Hi all,
Here’s an interesting article from the Boston Globe. I believe that Kinser is
right on target here. Given the rank corruption of Trump as well as that of the
leadership of both sorry excuses for parties here in America, I am coming to
believe that we need term limits in Congress and perhaps in our state
legislatures as well. In the past, I have always opposed term limits. I have
always believed that elections should be effective term limits. But given that
our corrupt system is flooded with dark money taken together with the sad fact
that too damned many Americans shirk their duties as citizens, I’m afraid short
of revolution, term limits may be the best way to throw the bums out of office.
Bob Hachey
Make America more like Ethiopia, New Zealand, and Costa Rica By Stephen Kinzer
opinion stephen kinzer . By Stephen Kinzer . For decades, Americans have
accepted rule by a mendacious and meretricious elite. Today we have reason to
believe that our situation is worse than ever. Our president is a
hate-mongering bully who promotes foreign wars, the destruction of our natural
environment, the further enrichment of the rich, and the impoverishment of
everyone else. Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress are cynical
money-grubbers who grovel before corporate power. The Supreme Court twists the
Constitution to promote the most anti-democratic forces in our society.
Founders of our republic would howl in anguished rage if they could see how
fully our political leaders have defiled their liberating vision. The decline
of democracy in the United States might logically lead us to conclude that our
political system has failed - that democracy is intrinsically unable to resist
the power of those who profit from undermining it. That view, however, is
contradicted by what other democracies have recently achieved. With hardly any
notice in the American press, three very different countries have recently
produced leaders who are unapologetically pursuing policies that benefit their
people and the world. They are magnificent examples for the United States -
unless they lead us to weep in envy. Eight months ago a 37-year-old firebrand
named Jacinda Ardern emerged unexpectedly as prime minister of New Zealand.
Upon taking office, she pledged to create "a country where our environment is
protected, where we look after the most vulnerable, where we support our
families, where we make sure people have the most basic of needs, like a roof
over their head. One of her first and most shocking decisions was to stop
issuing permits for offshore oil and gas exploration. "Transitions have to
start somewhere," she said. "We have been a world leader on critical issues to
humanity by being nuclear-free. . . Now we could be world-leading in becoming
carbon neutral. Ardern has also challenged other taboos in her country. She
supports legalizing marijuana, is the first prime minister to march in a gay
pride parade, and promises that women will soon make up half of her party's
caucus in Parliament. More than any of her predecessors, she has promoted the
rights of the indigenous Maori people. Perhaps most provocatively, she has
asserted that the homelessness problem in her country proves the "blatant
failure" of capitalism. "If you have hundreds of thousands of children living
in homes without enough to survive," she reasoned, "what else could you
describe it as? New Zealanders have rewarded Ardern's truth-telling with a 73
percent approval rating. Thousands of miles from New Zealand, voters in Costa
Rica recently chose an exciting young leader, Carlos Alvarado, as their new
president. One of his two vice-presidents, an economist and environmental
activist, is the first woman of African descent to reach such a high post in
Costa Rica. Alvarado, who is 38, has declared a transcendent goal: to end all
use of oil and gas in his country by 2021, the 200th anniversary of its
independence. "Decarbonization is the great task of our generation," he said.
"We have the titanic and beautiful task of abolishing the use of fossil fuels
in our economy to make way for the use of clean and renewable energy. Just one
day after Alvarado was inaugurated in Costa Rica on April 1, another exemplar
of democratic will became prime minister of Ethiopia. Abiy Ahmed, 41, comes
from the country's Muslim minority and also from a persecuted ethnic group, the
Oromo. He took over a country that has long been ruled by repressive tyrants,
is divided along ethnic, religious and regional lines, and has been in constant
conflict with neighboring Eritrea. "Expect a different rhetoric from us," he
said upon taking office. "If there is to be political progress in Ethiopia, we
have to debate the issues openly and respectfully. In just three months as
prime minister, Abiy has cut a radical swath through Ethiopian politics. He
fired five senior officials who were known for corruption and brutality. Then
he announced that he would accept the ruling of a border commission as a way of
making peace with Eritrea, even though it requires handing over territory that
many Ethiopians consider theirs. He ordered the release of more than 1,000
political prisoners. When a member of Parliament protested that his order was
unconstitutional, he replied: "Jailing and torturing, which we did, are not
constitutional either. . . Does the Constitution say anyone who was sentenced
by a court can be tortured, put in a dark room? It doesn't. Torturing, putting
people in dark rooms, is our act of terrorism. On June 25 Abiy's enemies tried
to kill him in a grenade attack. "The people who did this are anti-peace
forces," he said afterward. "You weren't successful in the past and you won't
be successful in the future. Over the brief history of the United States,
Americans have shown ourselves ready to seize anything we covet, anywhere in
the world. If we could maintain that tradition, we might now arrange an
"extraordinary rendition" operation to kidnap Jacinda Ardern, Carlos Alvarado,
or Abiy Ahmed so one of them could be installed in the White House. Lamentably,
that is impossible. The alternative is to concentrate on encouraging homegrown
leaders who share their humanistic vision. Americans once believed that we
could inspire and lead the world. Now we can only hope to catch up with New
Zealand, Costa Rica, and Ethiopia. Stephen Kinzer is a senior fellow at the
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.