International Toilet Day

There is a lot going on in the world and unfortunately not much of it is good. The Middle East is in flames, climate change has battered every part of the world, a worldwide global economic slowdown is transforming Europe into a backwater, Asia, ascendent for a while is also in recession and worldwide terrorism has not abated enough yet to declare victory. Hidden in all these tragic stories is the fact that 800 million people worldwide live without clean drinking water and 2.5 billion people live without proper sanitation. Today, November 19th is International Toilet Day and a day to consider that particular problem.

While some will argue that this ongoing problem can take a back seat to the more immediate problems of genocide in Syria or the rockets falling on Tel Aviv, I argue that all of these issues are linked. Failure to act on the water problem will exacerbate worldwide turmoil and lengthen worldwide instability. International conflict has transformed from territorial conflicts to competion for resources. Powerful countries need not occupy land anymore, they just need to have access to vital resources. Some will argue that intervention in Syria is impossible because Syria has no oil, while Libya which does, got plenty of help in its revolution.

Having had the opportunity to work and do business in a developing country for the past year I have learned a great deal about how the other half lives and I don't mean the wealthy other half. My family, friends and neighbors had to struggle through a 2 week power outage due to Hurricane Sandy. Protracted power outages in Africa are common. Residents of New Jersey rightfully were fuming at FEMA for not sending enough drinking water to their ravaged state. In much of rural Africa, large swaths of Asia and South America there in never any clean drinking water. Roads, bridges and tunnels destroyed by the hurricane will be rebuilt in due time. The lack of access roads in the above mentioned areas is a humanitarian crisis that has been going on for decades.

While armed conflict can only be resolved by either surrender or peaceful negotiations, the bottom line is that it takes two to tango. Conflict can either be resolved or it can abate and while it may need some outside parties to push for a resolution one way or the other, it CAN be stopped with political will. Humanitarian crisis' can ONLY be resolved through international effort. Solving the water crisis is not only the right thing to do, it's good for business. With clean water and toilets we can eradicate diseases such as cholera, malaria and TB. Poor rural farmers will have more money in their pockets to grow more crops. A greater, healthy labor pool will be created to build more roads, factories, hospitals and schools. Countries that are being drained of citizens, creating a refugee crisis worldwide would be better able to keep their population in place. Resources will be labored by local workers rather than foreigners. It will free up resources to help in conflict areas and it will definitely help the worldwide economy.

The AIDS crisis was slowed down tremendously, particularly in Africa due to a concerted international effort. Providing working toilets and drinking water to those who lack it can be achieved via the same efforts. While we are right to protest the brutality in the Middle East, the corrupt mishandling of the worldwide economy and the total lack of interest in climate issues, we must also be resolute in ending the sanitary/water crisis. It may not be as glamorous a cause as "Save the Whales" but it's at least as important. So today on International Toilet Day, when you flush, think about how that simple act that you take for granted, that isn't spoken about much in polite society - is something over 2 billion people worldwide can't ever do.

http://www.worldtoiletday.org/ 

Reflections on the Election

Like many fellow Americans I was disappointed in this presidential election on many fronts. For starters, this election was more a story about money and ground operations and less so about issues. Partisanship was at the worst this country has seen since the Civil War and the analogy is apt because only the naïve and clueless can say that hatred of Obama stems from anything other than racism. It is likely that Hillary Clinton would be president now if Barack Obama’s name were Barry White, thus the Obama haters mask racism in critiques like he is incompetent and/or an empty suit. They are quick to blame the democratic primary voters who pushed Obama to the front of the line in 08’. Ten minutes after he was sworn in the right repeated the mantra that Obama now owned the financial crisis, as if George W Bush’s presidency was some fairy tale and the economy collapsed only after he took office.

Obama disappointed his supporters not because he is an incapable politician or ineffective leader; he disappointed because they voted for hope and change and instead got Timothy Geitner and no prosecution of Wall Street fraudsters. While his supporters were looking for transformation, they got attempts at reconciliation with an opposition that loathed him and publicly announced their goal as seeking his failure and early retirement. 

Obama overreached with a costly healthcare initiative when arguably he had other priorities and it cost him dearly in the mid term elections. Republicans emboldened by the lunatic fringe and financed by a strange breed of polluting and corrupt corporate Mafioso’s felt so emboldened that resorting to outright lies became the norm. Despite the kid gloves Obama used on the Wall Street criminals and the relatively benign rules laid out in Dodd Frank, corporate America still saw Obama as public enemy number one. They even went to great lengths to try and warn employees that voting for Obama would lead to mass layoffs. And when that didn’t work they tried to restrict people in swing states from voting.

Despite all the money thrown against him, despite a sputtering recovery and yes those ever-present huge deficits, the opposition still managed to bungle what should have been a relatively easy election. Mitt Romney might be a very talented politician and he even might have made a decent president, but we will never know. Leaving off the fact that there is not one issue Romney can point to that he hasn’t changed his mind on thus getting the deserved reputation as a flip flopper, what party in its right mind nominates a guy from the class of people that thoroughly sank and destroyed our economy? They should have at least pretended to care for the 99%.

There is a good argument to make that we should not engage in class warfare, ok I agree. Nonetheless, Romney belongs to a minority of people that is not effected by the rising cost of milk, bread, eggs, gasoline and public transportation to name a few. Can you see Romney empathizing with anyone? Romney and his Republican sponsors were then forced to use the argument that only his executive experience can clean up this economic mess. To build on that platform, Romney needed to build a coalition which ended up including rural white males, religious fundamentalists, business elites and of course all those Obama haters. He was also forced to embrace the now infamous Tea baggers. In the end, the math did not add up.

Obama showed sparks of what could be during his first term. He gave hope and freedom to gays who want to serve in the armed services and want to marry. He gave hope that women will not be relegated to back alley abortions. He kept New Deal democracy alive by passing healthcare. He cobbled together a coalition of those left behind by the greed and corruption of a corporate system that raided the treasury and gave hope that maybe just maybe we can build a better tomorrow. Importantly, he sympathized but did not embrace the radicalism of Occupy Wall Street, thus proving to everyone but the loony fringes that he is anything but a radical.

In the end, Romney did not lose because he was a poor choice or an incapable leader. Obama did not win because his first term will go down in history as a model for effective modern governance. Romney lost because the positions he took in order to get nominated alienated him from a majority of the electorate, Obama won because he proved that he is not as scary as his enemies depict him. Not the best way to select a president but in this case I will take it. 

Finally, I know that I sleep better knowing that it will be Obama, not a politically hand tied Romney that selects the next couple of Supreme Court Justices. Except for a brief, brave moment by Chief Justice Roberts this past year, this court has shown a conservative bent that is scary. It’s nice to think that we will have a kinder, gentler judiciary over the next twenty years or