Pervert CNN

Agreed that it is not the sole responsibility of CNN to be a sensible media in today’s super shallow world. But the way CNN is handing the news about one Mr. John Karr, it is obvious that the network thinks news about this person is far more important to the welfare of America.

Terry Savage writes in TheStreet.com about this pathetic state. (http://www.thestreet.com/_dm/markets/economics/10305903.html) She talks about the scary state of Uncle Sam’s finances in her article and she is right when writes:

“… our huge and growing financial disaster doesn't stand much chance of gaining attention, especially in a world dominated by reality television shows and news headlines about perverts. When more people take the time to vote for dancing partners or dubious singing talent than vote for the president or their own congressional representatives, then we have only ourselves to blame.

Or we could say that we are setting ourselves up for the blame that our children will heap on us for being the first generation to leave this country worse off than we found it.”

And mind well, this is from a web site which is generally focused on talking how to make money without being partisan. Really the kind of mindless, shameless and incessant publicity CNN and likes of CNN are giving to this news item of one Mr. Karr; one wonders what kind of responsible journalism an established company like Time Warner wants to do. None, Time Warner is equally duping Americans by broadcasting such lousy news at the cost of real important issues of America. It is like Pavlovian condition – whenever there is rape and murder, CNN will keep aside everything and will keep on talking about that 24 x 7. CNN has become as pervert as like Mr. Karr.

Umesh Patil
San Jose, CA 95111
August 27, 2006.

Old Line Media, Internet and Politics

New York Times publishes an interesting article about a leading newspaper company Knight Ridder (KR) and it’s down fall.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/business/yourmoney/27knight.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=business&pagewanted=all)

I have been reading KR’s front line newspaper San Jose Mercury News for last 8 years and have kind of seen the transformation, mostly the downward spiral. KR had been an old media company with solid financial footing, good circulation, excellent journalism (85 Pulitzer Prizes) and quite a good technological adoption in early stages. I worked with few of their SW Technologist and it had been great experience – their skill set had been advanced one. All in all a good newspaper company with hardly any reason to think that it would face any business crisis.

But KR faced the crisis of Internet, succumbed to it and was finally bought by private investors. In some respect it got dismantled since some newspapers of the group were sold to different buyers. In a nutshell, the company simply vanished in a short period. The article in NYT maintains that primarily KR listened to the Wall Street advice of getting profitable and it got caught in that game. Basically newspaper business in America is mature and Wall Street expects certain return on equity. With challenges coming from Internet, there is no way these old media company can make that kind of money in today’s world and fall of KR is the classic example of that. As some investment bankers point, in today’s world there is no place for these media companies to be as a publicly traded company; they may need to be private companies. In other words the traditional business model is simply not viable.

This much is now well understand – in mature markets of America (and may be Europe, Japan and S. Korea) – traditional style newspapers are dead unless they change. Economist in latest issue laments that not many newspapers are changing rapidly to address this challenge.

(http://economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7827135)

New York Times itself is making some efforts in this direction but does not seem to be out of the woods. Washington Post seems to be doing reasonable. That bastion of Market Capitalism – Wall Street Journal – is also facing the blues and not doing that well.

Will this have any impact on what news and analysis is generated? Surely it will in the sense that money and resources behind investigative journalism will lag. But that effect is yet to manifest. So far in the early days of Internet news, we see more variety, more diversity and attempts by established media companies to explore new business models. No new business model has been fully established and the game is still open.

Beyond the business aspect, needless to say it is having impact on politics too since media plays such a critical role. But there is a feeling that it will be more of change in the style (as how TV changed American Politics – ask Joe Klien of Time and he will reply that that has been a negative impact) instead of wholesale change in the way politics is conducted. So far bitter partisan rancor amplification on Internet is the first observation. One Lamont victor in CT Senate Race due to Netroots of Democrats is one visible and easily identifiable impact. But it is hard to believe that the media change in that regard is the core issue. Medium has changed no doubt and it is bringing many other people into the discourse who otherwise did not participate as Al Gore points in England.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060827/ennew_afp/afpentertainmentbritain_060827194835)

Also the new medium is helping in raising more money. Whether in itself these things will change the entire politics, it is not clear. Without the ‘substance or ideas’ politics is unlikely to change.


Umesh Patil
San Jose, CA 95111
August 27, 2006.

Undemocratic Democrats

It is quite well known that American election system has quite few drawbacks. America gets a President who may have less number of popular votes than the defeated candidate. The proof requirements of voter eligibility are not uniform across the states. Absentee ballot rules are different in different states. More important, actual ballots and vote counting procedures are different and not uniform. Some states use electronic voting with printed receipts whereas other still continue with punch cards. All in all it is a disgrace system, far inferior to many other nations.

It is expected that Democrats would fight for making American election process transparent, precise and uniform. There have been some movement in this regard and Sen. Kerry with other Democrats did put this issue on their agenda. But still it is a long, long way to go. While the work has barely started in this regard, Democrats are engaged in divisive and counter productive debate as far as how their primary calendar goes and how the presidential selection process would work for 2008. It is expected that Democrats set the example for the national election by way of adopting a smooth primary election process. Looks like that is not happening.

The changes proposed by DNC are over due – bringing Nevada between Iowa caucuses New Hampshire and South Carolina primary following New Hampshire. The idea is Democratic primary process is not hostage to two small states with much less demographic representation of voters.

The sad part is DNC has to propose punitive measures for candidates who campaign in states who do not want to adhere to this new calendar. New Hampshire is the recalcitrant state here and potential candidates like Sen. Kerry, Sen. Bayh and Edwards want to play dirty. It is a shameless act that New Hampshire wants to take the democratic process hostage and wants to carry the impression that they are the only ones who are vanguard of political debate in American elections. It is as if voters in states like California do not matter even if they contribute lot to American political process, both in terms money and time. Just because some state joined Union earlier does not mean it should make the entire democratic process beholden to it. It is amazing to read the kind of arrogance carried by state officials of these two states – New Hampshire and Iowa. It is the same kind of attitude where people want to perpetuate historical advantages at the cost of others. What is sad is potential progressive candidates like Sen. Kerry, Edwards and Sen. Bayh should be party to such undemocratic and oppressive procedures. It is better DNC and the Democrats Party get out of such unrepresentative process as early as possible.

Umesh Patil
San Jose, CA 95111
August 20, 2006.

The Battle Israel Did not Win

It is the fight to death before the UN sponsored cease fire agreement takes place in next few hours. May be Israel is able to salvage some prestige during these hours. But is clear, as feared earlier on this blog at the start of this battle (http://21stcenturypolitics.blogspot.com/2006/07/israels-new-war.html), that Israel does not have enough strength to take on Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran all together. It seems that has come true – Israel could not win this battle against Hezbollah and now has to accept the UN meditation without fulfilling her goals.

Getting two kidnapped soldiers back has been one of the stated goals. But the real aim for Israel has been to diminish substantially Hezbollah as a military force, to address the root cause of rockets fired on Israel from North and to create a divide between Lebanese Polity and Hezbollah. Out of these three goals, it is not clear if anything is attained with clarity. That in itself is sufficient to label this Israel campaign as a failure. The only solace Israel can draw is by paying some high cost some damage is done to Hezbollah and Israel has now clear read in terms of militarily what they need to do in future when a battle erupts again with Hezbollah. It is for sure that there will be fight for another day since neither Israel has attained her goals nor Hezbollah want to live Israel in any peace. In a way, it has been aimless war for Hezbollah tactically while the strategic goal of getting further backing in Arab Street is succeeding. If not to the extent Israel expects, but Lebanese public is bound to think about what this battle brought to them? Nothing apart from misery. The battle will surely erupt again in future because it is very difficult for the International Force to wield any real power to stop any mischief by Hezbollah and it is suspicious how much Lebanese Army will be able to disarm Hezbollah. So we are only at a temporary halt.

There will be domestic political repercussions in Israel. ‘Bibi’ will roar back and political life will be much more difficult to Olmert than what it was before the battle. As far as America goes, she gets a breather to go back to the Iraq mess while reminding what her Middle East Policy needs to attain eventually – resolution of Israel Palestine conflict and containment of Hezbollah and Iran.

Umesh Patil
San Jose, CA 95111
August 13, 2006.

Iraq War Mess and Beyond

First we got Joe Klein in Time writing that America’s Iraq campaign is in free fall. Then during the Senate testimonies General Pace uses Tom Friedman’s description – ‘Iraqi sects hate each other more than they love their children’. After the testimony Sen. Clinton asks President to accept Sec. Remusfeld’s resignation. Friedman himself makes his column space available exclusively for the ‘Plan B’. So the sense of ‘lost campaign’ is palpable in Congress, in Washington and in America. Looks like finally America is coming to terms that essentially Iraq war is lost, if not militarily but politically sure. In Newsweek Eleanor Clifts summarizes the predicament of America – in the hard and rock place. But the top in these commentaries was NYT editorial – ‘A Timetable Isn’t an Exit Strategy’; blasting, rightly so, the Kerry line of Democratic party. All in all America is essentially preparing for the loss and to start the long and painful process of internalizing yet another foreign policy failure. One can say spectacular failure with devastating consequences.

At the outset, it should be said that President Bush and his cohort will not change their policy of ‘stay the course’ and ‘spin the war’. Wall Street Journal types and Financial Times still prescribe that theory. NYT is right in characterizing that if possible for all 29 remaining months, President Bush will pretend that everything is on track in the Iraq campaign, nothing needs to be changed and then President Bush with VP Cheney will give this problem as a gift to the next administration. This means in the calculus of ‘facing the tragic Iraq campaign’ America can not assume honest participation by her President. On the other hand he and his supporters will be a hindrance in addressing the true challenges on hand. This makes the task quite difficult to the Congress, Media and those in America Public who want to start solving this Iraq mess. But that is how it is - America unfortunately has a President whose political interests are not aligned with what is best for America.

To recap, here are the failures of President Bush’s Iraq campaign:
1. Once WMD reason fell on the face, President Bush, VP Cheney and Rice have been relentlessly selling the main goal of Iraq campaign as ‘bringing democracy in Iraq’ and that Democracy in Arab world is the panacea of America’s long term security from Terrorism.
2. Sec. Reumsfled tried to win this war on cheap and never provided any realistic resources to contain centrifugal forces from the start.
3. President Bush tried to sell a theory that Iraq campaign for bringing Democracy and Lebanese elections will help solve the Israel Palestine conflict. In other words it is okay to ignore the centrality of this dispute, concentrate on Democracy in Iraq, help spread it in greater Middle East and then everything will be fine.

Reality of last 3 years in Iraq and the current Israel – Hamas & Hezbollag conflicts refute President Bush’s theories’ conclusively.

Iraq war is lost and America needs to change the direction – give up dieing of American soldiers and spending of America tax dollars for the sake of Democratic Government in Iraq. Enough has been spent. How about bothering to spend these American resources for America’s security now?

This means the focus cannot be on whether Iraq stays as a single country, but on what can America buy at lesser cost. This means to fully understand the central enemy in Middle East – Iran. So if division of Iraq is unavoidable, so be the case then. Kursdistan will be not any threat to America’s security. The key is to reposition America’s already existing forces in Iraq to align along the Iran border so that Shiite regime in Iraqi South does not completely assimilate with Iran. The goal should be to keep Iraqi Southern Shiite regime as much away from Iran as possible.

The real problem in division of Iraq will be Sunni Anbar and Baghdad. It can not sustain itself as a state for a long long time. This is where the first crucial involvement of Saudi’s is needed. America will need to work with Sunni regional partners of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to contain the mini Sunni statelet in the Western province of the current Iraq. Managing divisions of Iraq to the best of America’s interest becomes the primary focus when one realizes the futility of Democracy in Iraq enterprise.

The other parallel track while this is going on, is to address Arab – Israel conflict. The second important contribution needed from House of Saudi is to garner an explicit sponsorship of the peace process in this conflict. America’s goal should be to involve all the Sunni regimes of the area in order to contain the militant influence of Shiite Iran.

There is no glory in this business. There are no politically profitable moments of basking in the glory while espousing role of Democracy as the leader of Free World. But once all such unrelated concepts are separated from America’s fundamental security needs, one sees a path to get out of the Iraq mess. This means America’s forces will be committed to stay in present day Iraq for many years, but for different reasons. Somebody must be kidding if she says Americans soldiers can come all from Iraq. That is why NYT blasts Democrats too – they can not lie to America that washing hands with Iraq war will bring all the sunshine. If Democrats do not want to be as wantonly irresponsible as President Bush, they need to tell Americans the continued involvement needed. What American Leadership can do and should do is to realign the Iraq strategy to the changed context.

Umesh Patil
San Jose, CA 95111
August 08, 2006.

Hopeless Conservatives

John McIntyre in RCP gloats about Lieberman’s loss. (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/blog/2006/08/ct_results_a_disaster_for_demo.html) What is with these Conservatives? Why are they jumping up and down viewing this result as the impeding loss of Democrats in the November election? If anything, it shows the desperation on the part of Republicans about their hopeless electoral prospects in the coming election. Also intellectually it is a dishonest position.

First, who says Lieberman’s opponent Lamont will not win the general election? What if indeed American people are disgusted with the dishonesty going around about the Iraq mess? Further, why these Conservatives assume that Lieberman after wining the election as an independent would be effectively a Republican Senator? He will not be. And the jury is out if 3 way race would indeed benefit the Republican challenger in the CT Senate race.

Why is it so difficult for people to understand that voters turned down Lieberman because he refuses to accept that starting Iraq war was wrong and it was wrong for him to back it originally? Everybody is smart enough to distinguish war as a mistake and the manner of conducting the war. It does not matter how many times Lieberman condemns Pres. Bush’s conduct of Iraq war if he is not ready to cross the Rubicon of understanding deep mistakes committed in starting the war in the first place and it’s continuation. Why should people forgive him when it is such an important question about life and death? It does not matter whether a Democrat or a Republican, unless American leadership understands that it was a mistake to start the Iraq war; there is no salvation for American Politics. American Leadership and American Public got to come to terms with mistakes and losses of Iraq war. Lieberman refuses to do that, refuses to own his own mistakes and hence voters rejected him.

The silly part of these Conservatives is they are not coming forward and defending the war. There they are shy. Instead they are trying to project Lieberman as their proxy and trying to play the same game as like Karl Rove – oh poor Democrats they are again soft on defense…. It does not matter how long American Public takes to understand how wrong such an argument is, those who care to move America beyond the Iraq mess will have to try again and again to call the bluff of this argument. Defeat of Lieberman in the primary is one step along this line.

Umesh Patil
San Jose, CA 95111
August 08, 2006.

Decoupling from American Economy?

There has been renewed debate about Economy and Recession. American GDP slowed down from 5+% to 2.8% in the second quarter and early numbers for the 3rd quarter do not look promising.

Many say it is unlikely that anything useful can be done by American Government to stop this slowdown. (True, at the best of times Politicians have less room to do any good in a Capitalist system though they can always harm.) Paul Krugman, the relentless critique of Bush Administration and Economics Professor at Princeton, writes in NYT that mounting Iraq war costs (no end in site) and insistency of Pres. Bush for more tax cuts is unlikely to make things any different. In other words the current American Congress and President are unlikely to do anything worthwhile to address this potential economic slow down. I say if at all, President Bush has the knack to complicate the problem further.

On this background the newly minted Treasury Secretary is on the job of vigorously selling the Bush Administration’s spin - 'it is no problem if USA economy is slow little bit, economy in rest of the world is strong and that should carry the day in the end'. His former employer (Goldman Sachs) has bit of a different opinion - Global CEO’s are worried about the impeding slow down.

So this sets the stage for an interesting phenomenon – whether the economic boom in rest of the world would allow global economy to contain the impact of USA economy slow down. All we know, this could be first time in long long time (I guess one will have to go back in the 19th century to find the parallel) that the world chugs along quite well despite a weaker Uncle Sam. Nouriel Roubini is the one who writes that aren’t going to happen. (http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/139556) One should read his blog to get more details. According to him slower American Economy or recession in USA will impact rest of the global economy adversely rather than global economy cushioning out any American downturn.

My bet – American economy is likely to avoid an outright recession unless Middle East conflict and Iraq campaign do not deteriorate further (or N. Korea or Iran detonate the bomb) and Oil prices do not go above $100. Ominously with BP Oil production in Alaska going down by taking out 400,000 barrels per day from the USA market, oil price is set to go higher. If a recession does come, it is hard the outcome can be any different than what Roubini says. Hey, who in senses would go with President Bush even if he gets Goldman Sach’s CEO as the Treasury Secretary? Listen how Paulson talks now and then you realize that indeed it is something with this Administration – even a good apple goes bad when it comes under the spell of Dark Forces.

Umesh Patil
San Jose, CA 95111
August 06, 2006.