I've just finished reading Barak Obama's book, "An Audicity of Hope" and found it an interesting and enjoyable read. In particular I liked Obama's description of life in the US senate and why things work the way that they do...why money is so important (fear of losing an election) and partisan politics is so bitter (strife sells television and newspaper advertising, and media coverage is essential to getting elected). I can see why it is so difficult to be an idealist and a politician. There is so much pressure from so many different directions to maintain the status quo.
Barak strikes me as a very intelligent and articulate man with a refreshing perspective on life as an American. I worry for him, having read the book. A presidential race is a nasty, bitter affair. I doubt that he will be elected as I suspect people deem him too controversial or inexperienced or both. I do hope that if he is not elected he chooses to, and is able to, retain his senate seat. The impact he could have as a senator is probably as great as the one he would be able to make as President.
The book that I am now reading is "A long way gone: Memoirs of a boy soldier" by Ishmael Beah. I'm about two hours into ALWG now and enjoy Beah's narrative style but find his descriptions of life in a country torn by civil war distressing. As I read, I think of "Tears of the Sun", a 2003 film starring Bruce Willis. Beah describes villiagers haunted by fear of amoral rebels that wander the countryside torturing and murdering. It makes one angry to hear his descriptions of the casual brutality of these rebels. One thinks, "isn't there something that can be done?" But if you look at Iraq now, where we tried to do something and you see a country that is quickly beginning to exhibit some of the same behaviors that occurred in Sierra Leone.
I think about what it is that enables these wandering sadists: Cheap weapons, a lack of effective national police and army forces, a corrupt political system are all factors that contribute. The biggest problem (and the hardest to solve) might then be gun control. A villiage can protect itself against maruders armed with machetes a lot more effectively than it can if those maruders are armed with rocket propelled grenades. Arm the villiagers with RPGs and you just have an increased level of carnage as we're seeing now in Iraq.
Barak strikes me as a very intelligent and articulate man with a refreshing perspective on life as an American. I worry for him, having read the book. A presidential race is a nasty, bitter affair. I doubt that he will be elected as I suspect people deem him too controversial or inexperienced or both. I do hope that if he is not elected he chooses to, and is able to, retain his senate seat. The impact he could have as a senator is probably as great as the one he would be able to make as President.
The book that I am now reading is "A long way gone: Memoirs of a boy soldier" by Ishmael Beah. I'm about two hours into ALWG now and enjoy Beah's narrative style but find his descriptions of life in a country torn by civil war distressing. As I read, I think of "Tears of the Sun", a 2003 film starring Bruce Willis. Beah describes villiagers haunted by fear of amoral rebels that wander the countryside torturing and murdering. It makes one angry to hear his descriptions of the casual brutality of these rebels. One thinks, "isn't there something that can be done?" But if you look at Iraq now, where we tried to do something and you see a country that is quickly beginning to exhibit some of the same behaviors that occurred in Sierra Leone.
I think about what it is that enables these wandering sadists: Cheap weapons, a lack of effective national police and army forces, a corrupt political system are all factors that contribute. The biggest problem (and the hardest to solve) might then be gun control. A villiage can protect itself against maruders armed with machetes a lot more effectively than it can if those maruders are armed with rocket propelled grenades. Arm the villiagers with RPGs and you just have an increased level of carnage as we're seeing now in Iraq.
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