As the National Assembly begins
constitutional amendment process, the call for
more definite roles in the constitution for the
first ladies becomes a subject of public
discourse. The ceaseless debate over whether
or not the first ladies be assigned
constitutional roles does not begin now, it has
become recurrent national issue.
Despite the fact that the idea of First lady-ism
is a constitutional aberration, it has long been
adapted and introduced into the nation’s
political system by most successive
administrations. There is no doubt that the
personality and the style of Dame Patience
Jonathan, the wife of the current Nigerian
President have generated renewed interest in
the position of First Lady both in the
governance process and the polity generally.
From the past experiences, the first ladies
undeniably play highly influential supportive
roles that can not be simply wished away
even though the office is alien to the nation’s
constitution. We can thus agree that first
ladies one way or the other exert tremendous
influence by virtue of their husbands’ offices.
The present First Lady, Dame Patience
Jonathan in her contribution to the ongoing
debate on the proposed constitutional
amendment has advocated that the role of
First Lady be enshrined in the constitution so
that they can receive retirement benefits like
their husbands and enjoy their careers. It
seems Dame Patience Jonathan lacked clear
understanding of the semantic import of the
word career in the situational context.
Without missing words, neither the
presidency nor the First Lady roles are
careers. It is my considered opinion that
career is a long-term or life long job.
Of equal importance is the recommendation
of the presidential committee on the review of
the 1999 Constitution under the eminent
chairmanship of former Justice of Nigeria,
Justice Alfa Madibbo Belgore that the office of
the First Lady be abolished at all levels of
government. The Committee in its report
which it has since submitted to President
Goodluck Jonathan has also noted that the
office of First Lady does not operate under
any legal framework and the operation (both
in kind and cash) of such offices at all levels
be discouraged and abolished forthwith.
If the First Ladies think they could not
confine themselves to taking care of the home
front and completely distance themselves
from the affairs of state, their initiatives and
private projects should henceforth not be
funded with the tax payers money.
In more developed countries, first ladies are
allowed to play supportive roles without
necessarily constituting any form of financial
burden on the nation. In essence, First Ladies
can make impact and contribute to national
development without their roles necessarily
enshrined in the constitution.
Given the American experiences, the First
Ladies were never excluded from state
governance but their roles were advisory and
supportive. The sources of the project finance
by United States First Ladies are usually
devoid of public suspicion unlike ours where
private initiatives of the First Ladies are
funded from public treasury. Without doubts,
most initiatives in which Laura Bush and
Hillary Clinton were involved as United States
private First Ladies at different times in
American history were well thought out and
designed to add value to the society.
Contrarily, the Nigerian First Ladies are
known for extravagance and they often wield
greater power and influence than the serving
ministers. A good example in mind was the
summit of African First Ladies recently held
in Abuja where over 200 brand new vehicles
were hired for the event. Even with the
government explanation that the vehicles
would be returned to the company from
which they were leased, the action was largely
condemned by the vast majority of Nigerians
as a form of national waste.
Again, the ongoing face-off between the First
Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan and her
predecessor Hajia Turai Yar’Adua over a
choice land allocation in Abuja, the land
meant to be used for their enduring legacy
projects has culminated into litigation.
Whoever wins the media propagandas war or
court litigation between the First Ladies, both
of them in the eye of public are parasites
eating deep into the fabric of the nation.
Of course, it can be seen already that the
office of the First Lady even without
constitutional empowerment has power and
influence considering the circumstance under
which the disputed Abuja land between Turai
and Dame was revoked. In my own view, the
issue is not about who wins and who loses in
the court but it is more or less a shame on the
nation and show the nature of power play at
the presidency.
While acknowledging the successes Dame
Patience Jonathan had made as the current
leader of African First Ladies Peace Mission,
financial recklessness associated with her
leadership roles calls for serious national
concern.
From all indications, Nigerians are tired of
First Lady Initiatives which are being
financed for ego trips with little or no public
value. It is disheartening that most African
First Ladies are guilty of exploiting their
proximity to power to enrich their family,
friends and close associates. Indeed, the office
has constantly been an object of gross abuse.
It is also worthy of note, the underlying
malady of blazing sirens and moving with
rampaging convoys even when going for
shopping; this had indeed fuelled the
discontent against First Lady-ism. And the
odds usually faced by commuters or better still
the traffic chaos associated with unofficial
movement of First Ladies has really
contributed to the opposition against the call
for the constitutional roles for the office of
the First Ladies.
Above all, the office of the First Lady has its
social relevance but lacks the legal framework
to reposition and justify its existence within
the constitutional order.
15 Jun 2014
NIGERIA RISING DOMESTIC DEBT PROFILE
As Nigeria security challenges persist
unabated, the Federal Government also seems
helpless in tackling the nation’s rising
domestic debts profile. As the debt continues
to rise at unprecedented rate, and even more
drastically in the recent time, the nation’s
image is becoming dented. It is regretted that
the Federal Government had failed woefully
in efforts to reduce the nation’s debt profile.
Statistics obtained from the Debt Management
Office indicates that the domestic debts had
increased from ₦5.966 trillion ($37.71 billion)
at the end of the first quarter ended March
31, 2012, to ₦6.153 trillion ($38.89 billion) at
the end of the second quarter ended June 30,
2012. Indeed, the figures represent an
increase of ₦187 billion or three per cent over
the figure recorded in the first quarter.
Considering the economic implications of the
nation’s rising debt profile, it becomes a
major policy issue requiring extensive public
debates and discourse. More importantly,
heavy indebtedness of the nation remains one
of the major challenges facing most
developing countries at the beginning of the
21st Century. Indeed, high levels of domestic
national debt are likely to be deleterious for
economic growth and development. It is also
true that any economy structured and
sustained by borrowing cannot achieve
economic prosperity.
Detailed report of the domestic debts shows
that the Federal Government bonds accounted
for ₦3.71 trillion or 60.37 per cent of the
money borrowed from internal sources as at
June ending. The unfortunate scenario is that
the impacts of the government bonds are not
actually felt by average Nigerians. It would
have been understandable if the bonds are
effectively employed by the government to
finance long-term investments. Of course, the
Nigerian treasury bills accounted for ₦2.08
trillion or 33.88 per cent, while Treasury
bonds accounted for ₦353 billion or 5.75 per
cent.
Similarly, the domestic debt component of the
total debt profile as at March 31, 2012 which
stood at ₦5.966 trillion, showed that the
Federal Government bonds accounted for
₦3.67 trillion or 61.44 per cent of the money
borrowed through internal sources.
The Nigeria attitude to borrowing is somehow
a national stigma and it calls for re-
orientation of our value system. Nigerians are
being misguided to believe that borrowing is
inevitable and sacrosanct for economic
growth. Whatever the likely benefits derivable
from the huge internal borrowing, it is bound
to have negative economic consequences on
the citizens.
The recent acknowledgement and lamentation
by President Goodluck Jonathan while
presenting the 2012 budget proposal to the
National Assembly that the country domestic
debt have been growing at alarming rates in
recent years is a further prove of the nation’s
economic instability. It is also worthy of note
the decision of the federal government to
earmark ₦560 billion for debt servicing in the
2012 budget. In my own view, debt servicing
cost of public debt is likely to crowd out
public investment.
We may also deduce from President Goodluck
Jonathan’s admission of the threats poised on
the nation by the high domestic debt profile
that this has called for serious national
rethink. It is also interesting to note that the
Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala,
had expressed in an unequivocal terms, she is
more worried with domestic debts than the
external’s.
With the current economic realities, it is
imperative that the nation should initiate a
comprehensive debt servicing plan. In
designing the plan, the government needs to
carefully re-examine the nation’s borrowing
culture with its attendant consequences. Let
me also state that leadership corruption
remains a factor affecting the national success
in the area of debt servicing. Of particular
interest is diversion of funds meant for debt
servicing by people at the helms of affairs.
With the current debt servicing initiative of
President Goodluck Jonathan, the nation is
bound to accumulate more debts in view of
the fact that he gave a caveat that the nation’s
debt should not go beyond 30 per cent of the
Gross Domestic Product (GDP). If the
administration is truly serious in its desire to
reduce the national debts, the set target or
ceiling will still largely constitute a burden.
The caution by President Goodluck Jonathan
on debt – GDP ratio when carefully analysed
shows that at the moment the debt to GDP
ratio is slightly less than 20 per cent. With
latitude of 30 per cent caveat, the government
may add up to 50 per cent of the current debt
level. This is indeed unacceptable, considering
the implications of these rates on the nation’s
economy.
Obviously, escalation of debt profile by the
Federal Government would continue to crowd
out the real sector of the economic and the
equities market. Of equal importance is the
fact that the capital realised from borrowing
is used to finance consumption rather than
investment. In a way, this government
tendency is having destabilizing effect on the
economy through increase in interest and
inflation rates. Without missing words, by
increasing those two rates, the government is
battering the economy.
From policy perspectives, the negative
impacts of domestic debts on economic
growth strengthens the arguments for
ambitious debt reduction through fiscal
consolidation. Another factor that coincides
with the domestic debt is the recurrent budget
deficit which also causes the nation to be
borrowing from Financial Institutions.
With the nation’s abundant human and
natural resources, the question that continues
to agitate mind is the reason for our
continuous borrowing both externally and
internally. This unanswered question poises a
lot of leadership challenges for the nation.
For significant reduction in the domestic debt
to be realisable, the task should not rest solely
with the presidency but there should be co-
operative efforts of all the stakeholders in the
nation’s economy. The National Assembly
equally has a vital role to play in revamping
the nation’s economy through debt reduction
initiatives and perhaps cut pays.
Without doubts, economic sustainability is
affected largely by the nation’s debt profile.
Our government’s high cost of borrowing can
inescapably trigger destabilisation and
disenablement of commercial lending rates of
over 20 per cent to the real sector. This will in
effect cause higher cost of production and can
as well blow up the inflationary trends.
No economy is known to have ever developed
with high inflationary trends and exploitative
borrowing rates. In other words, the nation’s
infrastructural deficits and poor living
condition of people are parts of the resultant
effects of persistent borrowing.
Again, high domestic debts are bound to put
pressure on the government at the point of re-
payment as this may cause the government to
neglect some key government priorities.
While introducing measures to reduce the
nation’s domestic debts profile, greater
attention needs to be paid to viable
investment initiatives. If the government can
ensure huge returns for private investors, the
impacts will be better felt by all and sundry
instead of continuous borrowing. Irrespective
of the present economic challenges,
government should stop paying lip service to
problem of national debt as this remains a
major obstacle to national development.
unabated, the Federal Government also seems
helpless in tackling the nation’s rising
domestic debts profile. As the debt continues
to rise at unprecedented rate, and even more
drastically in the recent time, the nation’s
image is becoming dented. It is regretted that
the Federal Government had failed woefully
in efforts to reduce the nation’s debt profile.
Statistics obtained from the Debt Management
Office indicates that the domestic debts had
increased from ₦5.966 trillion ($37.71 billion)
at the end of the first quarter ended March
31, 2012, to ₦6.153 trillion ($38.89 billion) at
the end of the second quarter ended June 30,
2012. Indeed, the figures represent an
increase of ₦187 billion or three per cent over
the figure recorded in the first quarter.
Considering the economic implications of the
nation’s rising debt profile, it becomes a
major policy issue requiring extensive public
debates and discourse. More importantly,
heavy indebtedness of the nation remains one
of the major challenges facing most
developing countries at the beginning of the
21st Century. Indeed, high levels of domestic
national debt are likely to be deleterious for
economic growth and development. It is also
true that any economy structured and
sustained by borrowing cannot achieve
economic prosperity.
Detailed report of the domestic debts shows
that the Federal Government bonds accounted
for ₦3.71 trillion or 60.37 per cent of the
money borrowed from internal sources as at
June ending. The unfortunate scenario is that
the impacts of the government bonds are not
actually felt by average Nigerians. It would
have been understandable if the bonds are
effectively employed by the government to
finance long-term investments. Of course, the
Nigerian treasury bills accounted for ₦2.08
trillion or 33.88 per cent, while Treasury
bonds accounted for ₦353 billion or 5.75 per
cent.
Similarly, the domestic debt component of the
total debt profile as at March 31, 2012 which
stood at ₦5.966 trillion, showed that the
Federal Government bonds accounted for
₦3.67 trillion or 61.44 per cent of the money
borrowed through internal sources.
The Nigeria attitude to borrowing is somehow
a national stigma and it calls for re-
orientation of our value system. Nigerians are
being misguided to believe that borrowing is
inevitable and sacrosanct for economic
growth. Whatever the likely benefits derivable
from the huge internal borrowing, it is bound
to have negative economic consequences on
the citizens.
The recent acknowledgement and lamentation
by President Goodluck Jonathan while
presenting the 2012 budget proposal to the
National Assembly that the country domestic
debt have been growing at alarming rates in
recent years is a further prove of the nation’s
economic instability. It is also worthy of note
the decision of the federal government to
earmark ₦560 billion for debt servicing in the
2012 budget. In my own view, debt servicing
cost of public debt is likely to crowd out
public investment.
We may also deduce from President Goodluck
Jonathan’s admission of the threats poised on
the nation by the high domestic debt profile
that this has called for serious national
rethink. It is also interesting to note that the
Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala,
had expressed in an unequivocal terms, she is
more worried with domestic debts than the
external’s.
With the current economic realities, it is
imperative that the nation should initiate a
comprehensive debt servicing plan. In
designing the plan, the government needs to
carefully re-examine the nation’s borrowing
culture with its attendant consequences. Let
me also state that leadership corruption
remains a factor affecting the national success
in the area of debt servicing. Of particular
interest is diversion of funds meant for debt
servicing by people at the helms of affairs.
With the current debt servicing initiative of
President Goodluck Jonathan, the nation is
bound to accumulate more debts in view of
the fact that he gave a caveat that the nation’s
debt should not go beyond 30 per cent of the
Gross Domestic Product (GDP). If the
administration is truly serious in its desire to
reduce the national debts, the set target or
ceiling will still largely constitute a burden.
The caution by President Goodluck Jonathan
on debt – GDP ratio when carefully analysed
shows that at the moment the debt to GDP
ratio is slightly less than 20 per cent. With
latitude of 30 per cent caveat, the government
may add up to 50 per cent of the current debt
level. This is indeed unacceptable, considering
the implications of these rates on the nation’s
economy.
Obviously, escalation of debt profile by the
Federal Government would continue to crowd
out the real sector of the economic and the
equities market. Of equal importance is the
fact that the capital realised from borrowing
is used to finance consumption rather than
investment. In a way, this government
tendency is having destabilizing effect on the
economy through increase in interest and
inflation rates. Without missing words, by
increasing those two rates, the government is
battering the economy.
From policy perspectives, the negative
impacts of domestic debts on economic
growth strengthens the arguments for
ambitious debt reduction through fiscal
consolidation. Another factor that coincides
with the domestic debt is the recurrent budget
deficit which also causes the nation to be
borrowing from Financial Institutions.
With the nation’s abundant human and
natural resources, the question that continues
to agitate mind is the reason for our
continuous borrowing both externally and
internally. This unanswered question poises a
lot of leadership challenges for the nation.
For significant reduction in the domestic debt
to be realisable, the task should not rest solely
with the presidency but there should be co-
operative efforts of all the stakeholders in the
nation’s economy. The National Assembly
equally has a vital role to play in revamping
the nation’s economy through debt reduction
initiatives and perhaps cut pays.
Without doubts, economic sustainability is
affected largely by the nation’s debt profile.
Our government’s high cost of borrowing can
inescapably trigger destabilisation and
disenablement of commercial lending rates of
over 20 per cent to the real sector. This will in
effect cause higher cost of production and can
as well blow up the inflationary trends.
No economy is known to have ever developed
with high inflationary trends and exploitative
borrowing rates. In other words, the nation’s
infrastructural deficits and poor living
condition of people are parts of the resultant
effects of persistent borrowing.
Again, high domestic debts are bound to put
pressure on the government at the point of re-
payment as this may cause the government to
neglect some key government priorities.
While introducing measures to reduce the
nation’s domestic debts profile, greater
attention needs to be paid to viable
investment initiatives. If the government can
ensure huge returns for private investors, the
impacts will be better felt by all and sundry
instead of continuous borrowing. Irrespective
of the present economic challenges,
government should stop paying lip service to
problem of national debt as this remains a
major obstacle to national development.
WORLD PEACE BY 2048
World peace has eluded humankind for millennia, despite
the fact that many of the greatest thinkers of our age
have proposed plans for achieving it. One proposal now
on the table aims to bring about sustainable world
peace by 2048. Will it be more successful than its
predecessors?
Norman Cousins, a notable author, journalist and world
peace advocate, is one of many who have worked
tirelessly toward the goal of a sustained world peace. In
his book The Pathology of Power he wrote that “it may
not be within the reach of the present generation of
Americans to create global sanity. But it is certainly
within our reach to bring rational considerations to bear
in the operations of our own government. Beyond that
must be the hope that rational leadership might
encourage sanity elsewhere.”
Cousins concluded that part of the problem concerns
the continual tug-of-war between superpowers and
called on Americans to establish rationality in their own
government in order to encourage it elsewhere. But
perhaps achieving peace requires much more than mere
rationality, or even advocacy.
To that end, in July 2011 the Institute for International
Sport held its first annual World Youth Peace Summit.
General Colin Powell was a keynote speaker and Bishop
Desmond Tutu was the Grand Marshall of the Peace
Walk 2011. The Summit explains that its ongoing
mission is to develop young peace advocates. “By
providing the opportunity to study peace policies
through an intensive series of lectures and workshops,”
says its Web site, “the Summit furnishes participants
with practical knowledge of how to develop and
implement their own peace initiatives successfully in
their home communities.”
A longing for lasting world peace is on the minds of
many people and one doesn’t have to look far to see
why. The world’s track record in the arena of
interpersonal relationships speaks to the need for better
ways of thinking, acting and solving challenges. Much
human suffering has arisen from our tendency to allow
our needs and wants to be met at the expense of
weaker people and nations.
Perhaps the most famous reminder of man’s quest for
peace stands in front of the United Nations building in
New York City. It’s a sculpture that depicts a man
beating a sword into a ploughshare. The caption is
taken from the book of Isaiah and depicts a time of
peace unprecedented in human history. The scripture it
is based on ( Isaiah 2:4 ) reads, “He shall judge between
the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat
their swords into plowshares, and their spears into
pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”
But what is the underlying idea in this sculpture? Going
deeper into the book of Isaiah, it becomes evident that
the scripture is meant as a statement that human
beings will be unable to achieve lasting peace without a
complete change in our nature. Unfortunately, our
actions over the centuries indicate that we believe we
can do it through sheer force of will and human
rationality. President John F. Kennedy put this belief
into words in a 1963 commencement address at
American University. “Our problems are man-made,” he
insisted. “Therefore they can be solved by man.”
Sadly, a long history of bloody power struggles touching
all nations and time periods fails to validate that claim.
Is there any reason to believe that our future efforts—
whatever form they may take—will produce different
results from those of the past?
J. Kirk Boyd is a lawyer, a professor, and the executive
director of the 2048 Project, which he describes as a
plan to “prevent future wars, eliminate poverty, and
create the conditions necessary for a sustainable
existence on our planet.” In his book titled 2048:
Humanity’s Agreement to Live Together, he proposes
that our long-held belief that world peace and
prosperity are unattainable is a myth. In fact, he says,
the foundation for world peace through the 2048 Project
has already been laid, beginning with the creation of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the
United Nations in 1948.
Boyd insists that the plan for 2048 excludes no one,
adding that people around the globe have been working
tirelessly for years to implement it. He believes we have
the capacity to learn to live together peacefully, much
the same way a family does. You may not agree with all
the decisions your family makes, he points out, but you
work out your problems because you have a tacit
agreement to live together in harmony. As the essence
of humanity’s agreement to live together, he proposes
five freedoms as a fundamental entitlement for
everyone: freedom of speech, freedom of religion,
freedom from want, freedom from fear and freedom from
degradation of the environment.
Participation in the 2048 project, claims Boyd, will
change our lives and the lives of our progeny forever.
“This is not an overstatement,” he insists. “The
enforceable International Bill of Rights that is achieved
through the 2048 process affects every major decision
and every moment of our lives—including what we can
say about a corrupt politician to root out dishonesty,
whether we can have a medical operation we need, how
we can practice religion, and whether there is a place
for us and our children at the university—as well as
many other things.”
But who will ensure that all five freedoms are
experienced equally by everyone? Boyd places his faith
in his fellow human beings to come up with solutions
and enforce them through strong, impartial courts and
institutions that will emerge from “deep and broad”
thinking. The plan for 2048, says Boyd, “is grounded in a
strong international tradition of entrusting decision
making to neutral, respected persons, whether they are
tribal mediators or Supreme Court justices.”
He does admit that power corrupts, and that could be a
problem that would need to be corrected when it
happens. His solution is to have these arbiters swear an
oath to uphold the laws contained in this bill of rights.
“Some may be skeptical that such neutrality can be
maintained,” he acknowledges, “but we have seen for
thousands of years, throughout history and across
cultures, how the evolution of society has been
inextricably intertwined with the selection of neutral
decision makers among us. . . . One of our great
character traits as human beings is the ability to
resolve disputes among ourselves fairly and impartially,
based on presentation of disputes to neutral parties.”
Boyd’s hope—though admirable—seems overly
optimistic. While it’s true that we expect courts to be
neutral decision makers, what we have also “seen for
thousands of years, throughout history and across
cultures” is the failure of these decision makers. The
judicial system has not always worked: people have
been wrongly convicted; disputes have escalated rather
than being resolved; oaths have been made and broken.
What happened to the promises that the United States
government made to the Native Americans, for
instance? What happened to the promise of “peace
within our time” made between Germany and England
before World War II? Humanity’s record is one of failed
contracts and broken promises.
Certainly it would be nice if we could trust a world
government to solve our problems, and in fact this is
not a new idea. Men such as Napoleon, Hitler, Lenin
and Stalin also believed they could bring peace and
prosperity to the world. Of course, these would-be
messiahs failed to deliver. Could any world government
succeed where so many throughout history have failed?
The prophet who gave us the words that appear on the
UN statue also hinted at the answer to this question. In
Isaiah 9:6 –7 he speaks of a Messiah who will
accomplish what humanity never could: “For unto us a
Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the
government will be upon His shoulder. And His name
will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of
His government and peace there will be no end, upon
the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it
and establish it with judgment and justice from that
time forward, even forever.”
the fact that many of the greatest thinkers of our age
have proposed plans for achieving it. One proposal now
on the table aims to bring about sustainable world
peace by 2048. Will it be more successful than its
predecessors?
Norman Cousins, a notable author, journalist and world
peace advocate, is one of many who have worked
tirelessly toward the goal of a sustained world peace. In
his book The Pathology of Power he wrote that “it may
not be within the reach of the present generation of
Americans to create global sanity. But it is certainly
within our reach to bring rational considerations to bear
in the operations of our own government. Beyond that
must be the hope that rational leadership might
encourage sanity elsewhere.”
Cousins concluded that part of the problem concerns
the continual tug-of-war between superpowers and
called on Americans to establish rationality in their own
government in order to encourage it elsewhere. But
perhaps achieving peace requires much more than mere
rationality, or even advocacy.
To that end, in July 2011 the Institute for International
Sport held its first annual World Youth Peace Summit.
General Colin Powell was a keynote speaker and Bishop
Desmond Tutu was the Grand Marshall of the Peace
Walk 2011. The Summit explains that its ongoing
mission is to develop young peace advocates. “By
providing the opportunity to study peace policies
through an intensive series of lectures and workshops,”
says its Web site, “the Summit furnishes participants
with practical knowledge of how to develop and
implement their own peace initiatives successfully in
their home communities.”
A longing for lasting world peace is on the minds of
many people and one doesn’t have to look far to see
why. The world’s track record in the arena of
interpersonal relationships speaks to the need for better
ways of thinking, acting and solving challenges. Much
human suffering has arisen from our tendency to allow
our needs and wants to be met at the expense of
weaker people and nations.
Perhaps the most famous reminder of man’s quest for
peace stands in front of the United Nations building in
New York City. It’s a sculpture that depicts a man
beating a sword into a ploughshare. The caption is
taken from the book of Isaiah and depicts a time of
peace unprecedented in human history. The scripture it
is based on ( Isaiah 2:4 ) reads, “He shall judge between
the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat
their swords into plowshares, and their spears into
pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”
But what is the underlying idea in this sculpture? Going
deeper into the book of Isaiah, it becomes evident that
the scripture is meant as a statement that human
beings will be unable to achieve lasting peace without a
complete change in our nature. Unfortunately, our
actions over the centuries indicate that we believe we
can do it through sheer force of will and human
rationality. President John F. Kennedy put this belief
into words in a 1963 commencement address at
American University. “Our problems are man-made,” he
insisted. “Therefore they can be solved by man.”
Sadly, a long history of bloody power struggles touching
all nations and time periods fails to validate that claim.
Is there any reason to believe that our future efforts—
whatever form they may take—will produce different
results from those of the past?
J. Kirk Boyd is a lawyer, a professor, and the executive
director of the 2048 Project, which he describes as a
plan to “prevent future wars, eliminate poverty, and
create the conditions necessary for a sustainable
existence on our planet.” In his book titled 2048:
Humanity’s Agreement to Live Together, he proposes
that our long-held belief that world peace and
prosperity are unattainable is a myth. In fact, he says,
the foundation for world peace through the 2048 Project
has already been laid, beginning with the creation of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the
United Nations in 1948.
Boyd insists that the plan for 2048 excludes no one,
adding that people around the globe have been working
tirelessly for years to implement it. He believes we have
the capacity to learn to live together peacefully, much
the same way a family does. You may not agree with all
the decisions your family makes, he points out, but you
work out your problems because you have a tacit
agreement to live together in harmony. As the essence
of humanity’s agreement to live together, he proposes
five freedoms as a fundamental entitlement for
everyone: freedom of speech, freedom of religion,
freedom from want, freedom from fear and freedom from
degradation of the environment.
Participation in the 2048 project, claims Boyd, will
change our lives and the lives of our progeny forever.
“This is not an overstatement,” he insists. “The
enforceable International Bill of Rights that is achieved
through the 2048 process affects every major decision
and every moment of our lives—including what we can
say about a corrupt politician to root out dishonesty,
whether we can have a medical operation we need, how
we can practice religion, and whether there is a place
for us and our children at the university—as well as
many other things.”
But who will ensure that all five freedoms are
experienced equally by everyone? Boyd places his faith
in his fellow human beings to come up with solutions
and enforce them through strong, impartial courts and
institutions that will emerge from “deep and broad”
thinking. The plan for 2048, says Boyd, “is grounded in a
strong international tradition of entrusting decision
making to neutral, respected persons, whether they are
tribal mediators or Supreme Court justices.”
He does admit that power corrupts, and that could be a
problem that would need to be corrected when it
happens. His solution is to have these arbiters swear an
oath to uphold the laws contained in this bill of rights.
“Some may be skeptical that such neutrality can be
maintained,” he acknowledges, “but we have seen for
thousands of years, throughout history and across
cultures, how the evolution of society has been
inextricably intertwined with the selection of neutral
decision makers among us. . . . One of our great
character traits as human beings is the ability to
resolve disputes among ourselves fairly and impartially,
based on presentation of disputes to neutral parties.”
Boyd’s hope—though admirable—seems overly
optimistic. While it’s true that we expect courts to be
neutral decision makers, what we have also “seen for
thousands of years, throughout history and across
cultures” is the failure of these decision makers. The
judicial system has not always worked: people have
been wrongly convicted; disputes have escalated rather
than being resolved; oaths have been made and broken.
What happened to the promises that the United States
government made to the Native Americans, for
instance? What happened to the promise of “peace
within our time” made between Germany and England
before World War II? Humanity’s record is one of failed
contracts and broken promises.
Certainly it would be nice if we could trust a world
government to solve our problems, and in fact this is
not a new idea. Men such as Napoleon, Hitler, Lenin
and Stalin also believed they could bring peace and
prosperity to the world. Of course, these would-be
messiahs failed to deliver. Could any world government
succeed where so many throughout history have failed?
The prophet who gave us the words that appear on the
UN statue also hinted at the answer to this question. In
Isaiah 9:6 –7 he speaks of a Messiah who will
accomplish what humanity never could: “For unto us a
Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the
government will be upon His shoulder. And His name
will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of
His government and peace there will be no end, upon
the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it
and establish it with judgment and justice from that
time forward, even forever.”
SEVEN BILLIONS AT THE DOOR
For most of our tenure on the planet, the human impact
on the synergy of air, water, soil, energy and life that
make the Earth habitable has been small. But as our
technology, industry and numbers have increased, that
impact has also increased. The increase has been
exponential in terms of our population as well as our
influence on the natural systems that create a life-
sustaining environment. In some ways humankind has
become the ultimate invasive species. To be equated
with some sort of fuzzy-clawed crab or other gravid
invertebrate seems rather an insult. But as Caldwell
notes above, we seem to be just as oblivious to the
world around.
To many observers, we seem to be a species wheeling
out of control; apparently senseless to the
consequences of our actions in the world and with little
means of control either of ourselves or of anyone or
anything else.
Thus as the United Nations pegs October 31, 2011, as
the date when human population passes 7 billion, we
can expect increasingly strident calls for a deep
evaluation of our planetary role. The UN’s 7 Billion
Actions Web site suggests that, “Individual actions are
needed—to think, live and engage one another
differently, and to manage this growth responsibly. Our
increasing global population will affect us all and it is
everyone’s business to do something about it.”
EVEN MORE IN THE PIPELINE
But what does “live and engage one another differently”
mean? Commentators may simply focus on the fact that
no one really knows when number 7,000,000,000 will
come off the line. And while it is correct that the actual
date cannot really be known, the greater symbolism of
the moment is what the UN is seeking to capture: at a
time of global economic and political turmoil, there are
ever more of us that need food, water and space. To
act “differently” will mean in essence that everyone, and
especially those of the First World, will need a more
global perspective.
If we are to create a sustainable global community,
there must be, for instance, more equitable use of
resources. Just as we have seen global economies
become destabilized through “every man for himself”
corporate and financial strategies, the same type of
ecological abuses will surely lead to a day of reckoning
as well. Unfortunately, the biosphere of the planet does
not so easily forgive its debts. The way forward is to
accept and operate from the principle that we are our
brother’s keeper, and there are ever more brothers on
the way.
Analysis of world demographic trends shows that we
will be pushing 9 to 10 billion in the next 40 years. “And
then what?” asks Stanford ecologist Paul Ehrlich.
Unfortunately, according to one UN population estimate,
the high-end scenario if world population growth falls to
just 0.5% (rather than a 0% growth rate) grows to 36
billion by 2300. (The world population growth rate today
is 1.2%.)
Ehrlich has been discussing these questions for more
than 40 years. Beginning in 1968 with The Population
Bomb, Ehrlich predicted a dire future for the burgeoning
human numbers. He admits he was wrong concerning
the timing of the massive famines and ecological
unraveling he foresaw. While human civilization has
always faced food shortages and resource bottlenecks
from time to time, Ehrlich believes our modern
equivalents are not so easily hurdled.
Like Ehrlich, many ecologists have come to the
conclusion that we are “ecosystem engineers.” Writing
in The Dominant Animal , Paul and Anne Ehrlich, for
example, note that human influence is so pervasive that
we have altered the paths of all life. They write that “a
burgeoning human population, perpetually trying to
increase its consumption, is now reshaping the entire
Earth to suit its own immediate needs—to be its
niche.”
“There’s no fear that the population will grow to
infinity,” Ehrlich told Vision. “We either stop it by
adjusting the birth rates or nature will stop it by
adjusting the death rates. My ethical system tells me
we ought to avoid the latter. We don’t want to solve the
population problem by having several billion people die
in misery.” (See more of our interview “ And Then
What? )
While the green revolution in farming and increases in
dam building, aquifer drilling, fishing fleet
industrialization and fossil fuel consumption abated the
detonation of Ehrlich’s 1970s’ population meltdown,
these efforts did not defuse the bomb. In fact, many of
these technological fixes have been faux saviors; while
they seemed to advance the status quo for a time, they
ultimately may have only offered borrowed time—time
which might have been used to better our ends.
Instead, it seems to have been time lost. According to
Ehrlich, these natural-capital-consuming practices have
merely put more people and the planet itself in greater
peril. “We are in the middle of a large scale disaster
right now. Globalization has given us the privilege of
perhaps having the entire civilization go under.”
A SENSE OF LIMITS
Lynton Caldwell (1913-2006) was one of the first
political scientists to recognize the connection between
human activities and the threat that we would create for
ourselves. A designer of the National Environmental
Policy Act of 1969, Caldwell understood that growth and
consumption were not without limits. “Without a strong
and governing principle of limits built into public policy,
the ingenuity of humans may impel them toward their
own demise.”
In a 1998 article “Is Human Destiny to Self-Destruct,”
Caldwell was spot on. “Limits hold true for all life-forms
and will ultimately constrain the direction of human
development. If the present widespread commitment to
a sustainable future is realistic, people and policy
makers must act upon the axiom that unfettered growth
and unrestrained expansion in a finite system leads
toward a condition of cul-de-sac which, if irreversible,
could result in destruction.” Of all the threats to
humanity, proposes Caldwell, the greatest are arguably
war and civil disorder. “One need not minimize their
dangers to also recognize that attrition of the Earth's
biosphere and life support systems could continue
unobtrusively under conditions of peace until a point at
which environmental disintegration led to societal
disintegration.”
In a section relevant to the October 31, 2011, milestone,
Caldwell focused on population. It is also relevant to
note that at the time he wrote the Earth housed only 6
billion people. “Today there is one human force that is
driving the expansive course of the material economy
and stressing all parameters of the natural environment.
It may be the most significant factor in the prospect of
societal self-destruction. This is the unprecedented and
presently irreversible explosive growth, dispersal, and
concentration of human populations. There are few real
environmental, economic, and social problems that
would not ultimately be significantly eased if world
populations were stabilized below present and projected
levels.” Pointing out the complexity of the combined
forces of population, resources, environment, and the
economy, He adds that “generalizations risk error; and
yet the adverse ecological and sociological
consequences of unrestrained population growth seem
undeniable—albeit nevertheless widely denied. If society
overshoots the limits of sustainability, retrenching to a
stable state would likely be painful and
disruptive. Whether democracy and individualism as we
know them could survive a reverse transition is, at least,
questionable.”
Concerns that current human populations are already
too large to be sustained indefinitely by the earth’s
resources can only increase along with the
numbers. . . . “Stabilizing populations at significantly
reduced numbers would greatly improve the human
prospect, says Caldwell, “But this objective seems far
from acceptable in today's world. There would be pain
in the transition—the benefits in the long-range future.
The plausible expectation is that humanity will be
unwilling or unable to attempt this transition until it is
imposed by forces exceeding human volition or control.
The possibility of disastrous consequences for humanity
should not be discounted.”
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
In the novel The War of the Worlds , historian and writer
H.G. Wells couched the imperialism of his day in the
costume of invading aliens from Mars. Today, we drive
our machines across the Earth with similar abandon
and little regard for our fellow man or for nature itself. It
is an interesting parallel to the 1890s, only now we are
much improved in our capacity to “engage the enemy”
and take possession of what will be ours. Now we have
the run of the planet. We don’t drive spindly-legged
tripods with mysterious heat rays, but we do seem to
be terraforming the planet in our own image; our
vehicles and destructive potential probably even exceed
Welles’ ample imagination.
Selecting October 31 as the seven billion marker also
has an interesting parallel with Orson Welles’ production
of The War of the Worlds radio broadcast in 1938. As he
noted at the end of the program—an hour that many
listeners believed to be an actual newscast of an
extraterrestrial invasion—it was all in fun. “This is Orson
Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure
you that The War of the Worlds has no further
significance than as the holiday offering it was intended
to be. The Mercury Theatre's own radio version of
dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and
saying Boo!”
Who would believe such an outlandish story, he
commented later when told of the panic. Of course, in
1938 on the eve of World War II, Welles likely
understood that he was playing with fire—that an
uneasy audience might just be far enough over the edge
to be taken in.
Today, we are on the same kind of edge. In all three
cases—Wells’ original writing, the Mercury radio version,
and the UN’s current use of this date—the public has
been asked to consider the bigger picture and to take
responsibility for being part of that picture. The world is
at our door, and we are at the world’s door. Will it be
trick or a treat?
“Human beings have broken out of the circle of life,
driven not by biological need, but by the social
organization which they have devised to ‘conquer’
nature,” wrote ecologist Barry Commoner in The Closing
Circle . “Anyone who proposes to cure the environmental
crisis undertakes thereby to change the course of
history.”
on the synergy of air, water, soil, energy and life that
make the Earth habitable has been small. But as our
technology, industry and numbers have increased, that
impact has also increased. The increase has been
exponential in terms of our population as well as our
influence on the natural systems that create a life-
sustaining environment. In some ways humankind has
become the ultimate invasive species. To be equated
with some sort of fuzzy-clawed crab or other gravid
invertebrate seems rather an insult. But as Caldwell
notes above, we seem to be just as oblivious to the
world around.
To many observers, we seem to be a species wheeling
out of control; apparently senseless to the
consequences of our actions in the world and with little
means of control either of ourselves or of anyone or
anything else.
Thus as the United Nations pegs October 31, 2011, as
the date when human population passes 7 billion, we
can expect increasingly strident calls for a deep
evaluation of our planetary role. The UN’s 7 Billion
Actions Web site suggests that, “Individual actions are
needed—to think, live and engage one another
differently, and to manage this growth responsibly. Our
increasing global population will affect us all and it is
everyone’s business to do something about it.”
EVEN MORE IN THE PIPELINE
But what does “live and engage one another differently”
mean? Commentators may simply focus on the fact that
no one really knows when number 7,000,000,000 will
come off the line. And while it is correct that the actual
date cannot really be known, the greater symbolism of
the moment is what the UN is seeking to capture: at a
time of global economic and political turmoil, there are
ever more of us that need food, water and space. To
act “differently” will mean in essence that everyone, and
especially those of the First World, will need a more
global perspective.
If we are to create a sustainable global community,
there must be, for instance, more equitable use of
resources. Just as we have seen global economies
become destabilized through “every man for himself”
corporate and financial strategies, the same type of
ecological abuses will surely lead to a day of reckoning
as well. Unfortunately, the biosphere of the planet does
not so easily forgive its debts. The way forward is to
accept and operate from the principle that we are our
brother’s keeper, and there are ever more brothers on
the way.
Analysis of world demographic trends shows that we
will be pushing 9 to 10 billion in the next 40 years. “And
then what?” asks Stanford ecologist Paul Ehrlich.
Unfortunately, according to one UN population estimate,
the high-end scenario if world population growth falls to
just 0.5% (rather than a 0% growth rate) grows to 36
billion by 2300. (The world population growth rate today
is 1.2%.)
Ehrlich has been discussing these questions for more
than 40 years. Beginning in 1968 with The Population
Bomb, Ehrlich predicted a dire future for the burgeoning
human numbers. He admits he was wrong concerning
the timing of the massive famines and ecological
unraveling he foresaw. While human civilization has
always faced food shortages and resource bottlenecks
from time to time, Ehrlich believes our modern
equivalents are not so easily hurdled.
Like Ehrlich, many ecologists have come to the
conclusion that we are “ecosystem engineers.” Writing
in The Dominant Animal , Paul and Anne Ehrlich, for
example, note that human influence is so pervasive that
we have altered the paths of all life. They write that “a
burgeoning human population, perpetually trying to
increase its consumption, is now reshaping the entire
Earth to suit its own immediate needs—to be its
niche.”
“There’s no fear that the population will grow to
infinity,” Ehrlich told Vision. “We either stop it by
adjusting the birth rates or nature will stop it by
adjusting the death rates. My ethical system tells me
we ought to avoid the latter. We don’t want to solve the
population problem by having several billion people die
in misery.” (See more of our interview “ And Then
What? )
While the green revolution in farming and increases in
dam building, aquifer drilling, fishing fleet
industrialization and fossil fuel consumption abated the
detonation of Ehrlich’s 1970s’ population meltdown,
these efforts did not defuse the bomb. In fact, many of
these technological fixes have been faux saviors; while
they seemed to advance the status quo for a time, they
ultimately may have only offered borrowed time—time
which might have been used to better our ends.
Instead, it seems to have been time lost. According to
Ehrlich, these natural-capital-consuming practices have
merely put more people and the planet itself in greater
peril. “We are in the middle of a large scale disaster
right now. Globalization has given us the privilege of
perhaps having the entire civilization go under.”
A SENSE OF LIMITS
Lynton Caldwell (1913-2006) was one of the first
political scientists to recognize the connection between
human activities and the threat that we would create for
ourselves. A designer of the National Environmental
Policy Act of 1969, Caldwell understood that growth and
consumption were not without limits. “Without a strong
and governing principle of limits built into public policy,
the ingenuity of humans may impel them toward their
own demise.”
In a 1998 article “Is Human Destiny to Self-Destruct,”
Caldwell was spot on. “Limits hold true for all life-forms
and will ultimately constrain the direction of human
development. If the present widespread commitment to
a sustainable future is realistic, people and policy
makers must act upon the axiom that unfettered growth
and unrestrained expansion in a finite system leads
toward a condition of cul-de-sac which, if irreversible,
could result in destruction.” Of all the threats to
humanity, proposes Caldwell, the greatest are arguably
war and civil disorder. “One need not minimize their
dangers to also recognize that attrition of the Earth's
biosphere and life support systems could continue
unobtrusively under conditions of peace until a point at
which environmental disintegration led to societal
disintegration.”
In a section relevant to the October 31, 2011, milestone,
Caldwell focused on population. It is also relevant to
note that at the time he wrote the Earth housed only 6
billion people. “Today there is one human force that is
driving the expansive course of the material economy
and stressing all parameters of the natural environment.
It may be the most significant factor in the prospect of
societal self-destruction. This is the unprecedented and
presently irreversible explosive growth, dispersal, and
concentration of human populations. There are few real
environmental, economic, and social problems that
would not ultimately be significantly eased if world
populations were stabilized below present and projected
levels.” Pointing out the complexity of the combined
forces of population, resources, environment, and the
economy, He adds that “generalizations risk error; and
yet the adverse ecological and sociological
consequences of unrestrained population growth seem
undeniable—albeit nevertheless widely denied. If society
overshoots the limits of sustainability, retrenching to a
stable state would likely be painful and
disruptive. Whether democracy and individualism as we
know them could survive a reverse transition is, at least,
questionable.”
Concerns that current human populations are already
too large to be sustained indefinitely by the earth’s
resources can only increase along with the
numbers. . . . “Stabilizing populations at significantly
reduced numbers would greatly improve the human
prospect, says Caldwell, “But this objective seems far
from acceptable in today's world. There would be pain
in the transition—the benefits in the long-range future.
The plausible expectation is that humanity will be
unwilling or unable to attempt this transition until it is
imposed by forces exceeding human volition or control.
The possibility of disastrous consequences for humanity
should not be discounted.”
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
In the novel The War of the Worlds , historian and writer
H.G. Wells couched the imperialism of his day in the
costume of invading aliens from Mars. Today, we drive
our machines across the Earth with similar abandon
and little regard for our fellow man or for nature itself. It
is an interesting parallel to the 1890s, only now we are
much improved in our capacity to “engage the enemy”
and take possession of what will be ours. Now we have
the run of the planet. We don’t drive spindly-legged
tripods with mysterious heat rays, but we do seem to
be terraforming the planet in our own image; our
vehicles and destructive potential probably even exceed
Welles’ ample imagination.
Selecting October 31 as the seven billion marker also
has an interesting parallel with Orson Welles’ production
of The War of the Worlds radio broadcast in 1938. As he
noted at the end of the program—an hour that many
listeners believed to be an actual newscast of an
extraterrestrial invasion—it was all in fun. “This is Orson
Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure
you that The War of the Worlds has no further
significance than as the holiday offering it was intended
to be. The Mercury Theatre's own radio version of
dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and
saying Boo!”
Who would believe such an outlandish story, he
commented later when told of the panic. Of course, in
1938 on the eve of World War II, Welles likely
understood that he was playing with fire—that an
uneasy audience might just be far enough over the edge
to be taken in.
Today, we are on the same kind of edge. In all three
cases—Wells’ original writing, the Mercury radio version,
and the UN’s current use of this date—the public has
been asked to consider the bigger picture and to take
responsibility for being part of that picture. The world is
at our door, and we are at the world’s door. Will it be
trick or a treat?
“Human beings have broken out of the circle of life,
driven not by biological need, but by the social
organization which they have devised to ‘conquer’
nature,” wrote ecologist Barry Commoner in The Closing
Circle . “Anyone who proposes to cure the environmental
crisis undertakes thereby to change the course of
history.”
A QUESTION OF LIBERTY: ARE AMERICANS TRULY FREE?
The ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788 created
“a new nation, conceived in liberty,” said Abraham
Lincoln in his iconic Gettysburg Address. Lincoln’s focus
was not on the Constitution, however, but on the
revolution that had spawned it.
To Americans that event may be simply a proud chapter
from history; others may think of it as just another war.
But the American Revolution continues to transform
human self-rule in ways most people have probably
never considered. At stake both then and now is what
the Constitution’s preamble refers to as “the Blessings
of Liberty.”
The British colonials, whose vision created the United
States of America, had embarked on their liberty quest
in response to what Thomas Jefferson referred to as “a
long train of abuses and usurpations,” political and
economic, designed to place the American colonies
“under absolute despotism.” In the celebrated
Declaration of Independence, Jefferson went on to
rehearse the history of those “repeated injuries and
usurpations” by the government of King George III of
England—all, he declared, “having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute Tyranny.”
James Madison encapsulated the challenge that lay
before the colonists as they sought to devise an
alternative: “In framing a government which is to be
administered by men over men, the great difficulty” is to
“first enable the government to control the governed;
and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” Their
solution was to divide sovereignty between the federal
government and the various state governments, and to
further limit their power by separating government
functions into executive, legislative and judicial roles,
with checks and balances imposed on each.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE
Since the birth of the United States, other nations have
undergone revolutions of their own to form governments
that would ensure liberty. The principle on which such
governments are founded is embedded in an
underappreciated phrase of the U.S. Constitution: “We
the People.” Those three words set up a distinction
between people and their government, establishing the
idea that governments derive their power by consent
from the governed and that they exist to secure
fundamental human “rights.” As Jefferson eloquently
stated it, “whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to
alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing
its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” The
preamble of the Charter of the United Nations similarly
establishes its powers from a “We the peoples of the
United Nations” statement.
It was this form of government that compelled Abraham
Lincoln to vow at Gettysburg “that government of the
people, by the people, for the people shall not perish
from the earth.” Today that statement seems like a
pronouncement from a prophet. For more than two
centuries now, people throughout the world have
engaged in their own pursuit of liberty and its blessings.
In the last decade of the 20th century it was the
nations of Eastern Europe. In 2011, governments in
Northern Africa and the Middle East are being abolished
and new ones instituted.
Without question, liberation from tyranny is essential to
securing what Jefferson described as the “unalienable
rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The question is whether free individual political choice
and the form of government by which people rule one
another are sufficient to achieve those ends. Can such a
simple formula transform tyranny into liberty and
thereby secure for us and our children its blessings?
Stripped of such blessings, among them sufficient
material prosperity to eliminate the oppression created
when we are deprived of life’s necessities, political
liberty means little. Economic freedom is therefore both
a result of and a reason for political liberation.
ENTER THE ECONOMISTS
The revolution in human government that began in 1776
is best understood if we appreciate another revolution
that had been advancing for some time: the Industrial
Revolution. While some historians describe it primarily
as a process of socio-economic change that spanned
more than two centuries, all agree that beginning in the
mid- to late 18th century, there was a shift from
manual and animal labor to machine-based
manufacturing that revolutionized virtually every aspect
of daily life in some way.
In his Lectures on Economic Growth, economist and
1995 Nobel laureate Robert E. Lucas Jr. wrote
concerning the past 200-plus years, “For the first time
in history, the living standards of masses of ordinary
people have begun to undergo sustained growth.” He
added that “nothing remotely like this economic
behavior” has happened before. Commerce existed in
the 18th century and had for some time, but it was
insignificant compared to the amount of production
slated for immediate consumption by the producers
themselves. Industrialization changed all of that. The
new technology meant that for the first time in history,
an overwhelming majority of commodities and services
were destined to be sold, bartered or exchanged in the
market.
What breathed real life into the industrial revolution was
Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, an account of
economics at the dawn of the period. Published in 1776,
the same year the British colonies in America issued
their Declaration of Independence, Smith’s work
provided the science needed to exploit industrialization
and mass manufacturing. The Wealth of Nations
became, and remains, the foundation of economic
thought and the single most significant work on the rise
and applied principles of free-market capitalism. In
conjunction with the implementation of Smith’s other
principles, free-market capitalism meant that industrial
technology could be exploited to liberate people from a
subsistence-based life and to liberate the earth to
produce to its full potential.
Smith’s thesis is that we all act on the basis of self-
interest, and that when we are free to do so, whether
we intend it or not, we promote what is best for society
as a whole. He explains: “It is not from the benevolence
of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect
our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their
self-love. . . . Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend
chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.” On
that basis there is no need for the intervention of
government or for orders from the top down. Smith, in
fact, called such intervention “dangerous.”
Publication of The Wealth of Nations could not have
been more perfectly timed. In the late 18th century the
sentiment was (with some good reason) that economic
oppression by the privileged ruling class was a source,
perhaps the source, of virtually all social injustice. The
masses reasoned that the excesses of monarchs and
the wealthy aristocracy resulted in the waste of national
resources, necessitating colonization and conquest and
thus perpetuating war. Perhaps, it was reasoned, if need
were rarer, life would be fairer and war a thing of the
past. So The Wealth of Nations, with its thesis rooted in
individual action apart from government intervention,
meshed nicely with the new political sentiment for
“government of the people, by the people, for the
people”—a new liberal economic model to create a new
economic reality within a new liberal political structure,
and all of it centered on individual choice.
A PERFECT WORLD?
The developed world now has more than two hundred
years of this kind of political and economic liberation
behind it. In that time we have seen people with free
economic choice also demand free political choice.
Likewise, the emancipation of peoples from political
tyranny has led to the pursuit of economic liberation.
These newfound liberties gave us hope—hope that we
could, through a government of our own making, create
a world capable of articulating a real law for all men.
U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke about
that world in his address to Congress on January 6,
1941, as America prepared to join the Allies in liberating
Europe from Hitler’s tyranny. Roosevelt saw a world of
man’s making founded on four essential freedoms:
freedom of speech and expression, freedom for every
person to worship God in his or her own way, freedom
to live a healthy, peaceful life free of want, and freedom
from fear provoked by war and the mere threat of war.
“That,” he declared, “is no vision of a distant
millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world
attainable in our own time and generation.” The vision
he articulated in that speech was not for America alone
but for people anywhere and everywhere. His “distant
millennium” was an allusion to the biblical promise of
the peaceful, prosperous, 1,000-year-long future world-
ruling government of Jesus Christ on this earth. In
Roosevelt’s view, men were competent, without a
Messiah, to create a world order based on “the
cooperation of free countries, working together in a
friendly, civilized society.”
The revolution that Roosevelt described as producing
that idyllic world order was to be perpetual, peaceful
and steadily adjusting itself to changing conditions
“without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the
ditch.” But that is not the nature of the current
revolutions in Northern Africa and the Middle East. It
was not the nature of revolution in Eastern Europe and
Russia in the last century. Nor, for that matter, was it
the nature of the American revolution against the British
crown in 1776.
We like to think of nations as cohesive groups of people
who are linked by ancestry, language and culture. As it
happens, mostly they are not. That fact has become
ever more apparent since the Cold War thawed and the
Berlin Wall came down in 1989. As an empire
succumbed to the tide of political change, new systems
of power and social organization emerged. And with
them, a less coherent and less manageable world has
materialized.
Government predicated on individual choice has only
exacerbated the problem. With such a form of
government came a rising tide of ethnic self-
determination that spawned intra-national conflict all
over the globe. The reason is simple: democracies
reward the majorities who hold power. That is the
tyranny of democracy. When those in the minority feel
they are not represented by their government, they
exercise their sovereign right to change their form of
government. So nations unravel strand by strand. And
as they do, international conflict ensues to prevent, if
possible, what U.S. statesman and former professor of
government Daniel Patrick Moynihan labeled
Pandaemonium, the capital of hell in John Milton’s
Paradise Lost . There is, it seems, no vision or belief, no
theory or structural scheme, whether economic or
political, acting in tandem or alone, capable of
suppressing this disintegration ( Proverbs 29:18 ). So
governments today, representative or not, are in crisis.
TYRANNY BY OUR OWN HAND
Roosevelt’s generation has passed. What remains is our
struggle with Madison’s “great difficulty”: how to frame
and enable a government administered by men over men
to control both the governed and itself. The truth is that
no form of human government can alter the nature of
man. And unless our nature changes, our individual
choices will only ensure our ultimate destruction
( Proverbs 14:12 ). When the choices are ours, the
tyranny is self-inflicted. How are we to be liberated
from oppression that comes on us by individual choice?
Here Adam Smith’s market economy based on self-
interest offers no help. Today, after three decades of
market triumphalism, we are living with the fallout from
an economic crisis created by market mania and
deregulation. First there was the free-market
fundamentalism of the Reagan-Thatcher years, the
decade of the 1980s. Then we witnessed the market-
friendly neo-liberalism of the Clinton-Blair years (most
of the 1990s). While that era moderated free markets, it
also consolidated the faith that markets are the primary
mechanism for achieving public good.
True to Smith’s vision, markets today, by design,
function primarily on the basis of human self-interest—
in a word, greed. In any other context, greed is seen as
an evil born of defective and undisciplined moral
character. Not so in the context of the market, where
the competing interests of buyer and seller in a shared
transaction are capable (we are told) of performing the
alchemy necessary for transforming an individual evil
into something for the overall good of society.
The alchemist’s formula is flawed, however. Questions
concerning what we ought to do in society and in
politics are unarguably moral and ethical and not, per
se, economical. Moral and ethical choices demand
values-based education, and decisions that are values-
based often require us to subordinate self-interest, to
exercise patience and defer personal gratification. But
the market does not teach us to behave on the basis of
values, nor can it. Market-based solutions dictate that
decisions are arrived at on the basis of balancing costs
and benefits. Most of us will choose a path that
appears to provide us with the greatest benefit in the
shortest period of time. This rarely produces the best
result for us or for society as a whole. And if market-
based incentives are necessary to provide us with the
motivation to do the right thing, then what choice will
we make when those incentives are not present and the
only thought pattern we know is to choose what
appears to provide us soonest with the greatest benefit
at the lowest personal cost?
The most significant flaw in the alchemist’s formula is
its failure to recognize that markets change the way we
think. In our market-based world we are constantly
compelled to assign value to commodities that we need
or want and then to act on the basis of whether they
are worth their cost. If the market were restricted to
“things,” perhaps Smith’s formula would have some
value. But the market’s reach is much greater. Today
the market ethos has been introduced into schools:
students are paid if they improve their academic
performance. Health-care institutions, prisons and
charitable organizations have likewise adopted the
market model for their operations. On a national level,
war, once fought by patriots, is now outsourced to
private military contractors. And one leading economist,
Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker, has suggested that the
United States solve its immigration problems by putting
U.S. citizenship on sale.
The fact that market principles have been adopted to
resolve problems in these areas of life is sufficient to
demonstrate that the market affects the way we think
and how we assign value to not just things but people
and their lives. And that is the point: markets are
supposed to affect what we value and how we
determine the worth of what we value. That is the
market’s primary function. Simply put, what we do
affects how and what we think. Markets, because they
are expansive and self-reinforcing, cannot liberate us.
They can only enslave us to ourselves—a self-imposed
tyranny.
And what of the earth that sustains our lives?
Industrialization and a free-market economy were
supposed to have liberated it as well. But the earth’s
resources are pushed to produce so much, so fast, that
even renewable resources often have no time to
regenerate. Industrialization and its pollution are altering
our environment in unpredictable ways, and not for the
better. We are tyrannizing the only planet we have to
live on. Our pursuit of the blessings of liberty has defiled
the earth and violated a covenant about which we are
mostly ignorant. As a result, the Bible says “the earth
lies defiled under its inhabitants” ( Isaiah 24:5 , English
Standard Version). And as our planet struggles to free
itself from the bondage to which we have subjected it,
we seem cursed by the “natural disasters” that plague
us.
NEEDED: A NEW MODEL
The liberty that people hoped a government and an
economy based on individual choice could create has
simply not materialized. No one can deny the need for
people to participate in governing themselves, nor the
need for markets. With respect to government and
man’s tortured history with it, the fundamental question
is whether we are actually capable of governing
ourselves, others and the earth. With respect to markets,
we need to realize that there are spheres of life in which
they do not belong.
Now the democracy of self-determination is supplanting
representative forms of government that have shaped
the past two centuries while capitalism cuts across
cultures and defines the values of every generation
within its reach. Left in the wake of these two forces are
generations of children brought up to believe that there
is no social process beyond politics, that there are no
spiritual values or truths beyond those they define for
themselves or those imposed by the natural forces of
the market.
The liberation movements that began in 1776 are not
the last, best hope of man or the earth. There is one
remaining alternative that humankind has not yet tried.
The principles upon which that government and its
economy are founded are outlined in a legislative
scheme given to another nation “conceived in liberty,”
the ancient nation of Israel. The structure of its
government was values-based, provided for the exercise
of individual choice, and accommodated markets. It also
provided the means that, if followed, would balance
power systems and social structures to protect the
weak and support the poor and disenfranchised. Its
most amazing feature was its legislative scheme to
reset society and economy for each generation. Its
purpose was to liberate the people from the tyranny of
their own choices—the very tyranny to which our
revolution of liberation has subjected us today. But
because that legislation was, to our knowledge, never
fully implemented, it never did have its intended effect
on the conscience of individuals or the nation.
In our age, the search for peaceful cohabitation between
the nations of the world is as urgent as it ever has
been. What is needed is a model from which to fashion
a global community that will, for generation after
generation, live so that all may live. The tragic truth is
that this world’s peacemakers are thwarted by
governments and institutions that mock even the idea of
peace.
Such a model does exist. And while its implementation
will meet resistance, its eventual establishment is
certain. That government will provide the liberty and the
blessings that have eluded man’s efforts. In the next
issue, we will explore that government.
“a new nation, conceived in liberty,” said Abraham
Lincoln in his iconic Gettysburg Address. Lincoln’s focus
was not on the Constitution, however, but on the
revolution that had spawned it.
To Americans that event may be simply a proud chapter
from history; others may think of it as just another war.
But the American Revolution continues to transform
human self-rule in ways most people have probably
never considered. At stake both then and now is what
the Constitution’s preamble refers to as “the Blessings
of Liberty.”
The British colonials, whose vision created the United
States of America, had embarked on their liberty quest
in response to what Thomas Jefferson referred to as “a
long train of abuses and usurpations,” political and
economic, designed to place the American colonies
“under absolute despotism.” In the celebrated
Declaration of Independence, Jefferson went on to
rehearse the history of those “repeated injuries and
usurpations” by the government of King George III of
England—all, he declared, “having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute Tyranny.”
James Madison encapsulated the challenge that lay
before the colonists as they sought to devise an
alternative: “In framing a government which is to be
administered by men over men, the great difficulty” is to
“first enable the government to control the governed;
and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” Their
solution was to divide sovereignty between the federal
government and the various state governments, and to
further limit their power by separating government
functions into executive, legislative and judicial roles,
with checks and balances imposed on each.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE
Since the birth of the United States, other nations have
undergone revolutions of their own to form governments
that would ensure liberty. The principle on which such
governments are founded is embedded in an
underappreciated phrase of the U.S. Constitution: “We
the People.” Those three words set up a distinction
between people and their government, establishing the
idea that governments derive their power by consent
from the governed and that they exist to secure
fundamental human “rights.” As Jefferson eloquently
stated it, “whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to
alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing
its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” The
preamble of the Charter of the United Nations similarly
establishes its powers from a “We the peoples of the
United Nations” statement.
It was this form of government that compelled Abraham
Lincoln to vow at Gettysburg “that government of the
people, by the people, for the people shall not perish
from the earth.” Today that statement seems like a
pronouncement from a prophet. For more than two
centuries now, people throughout the world have
engaged in their own pursuit of liberty and its blessings.
In the last decade of the 20th century it was the
nations of Eastern Europe. In 2011, governments in
Northern Africa and the Middle East are being abolished
and new ones instituted.
Without question, liberation from tyranny is essential to
securing what Jefferson described as the “unalienable
rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The question is whether free individual political choice
and the form of government by which people rule one
another are sufficient to achieve those ends. Can such a
simple formula transform tyranny into liberty and
thereby secure for us and our children its blessings?
Stripped of such blessings, among them sufficient
material prosperity to eliminate the oppression created
when we are deprived of life’s necessities, political
liberty means little. Economic freedom is therefore both
a result of and a reason for political liberation.
ENTER THE ECONOMISTS
The revolution in human government that began in 1776
is best understood if we appreciate another revolution
that had been advancing for some time: the Industrial
Revolution. While some historians describe it primarily
as a process of socio-economic change that spanned
more than two centuries, all agree that beginning in the
mid- to late 18th century, there was a shift from
manual and animal labor to machine-based
manufacturing that revolutionized virtually every aspect
of daily life in some way.
In his Lectures on Economic Growth, economist and
1995 Nobel laureate Robert E. Lucas Jr. wrote
concerning the past 200-plus years, “For the first time
in history, the living standards of masses of ordinary
people have begun to undergo sustained growth.” He
added that “nothing remotely like this economic
behavior” has happened before. Commerce existed in
the 18th century and had for some time, but it was
insignificant compared to the amount of production
slated for immediate consumption by the producers
themselves. Industrialization changed all of that. The
new technology meant that for the first time in history,
an overwhelming majority of commodities and services
were destined to be sold, bartered or exchanged in the
market.
What breathed real life into the industrial revolution was
Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, an account of
economics at the dawn of the period. Published in 1776,
the same year the British colonies in America issued
their Declaration of Independence, Smith’s work
provided the science needed to exploit industrialization
and mass manufacturing. The Wealth of Nations
became, and remains, the foundation of economic
thought and the single most significant work on the rise
and applied principles of free-market capitalism. In
conjunction with the implementation of Smith’s other
principles, free-market capitalism meant that industrial
technology could be exploited to liberate people from a
subsistence-based life and to liberate the earth to
produce to its full potential.
Smith’s thesis is that we all act on the basis of self-
interest, and that when we are free to do so, whether
we intend it or not, we promote what is best for society
as a whole. He explains: “It is not from the benevolence
of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect
our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their
self-love. . . . Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend
chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.” On
that basis there is no need for the intervention of
government or for orders from the top down. Smith, in
fact, called such intervention “dangerous.”
Publication of The Wealth of Nations could not have
been more perfectly timed. In the late 18th century the
sentiment was (with some good reason) that economic
oppression by the privileged ruling class was a source,
perhaps the source, of virtually all social injustice. The
masses reasoned that the excesses of monarchs and
the wealthy aristocracy resulted in the waste of national
resources, necessitating colonization and conquest and
thus perpetuating war. Perhaps, it was reasoned, if need
were rarer, life would be fairer and war a thing of the
past. So The Wealth of Nations, with its thesis rooted in
individual action apart from government intervention,
meshed nicely with the new political sentiment for
“government of the people, by the people, for the
people”—a new liberal economic model to create a new
economic reality within a new liberal political structure,
and all of it centered on individual choice.
A PERFECT WORLD?
The developed world now has more than two hundred
years of this kind of political and economic liberation
behind it. In that time we have seen people with free
economic choice also demand free political choice.
Likewise, the emancipation of peoples from political
tyranny has led to the pursuit of economic liberation.
These newfound liberties gave us hope—hope that we
could, through a government of our own making, create
a world capable of articulating a real law for all men.
U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke about
that world in his address to Congress on January 6,
1941, as America prepared to join the Allies in liberating
Europe from Hitler’s tyranny. Roosevelt saw a world of
man’s making founded on four essential freedoms:
freedom of speech and expression, freedom for every
person to worship God in his or her own way, freedom
to live a healthy, peaceful life free of want, and freedom
from fear provoked by war and the mere threat of war.
“That,” he declared, “is no vision of a distant
millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world
attainable in our own time and generation.” The vision
he articulated in that speech was not for America alone
but for people anywhere and everywhere. His “distant
millennium” was an allusion to the biblical promise of
the peaceful, prosperous, 1,000-year-long future world-
ruling government of Jesus Christ on this earth. In
Roosevelt’s view, men were competent, without a
Messiah, to create a world order based on “the
cooperation of free countries, working together in a
friendly, civilized society.”
The revolution that Roosevelt described as producing
that idyllic world order was to be perpetual, peaceful
and steadily adjusting itself to changing conditions
“without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the
ditch.” But that is not the nature of the current
revolutions in Northern Africa and the Middle East. It
was not the nature of revolution in Eastern Europe and
Russia in the last century. Nor, for that matter, was it
the nature of the American revolution against the British
crown in 1776.
We like to think of nations as cohesive groups of people
who are linked by ancestry, language and culture. As it
happens, mostly they are not. That fact has become
ever more apparent since the Cold War thawed and the
Berlin Wall came down in 1989. As an empire
succumbed to the tide of political change, new systems
of power and social organization emerged. And with
them, a less coherent and less manageable world has
materialized.
Government predicated on individual choice has only
exacerbated the problem. With such a form of
government came a rising tide of ethnic self-
determination that spawned intra-national conflict all
over the globe. The reason is simple: democracies
reward the majorities who hold power. That is the
tyranny of democracy. When those in the minority feel
they are not represented by their government, they
exercise their sovereign right to change their form of
government. So nations unravel strand by strand. And
as they do, international conflict ensues to prevent, if
possible, what U.S. statesman and former professor of
government Daniel Patrick Moynihan labeled
Pandaemonium, the capital of hell in John Milton’s
Paradise Lost . There is, it seems, no vision or belief, no
theory or structural scheme, whether economic or
political, acting in tandem or alone, capable of
suppressing this disintegration ( Proverbs 29:18 ). So
governments today, representative or not, are in crisis.
TYRANNY BY OUR OWN HAND
Roosevelt’s generation has passed. What remains is our
struggle with Madison’s “great difficulty”: how to frame
and enable a government administered by men over men
to control both the governed and itself. The truth is that
no form of human government can alter the nature of
man. And unless our nature changes, our individual
choices will only ensure our ultimate destruction
( Proverbs 14:12 ). When the choices are ours, the
tyranny is self-inflicted. How are we to be liberated
from oppression that comes on us by individual choice?
Here Adam Smith’s market economy based on self-
interest offers no help. Today, after three decades of
market triumphalism, we are living with the fallout from
an economic crisis created by market mania and
deregulation. First there was the free-market
fundamentalism of the Reagan-Thatcher years, the
decade of the 1980s. Then we witnessed the market-
friendly neo-liberalism of the Clinton-Blair years (most
of the 1990s). While that era moderated free markets, it
also consolidated the faith that markets are the primary
mechanism for achieving public good.
True to Smith’s vision, markets today, by design,
function primarily on the basis of human self-interest—
in a word, greed. In any other context, greed is seen as
an evil born of defective and undisciplined moral
character. Not so in the context of the market, where
the competing interests of buyer and seller in a shared
transaction are capable (we are told) of performing the
alchemy necessary for transforming an individual evil
into something for the overall good of society.
The alchemist’s formula is flawed, however. Questions
concerning what we ought to do in society and in
politics are unarguably moral and ethical and not, per
se, economical. Moral and ethical choices demand
values-based education, and decisions that are values-
based often require us to subordinate self-interest, to
exercise patience and defer personal gratification. But
the market does not teach us to behave on the basis of
values, nor can it. Market-based solutions dictate that
decisions are arrived at on the basis of balancing costs
and benefits. Most of us will choose a path that
appears to provide us with the greatest benefit in the
shortest period of time. This rarely produces the best
result for us or for society as a whole. And if market-
based incentives are necessary to provide us with the
motivation to do the right thing, then what choice will
we make when those incentives are not present and the
only thought pattern we know is to choose what
appears to provide us soonest with the greatest benefit
at the lowest personal cost?
The most significant flaw in the alchemist’s formula is
its failure to recognize that markets change the way we
think. In our market-based world we are constantly
compelled to assign value to commodities that we need
or want and then to act on the basis of whether they
are worth their cost. If the market were restricted to
“things,” perhaps Smith’s formula would have some
value. But the market’s reach is much greater. Today
the market ethos has been introduced into schools:
students are paid if they improve their academic
performance. Health-care institutions, prisons and
charitable organizations have likewise adopted the
market model for their operations. On a national level,
war, once fought by patriots, is now outsourced to
private military contractors. And one leading economist,
Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker, has suggested that the
United States solve its immigration problems by putting
U.S. citizenship on sale.
The fact that market principles have been adopted to
resolve problems in these areas of life is sufficient to
demonstrate that the market affects the way we think
and how we assign value to not just things but people
and their lives. And that is the point: markets are
supposed to affect what we value and how we
determine the worth of what we value. That is the
market’s primary function. Simply put, what we do
affects how and what we think. Markets, because they
are expansive and self-reinforcing, cannot liberate us.
They can only enslave us to ourselves—a self-imposed
tyranny.
And what of the earth that sustains our lives?
Industrialization and a free-market economy were
supposed to have liberated it as well. But the earth’s
resources are pushed to produce so much, so fast, that
even renewable resources often have no time to
regenerate. Industrialization and its pollution are altering
our environment in unpredictable ways, and not for the
better. We are tyrannizing the only planet we have to
live on. Our pursuit of the blessings of liberty has defiled
the earth and violated a covenant about which we are
mostly ignorant. As a result, the Bible says “the earth
lies defiled under its inhabitants” ( Isaiah 24:5 , English
Standard Version). And as our planet struggles to free
itself from the bondage to which we have subjected it,
we seem cursed by the “natural disasters” that plague
us.
NEEDED: A NEW MODEL
The liberty that people hoped a government and an
economy based on individual choice could create has
simply not materialized. No one can deny the need for
people to participate in governing themselves, nor the
need for markets. With respect to government and
man’s tortured history with it, the fundamental question
is whether we are actually capable of governing
ourselves, others and the earth. With respect to markets,
we need to realize that there are spheres of life in which
they do not belong.
Now the democracy of self-determination is supplanting
representative forms of government that have shaped
the past two centuries while capitalism cuts across
cultures and defines the values of every generation
within its reach. Left in the wake of these two forces are
generations of children brought up to believe that there
is no social process beyond politics, that there are no
spiritual values or truths beyond those they define for
themselves or those imposed by the natural forces of
the market.
The liberation movements that began in 1776 are not
the last, best hope of man or the earth. There is one
remaining alternative that humankind has not yet tried.
The principles upon which that government and its
economy are founded are outlined in a legislative
scheme given to another nation “conceived in liberty,”
the ancient nation of Israel. The structure of its
government was values-based, provided for the exercise
of individual choice, and accommodated markets. It also
provided the means that, if followed, would balance
power systems and social structures to protect the
weak and support the poor and disenfranchised. Its
most amazing feature was its legislative scheme to
reset society and economy for each generation. Its
purpose was to liberate the people from the tyranny of
their own choices—the very tyranny to which our
revolution of liberation has subjected us today. But
because that legislation was, to our knowledge, never
fully implemented, it never did have its intended effect
on the conscience of individuals or the nation.
In our age, the search for peaceful cohabitation between
the nations of the world is as urgent as it ever has
been. What is needed is a model from which to fashion
a global community that will, for generation after
generation, live so that all may live. The tragic truth is
that this world’s peacemakers are thwarted by
governments and institutions that mock even the idea of
peace.
Such a model does exist. And while its implementation
will meet resistance, its eventual establishment is
certain. That government will provide the liberty and the
blessings that have eluded man’s efforts. In the next
issue, we will explore that government.
ERIC CANTOR PRIMARY LOSS.
Republican Dave Brat galvanized conservative
support in the days leading up to Tuesday night’s
stunning primary upset of House Majority Leader
Eric Cantor by labeling the incumbent as weak on
fiscal discipline, immigration and Obamacare.
Brat, a relatively unknown economics professor at
Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., garnered
56 percent of the vote despite being vastly
outspent by Cantor by more than a 10-to-1 ratio
on advertising and direct mail. So thorough was
the victory that Brat won 53 percent of vote in
Henrico County -- Cantor’s home and an area
that has had a Republican represent it either in
state legislature or Congress since 1992.
Brat will face Democrat Jack Trammell, a
sociology professor who also teaches at
Randolph-Macon, this fall.
PolitiFact Virginia looked at number of claims
made during the primary. Here’s what we found:
Cantor: Brat "worked on Democrat Gov. Tim
Kaine’s Council of Economic Advisors while Kaine
tried to raise our taxes by over $1 billion."
A hallmark attack from Cantor is that Brat is a
liberal professor. While we can’t evaluate that, we
do know that Brat was a member of the Joint
Advisory Board of Economists, which helps the
state refine its predictions for the state’s economy
as part of the annual budget process. Board
members are not compensated and the panel does
not weigh in on revenue or policy.
Kaine unsuccessfully proposed about $4 billion in
tax increases during his administration. The ad
creates the impression that Brat was involved in
the policy proposals, but there is no evidence to
support that. The claim needs clarification, so we
rated it Mostly True.
Brat: Eric Cantor "voted to fully fund Obamacare
in October."
Brat, in a TV ad, was referring to a temporary
appropriations bill that Cantor supported and
Congress passed last fall to end a 16-day
government shutdown. The measure guaranteed
continued funding for discretionary programs that
rely on annual congressional appropriations,
including defense and education.
But Obamacare was only marginally affected by
the shutdown and the bill Cantor backed. That’s
because only about 10 percent of its costs are
subject to appropriations by Congress. The bill
Cantor supported to end the shutdown, among
many other things, topped off the ACA’s funding
tank. What Brat omitted is that 90 percent of
Obamacare remained funded throughout the shutdown
and was unaffected by the bill Cantor backed. Cantor
opposed the original bill that established Obamacare in
2010.
We rated Brat’s claim Mostly False.
Cantor: "A liberal, pro-amnesty group" endorsed Brat.
Cantor wrote in an email that Casa de Virginia, a group
supporting immigration reform, backed Brat during a
May 28 rally in Richmond. Seeking to shore up his
conservative support, Cantor cited the action as proof
that that he is "standing up to Obama on illegal
immigration."
But no speaker at the rally issued an endorsement of
Dave Brat, Cantor’s opponent. To the contrary, the
keynoter stressed that the group was not taking sides in
the primary. A flier telling people to vote for "Anybody
But Cantor" was passed out by a man attending the
rally, but not in packets distributed by the organizers.
We rated Cantor’s claim False .
Laura Ingraham, Brat supporter: Cantor and Rep. Luis
Gutierrez were "touring the country last year … joined at
the hip, working together in a bipartisan fashion indeed
for the goal of immigration reform."
Ingraham, a conservative radio talk show host,
campaigned for Brat and said that Cantor was working
with Democrats to ease immigration laws. She backed
her "tour" charge by noting Cantor and Gutierrez, D-
Cal., attended a "Becoming America Pilgrimage" held a
year ago in New York City to recognize the historic
contribution of immigrants to the nation. They were
among 100 political, academic and faith leaders from
Washington who attended the event.
Aides for the two congressmen this is the only
immigration event both happened to attend and that
Cantor and Gutierrez have never met to discuss the
issue. Ingraham couldn’t point to another immigration
event the two had attended. One gig does not make a
national tour and we rated Ingraham’s statement Pants
on Fire .
Cantor: Senate immigration legislation is the "Obama-
Reid plan to give illegal immigrants amnesty."
Cantor was referring to legislation the Senate passed
last year that would add billions for border security and
open a pathway to citizenship for 11.5 million
undocumented immigrants in the U.S. This is amnesty,
of a sort, because the illegal entry would eventually be
forgiven after significant hurdles. The hurdles include at
least $2,000 in fines plus back taxes and 5 to 10 years
of waiting for a green card.
While President Barack Obama and Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid back the bill, the legislation was
largely the idea of four Democrat and four Republican
senators. Cantor’s description of the bill as a
Democratic plan is misleading and PolitiFact National
rated the statement Mostly False .
support in the days leading up to Tuesday night’s
stunning primary upset of House Majority Leader
Eric Cantor by labeling the incumbent as weak on
fiscal discipline, immigration and Obamacare.
Brat, a relatively unknown economics professor at
Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., garnered
56 percent of the vote despite being vastly
outspent by Cantor by more than a 10-to-1 ratio
on advertising and direct mail. So thorough was
the victory that Brat won 53 percent of vote in
Henrico County -- Cantor’s home and an area
that has had a Republican represent it either in
state legislature or Congress since 1992.
Brat will face Democrat Jack Trammell, a
sociology professor who also teaches at
Randolph-Macon, this fall.
PolitiFact Virginia looked at number of claims
made during the primary. Here’s what we found:
Cantor: Brat "worked on Democrat Gov. Tim
Kaine’s Council of Economic Advisors while Kaine
tried to raise our taxes by over $1 billion."
A hallmark attack from Cantor is that Brat is a
liberal professor. While we can’t evaluate that, we
do know that Brat was a member of the Joint
Advisory Board of Economists, which helps the
state refine its predictions for the state’s economy
as part of the annual budget process. Board
members are not compensated and the panel does
not weigh in on revenue or policy.
Kaine unsuccessfully proposed about $4 billion in
tax increases during his administration. The ad
creates the impression that Brat was involved in
the policy proposals, but there is no evidence to
support that. The claim needs clarification, so we
rated it Mostly True.
Brat: Eric Cantor "voted to fully fund Obamacare
in October."
Brat, in a TV ad, was referring to a temporary
appropriations bill that Cantor supported and
Congress passed last fall to end a 16-day
government shutdown. The measure guaranteed
continued funding for discretionary programs that
rely on annual congressional appropriations,
including defense and education.
But Obamacare was only marginally affected by
the shutdown and the bill Cantor backed. That’s
because only about 10 percent of its costs are
subject to appropriations by Congress. The bill
Cantor supported to end the shutdown, among
many other things, topped off the ACA’s funding
tank. What Brat omitted is that 90 percent of
Obamacare remained funded throughout the shutdown
and was unaffected by the bill Cantor backed. Cantor
opposed the original bill that established Obamacare in
2010.
We rated Brat’s claim Mostly False.
Cantor: "A liberal, pro-amnesty group" endorsed Brat.
Cantor wrote in an email that Casa de Virginia, a group
supporting immigration reform, backed Brat during a
May 28 rally in Richmond. Seeking to shore up his
conservative support, Cantor cited the action as proof
that that he is "standing up to Obama on illegal
immigration."
But no speaker at the rally issued an endorsement of
Dave Brat, Cantor’s opponent. To the contrary, the
keynoter stressed that the group was not taking sides in
the primary. A flier telling people to vote for "Anybody
But Cantor" was passed out by a man attending the
rally, but not in packets distributed by the organizers.
We rated Cantor’s claim False .
Laura Ingraham, Brat supporter: Cantor and Rep. Luis
Gutierrez were "touring the country last year … joined at
the hip, working together in a bipartisan fashion indeed
for the goal of immigration reform."
Ingraham, a conservative radio talk show host,
campaigned for Brat and said that Cantor was working
with Democrats to ease immigration laws. She backed
her "tour" charge by noting Cantor and Gutierrez, D-
Cal., attended a "Becoming America Pilgrimage" held a
year ago in New York City to recognize the historic
contribution of immigrants to the nation. They were
among 100 political, academic and faith leaders from
Washington who attended the event.
Aides for the two congressmen this is the only
immigration event both happened to attend and that
Cantor and Gutierrez have never met to discuss the
issue. Ingraham couldn’t point to another immigration
event the two had attended. One gig does not make a
national tour and we rated Ingraham’s statement Pants
on Fire .
Cantor: Senate immigration legislation is the "Obama-
Reid plan to give illegal immigrants amnesty."
Cantor was referring to legislation the Senate passed
last year that would add billions for border security and
open a pathway to citizenship for 11.5 million
undocumented immigrants in the U.S. This is amnesty,
of a sort, because the illegal entry would eventually be
forgiven after significant hurdles. The hurdles include at
least $2,000 in fines plus back taxes and 5 to 10 years
of waiting for a green card.
While President Barack Obama and Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid back the bill, the legislation was
largely the idea of four Democrat and four Republican
senators. Cantor’s description of the bill as a
Democratic plan is misleading and PolitiFact National
rated the statement Mostly False .
NUCLEAR DUMMIES
What do you think of when you see the name “MAD”? If
you're a baby boomer, you may come up with a mental
image of the offbeat magazine whose banner child,
Afred E. Neuman, typically flashes his “What, me
worry?” grin from the cover.
The 1950s spawned another MAD, however, and it lends
a certain irony to Alfred E. Neuman's perennial
question. As the back cover of one issue of the
magazine showed, even the imperturbable Neuman
worried about what would happen if nuclear power were
allowed to run amok. Indeed, thanks to a military
strategy known as Mutual Assured Destruction—the
MAD doctrine—the whole world had plenty to worry
about.
Originally touted as a means to deter the Soviet Union
from advancing on Europe, MAD designers believed a
systematic plan to counter the USSR's superior
conventional forces with nuclear force would prevent an
invasion. Military experts at the time theorized that the
scenario of all-out nuclear war between the United
States and the Soviets would lead to a stalemate and
thus deterrence. And as history played out over the next
30 years, fear of mutual destruction did produce military
stalemate.
In that sense, MAD worked. But as MAD magazine
back-page fold-ins demonstrated, a pleasant
neighborhood scene could be converted to a wasteland
under a mushroom cloud in an instant. Nuclear
annihilation was for decades a mere 30-minute ICBM
flight away. This naturally took its psychological toll.
The MAD plan also took a physical toll, however, and it
affects us still today. Incidents of devastating nuclear
pollution are only now being revealed, and the resulting
loss of life has been as staggering as in many wars.
MUSHROOMING CRISIS
In the past few years, reports have begun to emerge
from Kazakhstan about the plight of millions of people
who have been contaminated by soviet nuclear testing
over the past 50 years. The medical crisis that the
region is experiencing amounts to nothing short of a
catastrophe.
Kazakhstan occupies a vast territory between Russia
and China and is a former soviet republic. In 1949, one
of the largest nuclear test sites in the world was
established in its Semipalatinsk region. Since then, close
to 500 nuclear tests have been conducted. The
consequences of these explosions are no less
devastating than those of Chernobyl (see “Chernobyl:
The Fallout Continues”)— or Hiroshima and Nagasaki—
with perhaps as many as 1.6 million people becoming
victims.
Boris Gusev of the Institute of Radioactive Medicine told
a BBC reporter: “The contamination spread over
thousands of kilometers. There’s nowhere else like this
in the world. Japan? Nevada? Forget it! It’s equivalent
to 1,000 times the impact of the Hiroshima bomb.” The
doctor added, “This is a unique situation and we need
help.”
More than 100 of the early tests were conducted above
ground, but the local population was not warned of the
danger of exposure; in fact, the authorities often ordered
them to stand outside and watch the mushroom clouds
ascend into the sky. The people didn’t know that
because of the need for data on the effects of radiation
on humans, they were actually part of the experiment.
The enormity of the story is only now unfolding because
of the time it takes for radiation exposure to develop
into various cancers. An epidemic proportion of old
people are currently dying of that disease, and the local
hospitals are stretched to take care of them. Some of
the doctors have not been paid for months, and
supplies, medicine and equipment to deal with the
tragedy are scarce.
Doctors are very troubled by the lasting effects of the
contamination. Deformities among newborn children are
increasingly common. From every village in the region
come reports of babies and children with terrible
disfigurements, stunted growth, extra fingers and toes,
blindness or hideous tumors. Many distraught parents
are simply abandoning their newborn offspring, bringing
even more stress on the medical infrastructure.
The soviet nuclear program is gone from Kazakhstan
now, as is the statue of Lenin that used to stand in the
Semipalatinsk town center. But the people will
remember for a long time that the soviet regime was
there.
LIGHTHOUSE OF DEATH
Semipalatinsk isn’t alone. Fifty miles north of
Chelyabinsk, Russia, on the western edge of Siberia, lies
an industrial complex. It was the Soviet Union’s primary
nuclear weapons production facility from 1946 until
1990. Its name, Mayak, means “lighthouse”—ironic,
considering that officially it did not exist.
Three nuclear disasters took place at Mayak. Taken
together, they were 100 times worse than the disaster
at Chernobyl, say some reports. According to
investigative reporter Mark Hertsgaard, author of Earth
Odyssey (1999), both the KGB and the CIA kept these
events secret from the world, and even from the Russian
people.
Thomas Cochran, a nuclear physicist at the Natural
Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C., called
Mayak “the most polluted spot on earth.” And a report
commissioned by Mikhail Gorbachev called Chelyabinsk
the cancer capital of the entire Soviet Union. Nuclear
contamination was only the latest pollution to poison an
area already heavily polluted by outmoded industrial
facilities.
The first of the three disasters was a result of deliberate
policy. From 1949 to 1956, 76 million cubic meters of
liquid radioactive waste was systematically dumped into
the nearby Techa River. People in the 24 villages that
lined the river were not told of the dangers of drinking
its water until four years after contamination began. As
a result, tens of thousands received doses of radiation
four times greater than those that were subsequently
received at Chernobyl. Average individual doses for the
28,000 people most acutely exposed were 57 times
greater, wrote Hertsgaard.
The next tragedy took place in 1957 when a nuclear
waste storage tank at Mayak exploded, spewing about
80 metric tons of waste into the sky and irradiating
more than a quarter of a million people. Ninety percent
of the radioactive debris fell straight back to earth, but
the remainder severely contaminated the air, water and
soil in the entire Chelyabinsk region.
In 1967 a third disaster occurred, but its cause goes
back to 1951 when Mayak officials, realizing they should
no longer use the Techa River to dump waste, started
pouring it into Lake Karachay. Drought had severely
reduced the water level in the lake by 1967, leaving a
layer of radioactive silt on the exposed lakebed. When
unusually heavy winds blew through the area, the
contaminated dust was dispersed over thousands of
square miles, exposing nearly half a million people to
high levels of radiation.
Until 1989, officials continued to deny that these
disasters had taken place, and it will never be known
how many people have died as a direct result. As with
Chernobyl, the aftereffects of radiation sickness will
blight and kill successive generations for years after
exposure to the pollution.
WHAT HAVE WE DONE?
The 20th century was unique for its nuclear
development. Incredible technological progress of all
kinds brought unparalleled benefits to the human race.
But throughout the developed world the dark side of our
technological advances brought on horrors that previous
generations could never have imagined. The 21st
century has inherited a legacy of intractable problems
that largely defy solutions—such as those at
Semipalatinsk and Mayak. How is all that nuclear
pollution ever going to be cleaned up?
Former soviet president Gorbachev in 1993 created
Green Cross International, in part to address such
problems as nuclear waste and contaminated
landscapes. Nevertheless, nations will long suffer the
radioactive legacy that was created in the name of
peace. In an effort to preclude war, governments have
killed their own citizens. And since radioisotopes travel
the planet within its atmosphere, they have
contaminated, to one degree or another, all life on
Earth.
Global economic success over the past few years may
have given the world a false sense of security. In this
new millennium, science could well create technologies
that would dwarf the destructive aspects of nuclear
development.
Alfred E. Neuman is probably resting easier now that
the Cold War has ended, and with it the MAD doctrine of
nuclear stalemate. But nuclear accidents remain a
distinct possibility; and nuclear proliferation, along with
the growing prospect of nuclear terrorism, still casts a
pall over human consciousness. Remembering what
happened in places like Kazakhstan and Chelyabinsk
should give us pause for thought. What have we done
to ourselves?
“What, me worry?” Actually, a bit of angst may motivate
people to make wiser decisions with regard to such
powerful technologies. But will it be enough?
you're a baby boomer, you may come up with a mental
image of the offbeat magazine whose banner child,
Afred E. Neuman, typically flashes his “What, me
worry?” grin from the cover.
The 1950s spawned another MAD, however, and it lends
a certain irony to Alfred E. Neuman's perennial
question. As the back cover of one issue of the
magazine showed, even the imperturbable Neuman
worried about what would happen if nuclear power were
allowed to run amok. Indeed, thanks to a military
strategy known as Mutual Assured Destruction—the
MAD doctrine—the whole world had plenty to worry
about.
Originally touted as a means to deter the Soviet Union
from advancing on Europe, MAD designers believed a
systematic plan to counter the USSR's superior
conventional forces with nuclear force would prevent an
invasion. Military experts at the time theorized that the
scenario of all-out nuclear war between the United
States and the Soviets would lead to a stalemate and
thus deterrence. And as history played out over the next
30 years, fear of mutual destruction did produce military
stalemate.
In that sense, MAD worked. But as MAD magazine
back-page fold-ins demonstrated, a pleasant
neighborhood scene could be converted to a wasteland
under a mushroom cloud in an instant. Nuclear
annihilation was for decades a mere 30-minute ICBM
flight away. This naturally took its psychological toll.
The MAD plan also took a physical toll, however, and it
affects us still today. Incidents of devastating nuclear
pollution are only now being revealed, and the resulting
loss of life has been as staggering as in many wars.
MUSHROOMING CRISIS
In the past few years, reports have begun to emerge
from Kazakhstan about the plight of millions of people
who have been contaminated by soviet nuclear testing
over the past 50 years. The medical crisis that the
region is experiencing amounts to nothing short of a
catastrophe.
Kazakhstan occupies a vast territory between Russia
and China and is a former soviet republic. In 1949, one
of the largest nuclear test sites in the world was
established in its Semipalatinsk region. Since then, close
to 500 nuclear tests have been conducted. The
consequences of these explosions are no less
devastating than those of Chernobyl (see “Chernobyl:
The Fallout Continues”)— or Hiroshima and Nagasaki—
with perhaps as many as 1.6 million people becoming
victims.
Boris Gusev of the Institute of Radioactive Medicine told
a BBC reporter: “The contamination spread over
thousands of kilometers. There’s nowhere else like this
in the world. Japan? Nevada? Forget it! It’s equivalent
to 1,000 times the impact of the Hiroshima bomb.” The
doctor added, “This is a unique situation and we need
help.”
More than 100 of the early tests were conducted above
ground, but the local population was not warned of the
danger of exposure; in fact, the authorities often ordered
them to stand outside and watch the mushroom clouds
ascend into the sky. The people didn’t know that
because of the need for data on the effects of radiation
on humans, they were actually part of the experiment.
The enormity of the story is only now unfolding because
of the time it takes for radiation exposure to develop
into various cancers. An epidemic proportion of old
people are currently dying of that disease, and the local
hospitals are stretched to take care of them. Some of
the doctors have not been paid for months, and
supplies, medicine and equipment to deal with the
tragedy are scarce.
Doctors are very troubled by the lasting effects of the
contamination. Deformities among newborn children are
increasingly common. From every village in the region
come reports of babies and children with terrible
disfigurements, stunted growth, extra fingers and toes,
blindness or hideous tumors. Many distraught parents
are simply abandoning their newborn offspring, bringing
even more stress on the medical infrastructure.
The soviet nuclear program is gone from Kazakhstan
now, as is the statue of Lenin that used to stand in the
Semipalatinsk town center. But the people will
remember for a long time that the soviet regime was
there.
LIGHTHOUSE OF DEATH
Semipalatinsk isn’t alone. Fifty miles north of
Chelyabinsk, Russia, on the western edge of Siberia, lies
an industrial complex. It was the Soviet Union’s primary
nuclear weapons production facility from 1946 until
1990. Its name, Mayak, means “lighthouse”—ironic,
considering that officially it did not exist.
Three nuclear disasters took place at Mayak. Taken
together, they were 100 times worse than the disaster
at Chernobyl, say some reports. According to
investigative reporter Mark Hertsgaard, author of Earth
Odyssey (1999), both the KGB and the CIA kept these
events secret from the world, and even from the Russian
people.
Thomas Cochran, a nuclear physicist at the Natural
Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C., called
Mayak “the most polluted spot on earth.” And a report
commissioned by Mikhail Gorbachev called Chelyabinsk
the cancer capital of the entire Soviet Union. Nuclear
contamination was only the latest pollution to poison an
area already heavily polluted by outmoded industrial
facilities.
The first of the three disasters was a result of deliberate
policy. From 1949 to 1956, 76 million cubic meters of
liquid radioactive waste was systematically dumped into
the nearby Techa River. People in the 24 villages that
lined the river were not told of the dangers of drinking
its water until four years after contamination began. As
a result, tens of thousands received doses of radiation
four times greater than those that were subsequently
received at Chernobyl. Average individual doses for the
28,000 people most acutely exposed were 57 times
greater, wrote Hertsgaard.
The next tragedy took place in 1957 when a nuclear
waste storage tank at Mayak exploded, spewing about
80 metric tons of waste into the sky and irradiating
more than a quarter of a million people. Ninety percent
of the radioactive debris fell straight back to earth, but
the remainder severely contaminated the air, water and
soil in the entire Chelyabinsk region.
In 1967 a third disaster occurred, but its cause goes
back to 1951 when Mayak officials, realizing they should
no longer use the Techa River to dump waste, started
pouring it into Lake Karachay. Drought had severely
reduced the water level in the lake by 1967, leaving a
layer of radioactive silt on the exposed lakebed. When
unusually heavy winds blew through the area, the
contaminated dust was dispersed over thousands of
square miles, exposing nearly half a million people to
high levels of radiation.
Until 1989, officials continued to deny that these
disasters had taken place, and it will never be known
how many people have died as a direct result. As with
Chernobyl, the aftereffects of radiation sickness will
blight and kill successive generations for years after
exposure to the pollution.
WHAT HAVE WE DONE?
The 20th century was unique for its nuclear
development. Incredible technological progress of all
kinds brought unparalleled benefits to the human race.
But throughout the developed world the dark side of our
technological advances brought on horrors that previous
generations could never have imagined. The 21st
century has inherited a legacy of intractable problems
that largely defy solutions—such as those at
Semipalatinsk and Mayak. How is all that nuclear
pollution ever going to be cleaned up?
Former soviet president Gorbachev in 1993 created
Green Cross International, in part to address such
problems as nuclear waste and contaminated
landscapes. Nevertheless, nations will long suffer the
radioactive legacy that was created in the name of
peace. In an effort to preclude war, governments have
killed their own citizens. And since radioisotopes travel
the planet within its atmosphere, they have
contaminated, to one degree or another, all life on
Earth.
Global economic success over the past few years may
have given the world a false sense of security. In this
new millennium, science could well create technologies
that would dwarf the destructive aspects of nuclear
development.
Alfred E. Neuman is probably resting easier now that
the Cold War has ended, and with it the MAD doctrine of
nuclear stalemate. But nuclear accidents remain a
distinct possibility; and nuclear proliferation, along with
the growing prospect of nuclear terrorism, still casts a
pall over human consciousness. Remembering what
happened in places like Kazakhstan and Chelyabinsk
should give us pause for thought. What have we done
to ourselves?
“What, me worry?” Actually, a bit of angst may motivate
people to make wiser decisions with regard to such
powerful technologies. But will it be enough?
HILLARY CLINTON BOOK.
Will she? Won’t she?
For more than a decade, Hillary Clinton’s
presidential aspirations have lingered around the
political rumor mill. Would she take on President
George W. Bush in 2004? Would 2008 be her
year? Would she dare leave the State Department
to mount a primary challenge to President Barack
Obama in 2012? Is she ready to run again in
2016?
Publication of Hard Choices, Clinton’s memoir of
her time as Secretary of State, will only feed the
speculation about her 2016 plans. In it, she
portrays herself as a shrewd but pragmatic
diplomat, and she responds sharply to Republican
criticisms of her time at the State Department.
Mostly, though, it’s a long-winded resume of
someone who at least wants to appear ready for
another run at the White House.
Clinton’s book begins in 2008 as she bowed out
of the presidential contest and eventually — and,
she writes, reluctantly — joins Obama’s cabinet as
Secretary of State.
From there, she meticulously goes through dozens
of crises, region by region, depicting a complex
world of difficult decisions and a United States
with diminished international standing after the
Bush years. She recounts the decision-making
behind Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan,
explains the "reset" with Russia, and describes the
tense moments in the Situation Room watching
SEAL Team Six take out Osama bin Laden.
Clinton also takes on two issues where her critics
continue to pound her: supporting the Iraq War
and the 2012 attacks on the U.S. compound in
Benghazi.
On Iraq, she is apologetic. "I still got it wrong,"
she says. "Plain and simple." And while she takes
blame for the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens
in Libya, she strikes back at those who continue
to question the administration’s response.
Still, it’s largely a politically risk-averse account
that plays up her role in dozens of international
conflicts without ruffling too many feathers. In
that sense, it is starkly different than Duty , the
memoir by Robert Gates, who served as Defense
Secretary under both Republican and Democratic
presidents. While both authors pull back the
curtain on the inner workings of the current
administration, Gates is highly critical of many
Washington players, including Vice President Joe
Biden, and of the Beltway culture. By contrast,
Clinton takes few shots — and even has nice
things to say about Bush and his paintings.
Ultimately, it’s a somewhat pedantic read — so
cautiously written, and so free of politically
charged rhetoric, that it proved difficult for
PolitiFact to find too many factual faults with it.
Indeed, the most inaccurate comment we explored
came from Clinton’s book tour, not the book itself.
When Clinton appeared on ABC with Diane Sawyer, the
former first lady was pressed on the $5 million she
reportedly earned in speaking fees.
"You have no reason to remember, but we came out of
the White House not only dead broke, but in debt,"
Clinton said. "We had no money when we got there, and
we struggled to piece together the resources for
mortgages for houses, for Chelsea's education. It was
not easy."
Clinton’s "dead broke" comment elicited eye-rolls from
Republicans, and we found it to be dubious as well.
While incomplete earnings reports perhaps showed more
debt than assets, a balance sheet does not tell the full
story. The experts we reached said the Clintons’ earning
potential had a real economic value that the financial
sector traditionally acknowledges and is willing to bank
on. We rated her statement Mostly False .
The handful of checkable facts we looked at from the
656-page book itself were largely accurate, we found.
For instance, Clinton discusses how her relationship
with Gates was one of collaboration, atypical of the
inter-cabinet turf wars of past administrations. When
Gates’ Pentagon pushed for more troops in Afghanistan,
the two also worked together to get more State
Department personnel in the country to focus on local
and diplomatic issues.
Clinton boasts the positive results from the dual efforts,
noting that "by the time I left State, the Afghans had
made progress. Economic growth was up and opium
production was down. Infant mortality declined by 22
percent. Under the Taliban only 900,000 boys and no
girls had been enrolled in schools. By 2010, 7.1 million
students were enrolled, and nearly 40 percent of them
were girls."
We found her claims about school enrollment, infant
mortality, and economic growth to be basically
accurate, but her take on opium production is
somewhat exaggerated. We rated the statement Mostly
True.
One of the most controversial passages in the book
politically was Clinton’s strong endorsement of
Obama’s policy of using drones to kill terrorists
overseas. Clinton defended Obama’s heavy reliance on
armed, unmanned aircraft to take out top al-Qaida
officials, even as foreign leaders made clear to her their
opposition to the policy and concerned Middle East
citizens voiced their concerns directly to her.
Clinton argued that drones were a critical tool in
fighting terrorism without risking American lives. By
2009, she said, "it was widely known that dozens of
senior terrorists had been taken off the battlefield by
drones, and we later learned that bin Laden himself
worried about the heavy losses that drones were
inflicting."
There’s no public headcount, but we were able to
confirm the number of senior terrorists killed through
2009 was at least a couple dozen. We rated this
statement True.
Clinton’s take on the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi attack
was the most anticipated chapter in the book. In it, she
laments the loss of Stevens, whom she knew personally,
and outlines the events that led to his death as well as
the U.S. response to the attack on the Benghazi
compound.
What hampered the American response to the attack?
Clinton said one reason is the U.S. military footprint in
Africa is "nearly nonexistent."
The United States has only had an African Command
since 2008, and it is largely focused on working with
African countries to train troops. There is very little
military infrastructure, combat troops, or heavy
firepower. There is just one military base — 2,000 miles
from Benghazi in Djibouti — and the headquarters is
actually in Germany.
While other military assets were located closer in
Europe, on this narrow question, several African and
international military experts said Clinton had a point.
We rated the claim True.
Just because the book included some accurate facts
doesn’t mean her views will stand up to scrutiny in the
presidential campaign. But her carefully vetted book
mirrors the tightly-crafted image she has publicly
maintained throughout her political career.
On the larger question of whether she will run for
president, Clinton gave no direct hints. "The answer is, I
haven’t decided yet," she wrote.
For more than a decade, Hillary Clinton’s
presidential aspirations have lingered around the
political rumor mill. Would she take on President
George W. Bush in 2004? Would 2008 be her
year? Would she dare leave the State Department
to mount a primary challenge to President Barack
Obama in 2012? Is she ready to run again in
2016?
Publication of Hard Choices, Clinton’s memoir of
her time as Secretary of State, will only feed the
speculation about her 2016 plans. In it, she
portrays herself as a shrewd but pragmatic
diplomat, and she responds sharply to Republican
criticisms of her time at the State Department.
Mostly, though, it’s a long-winded resume of
someone who at least wants to appear ready for
another run at the White House.
Clinton’s book begins in 2008 as she bowed out
of the presidential contest and eventually — and,
she writes, reluctantly — joins Obama’s cabinet as
Secretary of State.
From there, she meticulously goes through dozens
of crises, region by region, depicting a complex
world of difficult decisions and a United States
with diminished international standing after the
Bush years. She recounts the decision-making
behind Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan,
explains the "reset" with Russia, and describes the
tense moments in the Situation Room watching
SEAL Team Six take out Osama bin Laden.
Clinton also takes on two issues where her critics
continue to pound her: supporting the Iraq War
and the 2012 attacks on the U.S. compound in
Benghazi.
On Iraq, she is apologetic. "I still got it wrong,"
she says. "Plain and simple." And while she takes
blame for the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens
in Libya, she strikes back at those who continue
to question the administration’s response.
Still, it’s largely a politically risk-averse account
that plays up her role in dozens of international
conflicts without ruffling too many feathers. In
that sense, it is starkly different than Duty , the
memoir by Robert Gates, who served as Defense
Secretary under both Republican and Democratic
presidents. While both authors pull back the
curtain on the inner workings of the current
administration, Gates is highly critical of many
Washington players, including Vice President Joe
Biden, and of the Beltway culture. By contrast,
Clinton takes few shots — and even has nice
things to say about Bush and his paintings.
Ultimately, it’s a somewhat pedantic read — so
cautiously written, and so free of politically
charged rhetoric, that it proved difficult for
PolitiFact to find too many factual faults with it.
Indeed, the most inaccurate comment we explored
came from Clinton’s book tour, not the book itself.
When Clinton appeared on ABC with Diane Sawyer, the
former first lady was pressed on the $5 million she
reportedly earned in speaking fees.
"You have no reason to remember, but we came out of
the White House not only dead broke, but in debt,"
Clinton said. "We had no money when we got there, and
we struggled to piece together the resources for
mortgages for houses, for Chelsea's education. It was
not easy."
Clinton’s "dead broke" comment elicited eye-rolls from
Republicans, and we found it to be dubious as well.
While incomplete earnings reports perhaps showed more
debt than assets, a balance sheet does not tell the full
story. The experts we reached said the Clintons’ earning
potential had a real economic value that the financial
sector traditionally acknowledges and is willing to bank
on. We rated her statement Mostly False .
The handful of checkable facts we looked at from the
656-page book itself were largely accurate, we found.
For instance, Clinton discusses how her relationship
with Gates was one of collaboration, atypical of the
inter-cabinet turf wars of past administrations. When
Gates’ Pentagon pushed for more troops in Afghanistan,
the two also worked together to get more State
Department personnel in the country to focus on local
and diplomatic issues.
Clinton boasts the positive results from the dual efforts,
noting that "by the time I left State, the Afghans had
made progress. Economic growth was up and opium
production was down. Infant mortality declined by 22
percent. Under the Taliban only 900,000 boys and no
girls had been enrolled in schools. By 2010, 7.1 million
students were enrolled, and nearly 40 percent of them
were girls."
We found her claims about school enrollment, infant
mortality, and economic growth to be basically
accurate, but her take on opium production is
somewhat exaggerated. We rated the statement Mostly
True.
One of the most controversial passages in the book
politically was Clinton’s strong endorsement of
Obama’s policy of using drones to kill terrorists
overseas. Clinton defended Obama’s heavy reliance on
armed, unmanned aircraft to take out top al-Qaida
officials, even as foreign leaders made clear to her their
opposition to the policy and concerned Middle East
citizens voiced their concerns directly to her.
Clinton argued that drones were a critical tool in
fighting terrorism without risking American lives. By
2009, she said, "it was widely known that dozens of
senior terrorists had been taken off the battlefield by
drones, and we later learned that bin Laden himself
worried about the heavy losses that drones were
inflicting."
There’s no public headcount, but we were able to
confirm the number of senior terrorists killed through
2009 was at least a couple dozen. We rated this
statement True.
Clinton’s take on the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi attack
was the most anticipated chapter in the book. In it, she
laments the loss of Stevens, whom she knew personally,
and outlines the events that led to his death as well as
the U.S. response to the attack on the Benghazi
compound.
What hampered the American response to the attack?
Clinton said one reason is the U.S. military footprint in
Africa is "nearly nonexistent."
The United States has only had an African Command
since 2008, and it is largely focused on working with
African countries to train troops. There is very little
military infrastructure, combat troops, or heavy
firepower. There is just one military base — 2,000 miles
from Benghazi in Djibouti — and the headquarters is
actually in Germany.
While other military assets were located closer in
Europe, on this narrow question, several African and
international military experts said Clinton had a point.
We rated the claim True.
Just because the book included some accurate facts
doesn’t mean her views will stand up to scrutiny in the
presidential campaign. But her carefully vetted book
mirrors the tightly-crafted image she has publicly
maintained throughout her political career.
On the larger question of whether she will run for
president, Clinton gave no direct hints. "The answer is, I
haven’t decided yet," she wrote.
PROBLEMS WITH MEDICALIZATION OF MARIJUANA
“Medical” marijuana is approved in 21 states and the
District of Columbia for numerous conditions, including
glaucoma, Crohn disease, posttraumatic stress disorder,
epilepsy, Alzheimer disease, and chemotherapy-induced
nausea and vomiting. Both the number of states and
the number of approved indications for medical
marijuana are expected to increase. Physicians will
bear the responsibility of prescribing marijuana and
thus have an obligation to understand the issues
involved in its “medicalization.”
Medical marijuana differs significantly from other
prescription medications. Evidence supporting its
efficacy varies substantially and in general falls short of
the standards required for approval of other drugs by
the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Some
evidence suggests that marijuana may have efficacy in
chemotherapy-induced vomiting, cachexia in HIV/AIDS
patients, spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis,
and neuropathic pain. However, the evidence for use in
other conditions—including posttraumatic stress
disorder, glaucoma, Crohn disease, and Alzheimer
disease—relies largely on testimonials instead of
adequately powered, double-blind, placebo-controlled
randomized clinical trials. For most of these conditions,
medications that have been subjected to the rigorous
approval process of the FDA already exist. Furthermore,
the many conditions for which medical marijuana is
approved have no common etiology, pathophysiology,
or phenomenology, raising skepticism about a common
mechanism of action.
There is no clear optimal dose of marijuana for its
various approved conditions. The concentration of Δ -
tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other cannabinoids in
each marijuana cigarette, the size of cigarettes, and the
quantity of smoke inhaled by users can vary
considerably. The relative lack of controlled clinical trial
data makes finding the appropriate dose even more
challenging. Furthermore, given that medical marijuana
is approved for mostly chronic conditions that require
long-term dosing, physicians must be aware of the
development of tolerance and dependence (as
evidenced by downregulation of the brain cannabinoid
receptors), as well as withdrawal on discontinuation.
Prescription drugs are produced according to exacting
standards to ensure uniformity and purity of active
constituents and excipients. Because regulatory
standards of the production process vary by state, the
composition, purity, and concentration of the active
constituents of marijuana are also likely to vary. This is
especially problematic because unlike most other
prescription medications that are single active
compounds, marijuana contains more than 100
cannabinoids, terpenoids, and flavonoids that produce
individual, interactive, and entourage effects. Although
THC is believed to be the principal psychoactive
constituent of marijuana, other cannabinoids present in
marijuana may have important effects that may offset
THC’s negative effects. For instance, cannabidiol has
been shown to have anxiolytic and antipsychotic effects
that might offset the anxiogenic and psychotogenic
potential of THC. Yet cannabidiol is sometimes bred
out to increase the THC potency of some medical
marijuana strains.
Benefits notwithstanding, the potential harms
associated with medical marijuana need to be carefully
considered. No other prescription medication is
smoked; concerns remain about the long-term risks of
respiratory problems associated with smoking
marijuana, which are a subject of active investigation.
THC is already available in a pill approved by the FDA,
yet this form seems to be less desirable to those
seeking medical marijuana; this may in part be because
its euphoric effects are not immediate and cannot be
reliably controlled, unlike smoked marijuana.
Furthermore, there is evidence that marijuana exposure
is associated with an increased risk of psychotic
disorders in vulnerable individuals. Clearly, some but
not all individuals are at risk of psychosis with
exposure to marijuana, but it is not possible to identify
at-risk individuals. In individuals with established
psychotic disorders, marijuana use has a negative effect
on the course and expression of the illness.
Furthermore, recent findings suggest that long-term
marijuana exposure is associated with structural brain
changes as well as a decline in IQ.
The current system of dispensing marijuana does not
safeguard adequately against the potential for diversion
and abuse. Many states, for instance, allow patients to
grow their own marijuana. Furthermore, marijuana may
be contaminated with pesticides, herbicides, or fungi,
the latter being especially dangerous to
immunocompromised individuals such as patients with
HIV/AIDS or cancer. Central regulatory oversight by
the FDA makes possible the recall of harmful drugs or
contaminated batches and the dissemination of new
information about drug safety. Is there sufficient
oversight to monitor potential contamination of
marijuana, especially when patients are permitted to
grow it themselves?
A significant but largely overlooked problem with the
medical marijuana movement is the message the public
infers from its legalization and increasing prevalence.
There is an increasing perception, paralleling trends in
legalization, that marijuana is not associated with
significant or lasting harm; data from 3 decades
indicate that among adolescents, risk perception is
inversely proportional to prevalence of cannabis use.
As legalization has spread for medical or recreational
purposes, it is possible that the perception of risk by
adolescents will continue to decrease, with a
subsequent increase in use. This is especially
problematic given that many of the negative effects of
marijuana are most pronounced in adolescents.
Projections of substantial revenue rather than evidence-
based medicine may explain the eagerness of many
states to legalize medical marijuana. Physicians have
been invited to participate in the development of
medical marijuana programs late in the process. In
some instances (eg, Connecticut), legislators approved
medical marijuana but consulted physicians with
relevant expertise only afterward.
An unmet need remains for treatments of a number of
debilitating medical conditions. Specific constituents of
marijuana may have therapeutic promise for specific
symptoms associated with these disorders. However, if
marijuana is to be used for medical purposes, it should
be subjected to the same evidence-based review and
regulatory oversight as other medications prescribed by
physicians. Potentially therapeutic compounds of
marijuana should be purified and tested in randomized,
double-blind, placebo- and active-controlled clinical
trials. Toward this end, the federal government should
actively support research examining marijuana’s
potentially therapeutic compounds. These compounds
should be approved by the FDA (not by popular vote or
state legislature), produced according to good
manufacturing practice standards, distributed by
regulated pharmacies, and dispensed via a conventional
and safe route of administration (such as oral pills or
inhaled vaporization). Otherwise, states are essentially
legalizing recreational marijuana but forcing physicians
to act as gatekeepers for those who wish to obtain it.
District of Columbia for numerous conditions, including
glaucoma, Crohn disease, posttraumatic stress disorder,
epilepsy, Alzheimer disease, and chemotherapy-induced
nausea and vomiting. Both the number of states and
the number of approved indications for medical
marijuana are expected to increase. Physicians will
bear the responsibility of prescribing marijuana and
thus have an obligation to understand the issues
involved in its “medicalization.”
Medical marijuana differs significantly from other
prescription medications. Evidence supporting its
efficacy varies substantially and in general falls short of
the standards required for approval of other drugs by
the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Some
evidence suggests that marijuana may have efficacy in
chemotherapy-induced vomiting, cachexia in HIV/AIDS
patients, spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis,
and neuropathic pain. However, the evidence for use in
other conditions—including posttraumatic stress
disorder, glaucoma, Crohn disease, and Alzheimer
disease—relies largely on testimonials instead of
adequately powered, double-blind, placebo-controlled
randomized clinical trials. For most of these conditions,
medications that have been subjected to the rigorous
approval process of the FDA already exist. Furthermore,
the many conditions for which medical marijuana is
approved have no common etiology, pathophysiology,
or phenomenology, raising skepticism about a common
mechanism of action.
There is no clear optimal dose of marijuana for its
various approved conditions. The concentration of Δ -
tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other cannabinoids in
each marijuana cigarette, the size of cigarettes, and the
quantity of smoke inhaled by users can vary
considerably. The relative lack of controlled clinical trial
data makes finding the appropriate dose even more
challenging. Furthermore, given that medical marijuana
is approved for mostly chronic conditions that require
long-term dosing, physicians must be aware of the
development of tolerance and dependence (as
evidenced by downregulation of the brain cannabinoid
receptors), as well as withdrawal on discontinuation.
Prescription drugs are produced according to exacting
standards to ensure uniformity and purity of active
constituents and excipients. Because regulatory
standards of the production process vary by state, the
composition, purity, and concentration of the active
constituents of marijuana are also likely to vary. This is
especially problematic because unlike most other
prescription medications that are single active
compounds, marijuana contains more than 100
cannabinoids, terpenoids, and flavonoids that produce
individual, interactive, and entourage effects. Although
THC is believed to be the principal psychoactive
constituent of marijuana, other cannabinoids present in
marijuana may have important effects that may offset
THC’s negative effects. For instance, cannabidiol has
been shown to have anxiolytic and antipsychotic effects
that might offset the anxiogenic and psychotogenic
potential of THC. Yet cannabidiol is sometimes bred
out to increase the THC potency of some medical
marijuana strains.
Benefits notwithstanding, the potential harms
associated with medical marijuana need to be carefully
considered. No other prescription medication is
smoked; concerns remain about the long-term risks of
respiratory problems associated with smoking
marijuana, which are a subject of active investigation.
THC is already available in a pill approved by the FDA,
yet this form seems to be less desirable to those
seeking medical marijuana; this may in part be because
its euphoric effects are not immediate and cannot be
reliably controlled, unlike smoked marijuana.
Furthermore, there is evidence that marijuana exposure
is associated with an increased risk of psychotic
disorders in vulnerable individuals. Clearly, some but
not all individuals are at risk of psychosis with
exposure to marijuana, but it is not possible to identify
at-risk individuals. In individuals with established
psychotic disorders, marijuana use has a negative effect
on the course and expression of the illness.
Furthermore, recent findings suggest that long-term
marijuana exposure is associated with structural brain
changes as well as a decline in IQ.
The current system of dispensing marijuana does not
safeguard adequately against the potential for diversion
and abuse. Many states, for instance, allow patients to
grow their own marijuana. Furthermore, marijuana may
be contaminated with pesticides, herbicides, or fungi,
the latter being especially dangerous to
immunocompromised individuals such as patients with
HIV/AIDS or cancer. Central regulatory oversight by
the FDA makes possible the recall of harmful drugs or
contaminated batches and the dissemination of new
information about drug safety. Is there sufficient
oversight to monitor potential contamination of
marijuana, especially when patients are permitted to
grow it themselves?
A significant but largely overlooked problem with the
medical marijuana movement is the message the public
infers from its legalization and increasing prevalence.
There is an increasing perception, paralleling trends in
legalization, that marijuana is not associated with
significant or lasting harm; data from 3 decades
indicate that among adolescents, risk perception is
inversely proportional to prevalence of cannabis use.
As legalization has spread for medical or recreational
purposes, it is possible that the perception of risk by
adolescents will continue to decrease, with a
subsequent increase in use. This is especially
problematic given that many of the negative effects of
marijuana are most pronounced in adolescents.
Projections of substantial revenue rather than evidence-
based medicine may explain the eagerness of many
states to legalize medical marijuana. Physicians have
been invited to participate in the development of
medical marijuana programs late in the process. In
some instances (eg, Connecticut), legislators approved
medical marijuana but consulted physicians with
relevant expertise only afterward.
An unmet need remains for treatments of a number of
debilitating medical conditions. Specific constituents of
marijuana may have therapeutic promise for specific
symptoms associated with these disorders. However, if
marijuana is to be used for medical purposes, it should
be subjected to the same evidence-based review and
regulatory oversight as other medications prescribed by
physicians. Potentially therapeutic compounds of
marijuana should be purified and tested in randomized,
double-blind, placebo- and active-controlled clinical
trials. Toward this end, the federal government should
actively support research examining marijuana’s
potentially therapeutic compounds. These compounds
should be approved by the FDA (not by popular vote or
state legislature), produced according to good
manufacturing practice standards, distributed by
regulated pharmacies, and dispensed via a conventional
and safe route of administration (such as oral pills or
inhaled vaporization). Otherwise, states are essentially
legalizing recreational marijuana but forcing physicians
to act as gatekeepers for those who wish to obtain it.
SEX EDUCATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Controversies about the proper content of school-based
sex education continue, but in some fundamental sense
they have been matched by—perhaps even overtaken
by—other pressing realities. For example, there are
increasing demands that school resources be dedicated
to teaching the basics of reading, writing, and math
and to upgrading the attention given to science
education. Many communities find that meeting these
legitimate demands places substantial pressure on
school hours and budgets, often at the expense of such
areas as art and physical education as well as health
education, which often includes sex education.
Moreover, limited budgets can also decrease the
amount of training made available to sex education
teachers.
This situation is particularly distressing because during
the last decade, increasing numbers of programs have
become available that can help teens delay having sex,
increase their use of contraception when they do have
sex, and potentially help reduce the incidence of teen
pregnancy. Some of these programs are based in
schools, some are in community settings, and some
span both. The US Department of Health and
Human Services’ Office of Adolescent Health lists 31
such programs that have evidence of effect, and the
list has played a major role in shaping the funding
priorities of the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program
administered by that office.
Numerous schools and communities welcome these
evidence-based programs, and funding through the
Office of Adolescent Health and the Family and Youth
Services Bureau has supported many such programs
nationwide and also has increased the amount of
attention given to using and replicating effective
programs. Even so, many sexually experienced teens
(46% of males and 33% of females) report that they
had not received any instruction about contraception
before they began having sex, and states like
Oklahoma and Alabama—with 2 of the highest rates of
teen pregnancy in the country—do not require any sex
education in school at all. Moreover, in some
communities the “sex ed wars” (ie, the intense and
vocal controversy over sex education in schools) persist
as they have for decades.
Such developments suggest a need to rethink the way
in which sex education is offered to young people. In
the age of smartphones, texting, Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook, sex education should evolve to fit the
21st century and the media-saturated lives of young
people today. A strong case can be made that in the
United States, the media are already the de facto sex
educators (the average teenager sees 15 000 sexual
references on television alone each year). Perhaps it is
time to fully embrace the power of 21st-century
communication and direct it toward public health goals
more deliberately. Online material and social media
could help to fill the gaps in sex education and support
for many young people.
Sex education materials and conversations provided
through digital and social media could be useful
adjuncts to classes and programs that may be offered
in a community or school system; in areas where no
such programs exist, they may help to fill serious gaps.
Two increasingly popular sites sponsored by The
National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned
Pregnancy, StayTeen.org and Bedsider.org , and other
engaging sites such as Go Ask Alice! and Scarleteen,
are expanding understanding of how digital media can
help. These sites provide information in an accurate
and appealing way. An amusing video on Bedsider.org ,
for example, shows a young adult woman explaining
her initial reluctance to use a contraceptive vaginal ring
and how she mastered the method, and funny “Fact or
Fiction” cartoons that include physician commentaries
debunk common myths in a relaxed but accurate way.
In addition, some community groups and local health
departments around the country (in California, New
Mexico, and North Carolina, for example) have
established digital services to which teens can text their
sex-related questions. These emerging sites and
systems may appeal in particular to teens who are
more comfortable obtaining sexual information
anonymously than they are in a coed sex education
class or asking their parents for information. Unlike
many community or school-based sex education
classes, Internet-based sex information can be
available throughout a teenager’s adolescence.
Questions may change, new situations arise, and new
treatments or scientific information sometimes develop;
the Internet can be a good repository for updated,
ongoing sex information that any teenager can access
anytime. In a recent survey of more than 1200
Australian teenagers, for example, the most common
source of information about sex actually was the
Internet (85%). Misinformation on the Internet does
exist, but professional oversight may help direct teens
to reputable, accurate sites. In addition, “good” sexual
content may help to drown out “bad” sexual content
(Gresham’s corollary). In any event, sex education
should not miss out on the worldwide move to use
online systems to improve health.
Sex education in the 21st century merits time, attention,
innovation, and, in particular, research to assess
possible benefit. For example, 4 issues might be
addressed. First, can online sex education systems help
young people learn some of the key skills increasingly
seen as central to risk reduction, such as negotiating
skills and a strong sense of agency and self-efficacy?
Or is the main value of these online sites more likely to
be in the somewhat less difficult task of providing
information? The research base here is weak at best,
although one study of sexual health promotion on
Facebook has demonstrated that young people will at
least access this information. In addition, methods of
assessing the effect of online interventions on behavior
are currently an emerging topic in research design.
Second, is there a way for online sex education to be
presented in the voice and tone of teens to reflect their
concerns yet also provide accurate and credible
information? Adults and professionals could lead the
way, but a site that feels like it is the product of a
lecturing, authoritarian, adult group may well be
unpopular. Involvement of teens in the development of
sites will likely be needed for success, and teen-
appropriate humor and perspective could be especially
attractive. One site currently has been developed and is
administered solely by teens; its motto is “by teens, for
teens.”
Third, might there be a way for professional groups like
the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Society for
Adolescent Health and Medicine, the American Academy
of Family Physicians, and the National PTA to create a
standardized but fully teen-centric core set of materials,
lessons, and interactive components that could then be
“localized” by community groups? Detailed information
on adolescent-centered services and where to go for
what types of help, including information on
confidentiality, cost issues, and privacy, would be
particularly useful for teens. Fourth, how can online
systems support and amplify evidence-based programs
already in use? Are there some instances in which the
online platform is preferable?
Given the controversies about sex education that have
limited the full use of well-designed, evidence-based
programs, the acceptance and use of online sex
education and support remain to be determined.
However, because the Internet is essentially
unregulated, there is no need to secure anyone’s
particular approval for any site or its content, improving
access of teens to sex information without school board
approval. In addition, although not all teens are in
school, odds are that they are online. The Internet is
already a major source of sex information, some of it
inaccurate, so why not encourage development of
responsible, relevant sex information that would appeal
to teens and be easy to use? It may be an idea for
which the time has come.
sex education continue, but in some fundamental sense
they have been matched by—perhaps even overtaken
by—other pressing realities. For example, there are
increasing demands that school resources be dedicated
to teaching the basics of reading, writing, and math
and to upgrading the attention given to science
education. Many communities find that meeting these
legitimate demands places substantial pressure on
school hours and budgets, often at the expense of such
areas as art and physical education as well as health
education, which often includes sex education.
Moreover, limited budgets can also decrease the
amount of training made available to sex education
teachers.
This situation is particularly distressing because during
the last decade, increasing numbers of programs have
become available that can help teens delay having sex,
increase their use of contraception when they do have
sex, and potentially help reduce the incidence of teen
pregnancy. Some of these programs are based in
schools, some are in community settings, and some
span both. The US Department of Health and
Human Services’ Office of Adolescent Health lists 31
such programs that have evidence of effect, and the
list has played a major role in shaping the funding
priorities of the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program
administered by that office.
Numerous schools and communities welcome these
evidence-based programs, and funding through the
Office of Adolescent Health and the Family and Youth
Services Bureau has supported many such programs
nationwide and also has increased the amount of
attention given to using and replicating effective
programs. Even so, many sexually experienced teens
(46% of males and 33% of females) report that they
had not received any instruction about contraception
before they began having sex, and states like
Oklahoma and Alabama—with 2 of the highest rates of
teen pregnancy in the country—do not require any sex
education in school at all. Moreover, in some
communities the “sex ed wars” (ie, the intense and
vocal controversy over sex education in schools) persist
as they have for decades.
Such developments suggest a need to rethink the way
in which sex education is offered to young people. In
the age of smartphones, texting, Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook, sex education should evolve to fit the
21st century and the media-saturated lives of young
people today. A strong case can be made that in the
United States, the media are already the de facto sex
educators (the average teenager sees 15 000 sexual
references on television alone each year). Perhaps it is
time to fully embrace the power of 21st-century
communication and direct it toward public health goals
more deliberately. Online material and social media
could help to fill the gaps in sex education and support
for many young people.
Sex education materials and conversations provided
through digital and social media could be useful
adjuncts to classes and programs that may be offered
in a community or school system; in areas where no
such programs exist, they may help to fill serious gaps.
Two increasingly popular sites sponsored by The
National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned
Pregnancy, StayTeen.org and Bedsider.org , and other
engaging sites such as Go Ask Alice! and Scarleteen,
are expanding understanding of how digital media can
help. These sites provide information in an accurate
and appealing way. An amusing video on Bedsider.org ,
for example, shows a young adult woman explaining
her initial reluctance to use a contraceptive vaginal ring
and how she mastered the method, and funny “Fact or
Fiction” cartoons that include physician commentaries
debunk common myths in a relaxed but accurate way.
In addition, some community groups and local health
departments around the country (in California, New
Mexico, and North Carolina, for example) have
established digital services to which teens can text their
sex-related questions. These emerging sites and
systems may appeal in particular to teens who are
more comfortable obtaining sexual information
anonymously than they are in a coed sex education
class or asking their parents for information. Unlike
many community or school-based sex education
classes, Internet-based sex information can be
available throughout a teenager’s adolescence.
Questions may change, new situations arise, and new
treatments or scientific information sometimes develop;
the Internet can be a good repository for updated,
ongoing sex information that any teenager can access
anytime. In a recent survey of more than 1200
Australian teenagers, for example, the most common
source of information about sex actually was the
Internet (85%). Misinformation on the Internet does
exist, but professional oversight may help direct teens
to reputable, accurate sites. In addition, “good” sexual
content may help to drown out “bad” sexual content
(Gresham’s corollary). In any event, sex education
should not miss out on the worldwide move to use
online systems to improve health.
Sex education in the 21st century merits time, attention,
innovation, and, in particular, research to assess
possible benefit. For example, 4 issues might be
addressed. First, can online sex education systems help
young people learn some of the key skills increasingly
seen as central to risk reduction, such as negotiating
skills and a strong sense of agency and self-efficacy?
Or is the main value of these online sites more likely to
be in the somewhat less difficult task of providing
information? The research base here is weak at best,
although one study of sexual health promotion on
Facebook has demonstrated that young people will at
least access this information. In addition, methods of
assessing the effect of online interventions on behavior
are currently an emerging topic in research design.
Second, is there a way for online sex education to be
presented in the voice and tone of teens to reflect their
concerns yet also provide accurate and credible
information? Adults and professionals could lead the
way, but a site that feels like it is the product of a
lecturing, authoritarian, adult group may well be
unpopular. Involvement of teens in the development of
sites will likely be needed for success, and teen-
appropriate humor and perspective could be especially
attractive. One site currently has been developed and is
administered solely by teens; its motto is “by teens, for
teens.”
Third, might there be a way for professional groups like
the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Society for
Adolescent Health and Medicine, the American Academy
of Family Physicians, and the National PTA to create a
standardized but fully teen-centric core set of materials,
lessons, and interactive components that could then be
“localized” by community groups? Detailed information
on adolescent-centered services and where to go for
what types of help, including information on
confidentiality, cost issues, and privacy, would be
particularly useful for teens. Fourth, how can online
systems support and amplify evidence-based programs
already in use? Are there some instances in which the
online platform is preferable?
Given the controversies about sex education that have
limited the full use of well-designed, evidence-based
programs, the acceptance and use of online sex
education and support remain to be determined.
However, because the Internet is essentially
unregulated, there is no need to secure anyone’s
particular approval for any site or its content, improving
access of teens to sex information without school board
approval. In addition, although not all teens are in
school, odds are that they are online. The Internet is
already a major source of sex information, some of it
inaccurate, so why not encourage development of
responsible, relevant sex information that would appeal
to teens and be easy to use? It may be an idea for
which the time has come.
13 Jun 2014
CHINA, JAPAN, KOREA AND THE US: REGION AT CROSSROADS
Japanese Prime Minister Shinjo Abe visited Yasukuni
shrine on 26 December last year and the visit invited
usual condemnations from China and South Korea. The
US also reacted by saying it ‘disappointing’ and would
lead to ‘exacerbate tensions’ in the region. However,
Japanese posturing has been relentless and on the New
Year day, Japanese Internal Affairs Minister Yoshitaka
Shindo had another visit to the shrine. The tension and
mistrust in East Asia has been escalating in recent years
and Japan, China and North Korea have shown
uncompromising intent to compete rather than concede
and cooperate on the issues of mutual disagreements.
China has recently declared its Air Defense Identification
Zone (ADIZ) unilaterally, which goes beyond its contest
in East China Sea with Japan over Senkaku/Diaoyu
islands. North Korea is also going through domestic
power struggle and restructuring of equations with its
closest ally China. In this problematic interstate
relations in the region, the Japanese right-wing
assertions in domestic politics and its impact on foreign
policy has further complicated the security calculus of
the region.
The East Asian region is closely connected in economic,
educational and cultural spheres but there is a huge
trust deficit in security arena and it poses a grave
challenge for further economic exchanges and
integration of the region. There are assurances that the
tension among these countries would not move beyond
a certain limit as economic interdependent would bring
in moderation in their behaviours. However, the
argument may not sustainable beyond a point. If the
escalation of tension among these countries could not
be checked, it may derail and disrupt their cooperation
in every field.
The role of the US is considered to be important as it
has leverage to pacify Japan and constructively engage
China to make the region more stable. The US could
also convey China to contain North Korean provocative
behaviour as well as sock-observe any instability in
North Korea. Washington has been trying to reach out
Beijing through its diplomatic channel but there is no
indication that it has been equally keen in pacifying
Japan. The Japanese aggressive posturing, even if not
openly appreciated by the US, has been granted silent
consent by the US and it is quite unsettling for not only
China but also South Korea. Japan has been cleverly
silenced Washington by remaining fully committed to
the US alliance and its interests in the regional politics.
For example, the day after the Prime Minister Abe’s visit
to Yasukuni, Okinawa governor agreed to relocate the
US military base at Futenma to near by Henoko. It was
characterised as ‘critical milestone’ by the US Secretary
of Defense Chuck Hagel. It appears that the US is more
interested in its narrow national interests in the region
and it does not have any serious objection with
Japanese aggressive posturing. Probably, the US thinks
that an assertive Japan would be a buffer against the
rise of Chinese influence in the region. Many scholars
relate American concession to Japan with its strategy of
‘Asian pivot’. There are also speculations that probably
the US does not have enough diplomatic leverage over
Japan to stop its aggressive posturing and so it has
decided to go along with Japanese plan of things rather
than dictating its own terms.
Whatever be the reason, the complacency on the part of
the US would definitely make it difficult for Washington
have any credible and consequential engagement with
China. China would not be satisfied by the use of words
like ‘disappointment’ and it would definitely chart out its
own course of actions, which might be detrimental for
the regional security environment. The Chinese
announcement to have its own ADIZ could be better
understood in the light of above dynamics. Furthermore,
the US conceding and accommodative behaviour vis-Ã -
vis Japan poses a difficult question to South Korea,
which is equally close ally of the US in the region. Even
though, South Korea enjoys security guarantee from the
US, it has to rethink about its own security equations in
the neighbourhood. South Korea is challenged by a
belligerent and ‘unpredictable’ North Korea as well as
an aggressive and uncompromising Japan. Seoul tried
to forge a cooperative relationship with China in variety
of areas when South Korean President Park Geun-hye
visited Beijing in mid-2013. Although, it does not mean
that South Korea would abandon its old ally- the US, in
near future but continuous Japanese aggressive
posturing and insufficient American attempt to prohibit
it, may force it to review its relations with the US.
Thus, the East Asian region is at a crossroad and a
vicious cycle of threatening and uncompromising
behaviours have been posing huge risk of conflict. No
single country could be blamed for present escalations
and there have been chains of actions and reactions. It
would be pertinent to see how soon all the stakeholders
realise that the process must be stopped collectively or
it may lead to a point of no return
shrine on 26 December last year and the visit invited
usual condemnations from China and South Korea. The
US also reacted by saying it ‘disappointing’ and would
lead to ‘exacerbate tensions’ in the region. However,
Japanese posturing has been relentless and on the New
Year day, Japanese Internal Affairs Minister Yoshitaka
Shindo had another visit to the shrine. The tension and
mistrust in East Asia has been escalating in recent years
and Japan, China and North Korea have shown
uncompromising intent to compete rather than concede
and cooperate on the issues of mutual disagreements.
China has recently declared its Air Defense Identification
Zone (ADIZ) unilaterally, which goes beyond its contest
in East China Sea with Japan over Senkaku/Diaoyu
islands. North Korea is also going through domestic
power struggle and restructuring of equations with its
closest ally China. In this problematic interstate
relations in the region, the Japanese right-wing
assertions in domestic politics and its impact on foreign
policy has further complicated the security calculus of
the region.
The East Asian region is closely connected in economic,
educational and cultural spheres but there is a huge
trust deficit in security arena and it poses a grave
challenge for further economic exchanges and
integration of the region. There are assurances that the
tension among these countries would not move beyond
a certain limit as economic interdependent would bring
in moderation in their behaviours. However, the
argument may not sustainable beyond a point. If the
escalation of tension among these countries could not
be checked, it may derail and disrupt their cooperation
in every field.
The role of the US is considered to be important as it
has leverage to pacify Japan and constructively engage
China to make the region more stable. The US could
also convey China to contain North Korean provocative
behaviour as well as sock-observe any instability in
North Korea. Washington has been trying to reach out
Beijing through its diplomatic channel but there is no
indication that it has been equally keen in pacifying
Japan. The Japanese aggressive posturing, even if not
openly appreciated by the US, has been granted silent
consent by the US and it is quite unsettling for not only
China but also South Korea. Japan has been cleverly
silenced Washington by remaining fully committed to
the US alliance and its interests in the regional politics.
For example, the day after the Prime Minister Abe’s visit
to Yasukuni, Okinawa governor agreed to relocate the
US military base at Futenma to near by Henoko. It was
characterised as ‘critical milestone’ by the US Secretary
of Defense Chuck Hagel. It appears that the US is more
interested in its narrow national interests in the region
and it does not have any serious objection with
Japanese aggressive posturing. Probably, the US thinks
that an assertive Japan would be a buffer against the
rise of Chinese influence in the region. Many scholars
relate American concession to Japan with its strategy of
‘Asian pivot’. There are also speculations that probably
the US does not have enough diplomatic leverage over
Japan to stop its aggressive posturing and so it has
decided to go along with Japanese plan of things rather
than dictating its own terms.
Whatever be the reason, the complacency on the part of
the US would definitely make it difficult for Washington
have any credible and consequential engagement with
China. China would not be satisfied by the use of words
like ‘disappointment’ and it would definitely chart out its
own course of actions, which might be detrimental for
the regional security environment. The Chinese
announcement to have its own ADIZ could be better
understood in the light of above dynamics. Furthermore,
the US conceding and accommodative behaviour vis-Ã -
vis Japan poses a difficult question to South Korea,
which is equally close ally of the US in the region. Even
though, South Korea enjoys security guarantee from the
US, it has to rethink about its own security equations in
the neighbourhood. South Korea is challenged by a
belligerent and ‘unpredictable’ North Korea as well as
an aggressive and uncompromising Japan. Seoul tried
to forge a cooperative relationship with China in variety
of areas when South Korean President Park Geun-hye
visited Beijing in mid-2013. Although, it does not mean
that South Korea would abandon its old ally- the US, in
near future but continuous Japanese aggressive
posturing and insufficient American attempt to prohibit
it, may force it to review its relations with the US.
Thus, the East Asian region is at a crossroad and a
vicious cycle of threatening and uncompromising
behaviours have been posing huge risk of conflict. No
single country could be blamed for present escalations
and there have been chains of actions and reactions. It
would be pertinent to see how soon all the stakeholders
realise that the process must be stopped collectively or
it may lead to a point of no return
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