yeoldecrabb.com/ East Asian worries Anonymous leaks from Chinese spokesmen along with mistaken translations of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abes private remarks at the gathering of our lords and masters at Davos World Economic Forumn are alarming. Bombastic comments from the Chinese including the military as well as the controlled government media are nothing […]
A version of this column is scheduled for publication Jan. 6, 2014 at worldtribune.com and at http:yeoldecrabb.com Rather suddenly there is a welter of developments turning Asia’s dozen-odd countries into a cat’s cradle of conflicting interests – some new — that could lead to war. Central, of course, is “a rising” China. The Chinese, […]
A version of this column is scheduled for publication Dec. 23, 2013 at worldtribune.com and at http:yeoldecrabb.com
The Obama Administration’s foreign policy begins to look like that tightly wound ball of crocheting thread which the kitten has been playing with for several hours and is now finally completely unraveling. How innocent the kitty is may be a question in the eye of the beholder. But the disarray is so vast as to be unfathomable:
Iran
The agreement not to reach agreement on a six-months pact for adjusting U.S. and Western interests with Iran, which Pres. Obama said only had a 50-50 chance, is falling apart even before it officially begins. Sources from inside the never very effective UN International Atomic Energy Commission say the agreement cannot be policed or enforced. The $10 billion in additional oil exports it permts the Mullahs in Iran will help bail them out of crisis economic situation while they continue to hurl threats at the world and call for an end to all sanctions. The Administration after giving Tehran relief by not instituting penalties against new violations of the existing sanctions regime, has now reserved itself. But Pres. Obama opposes bipartisan Senate and House members pushing legislation for new sanctions if and when the short-term agreement collapses. All sides admit/claim that Iran’s search for enriched uranium and nuclear weapons and a delivery system is going forward without hindrance during the truce period.
Israel
Ignoring the fact Secretary John Kerry’s negotiations mandate is only dealing with one of the three Palestinian elements – the PLO on the West Bank, Gaza and Jordan – new obstacles have arise. Kerry has thrown over bitterly and long time negotiated U.S.-Israeli guidelines for its security if a Palestinian state comes into being. So he has inadvertently manufactured a new crisis over Israel’s continued presence in the Jordan Valley. With growing threats from Iran-armed officially designated terrorists, Hezbollah in the Lebanon north and Hamas in the Gaza south, armed by Iran, no Israeli government is going to accede to any major concessions on their eastern flank with an always fragile Jordan now facing new difficulties with hundreds of millions of Syrian refugees.
worldtribune.com In 1967 Rudi Dutschke, a flamboyant leader of post-World War II European student radicals looking back on two centuries of failed revolutions, had an epiphany: instead of attacking prevailing institutions head on, he advocated his fellow revolutionaries should take a “long march through the institutions’ of power to create radical change from within government […]
Ghosts of East Asiahttp:yeoldecrabb.com There is an eerie feeling of déjà vu about the drama in the East China Sea just now. Again an authoritarian government with a rapidly expanding politicized military is making more and more aggressive noises, in large part in pursuit of its voracious appetite for energy. The U.S., hegemonic […]
One of the greatest costs to Medicare and one which presented the most difficult moral issue facing the American health system on the eve of Obamacare was the growing number of persons with dementia As lives lengthened, one 2010 study estimated that almost 15% of those over 70 suffered from some form of dementia. The annual cost to families and society as a whole was estimated annually at between $31 and $56 thousand dollars for each individual with a total cost of between $157 and $215 billion.
In the post-Obamacare era, these two elements of the total medical picture may assume the greatest importance. The obvious necessity to make “co-pay” a part of the Medicaid commitment, even for the poorest recipient, would appear part of any solution. An increase in the 20% of Medicare which now must be paid by the insured may well be necessary to refinance that system. But neither will be easy for an electorate, promised so many freebies by Obamacare.
Growing obesity and other manifestations of the American lifestyle presented an even greater challenge – and will continue to do so – in any effort at prevention rather than treatment. That is going to demand a mobilization of public opinion long after the squabbles over Obamacare are historical footnotes.
Hopefully in a more realistic environment occasioned by Obamacare’s demise, reason and common sense will prevail. And, as always, scientific breakthroughs may be around the corner, particularly for Alzheimer’s. [British scientists announced such a breakthrough in October 2013 in experiments with rats although they cautioned application to humans would be some time off.]
But there again tightened budgets, in no part the result of the Obama Administration’s campaign against competition and the traditional concept of equal opportunity [rather than Pres. Obama’s redistribution of wealth for guaranteed equality] would be the touchstone.
Obama Discovers American Exceptionalism Among the welter of ironies concerning President Vladimir Putin’s op/ed for The New York Times on the zigzaggingSyria crisis is that “Ras’s” ghostwriter has–however haphazardly–touched on the fundamental issue. Given the arguments and syntax, I suspect the ghost’s first language was American English, not Russian, something I will leave to future political exegesis. […]
A version of this column is scheduled for publication Monday, September 2, 2013, at worldtribune.com Syrian Crisis [Cont.] Pres. Barrack Obama’s sudden volte-face on a strike against the Syrian regime of Pres. Basher al Assad has only put on hold the enormous stakes in the crisis’ ultimate outcome. In one of those curious turns […]
A version of this column is scheduled for publication Monday, August 26, 2013, at worldtribune.com Picking up the pieces When a young, flibbertigibbet reporter asked the old Edwardian Harold Macmillan what might derail implementing the prime minister’s promised political agenda, he rejoined, “Events, dear boy, events!” For pseudo-aristocrat that he might have been […]
http://www.worldtribune.com/?utm_source=Clueless+Harming+the+U.S.+Without+%26+Within&utm_campaign=ACD%2FEWI+BLOG&utm_medium=email One of the more bizarre aspects of the current deluge of Washington scandals is that their very numbers permit President Barack Obama to finesse and continue to play a role as No. 1 Observer and chief political fundraiser. The almost weekly additions to news of the Administration’s dereliction of duty and corruption diffuse […]
