Thought of the morning: political party affiliate organizations (like the Stonewall Democrats or the Young Democrats) need a better means of naming their subdivisions. If there are national organizations such as the Stonewall Democrats and the Young Democrats, then the Stonewall Young Democrats should probably be termed a “partnership” between the Stonewall Democrats and Young Democrats of America, not an affiliate of an affiliate (or a caucus of a caucus) of a political party. It makes better sense to visibly, vocally partner where your interest groups’ interests intersect.
Tag Archives: politics
Uganda-Tanzania War – 33rd Anniversary
Interesting anniversary today: Today is the 33rd anniversary of the beginning of the Uganda-Tanzania War, in which Idi Amin declared war against Tanzania and sent troops over the Tanzanian border, Tanzania retaliated by mobilizing a paramilitary force and fired Russian Katyusha missiles into Uganda, and Gaddafi got involved in another military misadventure.
Libya under Muammar Gaddafi sent his own troops, including the so-called “Islamic Legion”, into Uganda to support Idi Amin, but they were soon on the front line against the Tanzanians and Ugandan anti-Amin exiles as Amin’s forces retreated.
After the Battle of Lukaya in which hundreds of lives were lost on both sides, the war was more or less an Amin-Gaddafi strategic retreat, and Amin fled Uganda on 10 April 1979; Gaddafi’s troops would flee into Kenya and Ethiopia shortly afterward.
Tanzanian troops stayed as peacekeepers until shortly after new elections were held, but Tanzania had to foot the bill without external support (the then-OAU condemned Tanzania’s invasion). It would not get out of the debt resulting from the war until Uganda paid off the last of Tanzania’s debt in 2007.
The current president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, is a veteran of this war. Gaddafi, who was a major ally of Idi Amin, was killed in Sirte, Libya, after 42 years of rule and international misadventures like this.
Those who are disturbed or appalled by the GOP applause for the death penalty las night might want to come up with more empirically-based arguments for why it is wrong to cheer for death other than it being “cruel”, “hard-hearted”, “depraved”, “un-Christian” or “bloodlusty”. Explain your opposition to such approval in a way that an atheist can understand and parse. Don’t appeal to unfounded and fickle “moral” sentiments.
The vote is now 7 out of 11. It’s being tracked by Brazilian and American commenters to Joe. My. God.
Anti-Judaism and racism in Egypt’s chaos
If anything, the above incidents within the last few days are exemplary of the casual, provincial anti-Jewish bigotry being exhibited by many of the everyday Egyptians who protest both for and against the current, long-ruling government. It runs deep, and has been punctuated by decades, if not centuries, of both official and non-official solicitations to the scapegoating of the specter of evil, baby-killing, bloodthirsty Zionist monsters.
Furthermore, such public manifestations of bigotry lend credibility to those outside of Egypt who fear the influence of the proscribed Muslim Brotherhood party in the anti-Mubarak movement, but also hold the Mubarak government in a muted ill-regard for decades of authoritarian misrule.
The last two weeks in Egypt, if not the last month in much of North Africa and Western Asia, have offered remote viewers outside of the regions a game-changing view into the desires and lives of the residents who have lived under similar regimes. However, in the midst of the chants for greater democracy, better governance and brighter economic prospects, it would be a grave mistake to ignore the existing religious and ethnic bigotries which run deep and hard in Egyptian society, bigotries which may or may not manifest in a post-Mubarak Egypt, or a post-kleptocratic North Africa and Western Asia.
Comments such as those offered by one anti-Mubarak protester to Agence France Presse – "The Israeli people are like the Egyptian people, we want peace and freedom" – or another who shouted into a camera in Tahrir Square for YouTube – "We will not be silenced! whether you are a Muslim, whether you’re a Christian, whether you’re an atheist, you will demand your goddamn rights!" – might yet offer the hope of cooler heads prevailing in the aftermath of these protests in regards to Egyptian-Israeli relations and the future of interfaith and intermoral relations in Egypt proper.
But these statements, these sentiments, can only go so far in showing the Egyptian people’s long-term collective capability in restraining or suppressing the casual bigotries which have been used in multiple generations in order to repress and suppress the quality of life and mind of themselves and their neighbors.
But these statements, these sentiments, can only go so far in showing the Egyptian people’s long-term collective capability in restraining or suppressing the casual bigotries which have been used in multiple generations in order to repress and suppress the quality of life and mind of themselves and their neighbors.
“Socialism” as thoughtcrime on the right
Within the last century, social democracy as an economic model has been thoroughly denigrated by those governments and partisans who used the words "socialist" and "democratic" in an authoritarian, fascist context, be such entities on the right (from Pinochet to Franco to Nixon) or on the left (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot).
No need for recognition
It’s just that the Wikipedia article on the new party being formed by the former South African defense minister Mosiuoa Lekota has been copied verbatim onto the new party’s website. I started and almost entirely revised it by myself, with a few unregistered IP addresses which I used, even though this is an important event in South Africa’s history (why aren’t others from down there helping with it?). So I find it interesting – flattering, even – that this article was copied verbatim to the official website of the party, but they do need to format the sections of the article.
Maybe I should go into writing.
Separatism and sex
I think I’ve realized something today:
Togo, Kenya and (probably) soon Zimbabwe
I name the three countries in the title because these are three countries which, within the last five years, have played host to political crises in which the largest opposition party’s supporters are willing to take their post-election grievances – often right after an election – and air them out onto the street in a manner that would force the incumbent government to reckon with the demands of the opposition.
Or at least, that’s what happened in Togo (2005, when the son of Gnassingbe Eyadema bypassed the President of the Senate in presidential succession following his father’s death, leading to anti-government violence and African Union sanctions, resulting in a general election) and Kenya (2007-2008, when the entire country exploded in random ethnopolitical violence after the incumbent was announced the winner of the election a few days before New Year’s Eve, leading to negotiations mediated and/or supported by the UN and AU and resulting in a currently-negotiating formation of a prime minister’s office for the first time in over 40 years).
So now in Zimbabwe, you have an obstinate incumbent who thinks he’s won, a persistent challenger who’s declared victory, an electoral commission that won’t release the results, a bunch of “war veterans” who’re raiding farms and knocking heads, several protesters who’re fed up with the incumbent, and everyone of these groups have drawn in their choice piece of air until they can hear anything from the High Court. Oh, and that diaspora that’s spread to quite a wide geographic range.
Either way that the High Court will lean, it is likely that there will be violence and bloodshed in reaction.
The main question to ask now is this: are South Africa and Botswana ready to welcome a flood of refugees from a familiar face?
And if this is to be the result, is it a sign that sub-Saharan Africa has entered into a new era in its political history, where the military has less of a role to play than it once did in similar crises during the 20th century?
Empire and the separation of powers
Does separation of political powers curtail us from the imperialisms of the past states? Or is a further separation of powers necessary?
Reading the Wikipedia article on separation of powers, I take notice of the other branches of government that have been added to the systems of government in a few countries:
- In both Costa Rica and Venezuela, the electoral and auditory branches
- in Germany, the constitutional court and presidential electoral college
- in Taiwan, the control (auditory) and civil examination branches
The goal of the separation of powers is to keep the direction of government policy from falling in the hands of a single individual (dictatorship or totalitarianism) or group (oligarchy).
But that separation of powers did not prevent the Roman Republic (separated between the senate, the executive and the Roman assemblies) from turning into the Roman Empire, nor did it prevent the early United States from moving ever-so-westward to California, stomping other, “lesser peoples” into either the ground or the reservations along the way, resulting in a U.S. empire that stretched “from sea to shining sea” (and then some more land on the other side of that other sea as well).
Yet, let’s face it. Both the Roman Republic and the United States were/are excessively dependent upon their militaries as defense mechanisms, even though the United States, since the end of WW2, uses its own military (and its accompanying goods) more as a “big switch” to shake at errant nations.
So what does it take for us to extricate the government from the use of armed force as a means of accomplishing foreign policy aspirations?
Should the separation of powers be further spread out among a greater number of branches, which can then be made much more accountable/responsive to the citizenry by periodic ballot?
Will such a further delegation of powers place a plug into the need for a military that mostly resides outside the government’s grasp?
