lundi 28 février 2011
Clinton: It's Time For Gaddafi To 'Go Now'
La fin serait proche...
In Geneva, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was meeting Monday with foreign ministers from Britain, France, Germany and Italy, pressing for tough sanctions on the Libyan government. A day earlier, Clinton kept up pressure for Gadhafi to step down and "call off the mercenaries" and other troops that remain loyal to him.
"We've been reaching out to many different Libyans who are attempting to organize in the east and as the revolution moves westward there as well," Clinton said. "I think it's way too soon to tell how this is going to play out, but we're going to be ready and prepared to offer any kind of assistance that anyone wishes to have from the United States."
Lien pour un article complet:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/28/libya-protests-food-price_n_829026.html
Les états à surveiller en 2012 pour Obama
Sur le site du Washington post:
The bigger questions when it comes to the president's chances in 2012 are in states such as Colorado, Nevada and Virginia.
Difficile de ne pas être d'accord...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/27/AR2011022702970.html
Is the Arab world unready for freedom?
Un point de vue trop optimiste?
Le monde arabe est prêt selon Nicholas D. Kristof, deux fois gagnant du Putlizer.
"The common thread of this year’s democracy movement from Tunisia to Iran, from Yemen to Libya, has been undaunted courage. I’ll never forget a double-amputee I met in Tahrir Square in Cairo when Hosni Mubarak’s thugs were attacking with rocks, clubs and Molotov cocktails. This young man rolled his wheelchair to the front lines. And we doubt his understanding of what democracy means?
In Bahrain, I watched a column of men and women march unarmed toward security forces when, a day earlier, the troops had opened fire with live ammunition. Anyone dare say that such people are too immature to handle democracy?
Look, there’ll be bumps ahead. It took Americans six years after the Revolutionary War to elect a president, and we almost came apart at the seams again in the 1860s. When Eastern Europe became democratic after the 1989 revolutions, Poland and the Czech Republic adjusted well, but Romania and Albania endured chaos for years. After the 1998 people power revolution in Indonesia, I came across mobs in eastern Java who were beheading people and carrying their heads on pikes.
The record is that after some missteps, countries usually pull through. Education, wealth, international connections and civil society institutions help. And, on balance, Egypt, Libya and Bahrain are better positioned today for democracy than Mongolia or Indonesia seemed in the 1990s — and Mongolia and Indonesia today are successes. Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain visited the Middle East a few days ago (arms dealers in tow), and he forthrightly acknowledged that for too long Britain had backed authoritarian regimes to achieve stability. He acknowledged that his country had bought into the bigoted notion “that Arabs or Muslims can’t do democracy.” And he added: “For me, that’s a prejudice that borders on racism. It’s offensive and wrong, and it’s simply not true.”
It’s still a view peddled by Arab dictatorships, particularly Saudi Arabia — and, of course, by China’s leaders and just about any African despot. It’s unfortunate when Westerners are bigoted in this way, but it’s even sadder when leaders in the developing world voice such prejudices about their own people."
Pour le reste de l'analyse:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/opinion/27kristof.html?ref=opinion
As Regimes Fall in Arab World, Al Qaeda Sees History Fly By
Scott Shane nous livre son analyse dans le NY Times de ce matin. Courant "démocratique" qui entraînerait un recul du célèbre mouvement terroriste?
"For nearly two decades, the leaders of Al Qaeda have denounced the Arab world’s dictators as heretics and puppets of the West and called for their downfall. Now, people in country after country have risen to topple their leaders — and Al Qaeda has played absolutely no role.
Multimedia
In fact, the motley opposition movements that have appeared so suddenly and proved so powerful have shunned the two central tenets of the Qaeda credo: murderous violence and religious fanaticism. The demonstrators have used force defensively, treated Islam as an afterthought and embraced democracy, which is anathema to Osama bin Laden and his followers.
So for Al Qaeda — and perhaps no less for the American policies that have been built around the threat it poses — the democratic revolutions that have gripped the world’s attention present a crossroads. Will the terrorist network shrivel slowly to irrelevance? Or will it find a way to exploit the chaos produced by political upheaval and the disappointment that will inevitably follow hopes now raised so high?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/world/middleeast/28qaeda.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha22
28 février 1993: Waco, Texas
Difficile d'oublier ces évènements qui surviennent après une confrontation de 51 jours. Fusillade entre des agents fédéraux et des membres de la secte des Davidiens. Quatre agents et six membres de la secte meurent.
Le leader de la secte, David Koresh, et ses fidèles étaient accusés d'abus sexuels. On craignait également les stocks d'armes à feu du groupe.
La gestion de ce conflit par les autorités fédérales demeure un sujet de controverse...
dimanche 27 février 2011
Obama Denies Accusations He Does Not Love His Dog
Belle parodie des excès de certains médias...
http://www.theonion.com/video/obama-denies-accusations-he-does-not-love-his-dog,19252/
samedi 26 février 2011
Muammar Gaddafi Must 'Leave Now'
L'administration Obama hausse le ton:
Ratcheting up the pressure, President Barack Obama on Saturday said Moammar Gadhafi has lost his legitimacy to rule and urged the Libyan leader to leave power immediately.
It was the first time Obama has called for Gadhafi to step down, coming after days of bloodshed in Libya. Gadhafi has vowed to fight to the end to keep his four-decade grip on power in the North African country.
"When a leader's only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now," the White House said in a statement, summarizing Obama's telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Until now, U.S. officials have held back from such a pronouncement, insisting it is for the Libyan people to decide who their leader should be.
The administration upped its pressure a day after it froze all Libyan assets in the U.S. that belong to Gadhafi, his government and four of his children. The U.S. also closed its embassy in Libya and suspended the limited defense trade between the countries.
Sur le site du Huffington post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/26/libya-protests-obama-gaddafi-leave-now_n_828712.html
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Libyans "have made themselves clear."
"Gadhafi has lost the confidence of his people and he should go without further bloodshed and violence," she said in a separate statement. "The Libyan people deserve a government that is responsive to their aspirations and that protects their universally recognized human rights."
Entrevue à Ça me dit de prendre le temps: l'arrivée d'Emanuel à la mairie de Chicago
World trade center: attaque le 26 février 1993
L'explosion avait eu lieu quelques jours avant un de mes premiers passages à New York... J'étais la fois inquiet et curieux. Difficile à cette époque d'imaginer que les terroristes réussiraient leur attaque quelques années plus tard, un certain 11 septembre.
Selon le Time: oscar à Incendies de Denis Villeneuve!
Voici pourquoi:
"Nervously bucking majority opinion, we'll pick Incendies, a French-Canadian drama in which a recently deceased woman, raised in Lebanon before moving to Montreal, leaves her adult twin children two letters to deliver: one to the father they thought was dead, the other to a brother they didn't know existed. Crosscutting between the twins' trip to Lebanon in the present and their mother's life in that country's civil war in the 1970s, the film boasts an epic sweep, an emotional intensity and a few plot surprises. In other words, unlike its competition for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, Incendies is a real movie — one that might please a few dozen Academy members. And in this category, that's all it takes."
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2044968_2052929_2055440,00.html
Christianity, slavery and redemption in America
Belle réflexion d'Albert Raboteau sur le site du Huffington post,
"In his classic meditation on the spirituals, Deep River, Howard Thurman, made a profound observation about the role of Christian slaves in the nation's history. "By some amazing but vastly creative spiritual insight the slave undertook the redemption of a religion that the master had profaned in his midst."
To profane something sacred is to desecrate it, to treat it with irreverence or contempt. The slaveholder's profaned Christianity by racism, which degrades the sacrality of human persons, and by materialism, which values things over people and so effaces the image of God in which they are created. Contrary to the religion of those Americans who believed that Christianity and slavery were compatible, the slaves bore witness, sometimes with their blood, to the truth of the gospel: that the law of love contradicted slavery and the racism upon which it was built."
Pour la suite: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/albert-raboteau/under-the-healing-wings-o_b_828401.html
vendredi 25 février 2011
Le Tea party a deux ans:Tea Party at second anniversary: What happens next?
Sur le site de CNN:
The Tea Party has already stitched together a colorful history made of success and failure, anger and optimism and lots of controversy.
And as the movement marks its second anniversary, it's worth asking: Where is it headed?
"It started spontaneously and organically as a protest/rally movement. And it fully matured, because of the timing, into a movement that involved electoral politics," Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler told CNN.
"And so, here we are, on our second anniversary, we've proven that this is a movement that's here to stay. It's time to get serious about -- and pushing forward -- a long-term policy."
Detractors say the Tea Party movement will either fizzle out or self-destruct in infighting. But Meckler said that predictions of the Tea Party's demise are consistently off.
"They've been saying the same thing since February 27, 2009. I look forward to hearing the same thing in 2019."
Asked about the movement's staying power, Brendan Steinhauser, director of federal and state campaigns for FreedomWorks, was blunt: "We have to institutionalize the revolution."
Steinhauser explained that local groups must now expand memberships and get offices. And they must get inside the offices of local and federal lawmakers as staff members.
"The process has started. The takeover of the Republican Party is under way. It's going to be a long process," Steinhauser said.
How to grow and solidify the movement will dominate the discussion at a conservative summit in Phoenix this weekend sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots. Attendees will discuss economic, constitutional and political issues.
Among the speakers are some potential presidential candidates: Tim Pawlenty, the former Republican governor of Minnesota; Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas; and conservative radio host Herman Cain.
There will also probably be a good deal of looking back at the movement's early days. It was born of conservative anger about massive government spending, like the bank bailout and stimulus package. Activists attended rallies, bus tours across the country and other public events to vent their frustration. The protests, the media coverage and the Tea Party's impact grew.
Kadhafi, quelques caricatures et les sanctions américaines...
L'administration américaine annonce qu'il y aura des sanctions contre la Libye...
USSS looks into "Who's going to shoot Obama?" questioner
Réaction de la Maison Blanche...
Réponse de la Maison Blanche...
According to the Athens Banner-Herald, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) got a doozy of a question at a town hall meeting Tuesday.
The reporter couldn't hear the question, but reported that the "whatever it was, it got a big laugh."
Later, a Broun spokesperson confirmed to the reporter that the question was, in fact, "Who is going to shoot Obama?"
According to the Athens paper, Congressman Broun did not denounce the question, but responded:
The thing is, I know there’s a lot of frustration with this president. We’re going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we’ll elect somebody that’s going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.
Today the United States Secret Service said they interviewed the subject. "We've taken appropriate investigative steps. At this point we consider the matter closed," Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan told CNN.
http://whitehouse.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/25/usss-looks-into-whos-going-to-shoot-obama-questioner/
"Who is going to shoot Obama"?
Cette question fut réellement posée au républicain Paul Broun lors d'une assemblée politique dans une ville de l'état de la Georgie...
Sur le site du Huffington post:
"The Athens Banner-Herald in Georgia reports that a shocking question was asked at a town hall event held by Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) on Tuesday. According to the article, an audience member asked the congressman, "Who is going to shoot Obama?""
"However, rather than confronting the questioner or condemning the question, Broun instead acknowledged "frustration" with Obama, according to the Banner-Herald. The paper reports that Broun responded to the stunning inquiry as follows:
"The thing is, I know there's a lot of frustration with this president. We're going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we'll elect somebody that's going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.""
Soulèvement dans le monde arabe... La "clé" en Arabie saoudite?
Pas bête...
The West’s complicity in supporting the autocratic regimes that characterise many of the big oil-exporting nations is in part explained by the fact that, whatever their sins, they did at least seem to provide stability in the energy markets. That stability, however, has been thrown up in the air by the wave of protest sweeping the region.
Initially, it was assumed that there was a difference between oil-poor Arab nations such as Tunisia and Egypt, where the uprisings have been as much about living standards as anything else, and the much richer Gulf states. That theory was swiftly proved wrong.
In Saudi Arabia, even King Abdullah’s panicky decision to order another multi-billion-dollar splurge of spending on education, healthcare and infrastructure may not be enough to buy off the opposition. People seem to want something more precious than money: freedom.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeremy-warner/8346498/If-the-Saudis-revolt-the-worlds-in-trouble.html
Kadhadi: appel à une position plus radicale de l'administration Obama
Ce journaliste du Washington post n'est pas le seul à penser ainsi...
!Gaddafi seems to have calculated that the longer he can drag out the conflict -- and demonstrate that he still commands the capital city and a potent, if diminished, military force -- the more likely it becomes that he can find some way to survive.
That's where Obama and other world leaders come in. The immediate aim should be to separate Gaddafi from as much of his military strength as possible.
On Wednesday, in his first extended remarks on the crisis, Obama warned that "the Libyan government has a responsibility to refrain from violence." Those words, while correct, were far too weak. Obama should state plainly that we no longer consider Gaddafi's regime to be the legitimate government of Libya and that the dictator must immediately step down.
This will not have the slightest impact on Gaddafi, of course. But the message isn't for the Mad Colonel, it's for the military officers -- the pilots of his warplanes and commanders of his warships -- who must decide whether to follow his orders. They need to be told, in no uncertain terms, that if they side with Gaddafi they will suffer the consequences."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/02/25/give_gaddafi_a_real_message_109022.html
Baseball et socialisme!
Je ne sais pas ce que vous en pensez, mais Je "doute" légèrement...
Un article dans The new republic et un article de Philippe Cantin dans La Presse.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/83927/hank-steinbrenner-vs-socialism
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/chroniqueurs/philippe-cantin/201102/25/01-4373854-un-joueur-vaut-il-30-millions-par-annee.php
Un extrait du texte de Cantin:
"Le communisme, foi de Hank Steinbrenner, s'insinue malicieusement dans le sport professionnel nord-américain. Et il a choisi son cheval de Troie: le baseball majeur!
Celle-là, parions que vous ne l'aviez pas vue venir. Surtout si, comme moi, vous avez observé avec stupéfaction la récente danse des millions dans cet univers de plus en plus déconnecté de la réalité.
Voyons un peu: Carl Crawford a obtenu 142 millions des Red Sox de Boston et Jayson Werth 126 millions des Nationals de Washington, chacun pour sept ans. Les Phillies de Philadelphie ont consenti 120 millions pour cinq ans à Cliff Lee, qui n'a même pas choisi la meilleure offre financière!
Plus près de nous, les Blue Jays de Toronto ont promis 64 millions en cinq ans à Jose Bautista, un joueur dont le palmarès ne compte qu'une seule bonne saison et qui ne profitait pas de l'autonomie.
Alors, dites-vous, où se cache le communisme dans tout ça? Selon Steinbrenner, dans le partage des revenus et la taxe de luxe, des mécanismes visant à favoriser l'égalité des chances entre les équipes établies dans les gros et petits marchés."
Rubicon: A river in Wisconsin
Franchir le Rubicon? Bien sûr il n'est pas question ce matin de Jules César marchant vers Rome, mais plutôt du bras de fer entre le gouverneur Walker du Wisconsin et les syndicats de la fonction publique. Ces dernier seraient choyés lorsqu'on compare leur situation à celles des autres travailleurs qui représentent 85% de la population de cet état. Les démocrates, et l'administration Obama, tentent de limiter les dégâts pour les syndiqués et de préserver des "gains historiques". On rappelle même les luttes épiques et historiques pour reconnaître les droits des travailleurs. Les gains obtenus pendant la révolution industrielle ou la crise des années'30 peuvent-ils, ou doivent-ils, êtres maintenus dans le contexte de 2011? Charles Krauthammer avance une réponse dans le Washington post de ce matin: non.
The magnificent turmoil now gripping statehouses in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and soon others marks an epic political moment. The nation faces a fiscal crisis of historic proportions and, remarkably, our muddled, gridlocked, allegedly broken politics have yielded singular clarity.
At the federal level, President Obama's budget makes clear that Democrats are determined to do nothing about the debt crisis, while House Republicans have announced that beyond their proposed cuts in discretionary spending, their April budget will actually propose real entitlement reform. Simultaneously, in Wisconsin and other states, Republican governors are taking on unsustainable, fiscally ruinous pension and health-care obligations, while Democrats are full-throated in support of the public-employee unions crying, "Hell, no."
Wisconsin is the epicenter. It began with economic issues. When Gov. Scott Walker proposed that state workers contribute more to their pension and health-care benefits, he started a revolution. Teachers called in sick. Schools closed. Demonstrators massed at the capitol. Democratic senators fled the state to paralyze the Legislature.
Unfortunately for them, that telegenic faux-Cairo scene drew national attention to the dispute - and to the sweetheart deals the public-sector unions had negotiated for themselves for years. They were contributing a fifth of a penny on a dollar of wages to their pensions and one-fourth what private-sector workers pay for health insurance.
The unions quickly understood that the more than 85 percent of Wisconsin not part of this privileged special-interest group would not take kindly to "public servants" resisting adjustments that still leave them paying less for benefits than private-sector workers. They immediately capitulated and claimed they were only protesting the other part of the bill, the part about collective-bargaining rights.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/24/AR2011022406520.html
U.S. Trying to Pick Winners in New Mideast
Qui les États-Unis vont appuyer maintenant?
Tentative de réponse dans le NY Times de ce matin...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/world/middleeast/25diplomacy.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha22
jeudi 24 février 2011
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