Posts Tagged ‘Politics’
Words That Shimmer
We crave truth tellers. We crave real truth. There is so much baloney all the time. You know, the performance of political speech, of speeches you say on the news, doesn’t it often feel to you like there should be a thought bubble over it that says, you know, what I really would say if I could say it. You know, these people who I oppose, I don’t like them and I don’t want to work with them because they’re obstructionist, but I have to act like I want to partner with them because that’s the accepted form of discourse, but in fact, it’s not really getting us anywhere. Or, you know how I think of on things like, I don’t know, comedy shows when there’s a little ticker tape underneath it says “she’s lying”. That’s how I experience sometimes that sort of speech as well.
So I think, you know, I learn so much every day from being a mother. My sons are 11 and 12 and you see the way that children — they know when they’re being bamboozled. And they also are drawn toward language that shimmers, individuals words with power.
They will stop you and ask you to repeat a shimmering word if they’re hearing it for the first time. You can see it in their faces…
~ Elizabeth Alexander
Weighing WikiLeaks’ “Uncomfortable Truths” and Julian Assange’s “Scientific Journalism”
WikiLeaks’ founder Julie Assange published an editorial in The Australian yesterday. In “Don’t shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths” he presents WikiLeaks as a moral, journalistic enterprise whose ideological origins trace back to Assange’s Australian ancestral roots. He writes:
“I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully. … These things have stayed with me. WikiLeaks was created around these core values. The idea, conceived in Australia, was to use internet technologies in new ways to report the truth.”
Assange goes on to describe WikiLeaks’ approach as “scientific journalism” — meaning that anyone can read a news story and access it’s original source materials to verify its journalistic accuracy.
Assange’s view of himself as a truth-crusading underdog is not universally shared. Gideon Rose, editor of Foreign Affairs, argues that Assange’s world view is juvenile and oversimplified. Appearing last week on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show, Rose, a former National Security Council official under President Clinton, opined:
“This guy is basically a crank who is an essentially old-fashioned anarchist…which is essentially an adolescent world view — that all power and all authority is bad. Well, you know what? Not all authority and power is bad. And these cables that have been revealed show actually U.S. diplomats trying to do the right thing in generally intelligent ways. So ironically it proves the opposite of what Assange actually thinks.”
David Brooks echoed Rose’s perspective in his recent New York Times column, “The Fragile Community”:
“Far from respecting authority, Assange seems to be an old-fashioned anarchist who believes that all ruling institutions are corrupt and public pronouncements are lies. For someone with his mind-set, the decision to expose secrets is easy… But for everyone else, it’s hard.”
Brooks goes on to criticize WikiLeaks for undermining the global diplomatic conversation — that when truths are leaked, trust is compromised and relationships suffer.
Is WikiLeaks in fact a constructive vehicle for revealing “uncomfortable truths,” as Assange argues? How are or aren’t we better off as a global community now that these diplomatic cables are Internet-accessible to all? In what ways has this latest round of leaks done more good than harm or more harm than good? Or is it too early to reach a conclusion?
– Nancy Rosenbaum
Noynoy Aquino Fulfills Destiny
Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III becomes the 15th president of the Republic of the Philippines.
The son of national hero Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino II and former president Corazon Aquino, Noynoy is “The new Aquino” who won convincingly in the country’s first automated — and fastest — elections Filipinos have ever witnessed.
A consistent topnotcher in polls, Aquino’s rise to power started after he reluctantly decided to become the Liberal Party’s bet after some prodding from supporters and family following the death of his mother on August 1, 2009.
The outpouring of love and devotion to the country’s mother of democracy convinced the unassuming Aquino to make a run for the highest post in the country, taking Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, a former presidentiable and also a strong contender, as his running mate.
Just a day after four of his rivals conceded, the ever-reluctant Aquino has refused to claim early victory. “My parents taught me to be humble,” he said at a press conference a day after the May 10 elections.
Amid the chaos of election day — defective electronic ballot machines, shootings, and long queues in polling precincts — the Commission on Elections placed Aquino on top of the race as it disclosed partial and official tallies coming from polling precincts.
The Comelec claimed that this year’s elections produced the highest turnout of voters and the “most peaceful” exercise of suffrage. Philippine stocks surged the next day, with investors relieved that the election passed without any major problems.
Aquino was slow to declare victory as after he received news that the Nacionalista party bet Manuel Villar’s decided to quit the race.
“Based on the partial election results, it is clear that I have significant lead over the next contender in the presidential race. I am grateful to the Filipino people for their support and to the loyal supporters in our People’s campaign who made this achievement possible,” he said.
Aquino will formally takes office on June 30.
The 50-year-old bachelor who drew on the enormous public support for his democracy hero parents, secured just over 15.2 million votes, or nearly 42 percent of the total, according to final results released by parliament on Tuesday following the May 10 election.
Former president Joseph Estrada finished well behind in second place with nearly 9.5 million votes.
A joint public session of Congress formally ratified the results and proclaimed Aquino.
His inauguration is scheduled for the end of the month.
The rafters were packed with supporters wearing yellow, the trademark campaign color of the Aquino family.
Wearing a barong, Aquino arrived at parliament surrounded by family and friends and was escorted to a holding room.
Legislators from the two houses of Congress approved Aquino’s election by acclamation, and Senate majority leader Juan Miguel Zubiri declared him “the duly elected president of the republic”.
“It is now time to heal the wounds of the election. It is time to move forward,” Zubiri said earlier on ABS-CBN television.
Ironically, the 73-year-old Estrada held the record for the biggest win in recent Philippine political history when he triumphed in the 1998 elections with 39 percent of the total vote.
But the former action-movie star was ousted three years later, half-way through his term, amid allegations of corruption for which he was later convicted.
“I sincerely offer my congratulations to my good friend and worthy opponent,” Estrada said in a speech read by his son in Congress.
“I am confident that president-elect Aquino will fulfill his campaign promise to address the problem of corruption.”
For Aquino, victory is another chapter in his family’s dramatic political story.
His father, Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, was shot dead in 1983 at Manila airport as he returned from US exile to lead the democracy movement against Marcos.
His mother, Corazon Aquino, took over from her slain husband and led the “People Power” revolution that eventually toppled Marcos in 1986. She then served as president for six years.
Her death from cancer last August triggered a massive outpouring of support for the family that turned the son from a low-key senator to presidential front-runner.
Aquino, an economics graduate, has said that fighting corruption, improving the economy and bridging the enormous wealth divide will be among his top priorities.
But his Liberal Party will be hamstrung in its efforts to implement reforms after its choice for the vice presidency, Mar Roxas, lost.
Estrada’s running mate, Jejomar Binay, won the vice presidential contest and could potentially be a destabilizing force for Aquino.
However, Binay insisted on Wednesday he would be a positive influence in government.
“I am a team player and I am willing to work with the president. Whatever is asked of me (I will do),” Binay told AFP.
The Liberal Party will also not have a majority in either house of parliament.
The Lakas Kampi CMD coalition of outgoing President Gloria Arroyo will remain powerful in parliament, and Arroyo won a seat in the lower house, where she could lead opposition to Aquino.
– Edwin Oliva
People Power’s Philippine Saint: Corazon Aquino, 1933-2009
The arc of Corazon Aquino’s life lent itself to maxims, but two hard-nosed ones seem particularly worth pointing out. First, political sainthood is a gift from heaven with a Cinderella deadline — once past midnight, you are a pumpkin. Second, personal virtues are never a guarantee of effective or successful governance. What was truly shocking about Aquino’s tumultuous six-year term as President of the Philippines was that those maxims proved untrue. Midnight always threatened Aquino but never struck; and she was a good woman whose goodness alone, at the very end, was what proved enough, if only by an iota, to save her country.
The exact opposite was foretold by the husband whose murder she vowed to avenge and whose political legacy she promised to preserve. Anyone who succeeded Ferdinand Marcos, Benigno Aquino declared, would smell like horse manure six months after taking power. The residual effects of the dictatorship of Marcos and his wife Imelda, he said, could guarantee no success — only disaster, despair and failure. (See Aquino’s life in photos.)
But after a popular rebellion in 1986 overthrew Marcos and proclaimed her President in his stead, Benigno Aquino’s widow lasted more than six months; indeed, she lasted her entire six-year term. Furthermore, she retained a whiff of sanctity even as her government rotted, even as Filipinos worked hard to prove George Orwell’s aphorism that saints are guilty until proven innocent. As Aquino ruled, every month seemed to diminish the political miracle of her astonishing rise to power, but she survived. And her survival guaranteed the continuation of democracy in her homeland. (Read TIME’s 1986 Woman of the Year cover story on Aquino.)
The Philippines is still a raucous political hothouse. And every now and then it seems to return to the brink. But the dire days of deadly coup plots are over. Corazon Aquino died a revered figure, after an excruciating struggle with colon cancer, in a hospital in the Philippines.
Corazon Cojuangco was born into one of the wealthiest families in the islands. Fated to be married off in one dynastic match or the other, she was courted by and fell in love with Benigno Aquino Jr., a brilliant and ambitious journalist turned politician whose own family was as illustrious though not quite as wealthy as her baronial clan. The marriage would help propel Benigno’s career even as “Cory” was a cipher at his side, the high-born wife whose social ministrations at smoke-filled political sessions flattered her husband’s supporters. Benigno’s popularity soon challenged Ferdinand Marcos, who had been elected President in 1965. And so, when Marcos assumed dictatorial power in 1972, he threw his rival into jail. Corazon then became her husband’s instrument, smuggling messages out of prison and raising funds for the opposition. But as long as he lived, she was merely an extension of Benigno Aquino.
All that changed on Aug. 21, 1983, when Benigno Aquino returned to the Philippines after three years of exile in the U.S. only to be shot dead even before he could set foot on the tarmac of Manila’s international airport. Filipinos were outraged, and suspicion immediately fell on Marcos. At Benigno’s funeral, mourners transformed Corazon into a symbol. (Read TIME’s 1986 Woman of the Year cover story on Aquino.)
The devout and stoic Roman Catholic widow became the incarnation of a pious nation that had itself suffered silently through more than a decade of autocratic rule. Millions lined the funeral route and repeated her nickname as if saying the rosary: “Cory, Cory, Cory.” If she had agreed to let the massive demonstrations of outrage pass in front of Malacanang Palace, said Vicente Paterno, a Marcos official who would later be her ally, “that could have toppled Marcos.” But it would be nearly three years before she would learn to take advantage of her power. Instead, she concentrated on the fractious opposition, using her moral influence to help it choose a leader to oppose Marcos.
Filipinos saw her as that leader, but she declined the role until November 1985. It was then that a Marcos-controlled court acquitted the military men accused of killing Benigno. Marcos then decided to hold a snap presidential election to reaffirm his mandate.
Though hampered by the government’s near monopoly of the media, the Aquino campaign attracted millions of fervent supporters, all decked out in yellow, the reluctant candidate’s favorite color. And when Marcos cheated her of victory in the February 1986 vote, the outcry was tremendous — and his doom was sealed. Bearing witness to their political allegiance, the millions who crammed the streets to protect reformist soldiers who had mutinied against Marcos chanted the now familiar mantra: “Cory, Cory, Cory.” Nuns armed only with rosaries knelt in front of tanks, stopping them in their tracks.
By way of 24-hour cable news, the world witnessed four days of the military-civilian rebellion, a preview of similar uprisings that would later shake out the autocracies of Asia, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. And then, in a sweep of U.S. helicopters, Marcos was whisked off to exile in Hawaii and Aquino was proclaimed President of the Philippines. It was a most astonishing political story. TIME named her Woman of the Year at the end of 1986, the first female to hold TIME’s annual distinction on her own since the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth in 1952.
To govern the Philippines, she would need all the good will she could muster. The country was one breath away from the economic morgue, while Manila’s brand of democracy was built on reeds. Aquino survived eight coup attempts by plotters who hoped to head off her liberal constitution and the return of a bicameral Congress. She took pride in her fortitude. “I have to project my confidence even more than some men do,” she said early in her presidency. “No one can say that Cory did not give it her all.”
Aquino was convinced that her presidency was divinely inspired, even as her political foes mocked her piety. “If the country needs me,” she said, “God will spare me.” And miracle of miracles, she proved God right and her critics wrong. She would be succeeded by a democratically elected general — the first to be at her side as Marcos threatened to mow down her supporters in the streets. She anointed him despite the opposition of her church. Indeed, Fidel Ramos would be the first Protestant to lead the overwhelmingly Catholic country. And he would give the islands a taste of stability and economic prosperity that she was unable to deliver. But without her withstanding the enemies of freedom, he would never have had the chance.
After the presidency, she ran a think tank and center on nonviolence that carried her husband’s name. She also every so often led public protests opposing the policies of her successors, if not her successors themselves. She led demonstrations to remind Ramos that she had promised to dismantle America’s bases in the Philippines. He complied. She joined crowds that led to the overthrow of the inept and corrupt government of the actor-politician Joseph Estrada. She also led protests against her former ally, the second woman President of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, in the wake of corruption charges against Arroyo and her husband. Whenever the country appeared to be in a crisis, Cory Aquino rose above the bureaucratic procrastination that had always bogged it down, reminding her people that they once astonished the world with their bravery — and that they could do it again. But Filipinos must now take stock. Whom will they march with now that their saint has gone to meet her God?
– Source: www.time.com
Joseph Lowery’s Benediction For Barack Obama’s Inauguration

The Lincoln Inaugural Bible
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far along the way, thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee. Shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand – true to thee, O God, and true to our native land.
We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we’ve shared this day. We pray now, O Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant, Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration. He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national and, indeed, the global fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hand, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations. Our faith does not shrink, though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.
For we know that, Lord, you’re able and you’re willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor or the least of these and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.
We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that, yes, we can work together to achieve a more perfect union. And while we have sown the seeds of greed – the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.
And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.
And as we leave this mountaintop, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.
Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle. Look over our little, angelic Sasha and Malia.
We go now to walk together, children, pledging that we won’t get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone, with your hands of power and your heart of love.
Help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid; when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.
Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right.
Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen.
What About Gross National Happiness?
When Jigme Singye Wangchuck was crowned king of the Himalayan nation of Bhutan in 1972, he declared he was more concerned with Gross National Happiness than with Gross Domestic Product. This probably didn’t come as a surprise to the forest-laden country’s 810,000 to 2.2 million (estimates vary greatly) residents, most of whom are poor subsistence farmers. Bhutan s GDP is a mere $2.7 billion, but Wangchuck still maintains that economic growth does not necessarily lead to contentment, and instead focuses on the four pillars of GNH: economic self-reliance, a pristine environment, the preservation and promotion of Bhutan’s culture, and good governance in the form of a democracy.
King Wangchuck’s idea that public policy should be more closely tied to wellbeing – how people feel about their lives – is catching on. There is a growing interest in some policymaking circles in looking at these measures, says Richard Easterlin, economics professor at the University of Southern California. We have been misguided in dismissing what people say about how happy they are and simply assuming that if they are consuming more apples and buying more cars they are better off. There are efforts to devise a new economic index that would measure wellbeing gauged by things like satisfaction with personal relationships, employment, and meaning and purpose in life, as well as, for example, the extent new drugs and technology improve standards of living.
The independent London-based think tank New Economics Foundation is pushing the implementation of a set of national wellbeing accounts that would tote up life satisfaction and personal development as well as issues such as trust and engagement. The accounts would also include liabilities, such as stress and depression. The logistics won’t be hard, says Hetan Shah of NEF, because much of the data is already captured by the government. In 2002, the Strategy Unit, an internal government think tank that reports to Prime Minister Tony Blair, conducted a seminar on life satisfaction and its public policy implications. Shah says Germany, Italy and France are also looking into the issue, one he predicts will become increasingly important as people continue to seek the good life.
– Nadia Mustafa
This article was originally posted in www.time.com
An Excerpt from the Letter of Ninoy Aquino from Prison
Today is the death anniversary of Ninoy Aquino. To honor him, we posted an excerpt of his letter written to Sen. Soc Rodrigo from his prison cell in Fort Bonifacio last June 19, 1973.
The mysteries started me on my meditation. It was the life of Christ from birth to ascension. Suddenly, Jesus became a live human being. His life was to become my inspiration. Here was a God-Man who preached nothing but love and was rewarded with death. Here was a God-Man who had power over all creation but took the mockery of a crown of thorns with humility and patience. And for all his noble intentions, he was shamed, vilified, slandered and betrayed.
Then it dawned on me how puny were my sufferings compared to Him whose only purpose was to save mankind from eternal damnation.
Then as if I heard a voice tell me: Why do you cry? I have gifted you with consolations, honors and glory which have been denied to the millions of your countrymen. I made you the youngest war correspondent, presidential assistant, mayor, vice-governor, governor, and Senator of the Republic, and I recall you never thanked me for all these gifts. I have given you a full life, a great wife and beautiful lovable children. Now that I visit you with a slight desolation, you cry and whimper like a spoiled brat!
With this realization, I went down on my knees and begged His forgiveness. I know I was merely undergoing a test, maybe in preparation for another mission. I know everything that happens in this world is with His knowledge and consent. I knew He would not burden me with a load I could not carry. I therefore resigned myself to His will.
To think, I have been praying the Lord’s Prayer for three and a half decades without really understanding fully the words I mumbled. I repeated the prayer so mechanically that I never really knew what I was saying: Thy Will be done, on earth!
Thy Will Be Done! These words snatched me from the jaws of death. In Laur, I gave up my life and offered it to Him… picked up my cross and followed Him.
“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
Ninoy Aquino was a former Filipino politician who strongly opposed the regime of President Ferdinand Marcos. When Marcos declared Martial Law he was imprisoned for many years. He was later permitted to leave for the US for medical reasons. On August 21, 1983, upon his return to the Philippines from the US, he was gunned down in cold blood at the Manila International Airport (now Ninoy Aquino International Airport). His death triggered massive protests which led to the People Power Revolution that toppled the Marcos regime. He is considered by many as a hero, and remembered for his famous quote: “The Filipino is worth dying for.”