Is Obama prepared for the unexpected?

"(We) have been scaring ourselves into exaggerating the terrorism threat -- and then by our unwise actions in Iraq making the problem worse," writes David Ignatius concerning "the heart of the message" of a new book by Marc Sageman,* former CIA officer. Ingnatius continues:

He attacks head-on the central thesis of the Bush administration, echoed increasingly by Republican presidential candidate John McCain, that, as McCain's Web site puts it, the United States is facing "a dangerous, relentless enemy in the War against Islamic Extremists" spawned by al-Qaeda.

That's an understatement. As I observed here, the whole website of "John McCain for President" evokes War on Terror Central Command.

Marc Sageman's point has been made before. Journalist James Fallows interviewed many top anti-terrorism experts who agree the "War on Terror" is a foolish approach to national security. Unfortunately, there is a strong possibility reckless foreign policy will make for good political strategy in the heat of the 2008 election campaign. There are three reason to think so.

First, in the event of terror attack on the US between now and November, McCain's stature is likely to be enhanced. His military credentials will stand out. He may appear the wiser and more prescient candidate.

Second, such an attack is not to be ruled out. The last thing Islamic extremists want is a president likely to give the US a softer public image in the Muslim world, and muffle Islamophobia in the West. Terrorists surely do not welcome the prospect of a US president who talks about hope. Surely they would prefer another president who talks up fear. It is in this respect that the campaign platform of John McCain and the desire on the part of Islamic radicals to retain their high global profile converge.

Third, as Goethe said, boldness has a certain power and magic to it. There is comfort in electing someone experienced who says precisely what matters most to him. McCain's message about the terrorists is simple and clear. As Obama still lacks McCain's aggressive clarity about his position on issues, McCain's experience and focus may yet prove a potent combination.**

Can the hope candidate defeat the dangerous candidate? A lot will depend on what happens in the next eight months. Obama would be well advised to position his campaign to meet the challenge of the unexpected.
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* h/t to James Fallows.
** I wrote more about that here.

Exiled Thai leader Thaksin arrives in Thailand

Live-blogging from the airport

Photo: A monk at Bangkok's Suvaranabhumi airport meditates on the arrival of former Prime Minister Thaksin(Jotman).

Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin arrived in Bangkok this morning to a cheering crowd. Thaksin was deposed in a military coup 17 months ago which I live-blogged (A Night of Living Dangerously) . Today he was greeted by a cheering crowd of 2-3,000 enthusiastic supporters.

People sang, danced, and waved flags. Even the police seemed to be enjoying themselves.

As I passed through the crowd with my camera, people stopped me to wave. "We love Thaksin," was a phrase I heard more than once. Some wore blue t-shirts emblazoned with "People's Power Party" (PPP). That's the new name for the present governing party that is the reincarnation of Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai Party (Thais love Thais Party).

Actually, I arrived on the scene just as Thaksin departed in his limousine.

On my way back I walked over a grassy hill. On top of the hill a monk was peacefully meditating. This was not the first monk I had seen.

A few minutes earlier I had looked down from the Departure Level and seen a procession of about 100 monks pass beneath me. A superstitious person might deem the concurrent appearance of the monks an auspicious sign for the returning leader(video).

I had a brief chat with a Thai woman about Thaksin (next video).

"Why did you come here?" I asked.

"I love Thaksin!" she said, adding "He is a hero in my heart. . . He has vision."




"Why?

"Thaksin helps poor people!" she replied.

She didn't look poor. "Did he help you?"

"No. I help Thaksin," she said.

We both laughed. Economic data shows that the Thaksin administration actually helped to improve the lot of many poor Thais. See my post, "Under Thaksin, Thailand's poverty fell at historic clip, despite relatively sluggish economy".

Here is my video of the scene at Suvaranabhumi airport:

Quote about Obama

". . . the primal toxin of reactionary fear that one sees circling the drain of American conservatism says more about Obama's enemies than about him."

- Andrew Sullivan

World's most expensive royal family

Outside of the Middle East, what is the world's most expensive royal family? Two contenders for the title are the UK and the Thai royals.

How much do the Thai and British royals cost their respective taxpayers?

• Thai Royal Household*
• 1.95 billion baht = US $65 million

• British Royal Family cost to taxpayer
• 37 million GBP = US $74 million

If you consider the question of "purchasing power parity," it is evident that your money goes twice as far in Thailand as in Britain.** The Thai Royal Household budget delivers twice the purchasing power as the UK Royals' budget.

The populations are roughly the same. There are 65 million Thais as compared with 61 million British subjects. So it's as if every Thai pays $1.00 a year to support the Thai Royal Household, whereas every Brit pays $1.20 to support the British Royal Family. Which brings us to the question of relative taxpayer burden. Given the GDP disparity -- British GDP is 4.4 times greater -- we can see that the tax burden is at least four times greater for Thais.

• UK GDP = US $35,300
• Thai GDP = US $8,000

So considering that money goes twice as far in Thailand, and that the average Thai enjoys less than one quarter the income of a British subject, you could say the commitment of the Thai people to their royal family is about eight times greater than that of the British to theirs.
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* This post was inspired by a chart Bangkok Pundit posted on his blog which shows the money received for the Bureau of the Thai Royal Household from the Thai Budget Bureau. Bangkok Pundit's chart shows a 16% increase in the Thai subsidy for 2007. It would appear the former government (installed by coup) was especially good to the Thai royal family. Perhaps the increase was required to pay for the bills for HM the King's 60th anniversary party in 2006 and his 80th birthday celebrations for in 2007 (in case you missed them, see this post and this post). ** This blog used the CIA World Factbook estimates for PPP.
More Notes: This blog used today's exchange rate for US dollar figures, and while the UK figure is for 2006, the Thai figure is for 2007. Unless otherwise stated, the economic figures for the UK and Thailand are from the CIA World Factbook. Source for British figure is the CBC. Bangkok Pundit has the scoop on the Thai figures.
Photo:The Queen from this website.

Thailand gets a taste of its own medicine

The new Thai PM wanted to divert waters from the mighty Mekong to irrigate Thai crops. Needless to say, the downstream countries -- Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam -- were unhappy about this. Now experts warn that China's big hydroelectric dams on the Mekong may foil the Thai prime minister's plan. "They fear that the dams will lead to a reduction in the amount of water flowing downstream" writes the Bangkok Post.

Would it be so much better if no country messed with the Mekong?

New Thai Foreign Minister on Burma: our economic interests come before human rights

Noppadon Pattama, the new Foreign Minister of Thailand, has effectively declared that Thailand will not confront Burma regarding its human rights violations.* Yesterday, Pattama said:

In the past, we had constructive engagement and flexible engagement, but they never took us anywhere. . . Now, we will adopt another approach, neighbour engagement. We will talk to them in a friendly manner on subjects that they are comfortable with.

The policy of non-interference remains a sacrosanct principle, not only for Asean but also the international community.

But here's where it gets worse, or strange. I mean really strange. The Bangkok Post reports: "he would also talk about the Election Commission's experiences in organizing a constitutional referendum when he visits Burma in the second week of March. The junta has announced plans for a national referendum in May." **

Translation: Thailand will help Burma orchestrate its bogus constitutional referendum.** Now wouldn't that be ironic?

The new Thai government is the reincarnation of the government ousted by the military coup, and it was the coup-makers who put forward the referendum on a new constitution.**

It's unbelievable to think that this new democratically elected government of Thailand would offer to help Burma's junta to model their referendum on the referendum initiated by the previous military-backed Thai regime.

By his recent words concerning to Burma, the foreign minister betrays the very principles of democracy that the election of his government in December represented to Thai voters and the world at large.
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Note: Thailand's was Burma's top trading partner during 2006-07 with a bilateral trade volume of $2.66 billion. Thailand does twice as much trade with Burma as China. And the government of Burma claims to control over half of the country's trade (Myanmar Times, quoting Myanmar government sources).
* Bangkok Post: "Thailand has no choice but to put national economic interests before human rights concerns in dealing with Burma, Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama said yesterday."
I think it probable that the very idea for Burma to hold its proposed May referendum was inspired by the constitutional referendum held in Thailand by the Thai junta held in August 2007.
**Consider that the new Thai constitution passed by referendum was designed to produce weaker elected governments and puts greater authority in the hands of an unelected judiciary than the 1997 Constitution which it replaced. Recall that the Thai junta backed interim regime made it difficult -- illegal in some cases -- for people to campaign against the referendum on the new constitution. Moreover, the 1997 constitution the coup makers discarded had been a democratic one.

Deposed PM Thaksin returns to Thailand in 2 days

The pro-Thaksin website Hi Thakin has urged Thais to greet former Prime minister Thaksin at Suvanabhumi airport at 9 a.m. Thursday. The 2006 coup outsted Thaksin, and in December 2007 a Thaksin allied party, the PPP, formed a Thaksin-friendly coallition government. Thaksin feels the country is now in the hands of his friends.

Thaksin faces corruption charges. The IHT quotes the chief of Thaksin's legal defense team, Pichit Chuenban: "Thaksin will surrender to police when he arrives and seek his release on bail."

My initial thoughts about this:

• The new airport is not equipped to cope with large crowds greeting arrivals. Some foreign tourists are not going to think so highly of Thaksin on Thursday.
• For Thailand this event will be the equivellent of the late former Pakistani President Bhutto's return to Pakistan in late 2007. Let's hope it has a happier ending. (See this post)

UPDATE: I am live-blogging the return of Thaksin from the airport. Here.

How Obama refuses to dress silly

George Bush started the trend: American politicians running around with the US flag pinned to their lapel. Look at me, I am so patriotic.

I think it's perfectly OK to wear a lapel pin flag if you are attending your country's national day celebration, an astronaut, or under twelve years old.

Obama has the guts to refuse to wear a USA flag-pin. I can't help but respect him more for it. Obama said of his decision not to wear the flag:

You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest.

Good on ya Obama.

Photo: Canadian PM Harper is shown greeting French President Sarkozy. In the tradition of George W. Bush, Harper wears his country's flag pinned to his lapel. (h/t: Heart of Bitterness)

French President: Does this man think I do not know he represents Canada?

Hillary Clinton the populist?

According to a Washington Post story Hillary Clinton morphed into a populist politician over the weekend. Talking like a fighter, she said she is the candidate who will stand up for the little guy. But her husband supported NAFTA -- which is blamed for having driven well-paying blue collar jobs South. Obama is already calling her bluff.

I suspect people can only stay hyped up about Obamamania only for so long. Ralph Nader's entry into the race was refreshing to me. It was good to hear someone talking about some bold ideas.

I sense the pendulum may be about to swing back towards Hillary. I feel inclined to listen to her some more. Whether any shift in momentum goes far enough to do Hillary any good in Texas and Ohio remains an open question. But don't count her out just yet.

Why Hillary Clinton's campaign smells like rotten Apple

Announcing his candidacy, Ralph Nader said his campaign would be frugal; that there will be "None of this huge waste on political consultants who have really messed up Hillary Clinton's campaign." Flashback to the recent debate with Obama: Hillary Clinton repeated her charge that Obama had "plagarized" a portion of his speech. Do we care? Is Hillary running for vice-principle of the local high school? Who exactly is behind Hillary's lame campaign?

It seems that Hillary Clinton has accumulated over $10 million in bills -- both paid and unpaid -- to Penn, Schoen & Berland, the consulting firm of her main consultant Mark Penn. Of Burson-Marsteller is a subsidiary of WPP Group. Birnbaum writes in the Washington Post:

. . . Penn's parent company employs as lobbyists and advisers an ex-chairman of the Republican National Committee (Edward W. Gillespie), a former House GOP leader (Robert S. Walker), a top GOP fundraiser (Wayne L. Berman), and the former media adviser to President Bush (Mark McKinnon).

Regarding Hillary's choice of consultants, Birnbaum quotes Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a watchdog group: "This is a classic example of how big money has inextricably intertwined the campaign advising and lobbying worlds of modern-day Washington with potential conflicts of interest all over the place."

And to think these big money marketing consultants are not even very good at what they do!

Many years ago, the board of Apple Computer made the mistake of dumping Steve Jobs while retaining a man named Scully as CEO (Scully's previous claim to fame had been marketing Pepsi). The stock tanked and product deteriorated. Hillary's campaign reminds me of old Apple, before the return of Jobs. Hillary Clinton, like Steve Jobs, has effectively been pushed out of her own organization by a self-promoting marketeer. We saw something similar happen to Al Gore in 2000.

Will Hillary make a comeback?

Twelve Issues that distinguish Ralph Nader from Hillary and Obama

Ralph Nader has just announced his candidacy for the US presidency (see here). Nader says that the following twelve issues are "off the table" for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but top his own agenda:

1. Adopt single payer national health insurance
2. Cut the huge, bloated, wasteful military budget
3. No to nuclear power, solar energy first
4. Aggressive crackdown on corporate crime and corporate welfare
5. Open up the Presidential debates
6. Adopt a carbon pollution tax
7. Reverse U.S. policy in the Middle East
8. Impeach Bush/Cheney
9. Repeal the Taft-Hartley anti-union law
10. Adopt a Wall Street securities speculation tax
11. Put an end to ballot access obstructionism
12. Work to end corporate personhood*

Nader knows his issues. As a consumer advocate, he has an outstanding legislative track-record. In terms of "experience," proven leadership ability, and legislative achievements, no other candidate for running president is even in the same league as Nader.
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* What, you may be asking, is Nader's beef in #12 with "corporate personhood"? This -- one of the most important issues of out times -- is clearly explained by the award winning documentary, The Corporation: the pathological pursuit of profit and power (full length video here, Wikipedia article here, movie website here, Amazon book review here).

Ralph Nader has entered the US race

In an interview with Tim Russert on MSNBC (transcript here), legendary consumer advocate Ralph Nader -- who had been fervently opposed Clinton, hopeful about Obama, and warm to John Edward's aborted candidacy -- announced he will enter the ring, running for president as an Independent:

. . . you have to ask yourself, as a citizen, should we elaborate the issues that the two are not talking about? And the--all, all the candidates--McCain, Obama and Clinton--are against single payer health insurance, full Medicare for all. I'm for it, as well as millions of Americans and 59 percent of physicians in a forthcoming poll this April. People don't like Pentagon waste, a bloated military budget, all the reports in the press and in the GAO reports. A wasteful defense is a weak defense. It takes away taxpayer money that can go to the necessities of the American people. That's off the table to Obama and Clinton and McCain.

These are valid points. I blogged (here) about how I wish Obama would stand for more substantive "change," something bold. Nader's problem will be very much the problem that doomed Edwards' candidacy: the media will tend to ignore him, making it difficult for him to get his message across.
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Note: Ralph Nader for President website. I wrote more about Ralph Nader recently in this post.

Blogging from leg level

In case you missed it, I got something quite unexpected on video at the historic celebration in Bangkok in December of the 80th birthday of the King of Thailand. In case you missed it, I reposted the funny video at my travel blog, JOT AROUND THE WORLD.*

Memorials to a massacre that PM says didn't happen

At the monument to a massacre that Thailand's prime minister says did not happen, I approached two university students. I asked Tang -- the more outgoing of the pair -- why Prime Minister Samak’s denial of an event that happened 32 years ago still matters.

“Mothers, brothers, fathers of those who died care about this event.” He said, “We must care too. It represents the history of democracy in Thailand." He paused, and added, "It shows the power of people to protect democracy.”

“Are the students planning to do anything about it?” I asked Tang.

“The student council which meets at Thammasat Rangsit Center will collect names on a petition. Then we will go to parliament to present our petition to the the prime minister."

I asked Tang how he knew the history of the massacre. He said a professor had talked about the event in one of his classes. Then he added, "Actually, from the age of ten, I knew about this event. I was taught about it in school," said Tang, who grew up in Bangkok.

Tang told me "all the students at Thammasat" know about the massacre of October 6, 1976.

I asked Tang what he wanted Samak to do.

“I want Samak to speak fact, to speak truly” said Tang. “And I hope people in Thailand and around the world come to know the truth and fact of the event.”

* * * * *

At Thammasat University, new memorials have appeared, large poster-sized photographs of the campus massacre that Thai PM Samak says did not happen:



Photos: by Jotman. The caption (red) on the poster reads: "Only one person died?"

How some protesters survived the crackdown in Burma

I sat on the floor of a safe house on the Thai-Burma border interviewing U Pan Cher, a leader of the protests in Burma.

U Pan Cher had given many speeches to onlookers during the protests, but the aftermath of a speech he gave on the afternoon of September 26th still moved him. I saw that tears were forming in U Pan Cher’s eyes as he described the scene that followed.

U PAN CHER: I'm very sad. I really respect those people over seventy or eighty who joined together with us. I feel very bad. These people were of the age that we look after. They should be able to rest in their homes. But they came out to be with us, giving their lives for the country. . .

U PAN CHER: When we reached to Minigon Pagoda in Alon Township of Rangoon, I got worried about our security -- a lot of old people and also young students were with us by then. I asked some people if they could find some bicycles to go and check on the situation up in front, for our safety. A woman about 25 or 30 years of age who had been cooking food by the side of the street volunteered. Leaving her food stand, she took her own bicycle.

As far as I know, she was the first person to get shot.

(His eyes filled with tears again).

When we reached to Chiminai* thousands of monks came together with us. The abbots from some monasteries had not let their monks participate on the 25th, but on the 26th these monks joined the protest. When we reached to Chiminai, I gave the same speech as before under the flyover. After that the people from the bridge -- the flyover -- came to join.

People from an audience who had been watching the protest from the roadside came to join the protest march. People came out of their homes to join us, bring whatever they had -- knives, and so on. But I explained to them, "We are doing non-violent action. So please no shouting slogans, no violence. Even no clapping. We will only reciting the metta sutta.”

JOTMAN: What time did you give the speech under a pedestrian overpass?

U PAN CHER: 3:30pm on 26 September. Around forty to fifty thousand people stood on the street.

When we tried to reach the Chinese embassy we were blocked again and again. So we couldn't reach it. So I talked with the monks. I said if we continue down this way, we will get shot down again. Our goal was Sule Pagoda. And we had to try to find the easiest way to reach it. When we reached the main road, we were blocked both ways: from the front and the back. That was about 4:15pm. When we got blocked, we sat down. We did a sitting strike for twenty minutes.

So the situation was getting worse. The troop in front of us look arrogant and threatening. So that was the situation: Both sides -- the protesters and the soldiers -- were moving toward confrontation. Some of the monks really wanted to move forward, to face whatever approached us. But I tried to reduce their temper. I said, "If we go ahead then we will get killed." And so we began doing politics. And I said "we should find another way. To put ourselves in a better situation." So after this a lot of people, including monks -- a majority of monks -- accepted my idea.

I myself turned around and walked back down the street. The forces in front of us were armed heavily and overwhelming in number. USDA troops. But behind us there were fewer soldiers, and these looked less menacing than the ones in front. I decided I wanted to negotiate with the commander in the back. So I approached the regiment commander and we spoke. A couple of minutes of discussions and negotiations followed. And then he accepted my request. “OK, the monks can leave: two at a time.” And after that I continued negotiating with the commander to release the townsfolk as well. After the monks, the people began to leave also, two by two. I made one final request to the commander. I said, “Please don't continue arresting the people. Please refrain from violence against anyone.” And he accepted.

But two-thirds of the people had made it out, and the others, about 40-50,000 were blocked again -- immediately -- by the military. And they cracked down on these people. They shot in the air, they shoot into the group, they beat people, they used catapults. I myself was hit by a catapult on the lip. And I was beaten on my right rib cage by a stick. Then a lot of people urged me to leave. By those people's suggestion, I escaped the killing field. That was about 5:30 on the evening of September 26.
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Note: This is the fourth installment from my exclusive three-hour interview with U Pan Cher. To see all posted segments of our discussion, please click here. You may also be interested to read my other coverage of the Burma crisis, including interviews with escaped monks such as monks' protest leader Ashin Kovida.
* I'm not certain about the spelling of some Rangoon place names.

Obama's most important legistative accomplishment

Obama's most important legislative achievement concerns the issue that prompted my first jot at Jotman: nuclear proliferation. It's one of those issues that is not so high on the public agenda, though it ought to be. Anyway, it turns out that Obama co-sponsored "The Nuclear Non-proliferation and Conventional Weapons Threat Reduction Act." The Lugar-Obama bill as it is also known, eventually became law. Obama said at the time, "The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is the number one national security threat that confronts the United States today."

Lugar-Obama was partly about keeping shoulder-fire missile launchers out of terrorists' hands -- the fear being that someone will try to take out an airliner. I read somewhere that Obama has a knack for pushing solutions to little-known but important problems, many of which are not politically contentious. For example, Dick Lugar, this bill's co-sponsor is a Republican senator. Many pressing issues are like that I suppose; they are not so contentious, all they lack is a leader with the resolve to push them along.

More: Council on Foreign Relations, the candidates on nuclear non-proliferation

Hillary's campaign is top-down, Obama's is bottom-up

Only 10 percent of Clinton contributors did not donate the legal maximum $2,300 for her primary campaign. In contrast, only three percent of Obama donors gave the maximum. The rest of the cash came from small sums from many more people.

Source: Joe Trippi, a senior adviser to John Edwards, as quoted in the NY Times.

Is Barack Obama the Messiah?

Just in case you were wondering, there happens to be a blog devoted to answering the question. "Is Barack Obama the Messiah?" blog is complete with "conversion stories" and links to "heretics and unbelievers" websites. There are a number unusual photos like this one of Michelle Obama.

6 October 1976 and the real cover-up

Thai Prime minister Samak Sundaravej, in interviews with CNN and Al Jazeera last week, denied the occurrence of a bloody massacre on the campus of a Bangkok university in 1976.

There is more to this story than Samak's big mouth, the flash point of recent outrage.

The massacre was never investigated. Nobody of any importance was ever held to account for it. There are clues that it did not occur spontaneously, that it may have been premeditated. Some evidence suggest the massacre may have been state-sponsored.

Denial inveriably tends to have the opposite effect of a cover-up. And consider that this is what has happened in the wake of the prime minister's remark. Ten days after his denial, the newspapers are still talking about it. Democracy protest survivors of 1976 have climbed into the national spotlight. The newspaper Thai Rath recently called for an academic-led inquiry into the massacre. Thongchai Winichakul, a Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is not only spotlighting the actual death toll, he is now raising other more questions. Like, who was really behind the massacre?

• "Did anyone notice that the Border Patrol Police at 2am on October 6 started from Hua Hin and arrived at Thammasat at 6am?
  

• "A military officer with an important role in suppressing communists and who allowed for military officer close to him to coordinate with many groups. This person later became very big in government and outside of government." Some men now sitting on the Privy Council have careers that sound like that.
  

The effect -- the inevitable effect -- of the remarks of the Prime Minister has been to open a closed box labeled "1976."

This should come as no surprise, it always works this way. The press and civil society groups become animated in predicable ways when a leader denies a known fact; they view it as their task to spotlight any fact that a leader denies. Hence, the public denial of facts draws at least "equal and opposite" attention to the facts. So much so that we could speak of a "Law of Denial." The more a leader denies a known fact, the more attention gets drawn to the fact.

Which leads us to ask: Are we to believe that Samak -- a successful, media savvy politician -- is so ignorant of the Law of Denial? Perhaps he is making the most of his big-mouth reputation to further calculated political objective. "Was Samak being more cunning than I thought?" asked blogger Bangkok Pundit recently. He adds, "I am still not completely persuaded, but how things are playing out, it is becoming more plausible."

Who are Samak's enemies? Consider the basic political landscape in 2008. Samak's government promises to "undo" the 2006 coup which some say a member of the privy council, had instigated. In another post, Bangkok Pundit wrote: "His feud with Prem is long-standing and goes back since at least 1983, and one only needed to witness Samak's antics before the election to realize there is no love lost."

Some enemies of Samak -- men who may have helped to orchestrate the massacre of 6 October 1976 -- may stand more to lose by in any re-examination of the events of October 6 than Samak himself (who may or may not have been behind inflammatory radio broadcasts). And Samak may know his enemies to be may be more culpable than he. Samak may be willing to take a small hit, if it means his political opponents face a bigger hit.

The loud-mouthed denial of historical fact by a man with a reputation for shooting off his mouth could have several explanations, but effecting a cover-up of the massacre was almost certainly not one of them.

However, this is not to say no one else has been trying to cover-up of the massacre.

I saw no freshly cut flowers beside the monument to the 1976 massacre victims at Thammasat University last week. If young Thais know little of the massacre of 1976, don't blame them. The exclusion of the massacre from Thai history textbooks and from the school curriculum more generally points to a real cover-up; the censoring of TV documentaries about 1976 speaks to a cover-up; the absence of a monument to the dead students of Thammasat campus until 1996 also speaks to a cover-up.

Who was the real cover-up intended to protect?
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* Other questions were raised about 6 October 1976 in Paul Handley's lucid history of the Chakri Dynasty (which is banned in Thailand).
Photo: by Jotman. Shows 1976 memorial at Bangkok's Thammasat University, site of the massacre.
Note: this post was edited on 2/21 because it seemed too long.

George Bush Senior has endorsed John McCain

G.W. Bush's father has just endorsed John McCain in his bid for the US presidency. Bush Senior hails McCain's wartime experience and calls criticisms of McCain from the right wing of the Republican Party "grossly unfair." Some speculate this announcement might cause the fractured Republican Party to rally around the probable nominee. I would not count on that. Bush Senior lives too close to a place called "reality" to have much impact on those Republicans giving McCain a hard time today.
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BBC

The bravery of the women was inspiring

Concerning what Time Magazine called "the second biggest story of 2007," Jotman traveled to a safe house on the Thai-Burma border where he listened to the astonishing story of how a non-Buddhist -- an ordinary man -- become so deeply moved by the cause of Burma's monks that he himself became one of the protest leaders.

How did a Sikh named U Pan Cher come to lead his fellow Burmese in protest? Here is the segment of the interview where U Pan Cher answers this question.

JOTMAN: How did you arrive here in Thailand?

U PAN CHER: I participated in the September Movement from the beginning until the end. Because of this, the military government has been looking for me; I could not stay in Rangoon. Now that I am in Thailand, I want to inform the world about what has been happening in my country.

JOTMAN: Please tell me something about your background.

U PAN CHER: I was born in Burma and grew up in Burma. I am a businessman -- a car-broker. I don't belong to any political organizations.

Although I am Sikh, I admire Buddhism. It is also a part of my religious life. I was very shocked that the government had cracked down on the Pakkoku* monks. Not only me -- all the people of Burma experienced a burning saddness about the Pakkoku incident. At that time, around September 11, I heard that monks in Rangoon were going to protest the military regime. So I joined up with some monks I knew.

We had seen the violence against the monks. Also, there were the price hikes.** At that time the military government ignored every demand the people made.

As for my participation in the protests, nobody organized me, nobody motivated me. I participated by myself of my own free will.

You see, in the seven towns, the people came to the protests by their own decision. People dared, they bravely entered the protests. This fact made our protest very different from the military organized protests. Nobody lured me to participate. I had been joined up with the protest movement since September 12th.

Then I left my business, I left my family. In fact, I have had no contact with my family since then.

JOTMAN: Did you know other protest participants?

U PAN CHER: There were some other businessmen. I was participating openly from the 18th, and after the 19th and 20th I came across some friends at the protest. Actually, for me I didn't think I would end up participating at the forefront of the people. I was actually just thinking to support the monks.

But on the 13th and 14th I heard about Mi La Theyn. She left her new born baby to lead the protest. I heard this on the news -- the VOA/BBC Burmese news.

Another time I was in a teashop watching CNN. On CNN, a woman (Su Su Buri from the NLD) was struggling with a USDA plainclothes military agent. They tried to arrest her. It was a moving experience to witness her defiance.

These two women stood at the forefront of the peoples’ movement. These women had decided to lead. I thought hard about how these women had decided to take lead.

JOTMAN: What else were you thinking?

U PAN CHER: And I am thinking: These woman are bravely fighting for justice. And so I made a decision to do something for my people; to participate more openly and strongly together with the monks.

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Note: This is the third installment from my exclusive three-hour interview with U Pan Cher. To see all posted segments of our discussion, please click here. You may also be interested to read my other coverage of the Burma crisis, including interviews with escaped monks, and monks' protest leader Ashin Kovida.
* Pakkoku uprising. "On Sept 5, 2007 Burmese troops forcibly broke up a peaceful demonstration in Pakkoku and injured three monks. The next day, younger monks in Pakokku briefly took several government officials hostage in retaliation. They demanded an apology by the deadline of September 17, but the military refused to apologize. This sparked protests involving increasing numbers of monks in conjunction with the withdrawal of religious services for the military. Their role in the protests was significant due to the reverence paid to them by the civilian population and the military. After these events, protests began spreading across Myanmar." (Source: Wikipedia)
** Price hikes. "On August 15, 2007 the government removed subsidies on fuel causing a rapid and unannounced increase in prices. The government, which has a monopoly on fuel sales, raised prices from about $1.40 to $2.80 a gallon, and boosted the price of natural gas by about 500%. This increase in fuel prices led to an increase in food prices. " (Source: Wikipedia)

Pado Mahn Sha assassinated in Thailand

Pado Mahn Sha, the secretary general of the Karen National Union (KNU)* was assassinated at his home in Mae Sot by two unknown gunmen last week. "Mahn Sha was a Buddhist, one of the few to hold high rank among the mainly Christian KNU leadership," writes Shane Abrahams.

Abrahams is a blogger based in the border town of Mae Sot who has met Pado Mahn Sha. In a recent blog post he reflects on the life of the Karen leader:

Mahn Sha had a reputation within the democracy movement as a forward thinking leader. He was prepared to put aside the interests of the Karen for the good of the country as a whole.

I first met Mahn Sha a few years ago, and at the time he spoke of the need for the junta to begin meaningful dialogue with the country’s ethnic minorities and the opposition National League for Democracy.

He also stressed the need for unity among the opposition. He said: “Victory depends on our strength, both political strength and military strength and our organization.” “It depends on our alliance with other ethnic minorities and with the democratic movement.”

He was prepared to put aside the interests of the Karen for the good of the country as a whole. For the sake of all the people of Burma and its many ethnic groups, let us hope this ideal carries forth.
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Karen National Union: Members of the Karen ethnic group live mainly in Karen State, a state of Burma that stretches along the border with Thailand. During World War II, they were allied with the British against the Japanese (they had won control over most of Burma). Sadly, in the post-independence Burma, the Karen have become a divided and oppressed people. Whereas the mainly Christian KNU is at war with the Myanmar regime, a breakaway Buddhist Karen group, the DKBA (Democratic Karen Buddhist Army) is allied with Myanmar and a sworn enemy of the KNU. Today, along the border in Thailand, UN refugee camps overflow with Karen refugees fleeing Myanmar soldiers who have burn their villages and rice fields.

Is this the age of American unreason?

Susan Jacoby has written a timely new book entitled The Age of American Unreason. The NY Times reports:

. . . she first got the idea for this book back in 2001, on 9/11.

Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:

“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.

The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”

“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War," the first man replied.

At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.”

The book presents various frightening statistics. For instance, three years after the start of the Iraq war, only 23% of Americans "with some college education" could find Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel on a map. Another example: half of college-aged Americans surveyed do not think it's important to know where countries featured in the news are located on a map.

Personally, I hold the US news media largely responsible for this state of affairs. That's why the Fox News Awards are a regular feature at Jotman.

Three new reasons to support Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton

If Hillary Clinton runs the United States the way she has managed her recent election campaigns, the country may be headed for big trouble. I found this conclusion almost inescapable after reading an account of the Hillary Clinton campaign by Josh Green.

1. Hillary Clinton burned through $30 million in her election bid for the US Senate "even though Hillary Clinton faced no serious opponent." Donors' money ought to have been saved-up towards the financing of her presidential bid. Instead it was wasted.

2. "Toward the end of the Senate campaign," writes Green, Hillary's campaign manager, Solis Doyle, spread the word "that Clinton’s Senate reelection fund-raising had gone so exceptionally well that $40 million to $50 million would be left after Election Day to transfer to the incipient presidential campaign. But this turned out to be a wild exaggeration—and Solis Doyle must have known it was. Disclosure filings revealed a paltry $10 million in cash on hand" First, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager Solis Doyle wasted donors' money; second, Doyle appears to have misled people about the campaign's finances. Surely Doyle ought to have been fired then and there.

3. Nevertheless, Hillary Clinton began her presidential campaign with a whopping $175 million banked. As Green wrote, this "should have been enough to fund a formidable campaign, even one that dragged on as long as this one has." But the Hillary Clinton campaign has now run out of money. What's more, Hillary Clinton apparently did not know she was just about to run out of money until it was just about to happen. According the the Baltimore Sun, Solis Doyle "did not tell Clinton that there was next to no cash on hand until after the New Hampshire primary." In emergency-mode last week, Hillary lent the campaign $5 million -- without telling her campaign manager, who found out about the loan third-hand.

Hillary's campaign manager Solice Doyle was finally fired this week. But what took Hillary Clinton so long to let her go? Green writes: "above all, Clinton prizes loyalty and discipline, and Solis Doyle demonstrated both traits, if little else. This suggests to me that for all the emphasis Clinton has placed on executive leadership in this campaign, her own approach is a lot closer to the current president’s than her supporters might like to admit."

Certainly, just about the last thing the United States needs is another personal-loyalties-before-country chief executive.

Note: See my post, 10 Reasons to support Obama over Hillary.

One question for Thai prime minister Samak Sundaravej

On the 5th October the Tank Corps Radio station called for a mobilisation of right-wing forces to “deal with” the students. Announcers urged people over the radio to “kill.. kill... kill” students

wrote Prof. Ji Giles Ungpakorn in an essay. A massacre on the campus of Thammasat University -- in which dozens, perhaps hundreds of students were killed -- followed the next morning.

Sounds like something out of Rwanda. But that was Thailand in 1976. Two weeks ago, a popular announcer at a military radio station back in 1976 was sworn in as prime minister of Thailand. His name is Samak Sundaravej. And last weekend, in interviews with CNN and Al Jazeera, the new Thai prime minister emphatically declared the massacre at Thammasat did not happen. A recent news report* on Samak states:

As Thailand's interior minister in the 1970s, the ran a wildly popular anti-communist radio show. In 1976, his show helped convince an angry mob to storm a student protest in which dozens of activists were burned to death. Samak claimed the massacre was the work of Vietnamese communists. His evidence? There were burned dog corpses among those of the students. The Vietnamese, he claimed, liked to eat dog. He was also quoted at the time as having said that "it's no sin to kill communists.

It seems that at one time Samak was telling a fanciful tale about the massacre, and now he denies that the event occurred. It not necessary for a person to have been at the scene of the massacre for him to be culpable for what transpired. Although Samak was not interior minister at the time of the massacre, the question remains: Did or did not the prime minister of Thailand run a radio show that helped to incite the massacre of 1976?
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* Asia News Weekly, Vol. 2, Issue 5.
Note: See my previous posts on Samak's big lie -- here and here. Giles Ji Ungpakorn's "Marxist political writings about Thailand" text repository is here.

"Thais dare not ask this question to me. . ."

I am live-blogging from Thammsat University in Bangkok, the site of the massacre of 6 October 1976 where students were hunted down and murdered by right-wing militia groups. This weekend, interviewed on CNN and Al Jazeera, Samak Sundaravej, Thailand's new prime minister, flatly denied the occurrence of the horrors.

On this campus in a garden a monument stands to the fallen students. Here I will set the Thai prime minister's own words against the red stone of the monument.

The following is from a transcript of the CNN interview published in Monday's Bangkok Post (video here).

CNN: Would you like to take the opportunity now to condemn what happened in 1976?
SAMAK: Actually it’s a movement of some students. They don’t like the government.
CNN: But dozens of people, maybe hundreds of people died.
SAMAK: No, just only one died. There are 3,000 students in the Thammsat University.
CNN: The official death toll was 46, and many people say it was much higher than that.
SAMAK: No. For me, no deaths, one unlucky guy being beaten and being burned in Sanam Luang. Only one guy by that day.
CNN: So there was no massacre?
SAMAK: No not at all, but taking pictures, 3000 students, boys and girls lined up, they say that is the death toll. 3,000.

On the weekend, Samak was also interviewed by Al Jazeera (video here), and in that interview Samak elaborated on the same lie. A complete transcript of the interview* is available courtesy of blogger Awzar Thi of "Rule of Lords" blog. Here is an excerpt from the Al Jazeera interview:

AL JAZEERA: Ok. I’d like to go back to 1976 and the Thammasat University protests, where hundreds of students were beaten, shot, lynched and burned. Historians…
SAMAK: Yeah, where did you get that report?
AL JAZEERA: Historians suggest that you on your radio programme urged mobs of people to turn out and attack the students…
SAMAK: How old are you at that time?
(Pause)
SAMAK: How old are you?
Let me refer to…
SAMAK: Do you born yet?
Do you deny that…
SAMAK: I haven’t got any concern. They write some dirty history to me. I brought the case to the court, so many of them, all time to time. The three incident of that time, only one guy died in Sanam Luang, because somebody beat them and burn them by the… by the… by the… by the wire, uh, by the… by the… by the tire. And this only one. Three thousand student is in the Thammasat University. So they were caught there, and then the military would like to bring them out. So they take the shirt, and like this, like that, uh, like the, bring the shirt and put it on [gesturing to tie hands behind back with opened shirt]. Three thousand lying on the ground of Thammasat University football field. So that they bring all the truck to bring them, put in the shirt and put them on, and then going to let them out to the barrack. Then the only way not to let the people being harmed. Three thousand of them. And then they going out there and so many afraid they fled into the jungle, so many go back home. And then, nobody die in Thammasat University. And the student try to go to the barrack… [?] just to bring the… Nobody die, not…
AL JAZEERA: Well with all due respect, historians refer to it as one of the worst atrocities in Thailand’s history.
SAMAK: That is a dirty history. Somebody did it. Somebody write something dirty like that.
AL JAZEERA: Well with all due respect, I’ve actually watched the footage…
SAMAK: What the footage?
AL JAZEERA: Of that incident…
SAMAK: The killing?
AL JAZEERA: Yes, I have seen…
SAMAK: It’s impossible.
AL JAZEERA: I have seen people being beaten…
SAMAK: Yes, true, in Sanam Luang, yes.
AL JAZEERA: …their limp bodies on the ground…
SAMAK: Yes, that’s true, that is one guy.
AL JAZEERA: You’re saying one…
SAMAK: Yes.
AL JAZEERA: Human rights groups would suggest it was dozens of students, possibly in the hundreds.
SAMAK: For me, eh, for me, eh, if I am dirty, I am concerned with many thing, I cannot come this far. This dirty history always come. I just have a, a lady like you come from far away, asking this question. Even the Thai, they dare not ask this question to me. . .

Even the Thai, they dare not ask this question to me. Well, I think I will ask it then. See my next post.

Photos: by Jotman. The monument to the October 6 movement depicts "a dam across the current of history." The surface of the structure is inscribed with the date Oct 6, 2519 (the year 1976 in the Buddhist calendar in Thai script). Inlaid are sculptures of students who were killed during the massacre.
Note: See my previous post, Thailand's creepy new prime minister.
* Via New Mandala.

Thailand's creepy new prime minister

We already knew Thailand's new prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, to be a creepy character. When asked a question by a female news reporter, he responded with a question about whether she had had "wild sex" the night before.

But until this week, the outside world did not suspect Samak was this creepy: in an interview with CNN, Prime Minister Samak outright denied that the single most outrageous crime in modern Thai history, the 6 October massacre at Thammasat University (referred to as Hok Tulaa in Thai) ever even happened. As one scholar observed, "Hok Tulaa is the axis on which an entire 10 to 15 year piece of history turns; one can not hope to understand the political changes of the 1980's without at least a cursory understanding of Hok Tulaa."*

Therefore, Samak's denial is a big deal. Moreover, what happen 32 years ago on the campus of Thailand's most prestigious university is matter of historical record (see photo, above). By nighttime on 5 October 1976, 4000 rightist paramilitary groups were gathered at the gates of Thammasat University. Here is a widely accepted account of what happened next:

In the dawn of 6 October 1976, the rightists began to fire into the University campus using military weapons. Although the students pleaded for a ceasefire, the then police chief authorized a free fire on the University and the paramilitary groups stormed in. Students who were surrendering were forced to lie on the ground only to be beaten, some to death. Others were shot or hung and their bodies set ablaze. Those attempting to escape the University by jumping into the Chao Phraya River were also shot. . .

Officially, 46 people died in the crackdown, though the actual death toll was probably much higher. A Wednesday editorial published in the Bangkok Post gets straight to the point:

Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej should be ashamed for declaring to the world in an interview with CNN over the weekend, that only one person died in the 1976 massacre of anti-dictatorship protesters at Thammasat University. . .

With his blatantly inaccurate statements to a worldwide audience, Mr Samak has shown disrespect to everyone who has fought for democracy in this country . . .

It is one thing to have taken part in moves to quell pro-democracy protests in the past, it is another trying to deny not just one's involvement but the entire event. What Mr Samak was doing in this interview goes beyond the pale, and even calls into question his ability to govern the country. Not only is Mr Samak not condemning the events or expressing the faintest bit of regret, he is denying that the crime perpetrated by the state against its own citizens ever took place. This is frightening. It runs contrary to photographic evidence that clearly shows dozens of students lying dead on university grounds. For any Thai citizen to give such an answer to an international audience that runs contrary to very clear evidence is disgraceful, but for the prime minister to do so is downright shocking.

Many Thais don't know the full extent of what happened in October 1976 as the brutal incident has been whitewashed in many history books. Mr Samak, however, knows well what went on because he played a key role in whipping up anti-Communist sentiment that played a key role in the events that led to the lynching and killing.

So what was Samak doing on 6 October 1976? To gather some clues, I consulted the Wikipedia biography of Samak Sundaravej:

On October 5, 1976 Samak was removed from his ministerial position, and in reaction organised an anti-government demonstration calling for the removal of three young liberal Democrat ministers who he branded as being "communists". On the evening of the massacre on October 6 he headed a lynch mob which confronted Prime Minister Seni in front of Government House.

No mention above of what Samak was doing in the morning of October 6, 1976. The Wikipedia entry continues:

Following the coup of October 6, 1976, Samak became Minister of the Interior . . . Samak immediately launched a fanatical witch-hunt which saw hundreds of supposed leftists, many of whom were writers and other intellectuals, arrested.

Samak Sundaravej played an important leadership role in the right-wing politics in the 1970s, yet he denies the most significant event of the times, the massacre at Thammasat University. This begs the question: Is the new prime mister of Thailand merely a creepy man, or something far worse?

Surely, for a democratically elected prime minister of Thailand to deny Hok Tulaa is to reject a cornerstone event in the evolution of Thai democracy. Prime Minister Samak denies a tragedy which consecrated in blood the democratic aspirations of the Thai people; the very principles on which which his office and his government stand. The words Samak spoke to CNN are analogous to an Israeli Prime Minister denying that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust; or a US president rejecting the sacrifices made by American revolutionaries or the soldiers of the Civil War. At least one wishes such comparisons would hold true -- for Thailand's sake.
_______
*Bryce Beemer, Explorations in Southeast Asian Studies.
Photo: Wikipedia. The photo shows massacred student protesters. The Prime Minister of Thailand denies this crime ever took place.
1st Update: Back in August, Bangkok Pundit investigated the question of Samak's personal involvement in the massacre of October 6, 1976. His findings were inconclusive.
2nd Update: I have a second post on this incident.

Why Hillary Clinton must win the purple state of Ohio

Barack Obama has overtaken Hillary Clinton as the most probable nominee of the Democratic Party to run for the US presidency in the November 2008 election. But probable does not mean inevitable.

After Hillary Clinton's losses to Obama on Tuesday in Maryland, DC, and Virginia, a consensus emerges that Hillary Clinton must win Ohio and Texas on March 4. But the real question for Democrats in early March won't be who won Texas: the do-or-die state for Hillary's candidacy is Ohio.

Ohio votes neither Democtatic (Blue) nor Republican (Red) in federal elections with any consistency. It is an unpredictable "swing state" or "purple state." It's the state that gave George W. Bush the presidency in 2004.* Other purple states include Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana.

Red states almost always go to Republicans, blue to Democrats. If a presidential candidate shows he or she can win purple states, it puts him or her in good stead to win the election. The US presidency is not awarded to the candidate who gets the majority of the popular vote overall, it goes to whoever wins the most states' delegates.** And in most states, winning a majority of the popular vote wins you all of that states' delegates (Big states have more delegates than small states). The delegates meet after the election in something called "the Electoral College" to formally tally up the count.

And if Hillary does not win Ohio, her chances of winning a general election look slimmer. That's a fact no Democrat will be able to deny, and Barack Obama will appear the more electable candidate. If Hillary should lose Ohio, the nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic Party candidate for president will be almost inevitable.
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* The Republican Party of George W. Bush may well have stolen the election of 2004 by rigging the vote in Ohio. But the potential for vote rigging aside, Ohio can -- in theory -- go either way.
** In 2000, Gore got more votes than Bush. Gore won the popular vote but lost in the delegate count. That's because the vote was close in Florida and the US Supreme Court intervened, awarding the purple state of Florida to Bush. It has been proven that Gore actually won Florida in 2000, but in this Republican Party controlled state -- Florida's governor is the presidents' brother -- the names of many Democratic-leaning voters were taken off the voters lists.

Obama video parody featuring John McCain

Here is a funny parody of the "Yes we Can" Obama music video -- a clip viewed millions of times last week on Youtube. It guess someone thought it was only fair to do one for McCain.

From overseas, a plea to US voters: Give us boring!

A Jotman reader writes from Hong Kong:

It's a pity indeed that Edwards is out. After these several years of negative publicity coupled with economic mismanagement, for the sake of international image, I'd say the US should show the world someone who could restore the country's reputation at home and overseas. I mean the world needs someone who could just simply be a decent guy, not necessarily heading a revolutionary turnaround, or declaring another crusade against something imaginary. In other words, we foreigners would want to see a Gerald Ford or a Jimmy Carter. . .

Obama winning or another Clinton, or even McCain (hope not!) would be way "too American" even for America. These folks seem to enjoy the limelight too much, which to me inevitably casts suspicion.

As flames consume national treasure, the firemen bow to a suit

It seems firemen just stood there, taking orders from some guy in a suit while Korea's greatest national treasure, a six hundred year-old monument in Seoul, burned to the ground Sunday.* Money quote:

Officials from Korea's Cultural Heritage Administration had told firemen to proceed cautiously, meaning they could not immediately break into the area where the fire started, according to local media.

And it's not as if the country had no warning of the potential for this kind of catastrophe:

The blaze comes less than three years after fire destroyed one of the country's oldest Buddhist temples, Naksan temple, along with its prized bronze bell.

Prior to that, throughout the 80s and 90s, Korean Air Lines' passenger planes routinely fell out of the skies. It seems that on the flight deck of the blacklisted national carrier, junior officers were reluctant to share information that contradicted the ideas of senior officers.

You would think the country would have learned something from all this. But to this day, no sooner does trouble confront South Korea than it gets pinned on the Japanese or the Americans. If people are not encouraged to acknowledge mistakes, how can they learn from them? The South Korean education system continues to reward memorization and deference to authority. In corridors of power, the opinions of too many young people and women go unheard. And when smoke fills the air, the fireman bows to the suit.

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*Seoul's Namdaemun (Great South Gate) is no more. It's official name was Sungnyemun (Gate of Exalted Ceremonies) . From Wikipedia: "The construction of this gate began in 1395 during the fourth year of the reign of King Taejo of Joseon and was finished in 1398. The remaining structure went through renovation during the reign of King Sejong (1447) and the tenth year of the reign of King Seongjong (1479)."
Photo: Wikipedia.

Biofuels actually contribute to global warming

Money quote from the Times:

Together the two studies offer sweeping conclusions: It does not matter if it is rain forest or scrubland that is cleared, the greenhouse gas contribution is significant. More important, they discovered that, taken globally, the production of almost all biofuels resulted, directly or indirectly, intentionally or not, in new lands being cleared, either for food or fuel.

The findings of these studies come as no surprise to observers of Indonesia. The Indonesians have been burning whole forests to clear land for palm trees for biodiesel. Every October, people across the straights in Singapore and Malaysia choke from all the smoke.

Food prices worldwide have been rising sharply, and the poorest have been hardest hit. The trend is partly a consequence of the fact food crops face competition for land from biofuel crops like palm oil or corn. Biofuel is bad news in more ways than one.

What Barack Obama could learn from Ronald Reagan

A magnificent orator, Barack Obama evokes memories of Ronald Reagan. But a comparison of Obama to Reagan points to a difference between their campaigns. As a candidate in 1980, Ronald Reagan was not only understood to be a "great communicator" promising "Morning in America."

Reagan also displayed strong convictions; revolutionary ideas. In 1980, Ronald Reagan declared: Down with big government! And concerning foreign policy he said: America ought to negotiate with the Soviets from a position of strength. Reagan had unambiguous policy objectives. Moreover, his straightforward ideas were highly contentious. Saying controversial things with a sense of conviction made Reagan appear brave.

By contrast, Barack Obama's message is all "Morning in America." The Obama campaign reflects the sunny side of Reagan, not the underdog fighter side. With respect to Obama, it is hard to detect anything concrete about a message that amounts to little more than the hopeful promise of change. I happen to believe Obama is a man of principle. But I am left wondering what his principles stand for in terms of substantive policies. In 1980 Ronald Reagan spelled this out for Americans and the world.

Obama -- assuming he wins his party's nomination -- will be pitted against a man with a clear message: McCain -- McCain who is winning the Republican Party nomination because his main opponent, Romney, was perceived not to stand for anything. At least when you see McCain's strange website, you know McCain has convictions. McCain's campaign shouts: America is at war with terrorists and so must elect a warrior to lead the country in battle -- and do some good societal things on the side.

And if Barack Obama becomes the Democratic nominee, in November there remains a strong likelihood that Americans will pick McCain as their leader. Because John McCain clearly stands for something.

On the other hand, if Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee, in a match-up with McCain at least Hillary Clinton will be able to say: "I'm every bit as competent as McCain. And I am better than McCain because I have a plan to end the war in Iraq and the knowledge to keep American safe." Hillary is not vulnerable on the basic question of competence or whether she and Bill can protect the American people.

To date, Obama's inspiring speeches have attracted many educated Democrats with high-level aspirations. Obama's present approach might win him a general election in Sweden or Canada. But in the US, a presidential candidate must address the safety issue before he or she can successfully appeal to people's dreams and higher aspirations. Despite the "land of the free" rhetoric, America is a country where many people subsist near the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid. Many Americans are not at the "self-actualization stage." The demographics of the US do not mirror the profile of the enthusiastic early Obama supporter.

Unless Obama learns from Ronald Reagan's successful bid for the White House, McCain's campaign is liable turn the rhetoric of the Obama candidacy against Obama. McCain's people will bombard US voters with variations of these lines:

Hope won't keep America safe. Vote McCain.
Hope won't save your job. Vote McCain.

However, McCain cannot use these devastating slogans against Hillary Clinton. She is not vulnerable to the charge that she offers hope of change without substance.

Barack Obama might yet be the Democrats' ticket to the presidency in 2008. But first Obama needs to show he is brave enough to present his priorities clearly with conviction. I long to hear some bold ideas worthy of the rhetoric.

I want to hear Obama say he will make America safe. Safe from corporate predators. Safe from inept bankers, media conglomerates, drug and insurance companies, big oil, and the shady dealings of military contractors. What if Obama redefined national security?

Because Barack Obama's present approach won't cut it. He is unlikely to win if he is perceived both lacking in conviction and short on competence. Obama can't do much about the second, but now is the time for him to shore up the first. Twenty-eight years ago a former actor made up by way of sheer audacity what he lacked in terms of knowledge and experience. It's a lesson for Barack Obama.

US election candidate with the best website

A Jotman reader, displeased with a recent post, pointed out that Obama has the best website. "Hillary's website is crap," noted the reader. He also pointed me to a NY Times article which make the case that Obama is a "Mac," and Hillary a "PC" -- at least in their online presence.

There's something to be said for the analogy. Obama's website has the gloss-candy feel that has become an Apple trademark. HillaryClinton.com has a homemade feel to it; the look you get when your software engineers is charged with graphic design. Personally, Obama's webite reminds me not so much of a Mac, but of a drug company website. Soft and fuzzy, soothing, no hard edges anywhere. Easy to swallow. Incidentally, this illustrates the problem I have been having with Obama's message: it seems to be about feeling good again. Kinda like . . . a drug commercial.

You wouldn't think John McCain's website is for the same election as Obama's. The visitor is confronted with dark gray pages lined with military stars. The website looks like War on Terror Central Command. It has a menacing feel, as if the candidate is truly a soldier for the Dark Side.

The prospect of a galactic showdown between the forces of light and the darkness is almost enough to make me hope Obama makes it to be the Democratic nominee.

US Campaign Resources:

Voices without Votes is a new site launched by Global Voices. It was a brilliant idea: this website is a chance for the rest of the world to express their opinions on an election that matters to everybody, but which most unfairly, only a few get to vote.

Techpresident.com presents presidential race from the perspective of technology. They initially give both Obama and John Edwards the high marks for running technology savvy campaigns.