Searching for Relevancy in an Obama World

by Janet Ritz

I spoke with a friend the other day, one of those rare individuals who'd passed his 87th birthday with a clear perspective on life that went beyond even his years, and heard from him frustration that has been echoed both by others of his generation and by those who are not yet of age to drink or vote.

The question they've been asking is: what happened?

What happened to the values for which the WWII generation fought and died? What happened to our principals about saving money and living within our means? What happened to fighting for freedom of religion and thought and tolerance? What happened to personal responsibility and the willingness to sacrifice to meet a shared goal? What happened to the moral centers of those in charge for the last few decades that made them think they could use the earth as their personal or corporate garbage dump, their offshore bank account, their property to pillage?

My friend bemoaned the generation that had followed his as trust-fund babies given every opportunity after a hard-won victory, who did not understand or care about the sacrifices made to provide them with the right to become something more than their fathers.

Instead, he complained, they squandered it for short term gain and immediate gratification.

I have heard the same from those younger than me. How could so much have been lost so fast? What about us? What will happen to our lives and our children now that our fathers and mothers have spent their inheritence? Who broke America, who broke the world, who is going to fix it?

The answer most people in America give, according to the polls, is Barack Obama. There is a lot to be said for his accomplishments in so short a time -- increased national debt notwithstanding (given the enormity of the problems he has inherited) -- but that's not, I suspect, the answer he would give. The president would say (and has said) that we all have to change to get out of this mess. Continued...

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The Environmentalist Staff 

Obama's Push-Back Against China Is Bitter Medicine

by Sam Sedaei

For the past number of years, the prevailing view in foreign policy circles in Washington has been that China's economic growth of 9%, along with the recent economic recession that hit the United States, has shifted the balance of Sino-U.S. relations in China's favor. During a recent conversation I had with David Bosco, the author of Five to Rule Them All, he pointed out that while for most of the Cold War and twenty-first century, the Soviet Union -- and then Russia -- led the efforts to challenge Western authority on the international stage, China has been becoming the leading voice of opposition in the United Nations Security Council in recent years.

And ever since President Obama's inauguration, China has been especially uncooperative on a number of global issues. Kenneth Lieberthal -- director of Brookings Institution's China Center in Washington -- says such testy relations in the first year of American administrations have historic precedence as the two countries are more willing to test each other. Nonetheless, China has shown to be particularly resistant to respond positively to Obama's international charm offensive. 

Two of those major issues have been climate change and Iran. China sent a low level diplomat to negotiate with President Obama during the Copenhagen Conference on climate change in 2009 and unilaterally ensured the conference's minimal success by resisting enforcement mechanisms for any agreement on carbon emissions. And, as the military rulers in Iran proceed with horrific human rights crimes and lack of cooperation to address concerns about their nuclear program, China has shown unwilling to cooperate on sanctions on Sepah-e Pasdaran, also known as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.  Continued...

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The President’s Power Tools

by William S. Becker

On Capitol Hill, the ship of state is so bereft of rudder and sail that the crew is jumping overboard. The latest to abandon ship is Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, who minced no words about the dysfunctional Congress he is choosing to leave.

Forget for a moment about health care and financial reform. On national energy and environmental issues, which have been stalled in the congressional queue, we have a critical national security threat, a danger to public health and welfare, and national policy that encourages American families to inadvertently fund terrorists.

Those are among the reasons the paralyzing partisanship on Capitol Hill is so serious a dereliction of duty.

So what can the President of the United States do? Quite a lot if he’s willing to use the executive powers he’s been given by the Constitution, the courts and past Congresses.

That’s what President Obama is planning now, according to the New York Times. “With much of his legislative agenda stalled in Congress,” the Times reports, “President Obama and his team are preparing an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities.”  Continued...

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The Psychological Effect of Crisis

by K.J. Wetherholt

In light of the Haitian earthquake and the subsequent aid efforts there, and having recently attended a meeting at one of the UN cluster agencies' headquarters in NYC on psychology, development issues and crisis, it was disconcerting to me that there is no current permanent program in place at the UN or among many different aid agencies, or one that can be immediately implemented, to commonly do psychological needs assessments among both crisis-affected populations and for workers in the field.

After food, water, and shelter, such needs are considered a tangential, secondary, or non-essential matters that only get ad hoc attention in rare circumstances. Some agencies or organizations are better than others at recognizing this as a critical need, which is especially true among crisis-affected populations, as the psychological well being--which includes issues of safety, security, and trust--fundamentally affect long-term recovery and development in post-conflict and post-disaster areas. This is indeed something that we will be seeing prove true, and with veritable profundity, during Haiti's post-earthquake reconstruction.  Continued...

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