If you Google the name of our President and COO, “Chris Abraham“, you will see what it means to dominate the search engine results and own a position as an expert in a field.  We can do the same for your key staff.

Methods: Blogs — Yours & Others: Dominating the Online Space as an Expert & Generous Contributor. We will get your blog infrastructure and your content production policy established. This involves installation, set-up, and design of the blog software. To drive SEO it is important to get the relevant social bookmarking, ping server, etc. accounts and plug-ins set up and installed.

To further drive SEO, a powerful additional methodology is to mirror your blog content across multiple other blogs on highly-ranked blog hosting sites like blogspot, wordpress.com, etc., or under additional aggregation blogs you may set up under your own domain names.  This process will be automated at the outset and run without human effort thereafter.

Blog Content Creation Policy
We will help your team get the blogging policy right, following best practices in line with the informational guidelines of your company.   There is a clear culture of blogging and respecting and adhering to its norms and expectations will make the difference between you being welcomed as a respected contributor and being mocked as a soulless corporate shill (or an embarrassment and danger to your company).

It is essential to have a clear policy for your company’s bloggers, particularly in terms of outlining and reserving their freedoms as writers.  With a clear understanding by the blogger and by the company of what freedoms are allowed, you avoid cramping, overly-careful, stuffy-sounding, self-censoring while also avoiding cringe-inducing embarrassments of inappropriate disclosure and language.

Blog Content Creation System
The best system of content creation is to have the key staff members whose reputations are to be built writing the blog content themselves — that leads to the most honest, transparent, and bi-directionally informative information exchange. However, sometimes those key staff members simply don’t have the time, inclination, or writing talent to create that content.  In that case a content creation system and methodology must be put in place:

• Hiring or assigning professional bloggers or staffers with good writing abilities to produce the content under their names or
• Establishing a ghost-writing system where topics are suggested (by the writer or the key staffer), concept outline given by key staffer, posting written by the professional writer, posting edited and approved by key staffer, posting proofed by editor (optional), and article posted.

If this route is taken, there are workflow blog softwares that can be put in place and set up to manage this process.

Appearing on Others’ Blogs
By generously contributing to the community via bloggers in your spaces, you can get broad coverage and enjoy the implicit (or explicit) endorsement of these influencers.  We would help you get these content contribution requests by executing a Blogger Outreach. This is done by:

• Giving of yourself in the form of interviews, etc.
• Interviews are excellent relationship-builders that give you direct, personal access to the bloggers and builds up a connection for the future.  Interviews can be given via:
  • Email
  • Chat
  • Phone
  • Podcast (voice)
  • Vlog (video — either onsite or via video VOIP)

This list is by order of “live-ness” of the interview with email being very asynchronous, allowing time to reflect and gather info and Vlog interviews being very live.

Guest blogging by the key staff
Guest blogging is very warmly welcomed since it gives bloggers good content that they don’t have to write themselves, and it makes them look good because they are being honored as a valued platform.

Being a guest blogger gives you coverage on another site, increasing the number of locations you are appearing while giving you total control over your message and while driving your SEO by adding link-backs. Additionally, you get the implicit (or explicit) endorsement of the blogger in front of his readership.

It is important to be writing interesting, engaging content as a guest blogger and avoid presenting something that sounds like a callow pitch.

If the key staff member is not interested or capable of doing the guest blogging, then the ghostwriting approach outlined above can be followed

Podcasting and Vlogging (video blogging)
Podcasting is very much like blogging, but in audio format.  While it is not as SEO-friendly as text-based blogging, it has a stronger “star-quality” effect, as the listeners develop a stronger human connection to the podcaster.    The lower SEO-friendliness can be counteracted by posting transcripts of the podcast along with the podcast itself.

It can be done very simply, but generally it is good to have quality raw audio, a polished intro and outro, and good tone balancing so that the podcast sounds somewhat professional and is auditorily a pleasure to listen to.

We can guide your staff in setting up the recording mechanisms, get your intro/outro composed, and have the raw audio balanced and cut into a finished podcast.

It is also good to have clear, interesting concepts to speak about and an effective style of delivery.  It’s easy to be boring or irritating.

While the ghostwriting approach outlined above can be followed, much more responsibility lies on the key staff member who is recording, since it is a very “live” experience — you cannot read a pre-written article and come across as a compelling Podcaster.

The staff of Abraham Harrison, LLC, can get the transcripts written and assist in the posting of the podcasts and the maintenance of the podcast blog website.

Vlogging follows the same rules as podcasting in regards to production and quality, but the pressure on the “star” is that much more intense.

Abraham Harrison’s staff can guide your staff in getting the recording and production infrastructure set up.

An advantage of vlogging is that it has the even higher “star” effect upon the key staff member doing the vlogging, and the videos can be posted on all the video-sharing sites (dozens) to get more coverage and dominate search results.

We at Abraham Harrison can handle the video asset distribution for you, or train your team in the method.

Contact Mark Harrison, CEO of Abraham Harrison, for more information

This is the full text of President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration speech, courtesy of NowPublic, KansasCity.com, thanks to a link from @Aisle7

Full text of President Obama’s Inauguration Speech 2009

My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land – a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America – they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

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; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted – for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things – some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn. Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions – that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act – not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions – who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them – that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works – whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account – to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day – because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control – and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.

The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart – not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.

And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more. Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort – even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West – know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. 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.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment – a moment that will define a generation – it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends – hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism – these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence – the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed – why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

“Let it be told to the future world…that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive…that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].”

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

The ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech by Martin Luther King, Jr, in 1963

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

I don’t think that anyone can explain anything to Sara Palin. Does anyone know what her IQ is? I know that the United States sees a rugged individualist out fighting bears and wolves in the wilderness whenever she looks at herself in the mirror. Ignorant ruffian is not the source of our Constitution or our Bill or Rights.

None of the founders of this country were ruffians and all fancied themselves to be both men of letters and of the people. Diplomacy, freedom, liberty, and self-determination are things that came from the foundry of Enlightenment.

Americans mis-remembers their history: the founders of our country were not the same people who settled the continent on the shoulders of Puritanism, they were revolutionary humanists! The were men who valued the rights of man above anything else, believing men to be worthy the responsibility of being stewards of both a Nation and each other. Worthy of a democracy!

I don’t know what people think smart is, but I don’t count street smarts when it comes to world politics and diplomacy. Are we in an anti-intellectual, anti-thought, anti-rational US now? Is being a maverick better than being wildly capable. I value intellect, education, training, capability, creativity, compassion, altruism, generosity, humanitarianism more than most.

You know, good rational thought. A good sense of logic and fairness. A deep background in philosophy, history, civics, poetry, literature, and the law. We always forget — or fail to state — that Barack Obama is a Harvard-educated civil rights lawyer! This is a blessing in a world wherein we, the United States, are single-handedly dismantling the same rights, protections, privacies, and freedoms that our founding fathers, soldiers, and Americans have been fighting and dying for since we were born as a nation.

One’s mind is only knowable through the things one expresses, be it in writing or spoken word. After taking a bunch of multiple-choice tests, one’s left only with one’s capacity to communicate.

I really don’t know what to say except there are even brilliant people in my career who have trouble writing a good sentence. In communications and PR, well-written messages, conveying complexity, simply, are so valuable yet so under-valued. While I have not yet read The Age of American Unreason, we’re too close to our own dumbing-down and have become what we fear in other countries: intolerance.

We don’t even see that our own personal behavior as a country, supposedly protecting us from tyranny and “wrong-doers,” is making us tyrannical!  We’re sacrificing many of our freedoms of a perception of safety.  Safety from what? After 9/11, there is not been a brutal follow-up of discotheque bombings, the like of which marred 1980s Europe. We have not had to suffer any of what the UK needed to suffer under the IRA. We have not needed to avoid city buses the way Israelis sometimes do during real and present threat.

Since 9/11, nothing’s happened.  Nothing. And don’t even suggest that our democracy is 100% sealed against such things and that our military intelligence, our domestic intelligence, our federal and local police, our FBI, and our special operations commandoes can protect us were there another bold and well-funded attempt against any place in our continent. Impossible! Nothing’s happened.

And yet, our civil rights, our freedoms, and our personal privacy is constantly being eroded and threatened just because people are scared out-of-proportion to the real and present threat. Hell, we’re not being stolen from, we’re actively pursuing perceived security at whatever cost is necessary. Egad.

Back to writing. Back to communication. Back to anti-intellectualism. The problem is: people don’t know what “bad,” “wrong,” “imprecise,” “inarticulate,” or “confusing” writing is. I don’t buy the “anti-East Coast” thing. Mid-West universities are some of the best. There’s Rice and Austin even in TX! I see people pissing and moaning about how they need to use “SMS shorthand” on Twitter because Twitter keeps your microblogging posts under 140 characters. Well, I am “restricted” by 140 characters, too, as are we all; however, I use complete sentences, never blaming Twitter’s 140 limit!

I agree that one needs to read and read to become a better writer. It is like that in everything, including painting and photography. My dad was a shooter. He told me, “to know good photography, one must both shoot, shoot, but also look, look, look!” When your job is to communicate, “knowing social media” isn’t enough. We win gigs because we can communicate exceptionally. I don’t know German yet. I would never consider doing PR in Germany unless I hired exceptional writers and thinkers.

In America, yes, but around the world, subliteracy abounds. I love Frank Luntz’ tagline: “It is not what you say, it’s what they hear.” Understanding comprehension is key to controlling the message. When I started on USENET in ’93, it was still an ivory tower in many ways. You would win or lose argument threads through precise argument.

If I didn’t think my USENET post through, I would have my argument — my post — picked apart. The argument is every bit as important to communication and persuasion — the process and proof — as is the truth you’re trying to convey.  Not being able to think through one’s own political or esoteric argument as well as being incapable of parsing and comprehending another’s argument is what is getting the United States into such a mess.

If you can’t map historical context, rigorous research, and experiential perspective to current events, you’re liable to be manipulated or persuaded against your will based on your emotions or fears instead of logic or reason. Yes, there is a sucker born every day, and it is my passion to do my best, day by day, to avoid being that sucker.  I recommend that we all try to check the facts, the history, the recommendations, the logic, and the reason of all of the news and political discourse that we’re listening to right now, in these few days before the U.S. General Election.

Are you thinking things through or are you carrying someone else’s ideas, convictions, or beliefs?  Do you even have your own?  What do they even look like?

If you have not been keeping on top of all of the great comments streaming in to the AH Poll entitled “If John McCain died or became incapacitated, would Sarah Palin be competent to be President?” you are really missing out! Some of them are the most insightful, thoughtful, and brilliant collection of thoughts representing the best and the worst of the right and the left! Roll up your sleeves and batten your hatches because you’re going to have one hell of a ride. Oh, also, these comments are in reverse-chronological order so the most recent are at the top. If you want to keep track of them live, please go visit them where they love and breathe. Read below for the most amazing Sarah Palin comment thread of the Internets!

And, here’s an embed of the poll, if I’ve piqued your interest by now:

This is an op-ed written by Jerry White, founder of Survivor Corps and author of I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis, on the Fourth of July, 2008:

My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.” These are not the words of a pacifist or peacenik. General George Washington, the canny military strategist and first leader of the American army, recognized that war is a horror. While we bask in our independence today, let us also recognize the price paid by those—then and now—who fight for it. After the Revolution, 25,000 Americans lay dead. About 25,000 more were seriously wounded or disabled. That is a high price, indeed, for our freedom. Since 1776, the world has fought more than 300 wars, and nearly 40 conflicts still rage. The cost remains steep.

Today, 1.6 million Americans have served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Over 4,000 are dead. Those who return are missing limbs, are disfigured, are coping with traumatic brain injuries. Still others have less visible wounds. Over 300,000 now exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress and alienation here at home. They have broken marriages, unchecked anger, thoughts of suicide. Their military service may be over, but they and their families (including over two million children) remain profoundly affected. The costs related to stress and depressive disorders may reach $6 billion over the next two years, according to a recent study by Rand.

And that’s where we, as civilians, must activate. We must commit ourselves as everyday people to reach out to these wounded warriors to help them overcome. Because I am here to tell you, nobody survives trauma alone.

I have spent the past twelve years building a global network of people helping each other overcome the terrible cost of war—helping “victims” become “survivors.” In over 116,000 peer visits across the war-torn regions of the world, we have learned a few things about what separates those who lie down and embrace their suffering, and those who rise above, rebuild their lives, and rejoin their communities.

Survivors who successfully overcome traumatic injuries follow five basic steps. First, they Face Facts. These people don’t run from the truth of what’s happened to them. They don’t deny injuries, or disfigurement, or anger. They look at them, and incorporate them into their lives.

Second, they consciously Choose Life. It is crucial to remind ourselves and each other why life is worth living. Rising suicide rates must be addressed head on, because most of these individuals don’t want to die as much as they want their pain and despair to end.

Third, true survivors Reach Out. They reject isolation and divisiveness. They know that, to move out of a war victim mentality and onto the path of positive survivorship, they must drop their shell of anger and resentment.

Fourth, survivors have to Get Moving. Those traumatized by war, whatever the condition of their bodies, must get active. We all must take responsibility to do what it takes to “get in shape” for whatever the future may hold.

The fifth—and perhaps most crucial key to resilience and recovery—is to Give Back. Survivors recognize that it’s better to be a benefactor, not just a beneficiary. Everyone can have a role to play and contribute in big and small ways to our families and neighborhoods. To the veterans who served in war, I say learn to serve again. Become active members of your communities. Show your strength, creativity and work ethic to your friends and neighbors. You may look different, you may feel different, but you can still contribute.

And to the United States, as we struggle to recover from the war trauma we experience as a nation, I offer the same practical advice: Face Facts. Choose Life. Reach Out. Get Moving. Give Back. Families and citizens remain divided over whether we should have gone into Iraq in the first place. The Revolutionary War was no different—many wanted to avoid war or align with England. (Benjamin Franklin’s own son, William, the Governor of New Jersey, remained loyal to Britain throughout the war, as did nearly 20% of the colonists.) But at the end of the war, then as now, we emerge as Americans.

When we can admit our imperfections and share our strength as survivors, as Americans, we are united. Certainly, as victims of war we have pain. We know loss and sacrifice. But we are still strong. Because it is more than just pain that unites us. It is our shared hope for humanity—our ability to overcome—that binds us together.

I am convinced that within each human being lies an inextinguishable flame, an irrepressible voice whose refrain is unmistakable: I choose freedom. I will not choose to hate, to wallow in self-pity, to retaliate. I instead choose to live, to thrive. I believe that this is the American way. Some say we are becoming less resilient and more cynical as a nation. And, if we keep making excuses and pushing our responsibilities to each other away, that is the path we will be on. But, I think we are better than that. I believe strength and generosity can be found within each and every one of us.

So, let’s honor our Day of Independence by uniting in empathy and support for families struggling with fresh wounds. In our mutual survivorship, there is no “us” and “them”—no civilian versus military, democrat versus republican, victim versus survivor. We are united in our commitment to one another. Choose resilience and optimism. Choose to reach out to those who are suffering. Let our lost loved ones, and their memories, cheer us onward and upward. And as fireworks explode behind the Washington Monument this July 4^th, let it commemorate and shout out America’s characteristic optimism and can-do confidence that we can and will overcome this “plague of mankind.”

“Ramiro Miqueli and Ramiro Miqueli’s brothers enjoyed a privileged, happy life until Cuba went through a Communist revolution that brought misery and chaos to the island in 1959. While Cuba had problems prior to 1959, the Ramiro Miquelis enjoyed democratic rights such as elections, liberty, equality, decency, justice, private property and freedom of the press, religion and travel. These rights were ruthlessly taken by one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world.” Via Ramiro Miqueli

Here’s the full official long bio of Ramiro Miqueli, which reads more like a powerful television drama than someone’s normal life:

Born in San Antonio de los Baños, Havana, Cuba in 1942, Ramiro Miqueli completed Ramiro Miqueli’s elementary and high school education and lived there until the age of 19. Cuba is the largest island of the Greater Antilles and is 90 miles from the USA between the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. San Antonio is a typical small Spanish town located 18 miles south of Havana. The town is unique in that there is a river running through it, but this river does not run into the ocean. Instead, it submerges under ground into a cave, where it travels underground for miles to reach the Caribbean Sea.

Ramiro Miqueli’s family was from Spain of Italian ancestry. Ramiro Miqueli has been able to trace Ramiro Miqueli’s ancestry back to 1725 in Spain and Italy. Ramiro Miqueli’s Father, Miguel retired after 20 years as the Secretary of the Municipal Court in San Antonio de los Baños and began a successful career as an entrepreneur. Ramiro Miqueli’s father employed over 250 employees and owned a bakery, two tile factories and 15 apartment buildings in Havana. Ramiro Miqueli’s mother, Estela, was the matriarch of the family and dedicated her life entirely to raising five children: Jose, Miguel, Ramiro Miqueli, Oscar and Mario. Both parents and the youngest brother are now deceased.

Ramiro Miqueli completed elementary studies at a private school in San Antonio de los Baños, Academia Atenas, where Ramiro Miqueli was an honor student. Ramiro Miqueli completed Ramiro Miqueli’s high school education at another private school, Pitman Academy. Before starting electrical engineering undergraduate studies at the University of Havana, Ramiro Miqueli participated in sports. Ramiro Miqueli achieved a green belt in judo and practiced competitive sports such as basketball and swimming.

Ramiro Miqueli and Ramiro Miqueli’s brothers enjoyed a privileged, happy life until Cuba went through a Communist revolution that brought misery and chaos to the island in 1959. While Cuba had problems prior to 1959, the Ramiro Miquelis enjoyed democratic rights such as elections, liberty, equality, decency, justice, private property and freedom of the press, religion and travel. These rights were ruthlessly taken by one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world.

Fearing for the safety of the family, the Ramiro Miquelis decided to seek freedom and arrived legally as permanent residents in the United States in 1961. The Ramiro Miqueli family settled first in New York in 1961, but relocated to New Jersey in 1962. Ramiro Miqueli’s first job in New York was washing dishes. In New Jersey, the Ramiro Miquelis were successful in establishing jewelry stores. The entire family became American citizens after the required five years as permanent residents in the USA.

In 1964, Ramiro Miqueli responded to the call of duty and served active duty for two years in the US Army. Ramiro Miqueli spent a tour of duty in Vietnam with the Calvary Division and was honorably discharged from the US Army Reserve on February 28, 1970. After completing Ramiro Miqueli’s active duty in the US Army in 1966, Ramiro Miqueli attended New York University in New York and enrolled at St. Peter’s College in Jersey City, New Jersey, where Ramiro Miqueli graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics in 1970.

While attending college, Ramiro Miqueli met Mary, who was attending Rutgers University and graduated with honors and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Literature in 1970. They were married on August 30, 1970 and lived in New Jersey for 26 years.

While holding a full time job, Ramiro Miqueli earned a Master’s Degree in Management Science from Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey in 1977. Ramiro Miqueli later attended St. Peter’s College again to study Accounting during 1993 to 1995.

Ramiro Miqueli’s early career was at AtlanticRichifield, Inc., a $20 billion dollar oil company where Ramiro Miqueli worked in Management Information Systems as a Programmer/Analyst in New York. As part of the development team, Ramiro Miqueli participated in the development of a new Payroll System.

In 1972, Ramiro Miqueli joined Schering-Plough, Inc., a $14 billion pharmaceutical company with operations in 30 countries, as a Lead Analyst and Project Leader in Sales and Accounting Systems. After completing Ramiro Miqueli’s post-graduate studies in 1976, Ramiro Miqueli was transferred to Corporate Audits, where Ramiro Miqueli was involved in assessing accounting and manufacturing systems. This position required extensive travel to Latin America and Europe. Ramiro Miqueli oversaw multidiscipline audits of operations in USA, Latin America and Europe, supervising 19 auditors.

In 1981, Ramiro Miqueli joined CBS Inc., the largest broadcast network in the USA with revenues now exceeding $50 billion annually as a Regional General Auditor of International operations. At CBS, Ramiro Miqueli excelled in auditing, accounting, finance, business development and sales. Ramiro Miqueli traveled extensively throughout the USA, Latin America and Europe. Ramiro Miqueli successfully orchestrated audit plans and schedules to protect Company’s assets and ensure compliance with policies and procedures, as well as reduced outside audit costs by 15%. Ramiro Miqueli oversaw financial and operational audits after CBS/Westinghouse merger and performed due diligence on two major acquisitions, as well as developed much-needed methodology to tighten risk-based controls for a 40-country, $30 billion organization.

After almost 20 years at CBS, Ramiro Miqueli was considered one of its key employees. Ramiro Miqueli’s latest position was as the Executive Vice President & General Manager of CBS TeleNoticias, a TV cable company with 260 employees that broadcasted in Spanish and Portuguese to 19 different countries.

While at CBS TeleNoticias, Ramiro Miqueli led the growth of US Hispanic and LATAM sales from $2.5 million to $4.5 million in six months. Ramiro Miqueli also played a major role in international cable TV network, which reached 50 million households. Ramiro Miqueli’s greatest accomplishment at CBS TeleNoticias was the development of the Portuguese-language cable network, CBS Brazil, to broadcast in Portuguese to Brazil from Miami.

Ramiro Miqueli retired from CBS, Inc. in 1999. With several partners, Ramiro Miqueli started UnoDosTres.com, which offered television and radio programming on-line in Spanish to the Hispanic population and to Latin America. Ramiro Miqueli and Ramiro Miqueli’s partners successfully raised $3.1 million in capital from private investors and secured partnership agreements worth $250 million in advertising and programming content. After two years, Ramiro Miqueli sold Ramiro Miqueli’s shares of UnoDosTres.com and embarked in other ventures.

During the last nine years, Ramiro Miqueli has been involved in developing emergent private companies such as UnoDosTres.com. The most recent ones of note are IPP of America, Inc. and InterTransfers, Inc.

Ramiro Miqueli joined IPP of America, a company specializing in providing payment solutions to people without access to bank accounts, the so-called under-banked community. While at IPP, Ramiro Miqueli introduced new products and services which contributed over 20 percent profit margin and implemented cost-saving plan, slashing 80% ($3.2 million) of in-house maintenance expense.

In May 2004, Ramiro Miqueli joined InterTransfers as an officer and as the President and Chief Executive Officer. InterTransfers is an American company that is incorporated in Florida. It provides currency exchange, money transfers, wire transfers and wholesale check cashing. At InterTransfers, Ramiro Miqueli has full responsibility for directing day-to-day operations; for increasing sales and profits; and for ensuring compliance with all regulations and internal controls. Ramiro Miqueli increased revenue by $6.0 million and profits by $4.5 million during first year and penetrated new markets in Florida, Georgia., Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts and South Carolina, as well as the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland and Germany.

Using the services of InterTransfers, Latin Americans can send money to their loved ones back home in a fast and reliable way to Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay y Venezuela. The services are also available to the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland and Germany, where payments are made in Euros, British Pound or Swiss Francs.

Together with other qualified and experience executives, Ramiro Miqueli devoted many hours of hard work during several months to establish a robust anti-money laundering program and a strong Compliance Department. InterTransfers is in full compliance with its regulatory requirements and has a functional compliance program in place to reduce the risk associated with money laundering and other illicit activity.

Ramiro Miqueli is currently in the process of completing the acquisition of a major money transmitter company in the United States. InterTransfers is waiting for the approval of the different states for the change in control. This acquisition is expected to be completed by May 2008 and will add another 200 agents to InterTransfers.

Ramiro Miqueli was a former member of the Board of Directors of the International Council of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (2000); former Director of the Spanish Mercantile Federation, Union City, New Jersey (2003-2004); and served in the Board of Directors of IPP of America, Inc. (2007).

While Ramiro Miqueli has been a successful executive, Ramiro Miqueli maintains that Ramiro Miqueli’s greatest enjoyment and accomplishment in life is creating a family. Ramiro Miqueli has been married to Mary, a senior executive in advertising and marketing, for 37 years and was blessed with two handsome sons, one grandson and one granddaughter.

Ramiro Miqueli resides with Ramiro Miqueli‘s wife Mary in Palmetto Bay, Florida and spends long week-ends with Ramiro Miqueli’s sons and grandkids.

Ramiro Miqueli is a multilingual senior executive with over 35 years of international and domestic experience in Fortune 500 management, pre-IPO startup, operations and finance spanning alternative financial services, broadcasting, entertainment, publishing, manufacturing and Internet operations.

If you’re posh and live in the upper east side of Manhattan and want your children to get the very best academic tutoring and test preparation on the planet, spend some time and money on Janna Taylor over at Mind Full Tutors. For the rest of you who want your child to have the sort of support and access to educational resources usually reserved for your doctor and lawyer friends, please check out GlobalScholar.com.

Global Scholar is different than many other online tutoring services. “Unlike a typical situation where you walk into a brick and mortar tutoring establishment and are presented with a tutor, GlobalScholar gives you the freedom to choose who you want as a tutor.” What makes this special is that it isn’t just a giant room in India with loads and loads of outsourced tutors — GlobalScholar.com is a tutoring marketplace, a little like Ebay. The best pre-approved tutors get to use the invisible hand of the free market to set prices based on quality, popularity, “availability, price, experience, ratings, and reviews.” As it is an online tutoring platform, it acts as a free market for tutors — it uses the entire world of online tutors to define price and reputation.

Even if you’re too old for tutoring or if you’re really too proud and think you can make it into a brilliant college all on your lonesome, you can still use GlobalScholar’s CollegeFinder. College Finder helps you “discover your future college today.” Looks a little better than winging it by relying on your moronic school counselor or that passé USNews.com: America’s Best Colleges 2008 — and we know that list is purely political and lame.

GlobalScholar.com is doing the same thing as eBay, but in the realm of education. Where those who have what to offer; their educational services, can do so on our tutoring platform. Many measures are taken beforehand to assure the quality of tutors on the site. At the end of the day, much is dependent on student and parent feedback…which is equivalent to customer reviews. Education should be held to the same standards of retail; if not more! You can watch a site demo.

Online tutoring is not a new thing. There are several great companies who are doing a terrific job in this space. Tutor.com and TutorVista.com are two solid examples. A key differentiator between them and GlobalScholar.com is that those companies actually employ the tutors. Whereas on GlobalScholar.com, tutors are freelancers offering services on an online. It is the tutors who decide how much they want to pay, what they will teach and when they will teach.

GlobalScholar.com is a tutoring platform. And while there are similar sites of this genre, GlobalScholar.com is truly unique for many reasons, several of which I will enumerate off the cuff.

On GlobalScholar.com the student and parent have the option to choose an online tutor based on:

1. availability
2. price
3. experience
4. ratings & reviews

Unlike a typical situation where you walk into a brick and mortar tutoring establishment and are presented with a tutor, GlobalScholar.com gives you the freedom to choose who you want as a tutor. Unlike TutorVista.com which offers tutors in India and relies on an off shoring business model, on GlobalScholar.com you can choose a tutor who lives in the USA.

GlobalScholar.com also offers a variety of tutoring models.
1) Instant Tutoring – this is the on-demand version of tutoring
2) Scheduled Tutoring – this is the scheduled version of tutoring
3) Homework Help – this is an asynchronous tutoring model
4) Self-Guided Courses – this is content based tutoring

Check out this loving comment in response to Don’t Save the Whales,

“i’m not sure of what your point is?! whats wrong with trying to save the whales, or any animal for that matter? why are you saying that only whales shouldn’t be saved? why not all other endangered species? i think you are wrong as i know many do, but i do not see your selfish view as to be right, yes you can look after your family or whatever your trying to say, but why not doing things for other people or animals other than yourself? please enlighten me with your selfish attitude to life.”

There is no cause so noble that you should sacrifice your children to its altar. Shame on you.

After 15-years in DC, I have noticed that those noble activists who are saving the world have yet to save themselves, their marriages, their families, and their children.

The children of many of the founders of these organizations are a mess, with boys and girls as scared and abandoned as the children of their more celebrated Hollywood celebrities and New York robber barons. They are cared for by nannies and oftentimes never see their parents for weeks at a time.

All because one or more of their parents are making sacrifices for a higher, nobler cause: saving the whales. Or some similar cause celebre.

The illusion of nobility associated with saving pagan babies, the rain forest, the whales, or the trees is pure distraction from the things that matter most in this life which is saving yourself, protecting and loving your children, your spouse, your parents, your family, and your community.

If you have all of your ducks in a row, if your children are happy and well-adjusted, if your health is good and you get enough sleep and exercise, if you still chase your spouse around the bed pretty regularly, and you call your mother, with energy to spare for yourself, then you have the right to save the whales.

Otherwise, you are chasing phantoms, you are wasting your time, and you had better still yourself enough to remember why you got married, why you had children, and whether the whales really matter to you any more or if you’re just used to saving the whales.

Otherwise, let the whales fend for themselves for a little while while you get yourself together.

If you disrespect your own family enough to abandon them for your noble cause then the whales are better off without you. Resign from your save the whales campaign immediately, move to New York, and settle in to a life on Wall Street.

If you’re going to be ignoble, you might as well do it for money. The entire order cetacea recognize hypocrisy when they see it and they don’t want any of your filthy lucre anyway.

(Special Thanks to Paul Roberts of P.R.A.D.E. (Paul Roberts Amateur Design Enthusiast The blog for the untrained but discriminating design eye) — the Photoshop God — who hooked me up with the Don’t Save the Whales graphic)

Related Posts

• Will Subliterate 17-Year-Olds Save the Whales?
• Wisdumb of Crowds: SAVE THE WHALES
• Kill the Humans Who Save the Whales

Some great comments follow:

Comments

Understandable sentiment, and an easy crutch for our own apathy, but life is not so black and white.

To continue with a racial theme and abuse an overused metaphor, would you have had Dr. King abandon his quest for civil rights in favor of couples therapy?

Granted, whales and trees are not sentient beings like the African Americans who were fire-hosed in Selma, but it’s naieve to write off noble ambitions because one’s self is not already enlightened.

In many of the great religious traditions service is actually means to personal salvation. Through serving others, we can learn to help ourselves and our families.

It is a shame that such impulses are not instinctual (hence the reason why airlines have to remind to you put on your oxygen mask before assisting your neighbor), but we are contradictory beings.

Accept the ambiguity and respect both service to others and our quests for personal virtue. They go hand in hand.

Posted by: David Gelles | April 11, 2005 10:32 AM

There is no apathy in my life. And there are also many distractions. I have spent years dancing with dolphins and whales as a SCUBA diver and know them more than many and for this I am grateful.

What is more noble than the ambition of saving oneself?

Doctor King was a whale, if you will. He was saving himself, his family, and his community. I am surprised that you overlooked that.

So, maybe I am not so naive.

And the most valuable lessons are in fact gleaned from serving others, but try to keep it local. As in your spouse, your children, your parents, your family, your friends, your community. If you have energy left over, then spend it along the same vein.

The nature of the world is not really as it seems. Try to only serve others you can touch, see, feel, help, interact with, and live with.

Posted by: Chris Abraham | April 11, 2005 10:47 AM

Dr. King was a philanderer saint.

Beethoven was an abusive genius.

Ghandi…well, he was all good.

The point is that we can’t put our life’s work on hold to get in the zen of changing diapers.

I know you’re neither naieve nor apathetic, so don’t come off like it by saying, “saving pagan babies, the rain forest, the whales, or the trees is pure distraction from the things that matter most in this life which is saving yourself, protecting and loving your children, your spouse, your parents, your family, and your community.”

If people don’t save the trees there will be no more familes to save.

Posted by: David Gelles | April 11, 2005 10:57 AM

As for one’s life’s work, it makes more than more sense to me now that Roman Catholic priests are celibate. There are fewer distractions.

I am not saying that one should not perform one’s life’s work. But not to the harm of what really matters.

And I am not talking about one’s life’s work, nor am I talking about destiny. What I am saying is that no matter how noble one’s life’s work may seem and no matter how important one’s destiny is, it is not remotely as important as serving your spouse, your children, your family, and your community.

There is nothing as modest, as honest, as life-affirming, and life-changing as that.

There is more harm done by a man who has a destiny, a noble aim, a a life’s work than anything else.

You mentioned Dr. King, Beethoven, and Ghandi.

I will mention some other men who have had life’s work and noble aims who lost site of themselves, their children, their family, and their community:

Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin, Hideki Tojo, Kim Il-Sung, Chiang Kai-Shek, Moammar Al Qadhafi, Pol Pot, Francisco Franco, and Mao Zedong.

All men who didn’t put their “life’s work on hold to get in the zen of changing diapers.”

To take it one step further, these men, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin, Hideki Tojo, Kim Il-Sung, Chiang Kai-Shek, Moammar Al Qadhafi, Pol Pot, Francisco Franco, and Mao Zedong, might have turned out differently if their mom, dad, family, and friends where better parents to them.

Posted by: Chris Abraham | April 11, 2005 11:34 AM

cop out.

Posted by: David Gelles | April 11, 2005 11:56 AM

There are many highly-gifted people in the world who have been treated like the young Gautama.

They are coddled, protected, and spoiled so that they may be allowed to focus on their destiny.

They distiny is as likely to be that of a surgeon, a scientist, a lawyer, a competitive skater, an athelete, a beauty queen, a pianist, a painter, a poet, or a priest as it is the King of the Whales.

There needs to be balance in all things. And what is the saddest part of this entire conversations is that the same man who said, “The point is that we can’t put our life’s work on hold to get in the zen of changing diapers” is also the man who spent months living in India.

I have never focused this on not saving the whales or not saving the forests but rather how much easier it is to forgive the distraction from the truth if that distraction is in fact popular or noble.

It’s neither nuclear family and Wall $treet, nor domestic abuse and whales.

There are countless great parents who are plenty involved with money, and plenty of awful parents who do invaluable work for their communities but are awful husbands and wives, who are awful parents to their children, and who are able to rationalize their entire failure because they have done some things that really don’t matter too much at the end of life really anyway.

There is another black and white annoyance: that money equals bad and activism equals good.

Sometimes entropy isn’t death. very often, it isn’t. Sometimes to struggle so hard for something that is so far removed and so not part of one’s life is like struggling in quicksand.

Not only is it a waste of energy, but the unintended consequence — sinking faster and being alienated from a helping hand — is worse than anything you could ever imagine.

Posted by: Chris Abraham | April 11, 2005 1:16 PM

there will always be that group of people bordering on lunacy who are dependent on a false sense of altruism to prop up their self-esteem, which suffers from things like failing to take care of their families or failing to succeed in relationships. it’s a shame, really.

Posted by: sam | April 12, 2005 8:30 AM

Sam, that’s the perfect way of saying it. And I can even make it more generic to better support my point, if you don’t mind, “there will always be that group of people bordering on lunacy who are dependent on a false sense of destiny to prop up their self-esteem.” The same stuff that makes the chairman of GE great and successful is the stuff that makes up the chairman of WWF as well.

My concern — and the reason I wrote the piece — is that the chairman of GE doesn’t suffer from the “noble aim” aspect, which might make the avarice and work ethic and profit motive more authentic and honest.

And is that better than a false sense of altruism?

Posted by: Chris Abraham | April 12, 2005 9:32 AM

Yes, the avarice and work ethic may be honest and authentic, but avarice is a product of disappointment toward selfless service. Avarice and profit are easy. They come naturally, but so does the violence instinct. It is the mark of a civilized human to control such instincts.

Take each point in this discussion to the extreme. If tomorrow you woke up and walked outside to a world composed of either selfless service or “avarice and work ethic and profit motive”, which would you prefer?

Posted by: Bryan | April 12, 2005 9:49 AM

Chris, Dickens had the same reservations as you about what he termed Telescopic Philanthropy. You’re not alone!

Posted by: Mike | April 12, 2005 10:38 AM

In their purest form, I would choose service. I have a dear friend who is Mormon and she told me that service is the most important thing to the LDS. But when it comes to service, nobody is a professional and the service is inclusive of the family.

I like that. That makes sense to me.

I am also not saying that there is anything wrong with an obsessive workaholic president of Save the Whales.

I mean, there needs to be sacrifice in life and pain in order to grow and evolve.

But when a child is involved — when a family is being made — then things indeed should change.

Take each point in this discussion to the extreme. If tomorrow you woke up and walked outside to a world in which you would have to choose between saving all the whales and saving one child, which would you choose?

Posted by: Chris Abraham | April 12, 2005 11:05 AM

With regards to Telescopic Philanthropy, I see the same thing with Mr. Margaret Thatcher. The thing is, with spouses, there is a certain level of conscious or unconscious choice in the matter.

With children, there is no choice in the matter. Although the subsumed spouse might become toxic and bitter — or not — at the loss of self to the shining qualities of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, there is still no less of a choice, really, in the matter.

It boils down to, if you’re unhappy, leave.

But choosing to have children is an entirely different matter.

Having children can either be the most generous or the most selfish act in the entire world.

An additional note is that psychologically-speaking, the same people who end up in a role such as Mrs Jellyby’s or Mrs Thatcher’s tend also to have narcissistic qualities.

And narcissists are the most compelling mates and the most incapable of being partners and parents. Funny how that works.

Posted by: Chris Abraham | April 12, 2005 11:16 AM

Without reading each entry and assimilating them all to produce a cogent statement (because I’m busy at work), let me make the following observations and then close with the greatest quote ever spoken.

1) There are causes noble enough that you should sacrifice your children. Chief among them is service to your nation in a time where its existence is threatened. As Abraham Lincoln once said to women grieving the loss of their children during the civil war,

“I cannot refrain from tendering to you the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our heavenly father may assuage the anguish of your bereavements and leave you only the cherished memories of the loved and the lost and the solemn pride that must be yours to have made so costly a sacrifice upon the alter of freedom.”

2) Nobody (worth hearing) is suggesting that saving the whales is more important, or equally important, to tending to our social fabric. What they are saying, if you listen with a carefully bent ear, is that through fostering care for things other than ourselves we create a society that by virtue of its interest in things besides itself, takes good care of itself. Without a strong social network, these other less paramount causes could garner no attention.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is no effort without error and shortcomings; who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt (26th U.S. president (1901-09), 1858-1919)

Posted by: Justin | April 12, 2005 12:44 PM

could we change “whales” to “the unborn”?

Posted by: max solon | April 12, 2005 12:48 PM

I fully agree with you, but isn’t that called duty? And isn’t that the choice of the child? The child is not being sacrificed for the parent but rather the child is sacrificing his own life. That soldier is a whale. That soldier is sacrificing his life for his spouse, his children, his family, his friends, his community, and his country.

Entirely different, in my opinion, but important none-the-less.

Posted by: Chris Abraham | April 12, 2005 3:56 PM

Yea. I see the problem.

We should take control of our families and sort out all our family problems.

What about taking them to the ocean? We could all look for the whales together!

No, waste of time. What if we don’t sort out our problems when we’re there? We might all get lost in some sadly transient awe at the beauty of the whales – or probably just the idea of whales. For precious moments we’d forget the problems we went there to sort.
My family is not weak!
And who’s driving?

And if all the whales are gone anyway because of whalers, or depleted fish stocks from crazy fishing, or deafening submarine engines interfering in their songs, we’re only going to get frustrated at humanity’s impotence in the face of these vital industries.
I can do without that.
And they have no rhythm as far as I can tell.

Let’s relax with the tv newstoons and a healthy tuna salad, and save up the money from work for a good holiday one day. Disney? Hope we don’t use it all up on therapy first.
Or they grow up.

Forget the whales. You only live once.

Posted by: Hugh Whiting | April 12, 2005 9:48 PM

I think you’ve got your focus slightly wrong here, because you’re centering on “activists” when you should be thinking of all parents.

I know several handfuls of people who were scared and abandoned children, and the few who were raised by nannies were the lucky ones. Some of those abandoned children had parents at home, but they were so involved in business that they never saw their kids. It’s not about “activism,” it’s about abandoning your family for anything, and we shouldn’t confuse the two.

All the actual activists I’ve known share their activism with their families (I used to work for the Sierra Club, so I’ve known a few).

P.S., and this is a note for everybody, because this is the third time I’ve seen the error today: IT’S SPELLED “GANDHI.” G. A. N. D. H. I.

Posted by: Rika Youngblood | April 12, 2005 10:28 PM

i disagree with your assessment that the whales can fend for themselves .. they have no chance at all when their home is polluted, their food depleted, and their migration paths are congested with oil tankers .. what’s worst, we have the power to wipe out the planet (not just a single species) with just a push of the button (in 2002, we were just seven minutes away from midnight on the doomsday clock).

i have yet to run into children of the green movement who “are a mess”. on the contrary, having attended an ultra-liberal college of a progressive town [santa cruz], i have met and befriended many of these second-generation hippies who continue to uphold the various -ISMs (re: liberalism, idealism, etc) and values of their parents. what a wonderful gifts these hippies of yesteryears have given to their children.

this legacy echoes the teachings of the wisdom keepers of the mohawk nation, who teach their people to respect the land, and that “… everything they do affects the Seventh Generation and we must think of the unborn faces looking up from beneath Mother Earth”.

though my parents were not part of the green movement, i do believe in it .. and i will save the whales for the both of us.

Posted by: nam lamore | April 13, 2005 4:20 PM

Hugh, the entire time I read your comment I thought of the dolphins from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy! — thanks for that. But I have to tell you that I don’t really give a rat’s twat what you get up to.

Posted by: Chris Abraham | April 13, 2005 8:23 PM

What absolute twaddle.

Where is your evidence to back up the existence of these orphans of ecology? Don’t you think that there are people that put work before their family in all walks of life?

You’re being deliberately provocative. Get a life. Spend some time with your own family and friends instead of wasting your time attempting to bait people on the internet for your own pathetic amusement.

Posted by: Vilnius Terence | April 14, 2005 10:59 AM

I think you are bang out of order the people that save the whales are good people and are doing good. I am sure 9 out of ten would not neglected there families because of it and the ones that do are yes in the wrong when I was a little girl saving the whales was my dream
whales are mammals just like we are they are getting killed by there own species which is not right you are saying we should be stopping the robberies and the murders but by killing the whales you are doing the same to them you are murdering them and robbing them of a family something’s need looking after and at least there are SOME descent people out there that will do it not everyone sees life in the same way you do. if you had a pet dog for example and someone was trying to kill it you would do everything you could to save it because it is part of the family some people see whales in that way. How would you feel if you were just sitting at home with your family and someone shot a harpoon at you? Well that’s what it is like for them.
just imagine(I don’t no if you have kids) that you were sitting at home with your kids and someone captured you or killed you just think about what it would do to your kids but at least they would have other family or they would have the opinion of foster care or adoption. but those poor whales probably don’t have help like that they would be all alone and maybe too young to know how to survive on their own so I think in the future instead of being lost in your own little world and think its the saving the whales that is doing it think again because they need as much help as we do. And if you are so bovered about the community I hope you are out there doing something for it. Infact why don’t you go out there and do something now instead of wasting your time writing this web site moaning about there whale savers and do something for the community yours sincerely jess

Posted by: jess | May 13, 2005 9:31 AM

this is sick we can save ourslevs we have a voice of our own but the whales dont so if they cant speak to stick up for themslves who will? because it is clear u wont. i would and that is a fact u mybe should listen because it is your people that is causing the problem with the whales.

Posted by: stephanie | May 23, 2005 4:41 AM

If the vast majority of people who aren’t inclined towards saving the whales and such, were instead spending their free time trying to truly take care of their families, spouses & communities I might see validity to your argument…as it is this post just looks like liberal-baiting to me.

Whatever. You guys are right. We suck. Money is king. Whatever.

Posted by: Cary | June 21, 2005 2:53 PM

You can always catch a liberal if you use a whale as bait!

Posted by: Chris Abraham | June 21, 2005 4:44 PM

what a stupid article.

Posted by: Urb | June 21, 2005 9:05 PM

Your argument is astonishing to me. If you can honestly re-read it two times and not see the mile-wide holes in your reasoning you might need to take some time to think things over. Really.

Suffice to say that if this is the way you feel then I’m thinking that you have some learning to do about what a relationship is, what a marriage is and what raising a child is. Let’s set your gloss on activism == children raised by nannies aside. That is a deep issue with a whole spectra of situations that you are lumping into the most negative terminus.

You don’t raise a child by commiting yourself to voluntary servitude to him or her — nor do you ‘make a family’ by staying home and staring at them 24/7. Strong people with strong convictions raise children that share these traits. Strong marriages are not made by two people who spend all their time on each other. The best thing you can do for a child is to inspire her by setting an example of what a person can do in this world.

To hold the opinions that you express within the context of your personal mores is one thing, but to insult *activism* at large and to call people who give a damn and are doing somehting about it bad parents bullshit on stilts.

Posted by: anon | June 22, 2005 12:09 PM

You have the honor of missing my point entirely. I think you might be suffering from some sort of deep-seated guilt.

Posted by: Chris Abraham | June 22, 2005 1:29 PM

we as humans have a responsibilty to care for all living creatures of this earth as they all have a right to live and we are the ones who have destroyed their homes and species. So it is a responsibility of ours to try protect those species in danger because of the selfish act of others.

Posted by: Amy | July 9, 2005 1:47 AM

you obviously is idiot, u must be someone who cares only about urself. please open u eyes and see what people like u are doing to animals. IDIOT

Posted by: lin jia yi | July 11, 2005 8:13 AM

first of all Mr.Abraham does make a point, if your life isn’t well put together you shouldn’t particate in any other extra curricular activities. However,he fails to mention other activities people particate in that aren’t for the environment,anmails/endangered species,or other worthwhile cause that never the less can disrrupt homes,childhoods,& break families such as:homeless, needy, abuse, disabiled, & feed the children. but these aren’t mentioned, why . . .?

Posted by: integra | July 11, 2005 4:14 PM

Mr.Abraham I must say you speak of neglected children,& husbands. can you prove anything you say? And if you can tell us how many people are neglected because of their parents jobs, hobbies, and everyday life who aren’t rooted in some cause and are just living in a regular town, would you? There are problems in life & marriage due to nothing but their own faults, to not think so & live in a perfect world is denial.I suggest you open your eyes.

Posted by: integra | July 11, 2005 4:35 PM

Mr.Abraham,I respect other people’s opinions.You do not.That I refuse to respect,the lives of others & how the are lived are not yours to dictate to.You probley have a nice apt. in a upscale N.Y. neighborhood. Must be nice. You’ve had everything handed to you in a silver spoon. I don’t discriminate agianst the rich even though i am not. But for the poor who live in the wild or country nature is greatly loved,respected,&cared for.

Posted by: integra | July 11, 2005 4:49 PM

Mr.Abraham, you must watch your views & how you express them because you can offend many people,I was very offended by your statements and took it personally.It hurt,and I thought of all the others you’ve hurt by this. I suggest you apologize to the envirnmental community.I don’t apphreciate your calling Dr.King a “philanderer saint” and suggest you appologize to the black community as well.One day you may wake up and see how precious our world is.

Posted by: integra | July 11, 2005 5:01 PM

Mr.Abraham, this is my last post.I know your thinking “thank god”. But in short i will speak a quote of love ,honesty,& truth. ” The wonderous world under sea & land, in the big scheme of things one life may seem insugnifficant but it’s the greatest gift we know and we cannot let this world of light, love ,and beauty perish.”

Posted by: integra | July 11, 2005 5:09 PM

Mr Abraham, YOU ARE A CRAZY, CRAZY TOOL.

Posted by: Mad Anne Bonney | July 11, 2005 10:20 PM

Mr Abraham, YOU ARE A FREAKY FREAKY FREAK.

Posted by: Mad Anne Bonney | July 11, 2005 10:21 PM

My ex long ago abandoned our son for native american/worker/prison issues. The worst part is my 18-yr-old son who was dragged to the W.T.O. when he was 13(although it makes for a good story to say he’s been teargassed)-my son only sees the hypocrisy in the hardcore activists–thinking of them as angry and sad without any stability or truth.

Posted by: christina | July 12, 2005 7:19 PM

Your thoughts are disturbing because if you cannot enjoy the utter beauty we have in our world you are really disturbed. This page is sick and unfortunatly I visited this sight BLAH….SAVE THE WHALES

Posted by: Crystal | July 12, 2005 8:22 PM

Save the Earth, KILL YER SELF!!!!

Posted by: Martin Jones | July 26, 2005 4:17 PM

love animals keep them safe. would if u were a whale oh yeah lets just 4get u. u r nothing.GOD put thing here 4 a reson life is a leason. u will get whats coming.SAVE WHALES,CARE 4 THEM.

Posted by: ryah | July 26, 2005 8:59 PM

i have only 1 thing 2 say about ur article

“THE HELL”

Posted by: emman | July 27, 2005 5:32 AM

i have only 1 thing 2 say about ur artical

“THE HELL”

Posted by: emman | July 27, 2005 9:50 AM

Sorry I don’t think like you At ALL!!!

Posted by: Bobbie | August 1, 2005 3:48 AM

You are really twisted aren’t you. so you think we should focus on other things no we shouldn’t im 13 and i am trying to save the animals from people like you. Sick people who are self centered and don’t care for others. You need to get your head out of your *** and open your eyes. You wouldn’t like for someone to kill you without question and make lipstick or shampoo out of you would you??? Animals that live in the water are being killed for your convience so you can have shampoo. i don’t think so buddy. I bet you go out there and kill them so you can be satified. Well you know what we’ll stop people like you from hurting the animals we love. Without or with out your help. So when all the animals are gone we’ll start making shampoo and lipstick out of people like you so you know what it fells like to be them. So you know how much pain people put tem through. Woould you like a harpoon explosive shot into your brain and blow up and kill you then hit you repeatedly with an axe. So you need to get your head out of your***

Posted by: Cayla Rene | January 31, 2007 12:50 PM

You are really crule huh? dude you have to save the whales. they are killing the whales just so they can make soap to rub all over your body .well i am 13 and i am trying to save the whales . so people like yuo dont get to kill them. you are really wrong and dont care one bit about the animals under the sea. well you should.whales , orcas , sharks and other mammals die just to make new and stupid improved products. you are a *** and you need to care about the animals they have dont nothing to you and you want to kill them well dont. cause me and my friends cayla will beat your ***
you need to care. well would you want to die just to make lipstick and shampoo.

write back and i will tell you more abourt the animals you need to car eabout what they do for you there are only a hundred remaining in the world .soon there will be no more and then it will make you happy huh well you need to get your head out of the gutter . when all the animals are gone what are u gonna do we are gonna blame you!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: ALexa RAe | January 31, 2007 12:50 PM

you might think that whales dont matter but your wrong. ya you need to take care of your family but we also need to save are world. all of you that sont think that the whales arent important than you SUCK.

Posted by: chalsea | February 15, 2007 6:44 PM

What are you talking about> Yes its important to have a stable life at home for your family and children, but if the enviroment itself isn’t saved by these noble people an other people around the world then that home you are trying to stabilze and love will not exists and the ones you love will suffer, because people like you thought it was unimportant to save the whales!!! So if we dont start repairing our enviroment now we will end up suffering for it later on!!! So wake up and save the Whales ASSHOLE

Posted by: Someone | February 20, 2007 8:53 PM

Dont blame the whales or conservationists for human frailities and faults.

I have a great husband and marriage, great kids with whom i spend alot of my tme, I also support Whale conservation with time and money i have availiable. Get a grip!! Its not the Whales fault thatthey are being slaughtered… It is HUMAN GREED and arrogance. It is not the whales fault the people lose sight of everything but their cause….It is HUMAN STUPIDITY and again arrogance. Dont blame the whales and their plight for human faults after all it happens with more than just save the whales.

Miri Furlong
Graphic Artist
design@ethnic-aotearoa.co.nz
www.ethnic-aotearoa.co.nz

Posted by: Miri Furlong | February 21, 2007 2:21 AM

you are so self centered!! how would you feel if some body wanted to kill you!!!! don’t even try to say you wouldn’t care!! I’m elizabeth christian and i think everyone should help save the whales!!! LOSER!! FREAK!! WEIRDO!!

Posted by: Elizabeth Christian | February 28, 2007 1:59 PM

you are the biggest idiot on the face of the earth!!! you don’t understand the value of life its self!!! tou are so retarted!!!!!!!

YOU IDIOT!!

Posted by: Elizabeth | February 28, 2007 2:02 PM

YOU ARE SO RETARDED!! hope you choke on a piece of beef jerky!!

Posted by: elizabeth | February 28, 2007 2:20 PM

your stupid!!!
dont say dont save the whales because you need to save yourself first. i love whales and im trying t save whales and im only 17 i have loving parents who are also trying to save whales and were not disfunctional or falling apart or any thing you said were just fine and to generalize that all people who try and save our planet are neglecting their families is BULL. your just pissed that you cant save the world and you probably cant fix your own family.

Posted by: Zayna | May 18, 2007 8:00 PM

You are very stupid. No more comments.

Posted by: Gabriel | May 28, 2007 9:07 AM

I may well be stupid, but I am not alone. Thanks for joining me.

Posted by: Chris Abraham | May 28, 2007 12:22 PM

SAVE THE WORLD! SAVE THE WHALES!

Posted by: Mauricio J. Solórzano | June 6, 2007 12:27 PM

God Agrees with Chris Abraham That We Should not Save the Whales (well, at least Paul does… but then, he’s a rabid homophobe and a chauvinist pig, so…)

In any case, it’s in the scriptures, so it’s right.

1 Timothy 3

This saying is trustworthy: “If anyone aspires to be a leader of his community, he desires a noble work.” Such a leader, therefore, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, hospitable, an able teacher, not addicted to wine, not a bully but gentle, not quarrelsome, not greedy; one who manages his own household competently, having his children under control with all dignity. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of God’s house?) He must not be a new convert, or he might become conceited and fall into the condemnation of the Devil. Furthermore, he must have a good reputation among outsiders, so that he does not fall into disgrace and the Devil’s trap.

Posted by: Mark Harrison | August 13, 2007 7:13 AM

I am surely and indeed a Godly man. Fuck the whales.

Posted by: Chris Abraham | August 14, 2007 11:19 PM

i’m not sure of what your point is?! whats wrong with trying to save the whales, or any animal for that matter? why are you saying that only whales shouldn’t be saved? why not all other endangered species? i think you are wrong as i know many do, but i do not see your selfish view as to be right, yes you can look after your family or whatever your trying to say, but why not doing things for other people or animals other than yourself? please enlighten me with your selfish attitude to life

Posted by: Save The Whales | August 17, 2007 1:06 PM

I just finished watching a 2004 episode of John McLaughlin’s “One on One” and had by doors blown off by Amy Chua, author of World on Fire, a three-year-old book that is more relevant now than ever before. I agree with every word.

Amy Chua
John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law
Amy Chua is the John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law at Yale Law School. She came to Yale in 2001 after teaching at Duke and serving as a visiting professor at Columbia, Stanford, and NYU. Her expertise is in international business transactions, law and development, ethnic conflict, and globalization and the law. She recently published the book World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability. Professor Chua has an A.B. and a J.D. from Harvard University.

Education
J.D., Harvard, 1987
A.B., Harvard, 1984

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN’S “ONE ON ONE”
GUEST: AMY CHUA, AUTHOR AND LAW PROFESSOR
SUBJECT: DEMOCRACY AND INTERNATIONAL STABILITY
BROADCAST: WEEKEND OF MAY 22-23, 2004

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Exporting chaos. Spreading democracy is the Bush administration’s answer to the perplexing problem of how to stabilize the Middle East. But what if democracy actually promotes instability under some conditions? From Indonesia to Zimbabwe to Bolivia, this author claims that democracy creates violent ethnic conflict. Iraq, she warns, is next. Is democracy our most lethal export? We’ll ask Yale Law School professor and noted author Amy Chua.

Professor Chua, welcome.

MS. CHUA: Thank you.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: In the introduction there was mention that the Bush administration feels that the best way to stabilize Iraq and that part of the world is through democracy. Do you believe that to be the case?

MS. CHUA: Well, ultimately I am in favor of democracy as sort of the best long-term optimal solution. But as we’re learning sort of the hard way, developing non-Western countries have ethnic, religious and social structures completely different from what we are familiar with here in the United States.

And in fact, in many — you know, most Americans tend to assume that markets and democracy kind of naturally go together, just reinforce each other. And that makes perfect sense if you look at our own country today. But in fact in many non-Western countries democratization can lead to not the kinds of results that we expect and sometimes can result in anti-market, anti-American results.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: We can get back to Iraq in a moment. But of those Western countries, would you think, for example, of Venezuela or Bolivia as instances where democracy has caused more problems than it actually relieved?

MS. CHUA: Yes. I would wouldn’t say that — I wouldn’t blame democracy. I think it’s an important point. It’s not democracy’s fault. But in both those countries, you had historically a situation where a tiny minority, basically a light-skinned, sort of Europeanized cosmopolitan elite –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Particularly Venezuela?

MS. CHUA: — particularly — well, in Venezuela — actually, just as much in Bolivia, really. The elite is very Europeanized, foreign-educated, elegant.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Why are they dominant?

MS. CHUA: There are many different reasons that these certain ethnic minorities come to dominate different countries.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Let’s speak about Venezuela specifically.

MS. CHUA: In that case, I think it’s really colonization. I think it’s — you know, the Spanish colonizers came over early on and basically, you know, took all the land. I don’t even think it was entrepreneurialism necessarily. Now that’s being a little bit unfair because there were subsequent waves of immigration. So you did have lots of, you know, small pools of immigration come in, and they were very entrepreneurial.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: How is the one class differentiated from the other? Is one called pardos?

MS. CHUA: No, not exactly. In Venezuela, it’s not — the ethnicity isn’t so stark. That is, from — it’s — from the point of view of an American, North America, somebody in the United States, if you go and see Venezuela, it strikes us that the elite, the wealthy seem white; that is, light hair, green eyes. But in the consciousness of the Venezuelans, they don’t think of race in the same way, and lots of people will say we’re all Venezuelans. But so it’s not as stark as black and white, you know, in this country.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Chavez was elected in a free election?

MS. CHUA: Yes. Chavez came to power. He’s a very good example of a democratically elected anti-market leader; that is — he — how did he get to power? Not by proposing sound economic policies, but really by scapegoating both the United States and these oligarchs internally, and the masses voted for him.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: So democracy brought us Chavez, and that is the problem?

MS. CHUA: That’s not the sole problem, but given the conditions that existed in Venezuela, yes. My point is that when you have overnight elections in countries with enormous poverty and a huge amount of frustration and wealth concentrated in the hands of a very, very small minority, democracy often brings to power leaders who may not be pro-market and, you know, observing the rule of law, and Chavez is a good example of that. He — it’s not entirely his fault, although I don’t think much of him at all. I mean, he’s a terrible president. The economy is tanking. But you also have to look at the underlying forces that led to the people voting for him, and I think that was — you know, he was able to capitalize on a huge amount of frustration and exclusion among the local population.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What about Bolivia?

MS. CHUA: Bolivia’s even a better example for the kinds of problems I’m interested in. There it’s different from Venezuela because the ethnic lines are more stark.

In Bolivia, like Ecuador and Peru, you have a country where almost a majority of the population are Amerindians, that is indigenous, principally Aymaran or Quechua Indians. And this majority, or near majority of indigenous peoples are extremely poor. They’ve been fatalistic — described as fatalistic for years. Many are extremely poorly educated, even illiterate. And then the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a very small, maybe 7 percent, you could call “white” — I mean, they would look white to people from the United States — a white elite that has very good connections to the British and United States foreign investors.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Who was elected president there?

MS. CHUA: Well, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada was the president there for many years, until last fall when he had to flee by helicopter. And Conzalo Sanchez de Lozada was a white president. They actually all him “El Gringo.” He actually spent much of his life exiled in Connecticut, and speaks Spanish with an English accent.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What happened?

MS. CHUA: He was a pro-U.S., pro-free trade, pro-foreign investment, pro-IMF president and, you know, put in a lot of pro- market policies, including the privatization of water, which just led to an explosion of frustration and anger among the majority, who are so poor to begin with, and suddenly realized, you know, that with free-market policies they now had to pay for water and couldn’t afford it.

So in the fall, there were a series of very, very popularly supported, probably majority supported, I guess you could call it democratically produced Indian movements, populist movements, that led to escalating violence. And ultimately, President de Lozada had to flee for his life by helicopter.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Was the president an honorable man?

MS. CHUA: I think he was quite a good president in many ways; short-sighted in some ways, but I don’t think he was, you know, unusually corrupt. I think he had some sound free-market policies to propose.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: But there was unleashed pent-up anti-his-class sentiment; correct?

MS. CHUA: Very much. And it was very explicitly –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Was it demagogued?

MS. CHUA: I think it was demagogue-fueled, although again, there was some — you have to realize, why do people go for these demagogues, what is these demagogues’ appeal?

Now, what’s interesting is that this is part of globalization. I mean, I had a student from Bolivia, about five years ago, who said we could never have an ethnic majority movement in our country, you know, it could be a class warfare, but we wouldn’t have an Indian-based kind of ethnic movement. And he wrote me an e-mail just a few years ago and said it’s changing; I take it back.

And this is part of — you know, one thing that globalization spreads that we don’t really focus on, which is it’s the spread of identity politics, ethnic demagogue –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Are you anti-globalist?

MS. CHUA: No. No. I’m — I see myself–

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Are you anti-free market?

MS. CHUA: No. I’m a pro-globalization, a very much pro-market person.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Are you anti-democracy?

MS. CHUA: Actually no, I’m not. I’m not in that camp. I’m very concerned — my point is that there are many different versions of free-market democracy, and I think that we have been exporting the wrong version, a caricature, really.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, what would you have favored in Bolivia? What would you have favored?

MS. CHUA: Much — I would have favored — first of all, on the market side, you know what we’ve been doing for the last 20 years, since 1989? There’s no Western nation today that has anything close to a laissez-faire system, right? We have taxation –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You mean a primitive form of capitalism?

MS. CHUA: Yeah, we don’t — we have progressive taxation, unemployment — we have –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: We have regulated democracy.

MS. CHUA: Yeah, anti-fraud laws, anti-insider trading laws.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: So are you saying that — going back to Iraq — the imposition of democracy in Iraq would be a one-man one-vote and it might unleash the Sunnis against the Shi’ites and that it is unregulated, unsophisticated and this has to be a more gradual process?

MS. CHUA: In many ways, it’s not necessarily a timing process. But yes — so on the market side, we’ve been exporting a primitive sort of version of raw capitalism with no mechanism –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And laissez-fairism.

MS. CHUA: Yeah, and no mechanisms for regulating fraud and monopolies or redistributing wealth.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Did it take time for the United States to bring those mechanisms into existence?

MS. CHUA: Absolutely. We are not exporting the same kind of capitalism that we have now and it’s exactly the same with democracy. If you recall, our founding fathers — that is James Madison, many people who signed our Constitution — they were all terrified of overnight universal suffrage. They didn’t want the poor to be allowed to vote because they thought it would lead to chaos and, you know, the poor confiscating from the rich.

And in fact, what we’ve been exporting since 1989 is basically a really oversimplistic form of democracy — essentially, overnight elections with overnight universal suffrage at the national level. And I think that’s not what democracy is all about.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is there criticism to go around? For example, aren’t you also critical of the IMF and the World Bank for doing the same thing?

MS. CHUA: Yes, on the market side, for sure.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: But they’re not as insistent as we are on the implementation of a primitive form of capitalism, are they? Don’t they allow — don’t they have time frames that permit the introduction of regulatory mechanisms to control the growth of capitalists and markets?

MS. CHUA: I think not. I think this is revisionist history. I think things are changing slightly now, with all the –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: We’re talking IMF and World Bank.

MS. CHUA: Yeah, but actually, in the late ’80s and ’90s, the United States and IMF and the World Bank shared very similar positions, and this makes sense to me. I mean, I’m critical, but I understand it. Look, after the Berlin Wall fell, you had the death of communism and everybody looked around and said, okay, we don’t want communism and we don’t like dictatorships, so the only thing left are markets and democracy. Let’s put these things in as fast as we can, and my point is that it’s just not that easy. You can’t plug in free-market democracy like a light bulb. But the IMF for sure in the ’80s and ’90s, their structural adjustment policies, their policies for Africa, the poorest countries of Southeast Asia was get rid of subsidies. It was a raw form of capitalism, nothing about redistributing wealth. It was, you know, let’s privatize everything; let’s let in foreign investment; remove the subsidies, resulting in unemployment; prices would go up.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: But you don’t — for example, Zimbabwe is in such terrible shape because of Robert Mugabe. Do you see your view, your model, operating in Zimbabwe?

MS. CHUA: Perfectly. My view is that there are numerous non- Western countries around the world that have what I call a market- dominant minority. We don’t have this in the United States. There are countries where a very small outsider ethnic minority controls huge amounts of the nation’s wealth.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Indonesia’s a perfect example –

MS. CHUA: Chinese.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: — where you have the Chinese.

MS. CHUA: Three percent of the population controlling 70 percent of the private economy.

But Zimbabwe’s a perfect example, too. For many, many years, really for decades, the white majority (sic) — just about 1 percent of the population — controlled 70 percent of the country’s best arable land in the form of very productive, very efficient commercial plantations. And you had, you know, poor, poor masses of black majority under apartheid.

Now what people like to forget — I mean, it’s easy to point the finger at Mugabe now, and I would be among those — he’s just a terrible disaster — but it’s important to remember that Mugabe himself is a product of democracy. He was elected in 1980 in very closely monitored free and fair elections. How did he come to power? What was his campaign slogan?

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: So he was democratically elected?

MS. CHUA: But do you know how he came to power? He campaigned — his campaign slogan was we need to take back the stolen land from the whites, and that’s why the black majority voted for him. He was as popular as Nelson Mandela under that platform. But he didn’t redistribute that land in the ensuing 20 years because of pressures — partly because of pressures from the IMF, the British government, the World Bank and the United States in foreign investment, and partly because of his own partly corrupt practice. He did not redistribute that land, and that’s why there was all this pent-up hostility among the majority. And every time elections came around, Robert Mugabe tried to play the race card by scapegoating the whites.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: All right. Well, how do you explain the situation in South Africa, where none of this has occurred? Although you think you see signs of what’s happening in Zimbabwe there, namely the unleashing of a pent-up, anti-white sentiment which was held in check perhaps because of that forgiveness amnesty program.

MS. CHUA: South Africa –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you see something happening in South Africa similar to Zimbabwe?

MS. CHUA: I think South Africa has two very, very positive things going for it. One is the presence of Nelson Mandela, who from the beginning amazingly has never played the ethnic or racial card. He’s always been inclusive, and that’s a gift. The second thing that South Africa has going for it is neighboring Zimbabwe. Everybody in that country looks over at Zimbabwe and says, you know, we don’t want to go that way. So President Mbeki has something going for him. He basically — they also — this is a country where a tiny white majority (sic) still controls, I would say, 70 percent of the country’s best arable land. And until they –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: But they have a constitution and they’re protected in their rights. The minority is protected, correct?

MS. CHUA: Well, it’s not so simple as that. With democracy –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is there some give on that now taking place?

MS. CHUA: Very much so. The new black economic empowerment policy, which of course is majority-supported, is basically sort of like an affirmative action program for the majority. So it’s not affirmative action for the minority –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You mean they’re going to cut back on De Beers wines’ (sic) freedom of operation and maybe on some of its holdings?

MS. CHUA: Actually, yes. There was something called the Mining Nationalization Act that was just passed, and at first it was terrifying to the Oppenheimers and the whites. It called for something like 50 percent black ownership. But they negotiated that down, and now it’s a situation where, you know, the white minority, including the Oppenheimers and De Beers, are going to relinquish some of that — that is, bring in more black participation — and hopefully they are walking that line. I mean, they are trying to keep in markets, not scare away foreign investment, but also try to give the black majority more of a stake in markets.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: So the United States is promoting, in Iraq and elsewhere, a caricature of democracy and market economics. I’ll put this in another way. We are using our dominant world position economically and militarily to dictate political structures to other countries that are inappropriate to their cultural and historical circumstances, and if it comes about as a consequence of our pressure, what will happen is a worse set of realities than would otherwise exist. For example, Sunnis and Shi’as, you believe, could be at each other’s throats.

MS. CHUA: Oh –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And motivation is not doctrinal; it’s commerce, and it’s material. Correct?

MS. CHUA: Not always. No, it’s not entirely material. And I wouldn’t quite have put it that way. I mean, I’m not a conspiracy theory person. I often think that — I think that in many ways the U.S. government has been driven by idealism as much as other factors.

But that’s exactly right. I think what you’re seeing in the administration now is they very idealistically, in some ways, said, “We’re going to put in democracy in Iraq” –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Have you heard of Robert Kaplan?

MS. CHUA: Yes. Sure –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Robert Kaplan, I think, holds the view that a benign autocracy is probably the best thing in some of these countries for a period of time.

MS. CHUA: Yes –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you agree with that?

MS. CHUA: No, I actually don’t.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you want — well, don’t you fight your own doctrine there –

MS. CHUA: No, I don’t.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: — if you want an election now?

MS. CHUA: No. I respect his position very much, but the reason that I’m not in the anti-democracy camp is for the simple reason –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, he’s not in that camp, either, really –

MS. CHUA: No, he is in favor of just holding off on democracy and maybe trying to find a beneficent dictator –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Right.

MS. CHUA: — or at least having an autocratic system that, you know, might be liberal.

Now I understand why. You can get lucky. Look at Lee Quan Yew in Singapore.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Yes.

MS. CHUA: Perfect example for Robert Kaplan. And he’s right.

My problem — the reason I struggle with that position is because how can you ever ensure that you’re going to get a beneficent dictator?

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: We’ll be right back.

(Announcements.)

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is it arrogance or is it ignorance that makes America think that we can safely export our version of democracy to the rest of the world? We’ll put that question to our guest, but first, here is her distinguished profile.

Born: Champaign, Illinois. Forty-one years of age; husband Jed, two daughters. Reared Catholic. Politics: Independent.

Harvard University, B.A. Economics, Magna Cum Laude; Harvard University, Doctor of Laws, Cum Laude.

Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton, an international Wall Street law firm, where she represented, among other clients, Mexico in the privatization of its international telephone company, Telmex; four years.

Duke University, professor of law, seven years. Yale University, professor of law, three years and currently.

Author, a book, “World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability,” a best-seller now in paperback.

Hobbies: tennis, violin, piano.

Amy Lynn Chua.

Amy Lynn Chua, do you want to add to any of your biography? You were reared Catholic. That sounds like you are no longer Catholic?

MS. CHUA: Well, my husband is Jewish and my father was in a Protestant family and my mother’s parents were Buddhist. So I come from a very diverse background.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: How did you work that out with your husband, in the practical order? The religion question.

MS. CHUA: It was complicated. My children speak Chinese but they’re raised Jewish.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What was that?

MS. CHUA: My children are fluent in Chinese but they are raised Jewish.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Was that a deal?

MS. CHUA: Yes. (Chuckles.)

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And it’s working?

MS. CHUA: Appears to be.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What do you think of — to get back to Iraq, because we don’t have much time — what do you think is going to happen if we try to impose democracy here?

MS. CHUA: It’s a real disaster, actually, if you just look at the demographics. And it seems that anybody who had thought about this beforehand would have seen this. You have a 60 or 70 percent Shi’ite majority; that’s a fact. And this is why the U.S. government cancelled the elections in Najaf last June. They realized, look, if we hold free and fair elections, this could go fundamentalist, and that’s why they cancelled the elections. And then there was this popular outcry, everybody was outraged; and then the U.S. government said, ok, no, we are going to put in elections.

But in fact, what the U.S. administration wants is democracy without majority rule, and that is pretty hard to do — impossible in fact. You have the demographics where the Sunni — in fact, the Ba’athist party tends to be the ones, this minority — again, they’re –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you think we should just have an early departure and let them decide what sort of government they want and let them work it out? To what extent should we be intrusive in the process at this difficult time?

MS. CHUA: Well, we already were intrusive. So I think that it’s a — there is a question of responsibility at this point because –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: For them in the selection of their government?

MS. CHUA: No, but to make sure that we don’t leave just utter chaos. One of the ideas that I’m toying around with is — really, I think that the way to go in Iraq is to be promoting local democracy first.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Are we talking about Kurds and Shi’as and Sunnis?

MS. CHUA: Everywhere. You know, in the United States or the U.K., our democracies started locally. It wasn’t imposed at the national level all of a sudden. So instead of — I think you shouldn’t — instead of having national elections where everybody is fighting over the oil, and you’ve got a 70 percent Shi’ite majority that is long-oppressed, long-humiliated — they feel it’s their time to take back the country. I think that the better way to go would be to start locally with cities, towns, villages. You know, local democracy is the best instruction for national democracy.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is this a Bosnia model?

MS. CHUA: No. I’m not in favor of breaking up the country. I mean, I don’t think that would work. But the idea is that, you know, you need to learn how democracy works and to have other things that you –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And you think that should be a gradual process and it should be done on a sectoral basis.

MS. CHUA: I also think that if certain villages or certain towns go fundamentalist, we have to let that stand. We can’t just remove it and step in and intervene if we don’t like that result. But I think we need to secure other regions so that people can move with their feet and ultimately, you know, let democracy really play out.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: We’ll be right back.

(Announcements.)

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Professor Chua, thank you for being my guest.

MS. CHUA: Thank you for having me.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I have never read a book as complicated and as high-concept as your book that is so easy to read.

MS. CHUA: Thank you very much.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I really must commend you on it.

MS. CHUA: I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And I hope you will come back.

MS. CHUA: It would be my pleasure.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is there a final thought that you would give to the White House and the Congress?

MS. CHUA: I think it would help if we knew a little bit more about the countries that we’re supposedly trying to help. I think that would be a good first step. And to understand that you can’t just, you know, put in markets and democracy overnight. Our process took a long time. And we need to put a lot more thought into that.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Thanks so much.

MS. CHUA: Thank you.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Good luck.

MS. CHUA: Thanks very much.

END OF REGULAR SEGMENT

PBS SEGMENT

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Amy Chua, talk to me about, if you would, talk to us about Russia.

MS. CHUA: Well, Russia is another country where, in the ’90s, in the sort of anarchic transition to capitalism, there were no laws. It was just a vacuum. And in this rapid transition from socialism to capitalism, basically seven men came to control about 50 percent of Russia’s massive natural resource wealth.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The oligarchs.

MS. CHUA: The oligarchs. And out of seven of them, six of them were well known to be Jewish. And this fact was not lost on the Russian population. And so you had this situation where markets produced this — or sort of un — primitive markets led to this enormous concentration of wealth. This produced tremendous resentment among the Russian people, who felt like they were just ripped off. They didn’t have anything.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Were they also feeding off the classic anti- Semitism that exists?

MS. CHUA: Yes, which has been in Russia for, you know, just hundreds of years. But yes, this actually produced — when you democratized there, it produced anti-Semitic political parties that explicitly called for expulsion of the Jews and taking back their assets. And so that’s partly the model. When you have markets with this kind of market-dominant minority, rapid democracy can give rise to ethnic scapegoating.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, do you think you really have here a dominant ethnic minority in the six who happened to be Jewish?

MORE

MS. CHUA: Well, it was certainly perceived as such. That’s the point. Ethnicity is not a science; it’s how people perceive it. And in this country Jews may not be an ethnic minority, but there –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Yeah, but also in Indonesia, when Suharto passed on that unleashed the killing of the Chinese, who owned 3 percent of the wealth over there.

MS. CHUA: Exactly, exactly. In –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: But there was nothing like that in Russia.

MS. CHUA: No –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What you have now is Chechnya. You had a warlike situation for a while between Georgia and Azerbaijan.

MS. CHUA: Yes.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: But that’s it. Otherwise everything is under control, remarkably enough, would you not say?

MS. CHUA: Remarkably. I think’s it’s under Putin. Putin is maybe a democratic leader in theory, but he has decidedly autocratic tendencies and he is keeping everything under his control right now. And in fact, specifically he’s targeted three of those Jewish oligarchs.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: So he’s the benign autocrat?

MS. CHUA: At the moment, he’s viewing very much in that direction, cracking down on –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Talk to me about anti-Americanism around the world.

MS. CHUA: Well, most of my research focuses on the very small ethnic minorities in countries like Indonesia or the Indians in East Africa, Chinese throughout Southeast Asia, whites –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you think –

MS. CHUA: At the global level — I’m sorry?

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Yeah, go — I want to get this point in because we’re running out of time. In 50 years — 2050, 45 years from now, you’ll live to see it, whites are going to be in the minority –

MS. CHUA: In the United States.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: — in this country. Is there a problem with the whites assuming that status of a dominant minority, and could there be a rising up of the non-whites in this country — the Hispanics and the blacks — to do what happened in Indonesia, or is that just — is that just so far afield?

MS. CHUA: I think would be very –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What?

MS. CHUA: I think it would be very hard in this country to organize a movement that describes the whites in this country as outsiders, coming in to steal the wealth of the nation. That just doesn’t fit with our history if you look at our own history.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Even though they may be — they will be — in 45 years or so they will be in the minority?

MS. CHUA: It’s possible. I’ve discussed that; you know, the browning of America, and will — you know, will whites eventually reach that point. But the countries I look at, these ethnic minorities are viewed as outsiders, and I think it’s hard to view whites as outsiders.

Now at the global level, the United States has become, I think, a sort of global market-dominant minority. We’re perceived by the world — we’re just 4 percent of the world’s population, but we’re perceived everywhere as the principal engine and principal beneficiary of global (commerce ?) right now.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: So we are minorities worldwide?

MS. CHUA: Yes, and in part as a result of that we are also the object of mass, often demagogue-fueled resentment and hatred, you know, of the same kind, that’s directed at so many other of these market-dominant minorities around the world.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And that accounts for widespread –

MS. CHUA: Partly. Not all. There are a lot of other things that we’ve done wrong to contribute to anti-Americanism. But certainly I think that’s part of the picture, the fact that we’re the world’s hyperpower. You know, we’re going to be held to a higher standard than everybody else.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What happens when China becomes a hyperpower?

MS. CHUA: That will be interesting if that happens. It will be interesting to see what happens.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What will happen to us then?

MS. CHUA: Well, it will be interesting to see. It will be interesting to see how our policies change.