Had enough of the Tea Party tirades against Barack Obama?  For some perspective, take a look at what the rest of the world thinks about the United States since Obama took office:

“People around the world today view the United States more positively than at any time since the second Iraq war,” says international polling firm GlobeScan’s chair Doug Miller, after a study conducted in partnership with the Program on International Policy Attitudes (Pipa) at the University of Maryland.  The BBC notes that there can be little confusion as to the cause for this surge in popularity as the uptick in approval ratings coincided (roughly) with Barack Obama becoming president.  The improvement has been drastic and unquestionable: “America’s influence in the world is now seen as more positive than negative,” (Click here for a look at the graph) says the BBC of the results of the survey of 30,000 people in 28 countries.

There are of course going to be the isolationist, deadbeat, know-nothing boobs who shrug at this and claim that world opinion and active diplomacy do not matter.  To a chump of this breed, “us and them” thinking dominates and the outside world is willed away.  Whether they are attention whores waving their home-made signs of xenophobic desperation at anti-immigration rallies or whether they indulge in Rush/Beck/Hannity bulimia – force feeding themselves with ultra-right propaganda and then projectile vomiting, booty grazing style, across their sturdy white picket fences – the viability of their shortsighted thinking is quickly fading.

“They’ll just say that this is further proof that Obama is selling America to his wicked, socialist brethren in the empire of Europe,” said a commenter on the Rachel Maddow Blog.  These antediluvian, paranoid wrecks are as quick to fire off the “s” word as a high school sophomore is to boyfriend drop in every hallway conversation.  Newsflash: Working for better quality of life at home and reaching out diplomatically abroad is not socialism.  It is common sense.

“The idea that a better reputation abroad is meaningless uplift is foolish. It helps the US leverage its power to greater ends. The more popular the US is, the likelier it is to have a positive impact on other countries’ leaders. ” (Andrews Sullivan, The Atlantic)

Sullivan makes the point that the American face-lift began in 2007 , “when Cheneyism was in retreat, when Rice and Gates were beginning to reorient the US away from militarist adventurism, when the surge was beginning to tamp down violence in Iraq, and when the Supreme Court had begun to push back on the presidential power to torture at will. But it’s also worth noting that the gain in respect endures and strengthens as Obama holds office, at a time when every other country’s reputation is declining.”

No courtesy fart was needed after the last administration’s train wreck of a foreign policy.  We needed change.  The massive work of diplomatic reparation was before us.  And in place of cowboyish black and white rhetoric came a more nuanced approach to international collaboration:

“We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.  The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history. … Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America. … As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. … America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more. … To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”   – President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address.

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Ever-innocent of in depth analysis, Sarah Palin likened President Obama’s nuclear policy to a child in a playground telling one of his playmates, “‘Go ahead, punch me in the face and I’m not going to retaliate. Go ahead and do what you want to with me.”  Setting aside the stats on the amount of gradeschoolers that use the word “retaliate”, let’s focus on the bigger picture of Palin’s April 7 bid at “snappy quip of the day”.  Yet again, Sarah Palin has taken “Keep it Simple Stupid” to such ridiculous lengths that she has emerged looking… well… quite simple and quite stupid.  Even Obama who seldom comments on Palin’s yap felt the need to comment this time around, calling her “not much of an expert on nuclear issues.”

Let’s unpack Palin’s genius further with a look at the context of her remarks.  This past Thursday, April 8, Obama signed a nuclear treaty with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that would result in both countries significantly scaling back the size of their nuclear arsenals.  Included in the smorgasbord of changes to nuclear policy, the United Sates is pledging not to threaten to or actually nuke any non-nuclear country that is in compliance with the international nonproliferation treaty.  Even if chemical or biological weapons were to be used on the US or its allies, the response under this new agreement could be aggressive military action but not nuclear action against said country.  Two caveats: nukes may be back on the table if biological weapons grow sufficiently in their ability to devastate AND North Korea and Iran are still fair game for nuking since they won’t cooperate with nonproliferation standards.

Back to Palin.  The vision of a post nuclear world obviously doesn’t get much traction with the Alaskan.  Neither does nuance.  Treaties of the kind just signed will help reduce the threat of nuclear warfare or nuclear terrorism as they will reduce the size of the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals while simultaneously, bolstering security around what remains.  Palin seems to think that voluntarily reducing your nuclear capacity is a sign of weakness.  This is classic conservative shortsightedness.  If what we ultimately want is greater security, it makes sense to reduce firepower and the possibilities that the most destructive weapons in the world may fall into the hands of rogue states or terrorist groups.  Also, Palin seems incapable of reading the fine print: the nuclear option is not going away.  It can and will still be used, depending on the size of the threat against the United States.  And, as Robert Gibbs pointed out, the United States has, “a massive conventional arsenal that we believe has an important deterrent effect on anybody that might make the poor decision to attack our country.”

As entertaining as we may find Palin’s quips and sandbox nostalgia to be, if her long-term goal is the security of the United Sates and its allies, it would behoove her to think about more than inciting populist rage one chipper aside at a time.  Leadership is more than Tea Party diatribes, FOX talk or practiced, wink-punctuated debates rebuttals.  Unless it is addressed carefully, Palin’s lack of substance will collapse like her Katie Couric interviews and her failed governorship.  Time for some soul searching?  You betcha.

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YES, BEFORE YOU COMMENT, I TOO, HATE THE PLACEMENT OF THE PLAY BUTTON.  THANK YOU YOUTUBE:)

In this second episode of CultureMutterings I cover some of the ideas, fights and questions that have come up over the last few posts.  Hot topics: gay people in the military; the Icelandic sex industry; Joe the Plumber venting about how he wants to torture people and FOX News on the Congressional Budget Office.

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Here goes the first video post.  The idea behind it is a beginning for what I am calling CultureMutterings – basically a video post about recent news, recent CultureMutt posts and reactions/rebuttals to some of the comments made on the posts.  This is my first stab at this and I am obviously highly camera trained…. enjoy

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It’s time for the detractors and tea partiers and general naysayers to take a deep breath, pack up their signs and book their one-ways home.  Health care reform passed tonight in what even Fox News concedes is a victory for President Barack Obama.  The bill passed 219-212 with Republicans stamping their little feet all the way.  The bill is now headed to Obama to be signed into law and is what CNN calls, “the most sweeping American social legislation in more than four decades”.  The path for progress has finally been cleared and Obama has passed the biggest test of his presidency.

Victory had been far from clear.  In January, when Republican candidate Scott Brown won the senate seat held previously by the late Ted Kennedy, opponents of health care reform danced in the streets because Democrats had lost their filibuster-proof 60-seat majority that they had been counting on to pass the health care reform legislation.  In addition to this setback, Democrats were severely divided on the details of legislation being shaped and wallowed in analysis-paralysis.  On top of that, conservative spin masters were doing their level best to introduce wild misinformation Sarah-Palin-style about supposed “death panels” afforded by the new legislation and Communist-style takeovers of American health care.  The air was thick with the fear-mongering babble of conservative detractors that believed that if they could repeat the same lies often enough, people would believe it and progress would be halted.  Not so.

Truly herculean efforts by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other Democratic powerhouses, led by a newly-confident Obama, stood up for what they knew was right.  They fought harder than many thought they were capable of fighting.  Obama first postponed and then canceled his trip to Asia and Australia as the end drew closer and closer.  Those that had felt Obama had lost some of his umph were either delighted or disgusted when he made campaign-style speeches to huge crowds as late as Friday, March 19 when he addressed an enormously supportive student crowd at George Mason University, VA.  Yesterday he gave the most personal, direct and soul-baring speech of his presidency to House Democrats.  The crux of his argument was a quote from Lincoln,  “I am not bound to win, but I’m bound to be true. I’m not bound to succeed, but I’m bound to live up to what light I have.”  Obama spoke to Democrats, knowing full well that he was asking many of them to risk their careers.  In doing so, he asked them to dig deep and think about why they chose public service in the first place: “Something inspired you to get involved, and something inspired you to be a Democrat instead of running as a Republican… somewhere deep in your heart you said to yourself, ‘I believe in an America in which we don’t just look out for ourselves, that we don’t just tell people you’re on your own.’ ”

We hadn’t seen this Obama in a while but what Obama proved tonight is that he could do more than win the most significant election in a generation; he could pull off one of the greatest comebacks of recent political history and truly grab the reins of leadership with both hands.  As both friend and foe predicted, Obama’s success as a leader hinged on his ability to deliver on health care.  The Republicans knew this and fought accordingly.  But in the end, it was Obama that won.  As he said tonight: “We rose above the weight of our politics. … We are still a people capable of doing big things.”  And this is a president who is still capable of doing great things.

We’ll end on how Slate sums up the closing acts of the circus that was the House debate today:

“Minority Leader John Boehner used his time to deride the process that led to the bill’s passage. ‘Can you say it was done out in the open?’ he asked. His rhetorical device at times backfired. ‘Do you really believe that if you like your health care plan, you can keep it?’ ‘Yes!’ shouted Democrats. Boehner fired back, ‘You can’t!’ ‘Yes we can!’ yelled Democrats.

When the vote tally reached 216, a cheer went up stage right. Democrats hugged and kissed. Republicans stood with crossed arms. It didn’t take long for Democrats to settle on their victory chant: ‘Yes we can!’ ”

Welcome to a new day.

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It‘s been a battle between two of the best things about America:  Individual liberty on the one hand and shared responsibility on the other.   In the debate on health care we can’t resort to Dubya-style prattle that framed political dramas as a battle between good and evil.  It’s just not that simple.  There are good ideas and good people on both sides of this debate.  I don’t often speak in the first person on CultureMutt but I have no problem making this exception because of the extreme importance of what is at stake here.  I want to address this on as personal a level as possible.

Health care in America is an embarrassment, it is woefully inadequate and completely unacceptable in the world’s richest and most powerful country.  How is it that in America, the world’s sole superpower, we have huge slabs of the population that are one illness away from bankruptcy and devastating, personal failure?  How is it that insurance companies are able to deny people coverage based on pre-existing conditions?  This is cruel, this is heartless, this is fundamentally un-American.

I will admit that as a Swede, I often compare America to what I have in my country of birth.  Yes, Sweden has socialized medicine and yes, this does bias me in favor of providing health care as a right for all.  But I made a very conscious decision ten years ago to move to the United States.  The reason?  I still believe with all that is in me, that America is the land of opportunity.  I still believe that things – very good things – can be done in this country that cannot be done anywhere else.  I am proud of my adopted country and I defend it whenever I travel.  This is where I want to live and this is the country I am committed to on a level that makes me feel deeply invested in doing all I can to improve this country for all that live here.

What is special and what is unique in America is an unwavering belief in the possibilities of what we can achieve as individuals and what we can achieve together.  No other country on earth can claim the kind of environment that America offers to all that live here: superior opportunities to thrive and prosper.  I will admit that I came to America because I personally wanted to thrive and prosper and be supported in my drive to do so as an individual.  But having lived in America for 10 years now, I can say that the American promise has proved to be about more than just individual success: it is about our shared destiny as a people.  The good news about America is that this is a country where we give a damn.  This is a country of compassion.  This is a country where we care about other people; where we pick up our fallen in battle; where we work TOGETHER in the hope of improving our collective existence and that of future generations.  No matter how controversial, infuriating or deeply disappointing the path, we CANNOT allow the firestorm that is the health care debate to allow us to forget about this fundamental truth.  There is a better way than this.

Let’s not pretend that the health care reform bill that will be voted upon tomorrow in the House is without fault.  It certainly has weaknesses and compromises.  I am tempted to get on my soapbox as usual and pontificate on what the bill REALLY should look like but this time I won’t.  This moment is too important.  The bottom line is that our current health care has failed.  People are hurting, people are vulnerable and the time for change has come.  Just as it took courage and overlooking imperfections and potential political ramifications to vote in Medicare for seniors and Medicaid for the poor decades ago, it will take courage to bring health care reform today.  The time for stalling is over.  This country is better than this.  We are better than this.  And the America health care reform will bring is better than this. May the House prove it by voting for Health Care Reform tomorrow.  In the words of President Obama this afternoon, “Let’s get this done!”.

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If genocide denial doesn’t work, maybe mass deportation will.  Or so goes the apparent logic of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. Incensed that Sweden and the United States have recently decided to call the WWI era massacres of approximately 1.5 million Armenians “genocide,” Erdogan told the BBC’s Turkish service yesterday that, “If necessary, I may have to tell… 100,000 (Armenians) to go back to their country because they are not my citizens. I don’t have to keep them in my country.”

Despite Turkey’s aspirations to join the European Union, Erdogan also recalled Turkey’s ambassadors to Stockholm and Washington and, according to Reuters, “warned they could hurt a fragile effort to reconcile with Christian Armenia after a century of hostility.”  This echoes Turkey’s recall of its ambassador to Canada last year after Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper dared to mention the genocide.

Turkey denies that 1.5 million Armenians were killed in Turkey, although it concedes the killing of Christians as the Ottoman Empire collapsed almost a century ago. As more historians and foreign governments join together in condemning Turkey’s actions and its denial of genocide, the pressure is mounting on Turkey to admit to the sins of the past.

Erdogan has so far been incapable of anything but weaksauce rants about the “Armenian diaspora” that he claims is spreading falsehood and tarnishing Turkey’s reputation.  So far his behavior is amounting to international embarrassment for Turkey as Erdogan’s deportation threats are seen as overblown and petty, as well as being fairly hollow.  According to Reuters,  Aris Nalci, an editor at Turkish-Armenian weekly newspaper Agos, said such remarks are not new for Erdogan. “We are not taking it as a serious threat,” Nalci said.

Serious or not, Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sarksyan replied with the understatement of the year: “This kind of political statement does not help improve relations between the two states.”  Last year, Armenia and Turkey made the progressive decision to start diplomatic relations and open their shared border.  Neither government has ratified the deal though and there has already been furious back and forth with both governments accusing the other of rewriting the text of the original agreement. Erdogan’s latest antics will no doubt add to the fun and further complicate any chance of success.

But let’s not be too surprised at Erdogan’s badly chosen words.  Prior actions prove him well-deserving of The Atlantic‘s description as “sometimes-dyspeptic.” At last year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland,  The Atlantic reports that “the roughest moment came when Erdogan accused Israel’s Shimon Peres of being a killer. ‘Peres, you are older than me,’ Erdogan said. ‘Your voice comes out in a very high tone. And the high tone of your voice has to do with a guilty conscience. My voice, however, will not come out in the same tone.’ He went on, ‘When it comes to killing, you know well how to kill.’ ”

Peres tried to respond but, as this YouTube clip faithfully captures, it was too late: Erdogan had decided to storm off the stage.

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Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks was back in the news this week after it had been discovered that seven arrests had been made in Ireland due to a plot to kill him. In 2007, Vilks’ work depicting the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog was published in the Swedish Nerikes Allehanda newspaper. Vilks’ work had originally been featured in an arts project before it was published by the paper. It caused widespread anger in the Muslim world as well as a bounty of $100,000 to be placed on his head by a group linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq and, as the BBC reports, “a 50% bonus if he was ‘slaughtered like a lamb’ by having his throat cut.”

After the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published depictions of the Prophet Muhammad and created the country’s biggest international blowup since World War II, you would have thought basic common sense would have discouraged any similarly-inspired artwork.  But no, Vilks carried on and his work caused such an uproar that Sweden’s embassy in Pakistan had to express regret over his art and the subsequent hurt caused while stating that it could not prevent the publication of the material because it would interfere with the freedom of the press.

Vilks at the time chimed in saying that his work was art and told the Associated Press, “I’m not against Islam. Everybody knows that…”  The Christian Science Monitor quoted Vilks after the $100,000 bounty had been placed on his head: “I suppose this makes my art project a bit more serious. It’s also good to know how much one is worth.”  The same article reports that Vilks created his controversial art “as an editorial comment on self-censorship, freedom of expression, and religion.”

The BBC, in an August 31, 2007 piece, quotes Pakistan’s foreign ministry on “what it described as a growing tendency ‘among some Europeans to mix the freedom of expression with an outright and deliberate insult to 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide… Such acts deeply undermine the efforts of those who seek to promote respect and understanding among religions and civilisations…’ ”

How do you react to such sentiment?  You could go the route of conservative political commentator, Tony Blankley.  After the cartoonist behind the original Danish work, Kurt Westergaard, was attacked in his home by a Somali Muslim, Blankley railed against the fact that “most European journalistic commentary argued that Western writers and artists should, for prudence sake, abstain from such (allegedly blasphemous) expression..”

Said Blankley, “…it is worse than imprudent for Americans (or Europeans) to give up freedoms and ways of life that have been defended for centuries by the martial sacrifice of our ancestors (and current warriors) — and by the intellectual courage of our writers and artists — just because our morally feeble, self-proclaimed ‘educated class’ and elites have lost the will to defend our civilization.”

What Blankley seems to miss is that the problem has very little to do with defending Western civilization and every bit to do with basic intercultural relations.  Just because the free world embraces freedom of speech does not mean that all forms of reason and restraint and respect for cultural and religious differences should be cast to the wind.  Freedom of religion and expression are a basic right in the free world but there are limits; anti-hate speech legislation exist in a number of Western countries that prevent expression of hateful rhetoric based on factors such as race, ethnicity and sexual orientation.

With current anti-Islamic sentiment at record highs, there is little difference between irresponsible (blasphemous, in the eyes of some) art depicting Muhammad, and hateful propaganda.  Freedom of the press and freedom of expression are important rights and should remain so.  But cultural cretins like Vilks should think carefully about the responsibilities that come with such freedoms.

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Tony Blair was going to resign as UK Prime Minister back in 2004. After inciting the biggest culture clash in modern UK history by supporting Bush’s invasion of Iraq, Blair was a very depressed man. The End of the Party, a new book to be published March 1, 2010 by the The Observer‘s Andrew Rawnsley says (according to The Guardian), “Tony Blair descended into such a deep depression after the Iraq war that he told Gordon Brown and John Prescott (both key figures in his administration) that he would quit No. 10 [the PM's office] the following summer.”

The End of the Party describes how Blair’s special envoy in Iraq briefed Blair at the end of his time in Iraq that the conditions were “unbelievably bad” and would deteriorate further. ” ‘What can we do?’ pleaded Blair. ‘We have told them [the Americans] again and again what we think is necessary. If it doesn’t happen, what can we do?’ Greenstock was left with the image of the prime minister ‘tearing his hair’ over Iraq and ‘throwing his hands in the air’.” (The Guardian)

In supporting what was seen by the British public as an oil-greedy mistake by a blood-thirsty dimwit with Daddy’s agenda, Blair committed the unpardonable sin.  The British public was much more skeptical about the war than the American public. While American reactions to Bush’s actions were often divided along party lines, British disdain for Blair was overwhelming.  Blair was openly referred to as Bush’s poodle, a sell-out willing to compromise his integrity to preserve Britain’s then-coveted “special relationship” with the US.

“He was very low, he was very lonely and he was very tired,” Rawnsley quotes Blair’s friend and colleague, Tessa Jowell, as saying about Blair at the depth of his misery.  Blair’s stress level was so high that he says he “spaced out” several times during the time-honored British tradition of Prime Minister’s Questions and would frequently wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.

As if the extreme disapproval with his decision was not enough, Gordon Brown (favored as Blair’s successor), was furious when Blair regained some self-confidence and reneged on his decision to resign. An eyewitness of one conversation (quoted in The End of the Party) says, “Gordon was just losing it. He was behaving like a belligerent teenager. Just standing in the office shouting: ‘When are you going to f*****g go?’ ”

It took Blair’s wife and several close allies to get him through the worst of his anguish.  ”Come on. Buck up. Buck up. Think of what you’ve got to achieve. You’re the best politician in this country by a mile,” said his friend Peter Mandelson, who himself had survived many a political storm.

Eventually, the embattled Blair did pick himself up but the damage had been done.  One of the most popular politicians in recent UK history had been forever sullied by allying himself with the trigger-happy Texan who permanently marred not just Middle East relations but the foreseeable future of Anglo-American partnerships.

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