Wednesday, April 30, 2003

Iran's Azeri Problem In Eastward to Tartary Robert Kaplan wrote about the smoldering issue of Iran's problems with it's largest ethnic minority, that of the 16 million Azeri's living in northwestern Iran. This article sums up the current tensions in a thought-provoking manner: http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2003/04/5-NOT/not-290403.asp. As the West looks increasingly to the Caspian region as an oil and gas supplier this problem, along with others in the area including Turkmenistan's extrememly repressive government, the seemingly never-ending issues between Azerbaijan and Armenia and water-flow disputes between Kazakstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan will need solving. Right now the region is overrun with petro-dollars and all the corruption and malfeseance that type of sudden wealth always creates. I hope the attention of the West, so focused right now on Iraq and the Israel-Palestinian problem, can bring itself to focus on this area before the smoldering cauldron that is the Caspian basin overflows, with terrible consequences for the entire region as well as the world. 4:37:40 PM    comment []

OOPS! 3:50:35 PM    comment []

Crime, Unemployment and Poverty Rising About the only thing falling under Bush II is total US employment . Today the news is grim, The level of black children under 18 living in extreme poverty is the highest it has been since 1980. Since Bush II took office the US has lost a total of 2.5 million jobs, the highest of any modern US president. Violent crime is also on the rise, despite falling under Clinton's presidency. Instead of structural reforms that will produce even-handed benefits for all US citizens we're served a rank buffet of tax cuts that benefit the super rich. The supply-side theorists that populate this administration's upper ranks will stop at nothing until they permanently gut popular programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid by destroying their funding bases. Let no one be surprised that this is indeed their long-term goal. Knowing these programs are politically popular they've devised a back-handed way of ensuring their destruction and it will be slow death by fiscal starvation. Congress almost never repeals a tax cut and rarely raises revenue so all the pieces are now in place to ensure the destruction of the last remnants of America's social safety net. Reagan began the process but if left unhindered by the Democrats in Congress Bush will complete the destruction. 11:20:46 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Shane Hensinger.