam but his achievements in the other realm shouldn't be forgotten. In fact, I’m sure there’s a segment of the American population – they’re getting pretty old an decrepit now – that would want to include Harry Truman as someone else who had the common touch.

On the other subject, if I’m permitted a comment: In terms of moral authority Harper lost his on February 6 and his little costume drama in Kandahar is just a pathetic attempt to regain it. If he had any real courage, he'd face the press and the people and answer his critics. He actually seems more comfortable ‘embedded’ in Afghanistan if that's the metaphor you prefer.

.

I share your outrage, Avicenna, of Harper's continual attempts to position the divine right to rule crown on his own head. However, I think our one ace in the hole is that this cold fish of a guy can't communicate...and please let him never learn...for the sake of this country.

But he is trying real hard now to learn these skills (as he did during the election)... his neo-con style gurus are trying damn hard to make him appear ever so harmless.... the JFK "do", the casual "I'm just a regular guy" in Afghanistan tour. He's setting everything up ...this is one long campaign to achieve a majority government...the neo-con attempt to mimic the charm of Bill Clinton...and whether you like Clinton or not he certainly oozes charisma and southern charm.

For those who thought Harper couldn't achieve much under a minority government...look at the picture already developing...Emerson, the snub of the Ethics Commissioner, the pressure exerted on those five diplomats to quit their posts prematurely and the recent vote at the UN alongside the US and Israel on the Palestinian refugee issue.

He is changing the tone of this country... preparing the ground for the divine reign of the Calgary School...which has itself been preparing its political agenda for quite some time now... for making Canada's deep integration with the US as effortless as possible.

Bill Clinton and what the American public found impeachable about his presidency has real relevancy to the changing tone Harper is instilling in Canada right now...the real elephant Harper's hiding, bound and gagged in the Conservative closet...the puritancial authority of the religious right, the dangerous potential of its Big Brother religious fascism to crush a fervently held very Canadian belief that the the state not interfere in the bedrooms of its citizens.

Just as the image of Canada as peacekeeper is being manipulatively blurred by Harper's stroll in Afghanistan, tying us more and more to the US, so are our very Canadian human rights and freedoms being equally blurred and trampled on here.... step by devious step...a very scary Calgary School Plan to the Yellow Brick Road of"divine" majority rule.

Lynn
Amen, sister!

Lynn
I look forward to your description of just exactly what is a “peacekeeper” and please give me a concrete example of how that description will work in Afghanistan.

talking about charisma clinton of course has the upper hand and he is an old hand at politiking.

harper seeing his kids off to school and SHAKING HANDS with his children is the farthest thing you can imagine from being charismatic.
harper glad handing the armed forces personell looks to be just what it is,GLADHANDING.
and it stunned me when i saw the GUT on that guy because that is not attractive or healthy .

so i don't think he is going to worry about being liked, just about what he can do to lengthen his RULE over the common dullards.
he is as others have pointed out a zealot that is going to conform this country to his ideals.

a very,very dangerous man.

i proclaim him, THE ICE KING...yeah! absolutely no charisma and no interest in our well being,only his.

Lynn, you write good fiction. Where's the proof that supports your claims? And if the "Calgary School Plan" is so devious, where does the majority come from?

earlier i was talking to an old friend and mentioned this article and clinton's appeal.

she said,"appeal? i remember when a friend and i were hired to bolster the crowds at political gatherings in the early seventies.we were decked out in the party colours and whenever the speakers said anything we were to go hysterical.typical american salesmanship.we used to get gigs with rock groups as well".

comming to your city,soon!

Bill Clinton is one savvy scam artist. Anyone with the kind of money it takes to buy a ticket to hear him speak is a prime candidate for the Howe Street sanke oil salesmen.

Smooth talker, no morals, terrible president, pathologic liar, loathingly self-centered.

It's all political plate tectonics, NLN. First you get all the small shifts in policy, ( I listed them above, and they are proof enough for me)... the small quakes that they hope nobody will notice...but they misjudged the Emerson reading on the Richter scale...it went a lot deeper and wider than they thought. People felt that one and they haven't got away with it...yet, at least. I hope the people of Avicenna's riding in particular.... and all of us, keep on keeping on on that one.

The Harper majority if it comes will come from all of those not paying attention...the ones every political party counts on...who shop for everything...including their prime minister...who believe easily and who buy the image even more easily of what is most cleverly sold to them....never bothering to check out the details or the information for themselves...who, while acknowledging the ruthlessness of the Taliban,
conveniently forget the part access to/and control of oil pipelines are playing now in Afghanistan - it's all "location, location, location" of those much prized oil arteries necessary to feed an insatiable US greed...which will require an insatiable level of men and women willing to die for that privileged access for the privileged few.

If Harper ever gets that majority, his crew will keep exerting pressure on those human rights and freedoms until there is a major shift, a major break, where the Canada we once knew and loved is no longer recognizable. A disaster for all those who value freedom. "Us" and "Them" time.

Read about the Calgary School, NLN.

It's coming to a neighbourhood near you soon.

As haraldkann says above ...not much these days isn't about salesmanship and marketing...the art of the deal and the art of the lie.

Lynn, if you could share your spectacles, mayhap fewer would be left so near-sighted. Harper has been working over-time in his take over schemes - and I am both shocked and petrified that some people are buying his "I'm not as dangerous in power as you probably know I am" act - thanks in no part to CanWest and company. His Afghan drop in is a painful parody of G W Bush's recent unpopular eastern descent. The difference with Clinton's love-fest visit to India (his policies were much less favourable to India than the current administration) in comparison to Bush's unwelcome visit tells a tale that perhaps few who are blinded to the right can assimilate. Being a unilateral war-monger and bully doesn't go over well on the international level - and let's face it, our grand lifestyle is heavily subsided by the daily strife of those in the developing world. The thing about Clinton's approach is that he at least gave the impression that he held social values above and beyond the pipeline that feeds the unsatiable appetite of the American consumer - diplomacy and cooperation goes over well - as stands ascertained by Clinton's paid speech.

Amen again sister l

Can you guess this poet?

Do they remember
who they are? patriots
believers
builders

collective dreamers who woke
to find all their good wishes
happening faster
than they could move,
the people outreaching the planners
factory workers running
the factories
children wearing moustaches
of milk

Forgetting to keep guns beside their pillows
forgetting to bribe generals
breathing long breaths of peace
organizing anti-Fascist song festivals
instead of militia
seeing the people stand at last
upright in mellow light like a sound harvest
they forgot lifetimes of exile
years of held breath and stealth
seeing so many strong
they forgot the strength of I.T.&T.
United Fruit Co.
Anaconda

who do not easily give up
what they have taken.

Some one decides
who shall eat
who shall not eat
who shall be beaten
and on which
parts of his body

Some one decides
who shall be starved
who shall be fed
enough to sustain
another day`s torture

A man decides.
That man does not breathe dust:

he is dust.

from: CHACOBUCO, THE PIT

and...

PAX AMERICANA

We have about 50% of the world`s wealth but only 6.3% of its population...In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.

- George Kennan, former head of the U.S. State Department Policy Planning Staff and leading Architect of U.S. Foreign Policy after World War 2, February 24, 1948

And the horrors of the mind
are the horrors of
what we allow to be done
and the grace of the soul
is what we determine shall be
made truly among us. Amen

Vancouver-born Pat Lowther...born?--murdered in 1975.

bob the cat
I got an electric charge of insight into the real state of world affairs when I learned, lo these many years ago, that Kennan wrote, and clearly believed, the words you've quoted at the same time he was authoring the famous 'X' article which formed the basis of the hugely pragmatic approach the US took to prosecuting the Cold War. Everybody who thinks that American motives are always exemplary should read both documents at least quarterly.

Nice to have you prowling in the jungle again.

Avicenna, I agree, at least Clinton acknowledged the world around him, had a curiousity about cultures...even beyond MacAmerica. :-)

bob the cat, thanks for that powerful poem by Pat Lowther. I discovered Brian Brett's poetry awhile back and I know he was a friend of hers. It's great to read such depth of feeling, don't you think, when so much these days is running on empty and conspiring to take us along on its futile drift.

those lines just blow me away...they give us all hope...thanks again.

I can`t say enough about Pat..her Poetry is so powerful..
I would have loved to have heard her read aloud

but then..when I read her I am hearing her..so glad you liked it lynn..after your great posts we owed you at least one.

G. thanks bro..

hey, it's cyprus the greeks and the turks fight over. not cypress.

be well

bob the cat
You know, I was looking closely at that Kennan quotation of yours again and I bet, if a fella were so inclined, that he could find an almost equally self-serving and repellant motto from both Stalin and Mao and one that makes, more or less, the same point in respect of their agendas.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

G West
Undoubtedly..justification for the Great Leap Forward Agendas..

Buckminster Fuller maintained L.S.D. mass use with the young in the West was a Red Chinese promotion
..to tear a succeeding generation away from the influence of another..to introduce an Oriental way of "seeing"

sandoz was swiss not chinese,so BUCKY was talking out of his a$$ as usual.

those were the daze !

Clinton is creepy and sort of evil, not least because he is facile and plausible. I turned instantly from fandom when he launched missiles to divert attention from his Lewinski problem (when the obvious, not to mention humane riposte to his Republican tormentors would have been to calmly acknowledge that his penis worked, no need for others to be jealous thanks to modern medicine). And that was before the Juanita Broaddrick story, which has not been refuted.

With his comparative (indeed, absolute) lack of intellectual virtues, Bush Jr., at least, has done us the favour of illustrating the hollowness and irrelevancy of the modern Presidency.

haraldkann
..didn`t say they invented it...they promoted it..
the ole johnny appleseed thing

Excellent, Yammer.

.

I agree, while I think Clinton had a few, almost-redeemable qualities, I think this is a pretty good assessment of the dark underside of his charm.

Why is it that you left wingers lack logic? On the one hand, Clinton is a war criminal for stepping in to the former Yugoslavia to save Muslims from ethnic cleansing but on the other hand he is at fault for not stepping in to Rwanda to save people. Which is it and, more to the point, how are people living in these hell holes (Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq, North Korea etc) able to change their circumstances without the intervention of someone like the US? If you live in one of these countries, who do you look to for help? The UN? That's a sad joke.
Lynn, you will have to do better than Kyoto, which is nothing to do with global warming and everything to do with bringing the developed countries down to the same level as third world ones by ruining our economies, to make Harper scary. Please, just name one of our rights or freedoms that he is trampling or going to trample.
Bob the Cat: Re Pat Lowther, was she actually murdered and if so, by whom?

oilbertan
Not to get into a long involved discussion, but, a start would be to provide food aid that actually comes from nearby the region you are trying to help and which isn't only available as US agricultural produce tied to a pork barrel deal with farmers in the Midwest. So much aid the US gives is excessively slow to be of any use and is structured to be of bigger benefit to the donors than to the recipients. Some enlightened members of congress actually tried to make changes to this policy recently but were unable to. You might want to analyze how badly the US has handled aid to victims of Katrina to get an idea of what’s lacking in their aid people who need help overseas.
By providing NGOs and other agencies with the dollars to buy supplies locally you'd also give neighbouring countries a boost and inject much needed hard currency into their economies - and you don't have to go through the UN to do it if that's a problem for you. That’s just a start, you might also want to look at the limitations and restrictions the US puts on funding for any international agency that does family planning and decide whether or not the Americans are more interested in saving people’s souls or their lives. There’s lots more, if you’re curious.
Cheers

Oilbertan, in bob's stead - he's obviously prowling in another part of the jungle right now - Pat Lowther was murdered by her husband. He was convicted of the crime and died himself in jail.

G West: Thanks for the info on Pat Lowther. I knew some Lowther's growing up on the island, Vancouver etc and will try to google and find out more.
With regard to your other response, I still don't see how any of that is going to help the people living in these countries become free and not have to live in fear. As to the UN, the Oil for Food program should tell one and all how corrupt that entity has become. That coupled with their inability to enforce any of their resolutions makes it a great talking shop but not much more and an expensive one to boot.
With regard to Katrina, this issue is very complex due to the states rights and the inability of the federal government to over ride the state was a big part of this problem. With Katrina, there was blame for everyone, municipal, state and federal but it starts at the local level and they dropped the ball badly. That said, it was the US that carried the ball when the tsunami struck Indonesia and the Americans again who were first on the scene with the Pakistani earthquake. Their military machine also performs humanitarian acts but they don't seem to get much credit for this. Back to Katrina, I thought it quite revealing that in the aftermath when the politicians were talking about ways to ensure a more rapid response in future and the issue of the federal government being able to send in the military without state approval was floated, the governor of Mississipi, Haley Barbour (?) said something to the effect that his state did not need the federal government's assistance to that level and they were quite capable of looking after themselves which, I think just supports the contention that Louisiana was an accident just waiting to happen. Perhaps, Wm Jefferson would have been able to sweet talk Ms Blanco into doing the right thing sooner than Dubya was able but it wasn't for lack of trying on his part.

Oilbertan
That's the problem with these kinds of discussions. People only stop in for a few minutes now and then - I do it on coffee break or lunch - and if schedules don't mesh, the thing goes cold. My only point about Katrina was simply that, even when dealing with their citizens, that sort of laissez-faire aid falls short. If that's the case inside the US (for whatever reason, and I wouldn't disagree that there's a strong political element involved); how much less effective will it be when removed a few thousand miles in distance and a few cultural and religious dimensions to boot? Effective aid requires effective and thorough planning and organization, and, as I tried to indicate in my post above, it also has to work in ways which promote the general well-being and economic health of the area being assisted in a general way. The traditional recipient nations, particularly in Africa, are so desperately short of hard currency that we ought to be working to find effective ways for them to earn it. Shipping Africa-produced goods to help in local African shortages and droughts would help the situation so much more than shipping surplus grain from North America that is, essentially, paid for out a subsidy program that’s essentially a pork barrel for senators and congressmen from the mid west. Most US aid programs are really structured in terms that could best be described as unenlightened self-interest.

I think the Oil for food thing is a particularly bad example of an effective aid program except in one sense. All my reading on the subject indicates that it achieved what I thought was its primary goal. That is, it kept monthly caloric intake up high enough during the sanctions era that the damage to the ordinary Iraqi and his family wasn't any worse. My investigation of the system that delivered the goods pointed at a pretty effective delivery protocol which certainly can't be said of most USAID efforts in
Africa. I realize you’ll probably say this amounts to damning with faint praise but I’d ask you to remember who the UN was dealing with here. To have expected that Saddam’s regime wouldn’t have had the fiddle in would be pretty naïve. As to the corruption element in the UN itself, I’d only ask that you remember that the chief facilitator in all of this was a longstanding member of the capitalistic economy, The Riggs Bank.

You seem to have ignored the whole area of International aid to Africa which was the main thrust of my argument in any case. As I said earlier, in another location, there is an interesting piece in the current New Republic by John B Judis about how inappropriate the current WTO/western powers trade methodology is at addressing systemic problems in the developing world. I'd suggest you read that.

As to the international effort to address disasters like the Tsunami and various earthquakes and floods - which I didn't really deal with (except, as already mentioned by analogy with the general subject of ineffectual US aid) - clearly time is of the essence in such cases and, where the military resources are at hand, that's undoubtedly the best way to make a stab at what I'd call rescue and triage. No disagreement there. In fact, I'd say re-structuring our military as a more-effective rapid-response team to address such emergencies worldwide (and at home if the need should arise) would be a far better use of our talents and resources than having a borderline psychopath like General Rick Hillier running around Afghanistan as he puts it 'killing scumbags'.
I’ve enjoyed this. You have an advantage over so many critics of progressives – you seem not to have lost the ability to think and read.
Cheers
PS - did you see, in another forum, my response to your reference to Premier Klein?

G West: No I didn't see your response. Which thread as that?
Africa is an issue that still befuddles me. On the one hand the ability to be self sufficient in food supply would be much easier, in my opinion, if the EU would get off it's high horse re GM foods. They would also be able to do something about the million or so that die each year from malaria if, again, the EU did not threaten sanctions over the use of DDT (?). I read recently that aid to Africa over the past 40 years (I think that was the time frame) is in the trillions of dollars but much of that gets skimmed off by the corrupt officials in charge. It is a tough question and I am not sure if there is an answer in my lifetime. I think Dubya deserves credit for some of his policies towards Africa; Aids funding and using faith based charities but as usual he never gets credit for anything positive his administration does.
Thanks for the compliment (at least I'll take it that way). In the late 60's I was a socialist and have voted for Ed Schreyer and PET. I try to see both sides of issues but one sure has to look around to find the fair and balanced information.
Thanks and take care.

Oilbertan
It was, I think, on the 'Blogger proud to blow whistle' site. You'll probably have to scroll back a couple of posts.

I was surprised when Bush seemed to be changing his tune on funding for AIDS related aid to Africa. However, if you check the figures I think you'll find the actual funding for the programs from US sources (of all kinds) is falling so short of the commitment as to be laughable. Bush’s spending spree – Congressional approval for the US debt to rise about the $9 trillion dollar mark came today – is threatening not only aid for the third world but the financial stability of the world's economic system. Had congress not acted today, the US wouldn't have had the ability to meet the interest payments on its maturing debt. So, you’ll pardon me if I don’t give him too much credit.

I think there are some religious organizations that are doing good work in Africa, for the record. However, the ban on American funding for any programs of family planning that also provide, support or even mention abortion is so incredibly insane as to negate much of the positive impact of what others do. Even the dishonesty of the media coverage of Uganda's ABC program is telling. If you search back through the archives of the “New York Review of Books” you'll find an interesting essay on that subject. You may have to pay to read it, but it's worth it, in my opinion. No body ever said gaining knowledge would be easy - or cheap.
Keep up the search.
And, it was a compliment.
Cheers.

jay leno had a comment last night about clinton helping out dubai getting the ports contract.
something about another oral contract getting clinton in trouble.

been ,chuckling all day on that one.

Thanks for that Thomas. I needed a laugh. I see that the poison dwarf is back on the 'Fastest Human - under construction site'.