A Promised Land

America as a Developing Country

The Rising

I’ll say a few things. An incredible video says it all.

Bruce Springsteen wrote “The Rising” in response to 9/11. Like many of his songs, its beauty lies in the ears of the beholder, its intent subject to interpretation.

While “The Rising” is clearly about 9/11, it’s also about so much more. Released in 2002, it’s timeless in the intense feelings it conveys. Yet it’s also rooted in each of the tense times and turning points it’s addressed in the years since then.

As we arise from the nightmare of the last four years, this is one of those times.

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Remember Those “Sh*thole Countries”?

A better term has applied here at home.

A certain republic for the past four years

The Short List

In a Zoom chat today, friends and I briefly discussed Donald Trump’s infamously and callously dismissing El Salvador, Haiti and African nations as “sh*thole countries” two years ago.

That is not a term ordinarily employed in international development discourse.  

As Trump’s presidency finally circles the drain and we consider his legacy, though, I’d suggest that “sh*thole government,” rather than “sh*thole country,” can apply to certain places. Here are some features of such a government’s leadership:

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An Indian TV (and Benicia, CA) View of the Insurrection

The video is from January 6. How the world has changed, even since then.

As part of my occasional commentary on U.S. and international affairs for a major Indian broadcaster, WION (World is One News), the channel interviewed me on January 6 as part of its report on that day’s D.C. insurrection. To my mind, it did a fine job (linked below) in its coverage of the exploding events.

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Bar Him

A lesson from Cambodia about striking when the iron is hot.

“He’s Like a King”

I once shook a dictator’s hand.

Flying from Bangkok to Cambodia about 15 years ago for a consultancy, I ended up seated in the plane’s front row. A well-attired man boarded with his wife and large entourage, and sat across the aisle from me. He was the country’s autocratic prime minister, Hun Sen.

As we stood up and our eyes met after landing, he spontaneously shook my hand, said “Welcome to Cambodia” and turned to go. The Thai Airways flight attendant, unaware that I knew who he was, politely told me to wait until he and his scurrying travel party disembarked, because “he’s like a king.”

Which brings me to the point of this post: For all of the ways in that small Southeast Asian nation differs from America, we can learn from its brave democratic forces’ failure to topple Hun Sen when they possibly had him on the ropes several years later. In the coming days, Congress must bar Donald Trump from ever holding public office again.

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Kristallnacht, Trump and the Termi­nator

The anti-Trump movie star and former governor is a pretty good history teacher.

He’s back

A Turning Point

Arnold Schwarzenegger released a powerful anti-Trump, pro-democracy video yesterday. He starts by likening Wednesday’s mob attack on the Capitol to the November 9-10, 1938  Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). That widespread, state-sponsored riot saw Nazi gangs across Germany and his native Austria destroy thousands of synagogues and other Jewish-owned buildings, kill at least 91 Jews and round up 30,000 more for concentration camps.

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