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Steven Leibo
May 15, 2008: On Dan Quayl
I should probably admit it at the outset that while Dan Quayl
served as vice president, I did not spent a lot of time thinking about him.
Well, maybe that's not entirely true, I do remember feeling quite sympathetic
When it turned out he couldn't spell potato.
I can't spell either.
But that most undistinguished vice president has been
On my mind lately
because, from my perspective... all this talk about Hillary being unwilling to serve as vice president to the obviously less experienced Barak Obama
Seems really weird.
After all, the last time a newly inaugurated president had more national political experience than the incoming vice president
was twenty years ago.
when George Herbert Walker Bush chose Dan Quail.
No, in recent American political tradition the sort of team an Obama Hillary Clinton ticket offers
Has, in fact, become the norm.
Does anyone really think that Bill Clinton's experience governing one of the smallest states in the United States
matched Al Gore's, service in Vietnam, his national electoral experience in the house of representative and the senate?
Does anyone possibly think George W. Bush experience
Governing Texas and a "baseball team"
Matched Dick Cheney's experience as the White House Chief of Staff, Secretary of Defense and Congressman!
Or for that matter, does anyone imagine that
John Kennedy's political experience matched that of long time Senate leader Lyndon Baines Johnson?
Now one can easily understand why Barak Obama might not want to serve as third fiddle
In an administration dominated by Hillary and Bill Clinton.
And for those of us, who would prefer that the extraordinarily talented
but too frequently undisciplined Bill Clinton not end up back in the White House
Even as first husband -
having Bill Clinton's insights and experience available just down the road at the vice president's official home
would be a perfect solution.
Close but not too close.
And Hillary herself certainly knows, that in FDR's time the vice presidency
Might not have been---as it was said -- worth a bucket of warm spit
But more recent vice presidents
From Walter Mondale, to Al Gore and Richard Cheney
have seen the role grow into a position of real influence
So from the perspective of this commentator
Letting this battle over the democratic nomination
A battle between two fine and able potential leaders go on a bit longer
Seems just fine.
And then, if the numbers play out the way they seem to be
I'd be more than delighted to see an Obama Hillary Clinton ticket
Take on the republicans this fall.
Now that's change I can relate to
Doctor Steven Leibo is a Professor of International History and Politics at the Sage Colleges. He is also the author of the annual, “East & Southeast Asia”, which is reissued every August in the Striker Post’s Wold Today Series.
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May 1, 2008: America's Health Care Choice
I should probably apologize in advance; I might not get through this commentary
You see, I have very bad asthma
In fact, if it were not for the excellent audio editing skills of the staff of Northeast Public Radio
These commentaries would probably not be comprehensible
What with all the wheezing and coughing...
Which is exactly why I am not particularly interested in the silly battles
which currently dominate the contest for the democratic presidential nomination
You know the stuff about Hillary's exact stance on NAFTA
or Barak's loose cannon former pastor
For me the choice was made long ago
I am voting for who ever wins the democratic nomination
Because unlike the Republicans…the Democrats
have committed themselves to fixing the American health care system
committed themselves to pulling our country from our embarrassing thirty seventh place in the World Health Organization's assessments of national health care systems
Into a system that guarantees health care for every American
while removing the fear of going bankrupt because of medical bills.
I suppose it's not surprising that I am so concerned
Given how critically dependent I am on medicines
to hold my asthma at bay
No, its time for America to catch up with the rest of the successful democracies
And provide the sort health care one finds from Taiwan, to Japan,
from England, to Canada, from France and Germany to Switzerland
guaranteed health care, without the fear of bankruptcy
Sure some would say I act rashly so totally dismissing the republican John McCain
Sure I would have much preferred him to have been in the White House than George W.
But McCain may be a maverick when it comes to challenging his president on torturing prisoners
But he's just like the rest of this party in his commitment to stopping
Americans from creating a truly world class universal health care system
No, the Republican Party and Senator McCain himself just don't seem to be able to make the intellectual leap
past that absurd idea that all Americans should have a guarantee of legal help
If they get in trouble with the law --But no rights whatsoever to that ever so much more basic human need health care
Sure we all know the republicans especially love big business, love corporate profits
But they don't seem to get the emerging reality that it's not the just the American people who are hurt by our lousy health care system
A system so much more expensive and less efficient than elsewhere
But that our corporations ---who employ so many of us
Get burned as well
Burdened as they are financing the health care costs of their workers
While so many of their international corporate competitors
don't carry bare such a burden
No for me for, one of the biggest choices in this up-coming election
Is the absolute necessity to back not an individual but the party that has committed itself
To universal health care
That has made it clear that we can learn from the more impressive systems around the world
Literally from England to Taiwan
National health care systems so amusingly documented in Michael Moore's quirky but delightfully entertaining Sicko
And PBS's the infinitely more impressive and sophisticated look at the same subject
Which just appeared on pbs last week
Sick Around the World .. easily available at the PBS Frontline web site
But of course learning more is not enough,
now it's time to get involved…to get up from that couch or the computer
It's good for your health anyway
And attend one of the many public events around our area
designed to raise public attention
like May 6ths noon time legislative rally at the New York State Capital building in Albany
Always keeping in mind
That it's finally time that honest tax paying American citizens with health problems should get
at least as much consideration as accused criminals with legal ones
Doctor Steven Leibo is a Professor of International History and Politics at the Sage Colleges. He is also the author of the annual, “East & Southeast Asia”, which is reissued every August in the Striker Post’s Wold Today Series.
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April 17, 2008: Reflections on National Identity
He was an older gentleman, a symbol of the nation he'd led for years
But once arrested he spent his first days clapped in irons
For his effort to challenge Abraham Lincoln's vision of a unified United States
of course today, Jefferson Davis is not well known
But he has been on my mind lately
As I have watched all those Tibetan Independence demonstrators
doing everything they can to support Tibet and humiliate China on what the Chinese had hoped would be their proudest hour
The Beijing Olympics
Demonstration so often inspired by the charismatic Dalai Lama
But while Westerners see the Dalai Lama
as a man of non-violent wisdom
Most Chinese leaders look at the Dalai Lama with the same eyes Abraham Lincoln
reserved for his arch enemy, Jefferson Davis
Because, the simply fact is, that the Chinese leadership and
almost certainly a majority of the Chinese people really do think Tibet is part of China
that the Dalai Lama is trying to break up their country
As Western imperialists came so close to accomplishing in the nineteenth century
Now let me be very clear
The Tibetans have plenty of grievances
In the nineteen sixties their culture experienced a physical and culture assault
They barely recovered from
While today, their enormous land, at its largest expanse 15 times the size of the United Kingdom
Is filled with only a few million ethnic Tibetans
A reality not surprising given the Tibet's historic decision
To have an extraordinary percentage of their population
live out their lives as celibate monks and nuns
A decision that made Tibetans less able to populate the land they have so long claimed
And who have now by virtue of their own population decisions
And current Chinese policies
Become vulnerable to the flooding of their ancestral homeland by arriving Han Chinese immigrants
A reality any Native American can easily identify with
And while it is true, that in today's Tibet monasteries and language studies have again flourished
Any Tibetan who has not embraced a Chinese education and lifestyle
Has, very few professional options
No the Tibetans have plenty of reason to vent their anger
As anyone who has spent time there can easily attest
But as is so often the situation is much more complicated than it initially appears
Especially the claims that Tibet is simply an independent nation conquered by the Chinese in 1950
When the reality is quite different
In deed, while pre-modern Tibet did not include significant numbers of Han Chinese
China and Tibet have been historically intertwined for centuries
At times China has even served as Tibet's defender against aggressive outsiders from the Nepalese to the British
While the Tibetans even served as the spiritual guides of the Mongols who conquered medieval China
Indeed the relationship is so intertwined that this historian
could easily build a case either for or against Tibet's independence from China
A tale of competing narratives that would reveal little light
to the current reality
That Tibet's few millions have absolutely no chance to become separate from China billions
And the hard but certain reality that if Tibet is to preserve its cultural identity
It will only accomplish that goal within the People's Republic
But that won't happen as long as the Tibetan movement
Encouraged by outsiders, especially officials from the American government
Keep forcing the Chinese to see Tibetan culture through the mirror
Of a western plot to destroy the People's Republic
As westerners had once hoped to pull down the Soviet Union
A perception easily maintained given America's historic Cold War nurturing of the Tibetan independence movement
so what should those who want to preserve Tibetan culture do?
Well, frankly I would avoid leaving the Tibetans as China's principal scape goat if they are humiliated internationally
While doing everything one can to visit Tibet itself
Ignoring those who call for a boycott of Chinese held Tibet
I would plan an extended visit, learning about the Tibetans, learning from the Tibetans
Supporting their businesses and building up Tibetan tourism
Making it easier for Tibetans to maintain their cultural traditions
And convincing the Chinese, ever mindful of the need for economic development
Of the financial value of keeping Tiban culture alive
Doctor Steven Leibo is a Professor of International History and Politics at the Sage Colleges. He is also the author of the annual, “East & Southeast Asia”, which is reissued every August in the Striker Post’s Wold Today Series.
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