When I heard the President speak in Cairo yesterday I had no immediate reaction. Others who heard the speech pointed out his pleasing his Arab audience by invoking Arab history and accomplishments, and quoting from the Koran. Personally, I didn't think the accents of Arab words sounded all that authentic. Part of my problem is that if what the President was doing was diplomatic posturing, then in the past Obama has shown himself to be rather shallow. For all his talk about being raised in an Islamic school in Indonesia, I really don't see the "Islamic-ness" rubbing off on him. To me he speaks as someone who in uncomfortable with the whole issue and wishes it would go away. I've seen how he has dealt with other situations like the Revrend Wright issue. First he embraces the man and alludes to "I could no more disown him than I could disown my own White grandmother". In the first place putting the word "White" in that sentense indicates a certain disconfort with race. Next, however, is that Obama did in fact disown his pastor of some twenty years, Revrend Jeremiah Wright. I think a lot of people who have strong roots in a church have trouble with this concept. It sends the message to one and all that "People are expendable".
We then move on to the other "landmark statements" in the President's speech yesterday. He for once did not dismiss "Hammas" as only a terrorist organization, but an organization we need to work with since it is such an intrinsic part of Palestinian life now, and they won that election a couple of years ago. Hammas does things besides terror. They reach out to educate and serve the poor and offer free breakfasts, and all those things the Black Panthers used to do. One US Jew yesterday observed of the Mideast situation, "It's too bad that Bill Clinton was term limited and that Yasser Arrafat's term wasn't". We might already have Peace. As much as Robert Schuller embraced Arrafat in his church, Aarafat lived and died a terrorist, and he was never anything else and in the end Peace overtures were doomed as long as he was alive. The President talked about Iraq as a "War of choice". I wish he hadn't said that. All that needed to be said on the subject of Iraq is, "The United States helped overthrow a dangerous world dictator and bring democracy to Iraq, and the people now are adjusting beautifully, and their future looks bright". It at times can be actually distracting and disruptive to your overall message to point a finger of fault at yourself, when nobody is even raising the issue. I think the President did well to choose to believe that Islam is a Peaceful religion and quote from the Koran the line "When an innocent person dies, it's as though the whole human race were murdered". I think putting "Peace" and "Islam" in the same sentence is tenuous at best. What I personally would have done is remind the Arab community that it was while Malcolm X was in the Mideast in March of 1964 that it came to him seeing disperate races worshipping in harmony, that the races were meant to get along with each other. The President then went on to discuss the respective problems and hardships of the Jews and also of the Palestinian people. I'm happy the President acknowledged that the Palestinian people have suffered- - much humiliation and degradations - - at the hands of their occupiers, the Israelis. I dare say their strggle for autonomy far exceeds sixty years. The President discussed Iran saying that all nations should be able to peacefully develop the atom. Wisely I don't think it was a good idea to dwell to long on Iran, their being Shiites and all. What I would do is stress to the Moslem world is that peace is there for the taking if you want it badly enough. The thing you have to ask yourselves is "How tired of war are you"? Racial pride is a powerful thing and I don't fault it per se. The desire to "survive" and "overcome" and "conquer your enemies" is primal among the species of man and it's part of the evolutional survival mechanism God built into mankind. The plain fact is that "survival of the fittest" works a lot of the time. But Obama now has to say that it is their Destiny now- - to live in a world of Peace. And if he can bring Allah into it without being too obvious, so much the better. One thing the Israelis need to face is that these recent west bank settlements need to go. Every time they put one of these up they are volitionally saying "I know we'll never have Peace anyhow, so take THAT you Arabs!" They are hoping that by sheer number of them they will be able to muscle the Palistinians off the land, the way the United States has broken nearly every treaty on the books with the Native Americans.
I respect people who can solve puzzles. I used to be able to beat the computer nearly half of the time in the "Four in a Row" game. But last night I had a bad run of luck. Either I am not as smart as I used to be or somebody reprogrammed the game to make it smarter. There are games involving pieces of metal of hooking and unhooking them they sell at Knott's Berry Farm. I never had much patience with these. But solving puzzles shows not only a sign of patience but also native intelligence. There is one math game where you are supposed to turn all the white dots black, and it's fairly easy to get all but one dot with the rules you play under. But life often faces people with puzzles with more variables than you can program for. Certainly bringing about peace in the mideast is one of these puzzles. You first have to believe it's possible. In wolframalpha.com sometimes when you write an equation you thought was easy, it turns out to be very difficult to solve showing a lot of math work. Some equations aren't just difficult but intrinsically impossible to solve for X and Y. A prudent person should soon realize which contingencies are intrinsically impossible. A world dictator, if there is to be one in the last days will have to have tremendous "people skills". People needn't be "good" to have phenominal "people skills". Many people, likewise, can be basically "good people" in themselves, but really suck at being able to figure out what a client is saying or get into his mind so that you can reach him and help him. We don't live in a pure world of programmable abstracts regardless. So whether any leader or would be world dictator is successful depends on such things as astrological allignment and things beyond his control. I'm sure Alexander the Great had a brilliant mind, but had he been born under different stars, his life might be a different story.
The Lakers looked great last night, didn't they? - - against the Orlando Magic. I believe this is the year of the Lakers. They set the bar pretty high for themselves this year. If they don't win it all they will have considered it a disappointing season. We should all "raise the bar" on our own expectations so to encourage personal growth. If all of us raised the bar on what we expect of ourselves, others would be inspired by that new positive "something in the air - that wasn't there yesterday" and they in turn will be inspired to reach new heights. (Selah)
No comments:
Post a Comment