Along with these challenges ...which will not end......I want to praise the brilliant, freedom-loving men and women who sacrifice themselves....their gifts, talents, time (and for their precious families who sacrifice their presence) for working with other countries to maintain peace and a better goodness in this world.
It is easy to blame and "throw stones" but peace...negotiation is difficult. My heart is deeply moved by the leaders of other nations who have been a major part of these negotiations.
Peace is more profitable for everyone except for those who deal in weapons of war.
President Joe Biden and his team have demonstrated that negotion works. He has demonstrated that people of various faiths/beliefs can work together and want to work together for a more productive and profitable world for everyone.
President Joe Biden and his brilliant, hardworking team have shown us what is possible. Other powerful leaders in this world have demonstrated that peace and decency are possible.
Younger or older....who stands in higher regard at home or around the world, than our President Joe Biden and the USA's team of diplomats? (I do not believe the polls!)
Thank you, Emily, for this post especially your noting that negotiations are difficult. I have great impatience with those who persist on throwing stones. Also you note the profits of war which Mitch points out when he observes that help to Ukraine gives profit to defense industries here. I did love Heather noting how much we spend on beer and snacks in contrast to foreign aid. That is somehow disgusting.
The stats on beer and snacks were eye opening. So, we as an overweight nation could use to lose a few pounds, improve our health, and keep Russia from over powering Eastern Europe. What a win win opportunity..
Credit where it's due, Heather was quoting Tom Nichols on the beer and snacks numbers. Tom's article is well written and worth reading if you can access The Atlantic.
You should submit your statement to your newspaper(s). We certainly see very little press on all the good the Biden/Harris Team is doing on many different fronts, foreign and domestic. It’s up to each of us to spread the word.
How can you say Biden has done a great job of diplomacy? It took him over a month to get some progress. Yet in that time over 15,000 Gaza citizens, close half of them children, have been killed by Israeli bombings. Biden could have stopped this by telling the Israel right wing leaders to stope it immediately by telling them that the U.S. would stop giving them $Billion and weapons. I believe Joe has done a really good job as president in most other areas, but it's obvious he's afraid of AIPAC's influence on Congress and many Jewish voters. He may have cost himself the next presidential election by not stopping this awful war in its tracks. If he and Congress live in Hell, which is Gaza and the West Bank, and had no power to get out, they might actually understand the meaning of the word 'fear.' That is my opinion, and I am not an anti-Semite.
I get your point - though I believe that, unlike Trump, Biden chooses to engage by the rules - our checks and balances, influencing rather than demanding actions by sovereign states.
Thank you. I believe Biden is out of step and has been unsympathetic to Palestine all his life. He has the power to shut down this war but decided instead to allow Israel to kill 11,000 (6,000 of whom are children, according to Al Jazeera) people. Indeed, Biden blew it.
Yes, and Al Jazeera network has been the only network with journalists actually in Gaza reporting the real stories. Israel and the U.S. told them to stop telling the truth from Gaza. I believe Al Jazeera ignored those warnings and is continuing their reporting.
I believe one of Al Jazeera's journalists had his entire family blown up in Gaza. I recall the Iraq war where Bush had an air strike destroy Al Jazeera's Baghdad office, so nothing surprises me.
One thing I have read in several places is that the Palestinian Health Ministry is the only agency that has accurately reported on the number of casualties. Israel usually inflates the number of Israeli deaths and minimizes the number of Palestinians.
This is not really a war but an ongoing massacre. There is little point in it other than killing people with the excuse that they're looking for Hamas, who is probably running out of ammo, and Russia isn't able to send more. And this is not a ceasefire, but only a pause. When the hostages are exchanged, the bombing will resume. I wish people would stop calling it a ceasefire.
Maybe not an anti-semitre, but other deleterious adjectives describe you well; stupid, shortsighted, and COMPLETELY ill-informed. Why don’t YOU try some diplomacy with fold NOT MUCH INTERESTED in you OR working together AT ALL. Because that describes both Hamas a terrorist group AND Netanyahu, a bumbling, self- centered, and mostly criminal man - who recently invited Elon Musk to have a chat about APARTHEID. Get a grip. Richard Burrell.
Dana, you also have a right to comment here. Thanks for what you said. Perhaps you could go more deeply into what is happening in the Middle East. Have a great day!
Jeffery Sachs' opinions are somewhat limited. He neglects democratic aspirations of Syrians, Ukrainian, Libyans and Palestinians in favor of authoritarian regimes that unlike enlightened countries have no respect for the will of their populations and their neighbors borders.
I too have big questions around a lot of Sachs’ opinions and policies. He is, among many other “lauded” people also an apologist for Russia. I was encouraged to read his ideas by a family member who, after Russia invaded Ukraine stated that the world had absolutely nothing to fear in Putin. I was flabbergasted.
You were flabbergasted because you have been fed American propaganda from the cradle. We have far more to fear from our own government than from what Putin does.
Excuse me? We, and I’m talking America here, have wrecked the democratic aspirations of every one of the peoples you noted, via proxy war, coup/proxy war, assassination, and acquiescence to apartheid, respectively.
I heard that it's okay to annex Ukraine. Rule of law, 70% vote ousting your puppet president and treaties don't matter if you control an Army. Didn't matter in Georgia and Chechnya so it shouldn't matter in Ukraine, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, East Germany... sorry not the 18th century any more. NATO worked to preserve peace and prosperity for 75 years. It works!
The thing I admire about Sachs is that he learns from his mistakes. He helped wreck Russia in the 90s, but then realized the IMF/World Bank austerity/privatize path just opens the door to oligarchy.
Many high-placed Americans "helped wreck Russia in the 90s."
New Ivy League grads in finance, older, distinguished U.S. banks, and a U.S. Department of State eager to befriend and fund the most rotten of former Soviet and secret police officials.
Even then, this coddling of high-placed corruption wasn't new. U.S. Marine General Smedley Butler from his own lifetime experience spoke with disgust of it 90 years ago, at the same time Stalin was first trying mass murder on the Ukrainians, as Heather Cox Richardson today here commemorates.
Smedley Butler has many more admirers than just me. It horrifies me that all the modern generals and people appointed by Trump that are warning us about Trump aren't being listened to as Smedley Butler was. Perhaps, back then the plotters were more ashamed of being exposed.
Now, the Citizens United undercutting our ability to limit the ability of the rich and powerful to have domineering influence over who provides our news has put us seriously at a disadvantage to be heard (and have all our votes counted).
The plutocrats seem to be copying the acquiescence of the German industrialists that thought they would benefit from Hitler gaining power they thought hey could manage.
Maybe Musk could give former president George W. Bush a free ride to Mars. I believe when Bush was the prez, he made the statement that he would like to go to mars.
Tom High, thanks so much for sharing what Jeffrey Sachs said to the U.N. I agree with him wholeheartedly. We must hope that the world powers will listen to him. One wonders if they ever will.
Destroying grain at the very moment the Horn and East Africa are in dire need because climate change is making their harvest fail is a crime against humanity. Truly grotesque.
I'm so grateful to have a government that faces such crisis head on and does the hard work of trying to solve it. While many of us turn away, not wanting to face the harsh realities I have such respect for those who work on solutions. Politicians and the political establishment from think tanks to ambassadors to negotiators to policy makers are not just parasites and opportunists. Some actually care to govern.
Yes, "Netanyahu and Hamas have expiration dates". But there is absolutely no equivalence between the two in regard to accomplishments, errors, crimes, how they got in power, how they stay in power, what kind of relationships they have with the rest of the world, how they will "expire", and the kinds of possibilities open up after that ... And your words, suggesting equivalence, reflect Dr. Richardson's ignorance and bias in this letter, I'm afraid.
Do you really find equivalence between "a terrorist organization" and being "far from a beacon of humanity"?
Listen - I'm not saying that Netanyahu has committed no errors or crimes or misuses of power .... but the numbers and degrees of misdeeds are simply not on the same scale.
No - hard to describe. Someone who has no hesitation at ordering the bombing of hospitals, refugee camps and ambulances with no thought of the many children and women that were killed may not be on the same scale as Hamas, but really hes doing the same thing! And frankly, the 39 Palestinians released from prisons - none over 19 - all security threats? I read there are 6,000 Palestinians in those prisons. All security threats?
Thank you Heather.
These things linger:
* Netanyahu and Hamas have expiration dates
* Funding our government and defending democracy
* Stalin and now Putin’s attempts to erase the Ukrainian identity
Such a dynamic time we live in. We truly are living at the precipice.
Jean-Pierre Garau,
Agree with these major challenges!
Along with these challenges ...which will not end......I want to praise the brilliant, freedom-loving men and women who sacrifice themselves....their gifts, talents, time (and for their precious families who sacrifice their presence) for working with other countries to maintain peace and a better goodness in this world.
It is easy to blame and "throw stones" but peace...negotiation is difficult. My heart is deeply moved by the leaders of other nations who have been a major part of these negotiations.
Peace is more profitable for everyone except for those who deal in weapons of war.
President Joe Biden and his team have demonstrated that negotion works. He has demonstrated that people of various faiths/beliefs can work together and want to work together for a more productive and profitable world for everyone.
President Joe Biden and his brilliant, hardworking team have shown us what is possible. Other powerful leaders in this world have demonstrated that peace and decency are possible.
Younger or older....who stands in higher regard at home or around the world, than our President Joe Biden and the USA's team of diplomats? (I do not believe the polls!)
I would like to share your post on the WH fb page. The MAGA s are posting in full force & I think we need to show them there are more of us than them!
Yes!
Excellent idea Carole!
Thank you, Emily, for this post especially your noting that negotiations are difficult. I have great impatience with those who persist on throwing stones. Also you note the profits of war which Mitch points out when he observes that help to Ukraine gives profit to defense industries here. I did love Heather noting how much we spend on beer and snacks in contrast to foreign aid. That is somehow disgusting.
You can drop the modifier “somehow”, or replace it with “completely”.
The stats on beer and snacks were eye opening. So, we as an overweight nation could use to lose a few pounds, improve our health, and keep Russia from over powering Eastern Europe. What a win win opportunity..
Credit where it's due, Heather was quoting Tom Nichols on the beer and snacks numbers. Tom's article is well written and worth reading if you can access The Atlantic.
We do subscribe to the online Atlantic which I read nearly every day.
Tom's articles are a high point, but it's a daily must for me too.
Emily,
Beautifully stated.
You should submit your statement to your newspaper(s). We certainly see very little press on all the good the Biden/Harris Team is doing on many different fronts, foreign and domestic. It’s up to each of us to spread the word.
How can you say Biden has done a great job of diplomacy? It took him over a month to get some progress. Yet in that time over 15,000 Gaza citizens, close half of them children, have been killed by Israeli bombings. Biden could have stopped this by telling the Israel right wing leaders to stope it immediately by telling them that the U.S. would stop giving them $Billion and weapons. I believe Joe has done a really good job as president in most other areas, but it's obvious he's afraid of AIPAC's influence on Congress and many Jewish voters. He may have cost himself the next presidential election by not stopping this awful war in its tracks. If he and Congress live in Hell, which is Gaza and the West Bank, and had no power to get out, they might actually understand the meaning of the word 'fear.' That is my opinion, and I am not an anti-Semite.
I get your point - though I believe that, unlike Trump, Biden chooses to engage by the rules - our checks and balances, influencing rather than demanding actions by sovereign states.
Thank you. I believe Biden is out of step and has been unsympathetic to Palestine all his life. He has the power to shut down this war but decided instead to allow Israel to kill 11,000 (6,000 of whom are children, according to Al Jazeera) people. Indeed, Biden blew it.
Yes, and Al Jazeera network has been the only network with journalists actually in Gaza reporting the real stories. Israel and the U.S. told them to stop telling the truth from Gaza. I believe Al Jazeera ignored those warnings and is continuing their reporting.
I believe one of Al Jazeera's journalists had his entire family blown up in Gaza. I recall the Iraq war where Bush had an air strike destroy Al Jazeera's Baghdad office, so nothing surprises me.
One thing I have read in several places is that the Palestinian Health Ministry is the only agency that has accurately reported on the number of casualties. Israel usually inflates the number of Israeli deaths and minimizes the number of Palestinians.
This is not really a war but an ongoing massacre. There is little point in it other than killing people with the excuse that they're looking for Hamas, who is probably running out of ammo, and Russia isn't able to send more. And this is not a ceasefire, but only a pause. When the hostages are exchanged, the bombing will resume. I wish people would stop calling it a ceasefire.
Maybe not an anti-semitre, but other deleterious adjectives describe you well; stupid, shortsighted, and COMPLETELY ill-informed. Why don’t YOU try some diplomacy with fold NOT MUCH INTERESTED in you OR working together AT ALL. Because that describes both Hamas a terrorist group AND Netanyahu, a bumbling, self- centered, and mostly criminal man - who recently invited Elon Musk to have a chat about APARTHEID. Get a grip. Richard Burrell.
Dana, you also have a right to comment here. Thanks for what you said. Perhaps you could go more deeply into what is happening in the Middle East. Have a great day!
Very well said, Jean-Pierre and Emily.
And agree w/ Carole, would like to share with attribution.
Yes, standing at the precipice, looking into the abyss, shining a light on the enablers and the perpetrators.
As long as we’re talking about shining a light, and enablers and perpetrators. Sachs at the UN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm4qLWc_Co0&t=0s
Jeffery Sachs' opinions are somewhat limited. He neglects democratic aspirations of Syrians, Ukrainian, Libyans and Palestinians in favor of authoritarian regimes that unlike enlightened countries have no respect for the will of their populations and their neighbors borders.
I too have big questions around a lot of Sachs’ opinions and policies. He is, among many other “lauded” people also an apologist for Russia. I was encouraged to read his ideas by a family member who, after Russia invaded Ukraine stated that the world had absolutely nothing to fear in Putin. I was flabbergasted.
https://youtu.be/D_3itcQ9wqQ?si=WJBPFgts-yQNNaRO
Time 10:19 Salman Rushdie at his Peace Prize acceptance explains the different definitions of peace and freedom.
Worth the time if you have it.
Fabulous talk, beautifully illustrated with fables which help us see the complexity of truth. THANK YOU!
You were flabbergasted because you have been fed American propaganda from the cradle. We have far more to fear from our own government than from what Putin does.
Excuse me? We, and I’m talking America here, have wrecked the democratic aspirations of every one of the peoples you noted, via proxy war, coup/proxy war, assassination, and acquiescence to apartheid, respectively.
Get a clue.
What does your opinion of the US' foreign policy have to do with a subscriber's opinion of Jeffery Sachs?
You’re a smart guy, Fern. I’m sure you can figure it out. Might have something to do with ‘democratic aspirations’.
Aaron, I wonder if we both heard what Jeffrey Sachs said.
I heard that it's okay to annex Ukraine. Rule of law, 70% vote ousting your puppet president and treaties don't matter if you control an Army. Didn't matter in Georgia and Chechnya so it shouldn't matter in Ukraine, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, East Germany... sorry not the 18th century any more. NATO worked to preserve peace and prosperity for 75 years. It works!
Thank You.
Sachs is a brilliant man.
The thing I admire about Sachs is that he learns from his mistakes. He helped wreck Russia in the 90s, but then realized the IMF/World Bank austerity/privatize path just opens the door to oligarchy.
Many high-placed Americans "helped wreck Russia in the 90s."
New Ivy League grads in finance, older, distinguished U.S. banks, and a U.S. Department of State eager to befriend and fund the most rotten of former Soviet and secret police officials.
Even then, this coddling of high-placed corruption wasn't new. U.S. Marine General Smedley Butler from his own lifetime experience spoke with disgust of it 90 years ago, at the same time Stalin was first trying mass murder on the Ukrainians, as Heather Cox Richardson today here commemorates.
Smedley Butler has many more admirers than just me. It horrifies me that all the modern generals and people appointed by Trump that are warning us about Trump aren't being listened to as Smedley Butler was. Perhaps, back then the plotters were more ashamed of being exposed.
Now, the Citizens United undercutting our ability to limit the ability of the rich and powerful to have domineering influence over who provides our news has put us seriously at a disadvantage to be heard (and have all our votes counted).
The plutocrats seem to be copying the acquiescence of the German industrialists that thought they would benefit from Hitler gaining power they thought hey could manage.
See https://www.rsn.org/001/billionaires-are-lining-up-to-fund-donald-trumps-antidemocratic-agenda.html
Musk is going to visit the Israeli president to be scolded for his antisemitism too.
I wish Musk would fly into a black hole.
I wish he'd set up his Mars biodome for billionaires already, and settle there for good.
Maybe Musk could give former president George W. Bush a free ride to Mars. I believe when Bush was the prez, he made the statement that he would like to go to mars.
Tom High, thanks so much for sharing what Jeffrey Sachs said to the U.N. I agree with him wholeheartedly. We must hope that the world powers will listen to him. One wonders if they ever will.
Which precipice are you referring to?
WWIII, the end of democracy in America and elsewhere, mass starvation thanks to Russia blocking and destroying grain.......
Maybe precipices, or will one do…
Definitely plural.
Destroying grain at the very moment the Horn and East Africa are in dire need because climate change is making their harvest fail is a crime against humanity. Truly grotesque.
Yes.
Must deal with the end of '23 & the start of 2024 now.
I'm so grateful to have a government that faces such crisis head on and does the hard work of trying to solve it. While many of us turn away, not wanting to face the harsh realities I have such respect for those who work on solutions. Politicians and the political establishment from think tanks to ambassadors to negotiators to policy makers are not just parasites and opportunists. Some actually care to govern.
Yes, "Netanyahu and Hamas have expiration dates". But there is absolutely no equivalence between the two in regard to accomplishments, errors, crimes, how they got in power, how they stay in power, what kind of relationships they have with the rest of the world, how they will "expire", and the kinds of possibilities open up after that ... And your words, suggesting equivalence, reflect Dr. Richardson's ignorance and bias in this letter, I'm afraid.
more of an equivalence than not - Netanyahu - his corruption - wasnt he indicted for it?
Yes Hamas is a terrorist organization - Netanyahu is far from a beacon of humanity.
Do you really find equivalence between "a terrorist organization" and being "far from a beacon of humanity"?
Listen - I'm not saying that Netanyahu has committed no errors or crimes or misuses of power .... but the numbers and degrees of misdeeds are simply not on the same scale.
No - hard to describe. Someone who has no hesitation at ordering the bombing of hospitals, refugee camps and ambulances with no thought of the many children and women that were killed may not be on the same scale as Hamas, but really hes doing the same thing! And frankly, the 39 Palestinians released from prisons - none over 19 - all security threats? I read there are 6,000 Palestinians in those prisons. All security threats?
I would add the figures regarding the amounts spent on snacks and beer. Speaks volumes about our real priorities, and it is embarrassing.
We may well be living in dynamic times but personally, I’d appreciate a little less dynamism in my life.