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Mountain Views News, Sierra Madre Edition [Pasadena] Saturday, September 23, 2017 |
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B3 OPINION Mountain Views News Saturday, September 23, 2017 GRAHAM WEST Mountain Views News PUBLISHER/ EDITOR Susan Henderson PASADENA CITY EDITOR Dean Lee EAST VALLEY EDITOR Joan Schmidt BUSINESS EDITOR LaQuetta Shamblee PRODUCTION Richard Garcia SALES Patricia Colonello 626-355-2737 626-818-2698 WEBMASTER John Aveny DISTRIBUTION Kevin Barry CONTRIBUTORS Chris Leclerc Bob Eklund Howard Hays Paul Carpenter Kim Clymer-Kelley Christopher Nyerges Peter Dills Rich Johnson Merri Jill Finstrom Rev. James Snyder Dr. Tina Paul Katie Hopkins Deanne Davis Despina Arouzman Renee Quenell Marc Garlett Keely Toten TRUMP’S UN ADDRESS CONTAINED A DANGEROUS DOGWHISTLE Presidential addresses to the United Nations General Assembly don’t get a lot of press here at home, but they do matter to listeners around the world. And those who heard President Trump’s first such address earlier this week may have noticed one concept repeated throughout: sovereignty. Most American high school students learn about sovereignty in the domestic context: popular sovereignty, or the notion that power rests with the people, is one of our political system’s most admirable and distinguishing features. In international relations parlance however, a country is considered ‘sovereign’ if it has control over its own land. Sovereignty gained traction as a guiding principle in the international system in the mid-1600s as ‘nation-states’ - political units matching peoples and contiguous territories - began asserting authority against empires, religious authorities, and royal families. (This was first possible only in Europe; colonized peoples around the world had to fight much harder and longer for control of their own destinies.) Simplified history aside, this all sounds like a good thing. Countries should be in charge of themselves, free from foreign influence and external machinations. So what’s wrong with President Trump repeating that during his big speech? The devil here is in the context. President Trump’s repeated invoking of ‘sovereignty’ came across like a dogwhistle - a wink to authoritarian regimes and a warning the rest of the world. One problem with talking about sovereignty today is that authoritarian regimes use the same concept to nefarious ends. China, for example, rejects criticism of its human rights record in the name of sovereignty - think “what we do to our political prisoners is none of your business.” And Russia talks about sovereignty to justify its annexation of Crimea, claiming that the Ukrainians who live there are really Russians who want to be ruled as such (though they aren’t, and they don’t). These countries have also used sovereignty as an excuse to stop international action in crises where leaders are massacring their own people, including when they want those same leaders staying in power (e.g. Russia, which benefits from Bashar Al-Assad’s continued brutal rule in Syria). So when President Trump emphasizes sovereignty over and over again, it undercuts the moral authority of the United States to hold other nations to a higher set of common standards. But it won’t just be the bad guys who hear a backwards message in the president’s speech. By championing strong and independent states, President Trump was undermining the notion that countries need to be working together rather than at cross-purposes to solve today’s global challenges. With our security and prosperity tied together with that of folks around the world whether we like it or not, now is the time to be extending a hand in cooperation for the long run rather than stepping back. It’s why the America First ideology makes so little sense at this moment. It may be reassuring for some of President Trump’s supporters to hear him rail against handouts, but the fact of the matter is that it is America who needs the world’s help now more than ever. No man is an island, and no country is either - no matter what walls we build or doors we shut. So what should we have heard in President Trump’s inaugural address to the United Nations? What underlying concept would better guide his foreign policy approach? In short, multilateralism: We must insist that collective action is the key to defeating everything from violent extremism to climate change and pandemic disease to nuclear proliferation. And just as we have always stepped up to fight big problems, America should be leading the way rather than promoting a free-for-all void of standards or values. International institutions can do good in the world if we work hard to make them robust, proactive, and accountable; turning our backs on what the Greatest Generation built after World War II is an approach as lazy as it is self-fulfilling. All of this may sound like semantics and nitpicking for a speech that few Americans tuned in for. But when the President of the United States speaks, the world listens - and what they heard was the wrong message for the reality we face. ——— Graham F. West is the Communications Director for Truman Center for National Policy and Truman National Security Project, though views expressed here are his own. You can reach West at gwest@trumancnp.org. Mountain Views News has been adjudicated as a newspaper of General Circulation for the County of Los Angeles in Court Case number GS004724: for the City of Sierra Madre; in Court Case GS005940 and for the City of Monrovia in Court Case No. GS006989 and is published every Saturday at 80 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., No. 327, Sierra Madre, California, 91024. All contents are copyrighted and may not be reproduced without the express written consent of the publisher. All rights reserved. All submissions to this newspaper become the property of the Mountain Views News and may be published in part or whole. Opinions and views expressed by the writers printed in this paper do not necessarily express the views and opinions of the publisher or staff of the Mountain Views News. Mountain Views News is wholly owned by Grace Lorraine Publications, and reserves the right to refuse publication of advertisements and other materials submitted for publication. Letters to the editor and correspondence should be sent to: Mountain Views News 80 W. Sierra Madre Bl. #327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Phone: 626-355-2737 Fax: 626-609-3285 email: mtnviewsnews@aol.com LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN/CENTER MAKING SENSE by MICHAEL REAGAN JOHN L. MICEK BEYOND TRUMP - CAN AMERICANS SURVIVE EACH OTHER? LOVING TRUMP’S U.N. SPEECH Donald Trump’s speech to the United Nations on Tuesday was not just great, it was totally refreshing. The president’s address to the U.N. General Assembly was so perfect it almost made me forget all the horrible speeches his predecessor gave to that corrupt, bloated and anti-American body. For the first time in eight years the world saw an American president not spending half his time apologizing o the U.N. for our country’s past, present and future. President Obama’s U.N. speeches always managed to make it sound like the United States was no different from Iran and North Korea. He’d say we’re going to stop their evil, and we’re also going to stop our evil, as if there was a moral equivalency between us and those inhuman hellholes. On Tuesday President Trump did not pussyfoot around or ignore the obvious threats the rogue regimes of North Korea and Iran pose to a peaceful planet. He blasted both countries, calling them out for violating “every principle on which the United Nations is based. They respect neither their own citizens nor the sovereign rights of their countries. “If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few,” Trump said, “then evil will triumph. When decent people and nations become bystanders to history, the forces of destruction only gather power and strength.” Trump, being Trump, also said what needed to be said about North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Un and his missile program. Liberals and the media went ballistic over Trump branding Un as the “Rocket Man.” As usual, the media, which themselves have called Un every name in the book, missed the strengths of Trump’s speech and concentrated on what they thought was a politically incorrect gaffe or a presidential goof. But “Rocket Man” was brilliant. It was a way to mock and insult Un while giving him a public warning that if the U.S. is “forced to defend itself or its allies … we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.” The president got his U.N. speech 100 percent right. Unlike President Obama, who blamed America first, Trump always puts America first. He and his speechwriters also deftly explained to his unfriendly audience what he meant by “America First.” He said as president of the United States he will always put his country’s interests first, just as each of them would put their country’s interests first. The U.N. rank and file apparently couldn’t understand that idea, unfortunately, because most of them routinely put themselves first, not their own countries. Listening to President Trump speak to the U.N. on Tuesday was a real treat -- like listening to an American Bibi Netanyahu. Bibi himself recognized the resemblance, which is why the Israeli leader tweeted his praise for Mr. Trump: “In over 30 years in my experience with the U.N., I never heard a bolder or more courageous speech.” Bibi knows the U.N. and how to address it and its gaggle of bureaucrats and professional America-haters. When the Israeli leader goes before them he always tells them exactly what they need to hear, but there’s one problem -- no one ever listens. It’d be really nice if the U.N. people were listening this time to Trump. It’d be nice if they’d react positively to his call for the U.N. to do what it was founded to do – defend the sovereignty, security and prosperity of all peaceful countries and stand together against rogue nations like North Korea and Iran. But unfortunately, in the real world probably half of the U.N. people who come to New York are not coming to work for world peace and greater prosperity. They’re coming to see their mistresses and rack up hundreds of unpaid parking tickets. ——- Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan. com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan. com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter. Two essays this week, by two very different authors, take us deep into the tribalism that marks our politics. Both should serve as a wake-up call for what we risk losing as a culture -- as a nation -- if we fail to reconcile our differences and heal long-festering national wounds. Writing at The Atlantic, journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a bleak view of the stinging white privilege that fired Donald Trump’s ascendance to the White House last November, positing, convincingly, that the unifying principle guiding America’s “first white president,” is the “negation of Barack Obama’s legacy.” “It is often said that Trump has no real ideology, which is not true - his ideology is white supremacy, in all its truculent and sanctimonious power,” Coates writes early on, laying out in painstaking detail, in paragraph after paragraph, page after page, how the former real estate mogul speaks to the insecurities of white voters who see the nation changing around them, but who are unwilling (or unable) to adjust to it. “In Trump, white supremacists see one of their own. Only grudgingly did Trump denounce the Ku Klux Klan and David Duke, one of its former grand wizards - and after the clashes between white supremacists and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August, Duke in turn praised Trump’s contentious claim that “both sides” were responsible for the violence,” Coates writes. Meanwhile, in New York Magazine, veteran journalist Andrew Sullivan, in a thought- provoking piece called “America Wasn’t Built for Humans,” posits that “Tribalism was an urge our Founding Fathers assumed we could overcome. And so it was become our greatest vulnerability.” Looking at the tribal warfare that’s riven Iraq or Syria, where people who look exactly alike, who live next door to each other, and then kill each other with ruthless efficiency over gradients of religious disagreement, Sullivan wonders “what it must be like to live in a truly tribal society.” Then he realizes he doesn’t have to. He’s already living it in 21st Century America. “Over the past couple of decades in America, the enduring, complicated divides of ideology, geography, party, class, religion, and race have mutated into something deeper, simpler to map, and therefore much more ominous,” he writes. “I don’t just mean the rise of political polarization (although that’s how it often expresses itself), nor the rise of political violence (the domestic terrorism of the late 1960s and ‘70s was far worse), nor even this country’s ancient black-white racial conflict (though its potency endures).” What Sullivan sees now is “a new and compounding combination of all these differences into two coherent tribes, eerily balanced in political power, fighting not just to advance their own side but to provoke, condemn, and defeat the other.” If you’ve ever gotten into a political argument at any moment after Trump descended the escalator at Trump Tower in June 2015, then you know exactly what Sullivan is talking about here. It’s no longer enough that we disagree with each other - left or right - we have to hate each other. We have to want to see the arguments of the other destroyed or defeated. We’ve lost the capacity to talk with each other. Instead, happily ensconced in our own confirmation- bias bubbles, we merely talk past each other. Coates, meanwhile, sees one bloc - white voters, or at least those white voters who unquestioningly back Trump - cleaved off from the rest of the rest of the culture and enabling his nationalist excesses. “The scope of Trump’s commitment to whiteness is matched only by the depth of popular disbelief in the power of whiteness. We are now being told that support for Trump’s “Muslim ban,” his scapegoating of immigrants, his defenses of police brutality are somehow the natural outgrowth of the cultural and economic gap between Lena Dunham’s America and Jeff Foxworthy’s,” Coates writes. Coates ends his lengthy essay with the proposition that “The first white president in American history is also the most dangerous president—and he is made more dangerous still by the fact that those charged with analyzing him [whites] cannot name his essential nature, because they too are implicated in it.” Sullivan’s essay is equally unremitting in its bleakness, but also offers a path forward, though it is neither easy nor certain. “No tribal conflict has ever been unwound without magnanimity. Yitzhak Rabin had it, but it was not enough. Nelson Mandela had it, and it was. In Colombia earlier this month, as a fragile peace agreement met public opposition, Pope Francis insisted that grudges be left behind,” he writes. Sullivan is right that such an embrace is both difficult and counterintuitive. But, he argues it’s absolutely necessary. After all, he concludes, “no one ever claimed that living in a republic was going to be easy - if we really want to keep it.” And that, right there, is the trick. Mountain Views News Mission Statement The traditions of community news- papers and the concerns of our readers are this newspaper’s top priorities. We support a prosperous community of well- informed citizens. We hold in high regard the values of the exceptional quality of life in our community, including the magnificence of our natural resources. Integrity will be our guide. Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com | ||||||||||||||||||||