Los Altos, California The 2008 election of Barack Obama, or as he would describe himself a “skinny kid with a funny name,” represented the promise of a fundamentally transformative President. Obama won both of his campaign battles by trying to emphasize how he was different from the Establishment that had led the country to its downfall; he promised to be a pragmatic problem-solver that could successfully turn around Washington. But if the midterm elections of 2010 and the resulting gridlock in Washington suggest something, it is that people were already starting to feel tired of his new establishment; the general perception, even among several Democrats, was that Obama fell short of his promise. Possibly realizing the difference in buzz, the 2012 Obama campaign replaced signs of ‘Hope’ and ‘Change’ with ‘Forward’ – still vague, but notably less ambitious. In hindsight, Obama’s first 18 months in office were among the...
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Bring Warming Talks In From The Cold
Arendal, Norway At the end of this month (November 27) climate change experts and government officials will once again be packing their bags and, armed with the latest, no doubt alarming, statistics about a warming planet, be heading off for yet another round of global climate talks, this time in Doha, Qatar. While no one is holding their breath about any major breakthrough on this highly contentious issue, there might – just might – be reason to believe that at last, progress can be made. The world’s two biggest CO2 emitters, China and the U.S., having played out their own very different political dramas over recent weeks, are placing climate and the environment firmly on the agenda. Within China, there is a growing groundswell of public anger about the general state of the environment and the frequency of environment related scandals – from the emergence of “cancer villages” to...
Why Romney Really Lost the Election
Altoona, Pennsylvania As someone who supported Mitt Romney for president, this election was a tough pill to swallow. Unlike the final days of the 2008 election, when McCain voters began to accept that the ideas of hope and change would ultimately prevail, individuals on both ends of the political spectrum believed that the Republican candidate could emerge victorious this time around. While it is now clear that these predictions were incorrect, reasons for the loss are all over the map. Over the past couple of weeks, there has been no shortage of opinions regarding the results. Some pundits blame Romney’s defeat on the candidate’s lack of a clear message. Others attribute it to President Obama’s immediate response to Hurricane Sandy, which they say distracted voters from the sluggish economy and mysteries surrounding the attack in Libya. Still others look to the changing demographics of the country, which tend to...
Afraid of a Secular Pakistan?
Punjab, Pakistan Unfortunately we have turned Pakistan into a state laden with landmines of labels and tags drenched in personal biases, preferences and prejudices used sometimes under the guise of law, at times it is pronounced as regulations but hardly ever exhibited in its raw form. Secularism is one of the beloved tools of the conservative, hell bent at pushing Pakistan back to 2 thousand years. For the propagators of right wing philosophies this word is akin to pelting stones at the evil, ‘evil’ in this case are usually the non violent, non extremist forces sharing this country with the hardliners. So is secularism really an idea to be dreaded of, loathed; to be shut out of Pakistan with force lest any secular voice seeps in from some unknown quarters? Isn’t it Secularism about freeing the laws, functioning of the state from any kind of discrimination or domination based...
The Collapse of a Nation: Who is Afraid of Greece Now?
New York, NY The Greek summer is almost over, but the hot season has just begun. The failed policies of the second EU/IMF bailout scheme are in full swing, causing further pain to an already economically devastated citizenry which is becoming increasingly angry about seeing its standards of living retreat to 1960s’ levels. Indeed, it is not any more just the “usual suspects” in the Greek labor movement involved in the strikes and demonstrations that have been unleashed as of early September, but professional classes as well, including police officers and members of the armed forces. The Greek GDP has been in free fall since the first bailout scheme was implemented in May 2010, with the economy shrinking by over 6% in the last quarter, a contraction which came on top of a nearly 7% decline in the first quarter of 2012. The unemployment rate stands currently at 23.5%,...
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