Few seem to remember that the latest Annapolis Conference wasn’t the only one, which has taken place in Maryland’s capital.

In September 1786, another conference was called in Annapolis to discuss the state of commerce in our fledgling nation. The national government had no authority to regulate trade between and among the states. The conference was called to discuss ways to facilitate commerce and establish standard rules and regulations. Virginia called the conference at the urging of one of its great minds of the time, James Madison. Only five of the 13 states sent their delegates.

Unable to do much of anything, the assembled group, most of whom were nationalists, eager for a stronger national government, decided that another conference was needed to investigate the deficiencies of the United States under the Articles of Confederation and recommend changes to the Articles. The report of the Annapolis Conference was the first step toward the Constitutional Convention that would eventually hammer out the Constitution of the United States.

If the Annapolis Conference of 1786 was a first step towards the Constitutional Convention, the conference of November 2007 is hoped to be the first meaningful step of the Bush administration towards doing something, besides posturing and supporting just one side of the equation in the Israeli-Palestinian morass.

For some six years, instead of actually trying to do something that could help alleviate the situation in the Middle East, the U.S. Administration has done quite the opposite: Created and unprecedented climate of fear and hate, by invading Iraq, unifying many Arabs and Muslims in general in an even greater opposition and hate towards anything American and Israeli.

Arab commentators quickly dismissed the re-launching of the Israeli-Palestinian talks as a U.S.-staged media event unlikely to lead to Middle East peace.

Some argued that President Bush’s real aim was to rescue his image after failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, or to persuade Arab states that their deadliest foe was Iran, not Israel.

Hard to say at this point, whether to believe Bush, who said after a follow-up meeting with Abbas and Olmert: “One thing I have assured both gentlemen is that the United States will be actively engaged in the process, that we will use our power to help you as you come up with the necessary decisions to lay out a Palestinian state that will live side-by-side in peace with Israel,” or the skeptics who are asking whether it was a peace conference, or rather a conference that ends all peace?

Frankly – and you will not see me agreeing with the Bushies too often – I, like any reasonably rational person am hoping that the Annapolis Conference will eventually actually lead to peace. Don’t want to be overly naïve about it, but what is left, if there’s no hope?

For peace to succeed much more than a conference and a media event will be needed. If the United States doesn’t finally, after 60 years,  take a position of an honest, impartial broker, nothing will be achieved. This is obviously the crux of the problem. Lets hope that the Zionist evangelicals (I still cannot believe that something like that has taken seed…) and all the other supporters of Israel finally realize that the survival of the Jewish state in the long run is greatly dependent upon the good will of its neighbors and not only on financial, military and political support of the U.S.

Because of that and for other reasons as well, I can only hope that the latest Annapolis Conference has really been a start of a true Middle East peace process and that this time the process will be nurtured and leveraged and pushed, until it actually succeeds.

Technorati Tags: annapolis, conference, israel, middle east, palestinians, peace, US

Many Americans are under the delusion that we have “the best health care system in the world,” because President Bush sees it in that light, or provide the “best medical care in the world,” as Rudolph Giuliani declared a few months ago. That may be true at some top medical centers, but the reality is that this country lags well behind other advanced nations in delivering timely, affordable and effective care.

U.S. health care is without a doubt the most expensive in the world and we have the highest number of all kinds of diagnostic gadgets, procedures and machines – not necessarily useful, but certainly hugely lucrative for the medical industry and particularly for the ever-present and overbuilt diagnostic branch of it.

It is really a shame that with the availability of such resources, the medical establishment cannot (or will not) do a much, much better job of it.

An average of 195,000 people in the USA died due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002, according to a study of 37 million patient records that was released by HealthGrades, the health care quality company.

That’s a staggering statistic about supposedly “the best health care system in the world”. In addition to the very real possibility of getting killed by carelessness, stupidity and incompetence, Americans have to pay record amounts for often substandard care. Is there something wrong with this picture, or do you think that I am being unfair in my assessment?

There is no question that Michael Moore overstated his case to a certain degree in the movie Sicko by making foreign systems look almost beyond reproach. But there is a growing body of evidence that the United States is not a leader in providing good medical care.

The highly regarded Commonwealth Fund has ranked the United States last or next to last compared with five other nations – Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom – on most measures of performance, including quality of care and access to it.

All other major industrialized nations provide universal health coverage, which in most cases works quite well. Although there have been complaints about many limitations of such systems, the fact remains that a whopping 45 million Americans are deprived of health insurance.

As if that wasn’t enough, quite a few of our medical problems, including the staggering epidemic of obesity, diabetes and also possibly all kinds of cancers, are at least partly to blame on our diet. Finding foods that haven’t been adulterated in some way is very difficult nowadays. The passion for consuming crappy foods in general and particularly snacking on salty – usually laden with chemically processed salty mixture, not even real salt, or over-sweetened concoctions, often with the horrible high-fructose corn syrup, or with all kinds of artificial sweeteners foods and beverages only contribute to all kinds of health problems. Let’s not forget all of the partially hydrogenated oils, the preservatives, color enhancers, crap that makes rotten meat look red and fresh and on and on and on…

In short: We are being shortchanged in every possible way, mostly to our detriment and helping the processed food and the medical industries reap record profits. Change is truly needed and the sooner, the better. I will try to analyze the health reform proposals by the major presidential candidates in an upcoming article. I haven’t heard of anybody offering a meaningful plan to finally regulate and reform our food industry, but don’t get me started on that.

Technorati Tags: Diet, Health care, processed foods, reform, US

Update: On December 3, 2007 key judgments of a National Intelligence Estimate were released, concluding “with high confidence” that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003. Geez! So, what was it all about before?! U.S. intelligence community’s previous estimate on Iran, completed in 2005, judged that Iran had an active nuclear-weapons program…

I remember the Bush/neocon anti-Iraq, anti-Saddam and anti – weapons of mass destruction campaign, which started sometime shortly after 9/11.

None of the arguments presented by the neocons made any sense whatsoever, of course. Except maybe the incessant search for the WMDs, which, as anyone, who knows anything realizes, the U.S. gave to Saddam in the 1980’s, so he could gas the Iranians.

He did gas the Iranians in a lavish way and the Iraq-Iran war – one of the more pointless and bloody conflicts in history – has cost both sides approximately one million dead.

As far as I can tell mustard gas hasn’t been used on a large scale since WW I, but Iraq has used it quite extensively against Iran.

Saddam has used it against the Kurds and against the Shi’ites as well, for which ostensibly he was hanged.

Anyway, both the U.N. and the U.S. searches of WMD’s in Iraq came up dry. Those leftover chemical weapons were simply not there in large quantities, anymore. Instead of finding all kinds of previously advertised weapons of mass destruction, we did an outstanding job of destroying Iraq, which we are of course busily rebuilding at a multi-trillion dollar cost – courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers. Tens of thousands, or maybe even hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died so far. Another thing, for which the U.S. should get an outstanding score, is the creation of an unprecedented feeling of hate against itself throughout the World, not just in Muslim countries, but almost everywhere.

The overwhelming feeling of sympathy, expressed by so many after the 9/11 attacks was replaced by rage, hate and millions taking part in anti-U.S. and anti-war demonstrations in practically every country, on every continent, except, as far as I know, Antarctica.

What has happened to us? The United States has always been looked upon as a beacon of hope, freedom, liberty and often the last resort in the area of human rights. Now we have the Patriot Act, approved by such presidential candidates, like Hillary Clinton, John McCain and others. Dennis Kucinich asked why he was the only congressman, who hasn’t voted for the Patriot Act, replied: “That’s because I read it.” That alone should help us forgive Kucinich for all of his UFO sightings, I think.

Also, the darling of the left, former president Bill Clinton has been telling his numerous audiences for years that :”Iraq war was a mistake”. As it turns out, Clinton, in fact, was a supporter of the war, both before the invasion and in the first year or so of the fighting. So, he was not only one of the supporters of this senseless venture from the beginning, but also – to put it politely – dishonest about that fact.

So, after all of that, the neocons are doing what they can to stir up a “national consensus” to attack Iran. Yes, the Iranians are apparently increasing their capacity to process uranium and yes; their president is a cook, making off the cuff statements, which even a conservative Iranian newspaper has criticized recently. He also denies that the Holocaust has taken place. But few of our “deciders” emphasize the fact that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not the real power in Iran, that he is but a public figurehead and that the real power lies with the ayatollahs, specifically, in the hands of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

No matter what the facts might be, the neocons are incessantly advocating a “very necessary” attack on Iran. This might of course be a part of THEIR sick agenda, but is it ours? If Iraq has widely been called a quagmire for the U.S., wait, until we actually get bogged down in Iran! It is a considerably larger country, with a much more homogeneous population than Iraq. Although the Iranian opposition has no reason to love Ahmadinejad, or the ayatollahs, when Iran’s president visited New York (taking the opportunity to state that there were no homosexuals in Iran) and was crassly insulted by the president of Columbia University, both the opposition and the ruling mullahs both called it not so much an insult against Ahmadinejad, but against Iran.

There is no doubt that any invasion of Iran will unify the Iranians in a patriotic fervor. There will be no shortage of volunteers for any, even the most dangerous job and despite, or maybe because of all the wonder weapons in the U.S. arsenal, such a venture could only end in disaster for everyone concerned.

Technorati Tags: ahmadinejad, iran, iraq, neocons, war, wmd

Considering that all of the Republican candidates – with the notable exception of Ron Paul – have been so disgraced by following in the footsteps of Bush and his neocons and therefore (once again, with the notable exception of Ron Paul) don’t have a chance in hell of getting elected, I think it is time to concentrate on the Democratic field.

As in every election that I can remember – and there have been quite a few – none of the candidates represent truly sterling character traits.

After all, would anybody normal allow himself. or herself, as it is the case in this campaign to be put through the wringer of a three-year campaign cycle? To suck up to all the organizations with influence and money, such as the AFL-CIO, AIPAC, NRA, etc, etc. must be quite an experience.

As we have seen in countless Bush appearances before carefully screened and “purified” audiences and the staged FEMA press conference, it is so much easier on the politicians to have a partisan crowd in attendance and for the television cameras to show a smart, relaxed and “in control” politician, than to risk unfriendly banners and boos and uncomfortable and difficult to answer questions.

After all, our “principal” might get nervous and sweaty and be unable to answer an unexpected and unscripted question. Worse: he, or she might even lose control, like Bill Maher did during his show, when 9/11 hecklers popped up in the audience. You have seen that one. Haven’t you?

Anyway, Hillary Clinton’s campaign seems to have taken some inspiration from Bush’s handlers. During a supposedly spontaneous session in Iowa Senator Clinton called on a student for a question. Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff asked how she planned to combat climate change.

Hillary Clinton replied: “You know, I find as I travel around Iowa that it’s usually young people that ask me about global warming.”

The student later said that one of Clinton’s staff asked her to ask the question and then signaled the candidate to choose her.

Same idea, as in so many of Bush’s sessions and so very reminiscent of the now classic FEMA press conference, studded with FEMA staffers.

We know that these tactics are dishonest and cheap, but particularly in the case of a campaign front runner, also pretty stupid and not very statesman-like, or stateswoman-like for that matter.

Technorati Tags: bush, campaign, clinton, fema.maher, politics, US

I know that I mentioned this before, but the U.S. system of presidential elections really riles me.

How can we continue with this ludicrous and drawn out process of caucuses, polls, primaries, conventions, debates (OK, these might be useful to a degree) and finally elections, which really don’t mean very much, as the electoral college really ends up electing the president?

It stands to reason, that if our elections are to be democratic, a majority, meaning at least 50 percent of the voters should cast their ballots for the winning candidate. Am I dreaming, or is our system different?

Many of our presidents do get elected with much less than 50 percent of the vote, which of course means that most Americans DID NOT want that individual in office.

And why the heck do we need to weed out the most robust party candidate through the endless caucuses and primaries, TV ads and conventions?

Let every qualified and willing person (maybe this is the only way of finally getting somebody decent, honest and competent into the White House) run for president of the US of A. Even if we get 25, or more names on the ballot, is that a real problem? I don’t think so. If one of the candidates, whether he, or she is representing one of the two major parties, or not gets 50 percent, or more of the popular vote, the election is over and decided. If on the other hand, not one of the candidates gets that required minimum, the top two simply would have to take part in a runoff election, the next day, or next week, or even next month. It is highly doubtful that a third round would be necessary, unless of course everybody decides to stay home to watch the latest American Idol, or Bachelor, Bachelorette, Dancing With the Stars, or an all-important football game.

Since we are one of the first supposedly democratic countries of the new era in the Western World, why is it taking us so long to catch up to almost everybody else?

Most democratic countries do have a 50-percent requirement, with an additional requirement that at least 50 percent of those eligible to vote, actually vote. Sounds logical? Of course it does. Why haven’t we implemented that system here then?

Some say that this might require runoff elections and that most Americans are so disinterested in our political process that it would be close to impossible to convince them not only to show up in numbers exceeding the required 50% for the first election, but even harder to have them show up lets say, a week later for the runoff. Geez! What enthusiasm!

Although I admit that I am not completely sure if enough people will show up to vote, I do believe that it would be finally worth a try, and that with sufficient and viable appeals about patriotic and citizenship duties, we can get the Americans off their couches and from in front of the boob tubes and into the voting booths, and finally have some long overdue democratic elections.