Newsweek commits acts of journalism

If you haven’t read Newsweek’s seven-part series on the 2008 Election, do so now.

I rag on Newsweek and Time a lot, but sometimes they put out good stuff. I think we’ll see a transitionary period over the next few decades, where many newspapers – the Christian Science Monitor was the first notable – will cut back to weeklies in print and significantly expand their online coverage, and leave the daily press to the giants of the industry (the Times, the Post, etc). They’ll provide more in-depth and analytical coverage, and I think this is a very, very good thing.

Newsweek’s series can be found here:

Part 1: How He Did It

Part 2: Back From The Dead

Part 3: The Long Siege

Part 4: Going Into Battle

Part 5: Center Stage

Part 6: The Great Debates

Part 7: The Final Days

The Future of this project

So, change is here.

But what exactly are we – meaning communities big and small, global and local – hoping to change? I’ll have a lot more to say about this in the coming weeks, and look for a big re-rollout in January, but for now …

HEY OBAMA CHANGE THIS’ TOP PRIORITIES LIST:

1. Close Guantanamo, ban torture.

2. Pass a big – not some piddly $160 billion – stimulus package through Congress, focusing on the revitalization of the Big 3 Automakers as new generation Green employers, and a new national Green infrastructure.

3. Stop mucking up the treasury bailout bill.

4. Plan a major climate change bill, and/or global summit.

 

Much more to come soon …

Hey Obama Change This’ first book review

Over random intervals, the folks at Hey Obama Change This will be giving our readers a taste of what they’ve been reading. (And we read a lot.)

First up: Alex Abella’s history of the Rand corporation, titled Soldiers of Reason: The RAND Corporation and the Rise of the American Empire.

It’s not wonderfully engaging, but the subject matter is interesting enough to warrant a read. Sadly, the most interesting part of the book is the very last pages, when Abella tells us what he really thinks of RAND and numbers-based systems analysis. His views pretty much squared with my own, but throughout the whole book he presents the history of RAND much like the corporation itself: amorally. He presents a strong narrative of the think tank, but often fails to take it to task for its numerous failings.

What it means for Obama: Stay away from RAND people. If you want to know foreign policy, talk to people who know history, sociology, and psychology. Foreign affairs and diplomacy is not science, but rather a high art.

Maps

Here at Hey Obama Change This, we’re big fans of geography. And why not? How else are we supposed to perform up to par on that ridiculously addictive (and competitive) Facebook Travel IQ game?

It seems that not all of our presidential candidates are up to snuff, however. Here, Johnny Mac confuses Sudan with Somalia.

On the one hand, we can’t blame him that much (yes we can … get it?) They’re both in Africa, they’re both Muslim countries, they’re both struggling with questions of autonomous regions.

But differences remain. Sudan, for one, is in the process of ethnically cleansing Darfur; Somalia gunmen are committing acts of piracy of the Horn of Africa. Sudan has oil; Somalia has cheap AK’47’s.

Either McCain’s once again totally getting the facts wrong (see: McCain is actually pretty dumb about foreign policy but he was a Prisoner of War so therefore he automatically has national security credibility), or he just forgot. Neither bodes well for a potential McCain presidency.

Please, Obama, never misidentify a country, and while we’re at it, keep pronouncing them correctly.

What Would Kemal Do – Oh Wait He Died 70 Years Ago

In what will most likely be the first of many installments related to American foreign policy here at Hey Obama Change This, today we’re taking a look at Turkey.

Specifically, how fragile the country is constitutionally.

Something the Bush Administration should be proud of – but of course isn’t – was their early-second term encouragement towards Arab (bear with me here, I know Turkey isn’t Arab) governments to open their political spheres. With no legal outlets for political expression – outside of plastering pictures of Hosni Mubarak (or insert other Arab leader here) on buildings – moderation is impossible, which leads to the radicalization of political opposition. Of course, Bush et all. have since backtracked on this policy.

And, oh yeah, they didn’t really care much about the results of any elections that happened, either.

But I digress.

Turkey has a not-particularly pretty history with the military interfering in the political process, and the courts haven’t been much better, banning essentially any political party with even the slightest hint of roots in political Islam. And, well, the Turkish High Court is on the verge of doing it again, and in all likelihood will ban the ruling AK Party of both Turkish President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the very near future.

Please, Obama, denounce any moves of the Turkish secular elite to ban the most popular political party in Turkey, and when you encourage the democratic process abroad, respect the results of elections, and work with any governing party that is willing.

G’Bay

So McClatchy’s DC Bureau is doing a top-notch job of investigative pieces about America’s treatment of prisoners of war captured during the War on Terror. To make a long story short, they’re doing the job that the rest of the press has totally abdicated. And at Hey Obama Change This, we greatly appreciate, you know, journalists being journalists.

Anyway, the week long series started on Sunday with a great look at how, oops,

“An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that Akhtiar was one of dozens of men — and, according to several officials, perhaps hundreds — whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments.”

Yeah, that’s pretty bad. But hey! It gets better:

“The investigation also found that despite the uncertainty about whom they were holding, U.S. soldiers beat and abused many prisoners.”

Hey, here’s the bright side. We’re not torturing ‘enemy combatants’, we’re just torturing any brown-skinned male that happens to find his way into American custody! Smashing.

More on the abuse perpetrated by Americans who have, of course, not been charged with any war crimes, even though they are indeed war criminals. Money quote:

“It’s extremely hard to wage war with so many undefined rules and roles,” Beiring said in a phone interview with McClatchy. “It was very crazy.”

Except, uh, there are rules, and they also happen to be US Law. You know, until September 11.

Anyway, today’s piece brings us this wonderful news: not only did the United States hold a great deal of not-in-any-way-enemy combatants at Guantanamo, but the prison camp itself became – surprise! – a great recruitment center for Al-Qaeda supporters.

“A McClatchy investigation found that instead of confining terrorists, Guantanamo often produced more of them by rounding up common criminals, conscripts, low-level foot soldiers and men with no allegiance to radical Islam — thus inspiring a deep hatred of the United States in them — and then housing them in cells next to radical Islamists.

The radicals were quick to exploit the flaws in the U.S. detention system.”

Please Obama, close down Guantanamo Bay as soon as you’re inaugurated, and publicly apologize for the United States’ actions over the last eight years. It’d go a long way to restoring America’s image in the world, and to notify the American public that, oh yeah, we’re a country based on the rule of law and if we’re no longer a country based on the rule of law we’re becoming a police state.

First our ports, now our skyscrapers

In case you forgot – and if you’re reading this, you’re probably American, so you most likely did forget – a company based in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates attempted in early 2006 to run some of America’s ports.

Well, Republicans got all scared – because we simply can’t have ARABS run our ports, can we? – even threatening to pass a Congressional Resolution blocking the move. This prompted President George W. Bush to threaten a veto – what would have been his first at the time, until finally Dubai Ports World scuttled the deal. (Obama and other prominent Democrats expressed their opposition to the idea at the time.)

Now, one of the Emirates is once again targeting America, putting together an offer to buy the Chrysler Building in New York City. We all remember what happened after the Japanese bought the Rockefeller Building in 1989 …

Actually, nothing happened.

Please, Obama, never stir up nativist and racist impulses in Americans over business deals.

(p.s. Dubai, not Abu Dhabi, is the Emirate creating the man-made islands off its’ coast.)

This Project

Change.

It’s what this presidential election is all about. It’s what the American electorate wants desperately, as shown in poll after poll.

But what does it entail? What can the next president change – not nearly as much as some think – and what would it mean for the next generations of Americans? Or, for that matter, the rest of the world?

This blog is an exercise in channeling our current zeitgeist. I’ll focus on single issues at a time (so don’t expect only one post titled “AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY IS BAD”, but rather a great many titled to that effect), but also look at the broader societal forces, and, above all, our 21st century American contexts.

p.s. If McCain wins, all bets are off.