Odd movements in governments

[hypoclear]

Just read this article in the NY Times.. seems the USA is moving farher to the right in a repressive manner while China moves to a more moderate middle way.. ??

 

In their congress or party meeting it was agreed that poorer area students would recieve funding for text books and by 2007 all students would recieve a 9th grade education. hmm how liberal progressive is that?

 

The Senate on the Brink

 

Published: March 6, 2005

 

The White House's insistence on choosing only far-right judicial nominees has already damaged the federal courts. Now it threatens to do grave harm to the Senate. If Republicans fulfill their threat to overturn the historic role of the filibuster in order to ram the Bush administration's nominees through, they will be inviting all-out warfare and perhaps an effective shutdown of Congress. The Republicans are claiming that 51 votes should be enough to win confirmation of the White House's judicial nominees. This flies in the face of Senate history. Republicans and Democrats should tone down their rhetoric, then sit down and negotiate.

 

President Bush likes to complain about the divisive atmosphere in Washington. But he has contributed to it mightily by choosing federal judges from the far right of the ideological spectrum. He started his second term with a particularly aggressive move: resubmitting seven nominees whom the Democrats blocked last year by filibuster.

 

The Senate has confirmed the vast majority of President Bush's choices. But Democrats have rightly balked at a handful. One of the seven renominated judges is William Myers, a former lobbyist for the mining and ranching industries who demonstrated at his hearing last week that he is an antienvironmental extremist who lacks the evenhandedness necessary to be a federal judge. Another is Janice Rogers Brown, who has disparaged the New Deal as "our socialist revolution."

 

To block the nominees, the Democrats' weapon of choice has been the filibuster, a time-honored Senate procedure that prevents a bare majority of senators from running roughshod. Republican leaders now claim that judicial nominees are entitled to an up-or-down vote. This is rank hypocrisy. When the tables were turned, Republicans filibustered President Bill Clinton's choice for surgeon general, forcing him to choose another. And Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, who now finds judicial filibusters so offensive, himself joined one against Richard Paez, a Clinton appeals court nominee.

 

Yet these very same Republicans are threatening to have Vice President Dick Cheney rule from the chair that a simple majority can confirm a judicial nominee rather than the 60 votes necessary to stop a filibuster. This is known as the "nuclear option" because in all likelihood it would blow up the Senate's operations. The Senate does much of its work by unanimous consent, which keeps things moving along and prevents ordinary day-to-day business from drowning in procedural votes. But if Republicans change the filibuster rules, Democrats could respond by ignoring the tradition of unanimous consent and making it difficult if not impossible to get anything done. Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has warned that "the Senate will be in turmoil and the Judiciary Committee will be hell."

 

Despite his party's Senate majority, however, Mr. Frist may not have the votes to go nuclear. A sizable number of Republicans - including John McCain, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Lincoln Chafee and John Warner - could break away. For them, the value of confirming a few extreme nominees may be outweighed by the lasting damage to the Senate. Besides, majorities are temporary, and they may want to filibuster one day.

 

There is one way to avert a showdown. The White House should meet with Senate leaders of both parties and come up with a list of nominees who will not be filibustered. This means that Mr. Bush - like Presidents Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush before him - would agree to submit nominees from the broad mainstream of legal thought, with a commitment to judging cases, not promoting a political agenda.

 

The Bush administration likes to call itself "conservative," but there is nothing conservative about endangering one of the great institutions of American democracy, the United States Senate, for the sake of an ideological crusade.

 

 

Now who is who? and where do I get a score card to keep the players straight?? And the bad guy is??

 

 

Mark and Bea and Elizabeth

[ptcrusier333rph]

sound like it was wrote by a democrat

 

Robert

 

 

Independent and proud of it!!!!

[bandj]

Clearly the "article" is an editorial or the writer should be fired for writing news articles with opinions.

In any case while there are some real questionable moves by Republicans and Democrats trying to seek leverage on each other around the Constitution. It has been going on since our founding. Despite this the methods and practice are still light years ahead of China.

Despite recent positive signs on the surface from Hu Jintao the current system in China allows for little discourse in government, repression of farmers and little rights in court rooms for poor litigants. Hoping it improves and that Hu Jintao follows thru.

[hypoclear]

Certainly it is an editorial and my mistake for saying article.

 

As for business as usual in our gov... that seems to be stretching that phrase just a little too much. Looks like a whole scare dismantleing of government and an extreme move to the right dictatorial repressive regeme.

 

As for China, well yes it is still a communist gov and as such is not accountable to anyone. It is still at this point in time a more progressive government than our current one. The rights issues you speak of I am not aware of.. what rights? People in SZ seem to be going about their business with out interference. Real wages have increased as have wages for farmers and their taxes have been lowered if not abolished.

 

I re-read a recent article and they are now offering free education to rural students up to the 9th grade.

 

Now of course you can not compare these meager things to the great USA.. but when comparing them to this country China, it begins to smack of progressive liberialism.. yikes!

 

As I have said before the difficult thing is not knowing the language so not getting a full picture of what is going on here, but my sense is that this country is moving forward and caususly as they fear an implosion such that the USSR experienced and perhaps because of lack of world experience. Given all this it does seem a country and society in a period of rapid change with a much better out come than the backward thinking, repressive looking, war mongering state of the states.

 

 

Mark and Bea and Elizabeth

[bandj]

Mark - Enjoyed your comments....

 

Look back at our gov in 20's, 30's, 50's, 60's (LBJ was a real dictator in Congress who happened to also do some great things with civil rights ), 80's and you'll see more of the same. Part of the pull and push that makes our system so flawed but so brilliant (thanks Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington , etc.). It is the swing of the pendulum.

 

recent article you refer to about 9yrs education is from a speech given at the Party meetings this past week. Speech and real action are quite different. Lets see and hope.

 

I would clearly agree with you about rapid change occuring in China (been going there for 20 years) . My experience however in talking to rural farmers (90% of population) is that there are serious problems and they lose out. Local officials impose onerous taxes even if none are required - for example one very old couple I know of is given 600rmb worth of rice a year(a form of pension) of which the local Communist party guy takes 450 as a special tax!!!! .

Farmer revolts occur rather frequently resulting in the military being brought in and media kept out. This is the single largest issue facing China and the most threat to the government. . Have and have nots. All countries have this but in China it is an extreme.

I've own an office in Guangdong Province and as long as it helps the economy most businesses are left alone. Periodically Taiwanese companies are given "special penalties" so they pressure Taipai. However when the people have no econmic standing things are different. Estimates of 150 million people floating around Guangdong looking for work and without money. No safety net provided by gov. . Unfortunately I've heard too many times in China from people that their government views people as expendable (one could argue that about our war in Iraq but not in the same way - politics not attitude) and they admire the US above all for not being that way.

 

Rights - check out freedom of speech, press, assembly, habeus corpus, one child, etc, etc , etc .

 

Don't want to sound down on China because I'm very supportive (investing there and providing education and aid to some very impoverished rural villages)) of the strides they are starting to take and feel a real "simpatico" for the population. It takes a long time and needs careful control to go from the repression of Mao to what can be .From my experience I just think the reality is different than the speedy trains in Shanghai and the cleaned up pre olympic Beijing and the fastest growing military budget in the history of the world. .

Though we have are share of problems, until the US ceases to be the destination of choice ,by far, of the worlds populations then we must be doing something right . The desperation I've heard of many people in China to come here is why GUZ is so backed up!!!

[ghall20]

I would clearly agree with you about rapid change occuring in China (been going there for 20 years) . My experience however in talking to rural farmers (90% of population) is that there are serious problems and they lose out. Local officials impose onerous taxes even if none are required - for example one very old couple I know of is given 600rmb worth of rice a year(a form of pension) of which the local Communist party guy takes 450 as a special tax!!!! .

Farmer revolts occur rather frequently resulting in the military being brought in and media kept out. This is the single largest issue facing China and the most threat to the government. . Have and have nots.  All countries have this but in China it is an extreme.

I've own an office in Guangdong Province and as long as it

I thought I read that the Chinese goverment was going to drop the tax on farmers. Trying to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor..

Anyone else read this????

[bandj]

From same speech given at last weeks Party meeting where they spoke about 9yrs education and books for school provided by government. Tax on farmers is suppose to be eliminated but who knows in practice what will happen. Pray.

[hypoclear]

Recent Opionion peice in The Standard of Hong Kong

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/stdn/std/Opi...n/GC14Df01.html

 

 

China takes on America

March 14, 2005

 

Thirty-three years after President Richard Nixon's ice-breaking visit to Beijing in 1972 kicked off more normal relations between the US and China, the Chinese still don't quite know what to make of Americans.

 

While nearly half of mainlanders see the United States as China's main rival, the other half view the US as a friendly country and a model for China to learn from, according to an exhaustive new poll.

 

In general, most mainlanders say they are satisfied with the current relations between the two countries, although at the same time nearly 60 percent of them believe Uncle Sam is doing its best to contain the Middle Kingdom diplomatically and militarily.

 

The recently published survey was sponsored and conducted by the Global Times with the help of the Institute of American Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The Beijing-based, thrice-weekly Global Times is a sister publication of the People's Daily, the Communist Party's flagship newspaper.

 

The sampling survey was conducted in five major Chinese cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing, and Wuhan (capital city of the central province of Hubei).

 

It is believed to be the mainland's first-ever large-scale opinion poll on how the Chinese view the US.

 

Since the survey covers only urban residents, its results are better regarded as more sophisticated than the mainland as a whole.

 

Reflecting the growing trade and economic ties between China and the US, some 62 percent of respondents say good Sino-US relations are helping to speed up China's economic development and nearly half believe such ties are contributing to China's opening to the world.

 

The US has remained China's largest trade partner after replacing Hong Kong around the turn of the new century. China's US-bound exports grew sharply, from US$54.3 billion (HK$423.54 billion) in 2001 to US$70 billion in 2002, US$92.5 billion in 2003 and US$124.9 billion last year, according to figures from the National Bureau of Statistics.

 

While 46.1 percent of the respondents say increasing economic exchanges promote friendship between the Chinese and the Americans, however, 43 percent also worry that trade friction will intensify.

 

This schizophrenic view of relations between the two countries deepens when 70.9 percent of the Chinese say they are satisfied with current Sino-US relations. But at the same time, 56.7 percent believe the US is doing its best to keep China in check.

 

Taiwan is obviously a big bone of contention, with 60.5 percent regarding it as the main factor affecting the development of Sino-US relations. Asked for the key issue that inspires discontent with the US government, 37.6 percent said ``US arms sales to Taiwan,'' with the Iraqi war trailing at 31.7 percent.

 

Analysts say the results serve as yet another confirmation that Taiwan is the very issue that touches the nerve of Chinese nationalism. Because of it, they say, Beijing must maintain a strong domestic stance against any move that might lead the island to become independent.

 

The survey shows that nearly 50 per cent are not concerned with Wash-ington's repeated criticisms of human rights in China. Nearly half regard Washington's concerns as a ploy to hamper China's internal stability with another 10.4 percent believing the criticism is aimed at putting China in a bad light.

 

Nearly 20 percent believe the criticisms arise only because the US public knows little about China's civil rights circumstances. Only 15.7 percent understand that human rights concerns are behind Washington's ambition to promote democracy in China.

 

About half of the people interviewed don't think Sino-US relations have progressed in recent years, although neutral analysts believe relations between the two countries have rarely been better. Only 27.3 percent of the respondents think ties between the two countries have been improving. And 45 percent don't expect any particular thaw during George W Bush's second term, while 11.7 percent think there will be setbacks.

 

As to the influence of American culture, the Chinese are in two minds. Some 55.7 percent say the impact is both positive and negative. Only 22 percent believe the influence is mainly positive.

 

Despite that, nearly half of the re-spondents say American culture is acceptable to them. In the breakdown, 27.5 percent say they appreciate very much US cultural products while another 31.9 percent say American cultural products are acceptable.

 

About a quarter say they welcome US consumer goods that are available and nearly half say that not only do they have no bias toward American goods, they would buy goods of good quality regardless of where they come from.

 

The overriding message from the poll stresses that as the economy continues to grow, people are becoming increasingly self-confident.

 

``The zeal of blindly chasing after American culture in the 1980s and 1990s is fading,'' a sociology researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences says, with mainlanders looking on the US's politics, culture and products more realistically.

 

Indeed, China's urbanites no longer envy American prosperity as much as before. Only 17.9 percent of the respondents say they envy the prosperous life of the Americans. Another 20.9 percent say they admire the rule of law.

 

What impresses them most about the US? Nearly half say its advancement in science and technology.

 

Interestingly, the survey has found that 62.7 percent of Chinese urbanites have learned about the US through the mass media. Another 20.7 percent say it was Hollywood movies that did it.

 

Nice article and it gives some what of a picture of the pulse of China.

 

Mark and Bea and Elizabeth

[hypoclear]

New editorial and best of luck to others abroad.

 

A Travel Advisory

 

Published: March 14, 2005

 

José Ernesto Medellín, a Mexican on death row in Texas, has been a problem for the Bush administration. In response, the White House has taken a step that could imperil American tourists or business travelers if they are ever arrested and need the help of a consular official.

 

Mr. Medellín was arrested for a gang-related killing at 18 and assigned a lawyer, who, unbeknownst to the court, had been suspended from the bar for ethics violations. He called not a single witness at Mr. Medellín's trial and only one in the penalty phase that ended with a sentence of death. Mexico's consular representatives learned of Mr. Medellín's case only when he had been on death row for three years. Mexican authorities argued that if Mr. Medellín had been able to notify them at the time of his arrest, he might have had competent representation at his trial. This month, the Supreme Court will hear Mr. Medellín's petition.

 

But meanwhile, the issue of Mr. Medellín's access to consular help was addressed last year by the International Court of Justice, sometimes known as the World Court, the United Nations' top court for resolving disputes between countries. In a case brought by Mexico, the court said Mr. Medellín and 50 other Mexicans on death row in the United States should get new hearings because they were not given access to consular officials, as required by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which Washington has been a signatory for decades.

 

The administration surprised everyone at first by accepting the court's judgment and supporting Mr. Medellín's right to review. It said, in what seemed like a promising change of heart, that "consular assistance is a vital safeguard for Americans abroad" and that if America did not comply with the court ruling, "its ability to secure such assistance could be adversely affected."

 

That was good reasoning. It applied in 1963 when the United States itself designed the optional protocol, the part of the Vienna Convention that allows the World Court to hear disputes over consular access. It applied in 1979 when America became the first country to use the protocol by successfully suing Iran for taking American hostages. Now, in a climate of global hostility toward Americans, the right to consular help is all the more important.

 

But this administration is not always given to sound reasoning when it comes to institutions like the World Court - especially on red-meat issues like the death penalty. Last week, just days after accepting the court's judgment, the administration revealed its hand: it said it had withdrawn from the optional protocol. Apparently forgetting its concern about citizens arrested abroad, the State Department said it wanted to end the court's meddling in the American judicial system.

 

In other words, ideology triumphed over sound judgment and Americans abroad are all less secure as a result.

 

Mark and Bea and Elizabeth

[hypoclear]

here is an interesting editorial in the NY Times.

 

EDITORIAL

Walking in the Opposition's Shoes

 

Published: March 29, 2005

The Senate will return from Easter vacation with nuclear options on its mind. Republicans seem determined to change the rules so Democrats will no longer be able to stop judicial nominations with the threat of a filibuster. If they're acting out of frustration, it's understandable. In the past we've been frustrated when legislators tried to stop important bills from passing by resorting to the same tactic. The filibuster, which allows 41 senators to delay action indefinitely, is a rough instrument that should be used with caution. But its existence goes to the center of the peculiar but effective form of government America cherishes.

 

Since George W. Bush first became president, Democratic senators have used the filibuster 10 times to block the confirmation of nominees for federal court judgeships. They chose their targets cautiously - more than 200 other nominees were confirmed, some of them men and women whose records were extremely conservative. But surely it is not a matter of life and death to the White House if, for instance, a former lobbyist for mining interests with a reputation for anti-environmentalism cannot get a seat on the federal bench out West. The president might have taken this opportunity to fulfill his long-deferred promise to be a uniter, and replaced the rejected nominees with other candidates from the very large pool of competent people available. Instead, Mr. Bush has drawn a line in the sand and resubmitted some of the same unworthy nominees. If the Democrats resist, the Republican leaders have vowed to change the rules and eliminate the right of filibuster for judicial nominations.

 

They may not have the votes to make this happen. Many of the wisest Republicans are well aware that their leaders are playing a dangerous game and that they are doing it for frivolous reasons. The judicial nominees can easily be replaced. But the sense that there are certain rules that all must play by, whether to their advantage or not, is something that cannot be restored. Senators need only to look at the House to see what politics looks like when the only law is to win at any cost.

 

The Senate, of all places, should be sensitive to the fact that this large and diverse country has never believed in government by an unrestrained majority rule. Its composition is a repudiation of the very idea that the largest number of votes always wins out. The members from places like Rhode Island, Maine or Iowa know that their constituents are given a far larger say than people from New York simply by virtue of the fact that each state has two votes, regardless of population. Indeed, as a recent New Yorker article pointed out, the Democratic senators who have blocked that handful of judicial nominees actually represent substantially more Americans than the Republican majority that wants to see them passed.

 

While the filibuster has not traditionally been used to stop judicial confirmations, it seems to us this is a matter in which it's most important that a large minority of senators has a limited right of veto. Once confirmed, judges can serve for life and will remain on the bench long after Mr. Bush leaves the White House. And there are few responsibilities given to the executive and the legislature that are more important than choosing the members of the third co-equal branch of government. The Senate has an obligation to do everything in its power to ensure the integrity of the process.

 

A decade ago, this page expressed support for tactics that would have gone even further than the "nuclear option" in eliminating the power of the filibuster. At the time, we had vivid memories of the difficulty that Senate Republicans had given much of Bill Clinton's early agenda. But we were still wrong. To see the filibuster fully, it's obviously a good idea to have to live on both sides of it. We hope acknowledging our own error may remind some wavering Republican senators that someday they, too, will be on the other side and in need of all the protections the Senate rules can provide.

 

 

well as they say.. "If you can't beat them... get a bigger stick!"

 

Now in China there is NO Opposition.. and just give them a day or two to up date the books and records to reflect that.

 

Hey... it's all good.

 

Mark and Bea and Elizabeth