Positives from the Past Decade?

Steve Chapman, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, cited my book in a 12/27 column entitled "Remember the good things that happened in America in the past decade."  He used a quotation from The End of the American Century, published in 2009, to compare the end of the present decade to the end of the previous one.

He recognizes the many problems we still face, not least of them due to the "poisonous presidency" of Donald Trump, but points to the many good things that have happened in the ten years since my book was published.  Among these are the continued growth of the U.S. economy; the scaling back of US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan; the expansion of LGBTQ rights; and the Obama accomplishments on childhood immigrants; health care; and torture.

What most resonates in Chapman's argument, though, is this:

Trump has done immeasurable harm on all sorts of matters. But he has also created a powerful backlash that has manifested itself in annual women’s marches, renewed awareness of the persistence of racism, and public support for modest gun regulations, climate change legislation, immigration reform, the Affordable Care Act — and his impeachment.

Ironically, then, the main contribution of the Trump presidency to this past decade is to generate resistance to the very awfulness of it. This upsurge in political involvement is indeed a positive development, especially if it can persist through the removal of this insidious president.

But this positive growth of political participation is offset by Trump's persistent efforts to undermine democratic institutions and procedures.  He has pushed to restrict the franchise in many states; manipulated and threatened our independent judiciary and legal processes; badgered and threatened his political opponents; eviscerated the governmental institutions that might provide a check on his abuse of power;  and has solicited foreign interference in the U.S. electoral process.  He expresses admiration for foreign dictators as brutal and ruthless as those we have fought against in the past.

 In chapter 5 of my book ("Ailing of American Democracy"), I document the increasing apathy, indifference and political ignorance of the American electorate, and the growing influence of money in politics.  I raise the possibility of the U.S. "becoming like our enemies."  Trump is leading us in that direction.

While I appreciate Chapman's efforts to see the bright side of the last ten years, I think it would be a mistake to underestimate just how much Trump has revived the downward spiral of the U.S. that I documented in The End of the American Century.  Middle class wages have barely budged since the 1970s.  Inequality, already high ten years ago, has rocketed upward since then.  We have not yet solved the problems of expensive health care and violent crime--both unique to the U.S. among developed countries.  Our educational system is among the worst among rich countries.  No president, even George W. Bush, has undermined science as much as the current one, even as the existential threat of climate change becomes more obvious by the day. Global opinion of the U.S. is even lower than it was under Bush, which then was at a postwar nadir.  And no president in history has so deliberately attempted to hollow out our governmental institutions and undermine our democratic principles and processes.

Dick Armey: Fostering Hate with Deliberate Lies

I was absolutely stunned to read this quotation from Dick Armey, the former House Republican leader, in a speech he gave recently in North Carolina:

"Nearly every important office in Washington, D.C., today is occupied by someone with an aggressive dislike for our heritage, our freedom, our history and our Constitution."

It is inconceivable that Armey, who worked so long in Washington, actually believes this. Could he actually come up with some names of people that fit in that category? Probably not. So one can only conclude that Armey deliberately lied when he said this to a crowd of supporters in Hickory, N.C.

Since retiring from the House in 2003 has worked as a lobbyist for a big law firm, while also serving as chairman of a conservative nonprofit called FreedomWorks, which is opposed to "big government." A story on him, and how he "has taken his politics and ideas to the right-wing protest movement," appeared in the November 8 issue of the New York Times Magazine.

Later, in discussing the health care reform with a reporter, he admitted that he did not believe some of the extreme charges--for example, about "death panels"--but said that "if people want to believe that, it's O.K. with me."

This is demagoguery, fear- and hate-mongering that has no place in the U.S. political arena, though it is increasingly dominating and poisoning the political process, and American democracy. Armey should be ashamed of himself; instead, he seems to revel in the way his provocative lies stirs up the political pot.

President Obama called attention to this phenomenon in his Afghanistan speech on Wednesday night, where he called for a return to the spirit and values that unite us as Americans:

"we, as a country, cannot sustain our leadership, nor navigate the momentous challenges of our time, if we allow ourselves to be split asunder by the same rancor and cynicism and partisanship that has in recent times poisoned our national discourse."

"I refuse to accept," the President continued, "the notion that we cannot summon that unity again. I believe with every fiber of my being that we -- as Americans -- can still come together behind a common purpose. For our values are not simply words written into parchment -- they are a creed that calls us together, and that has carried us through the darkest of storms as one nation, as one people."

We can disagree about policies, and the role of government, and the rights of the individual vs. the needs of the community. That is all part of the political process. But we need to speak out against, and call to account, people like Dick Armey and Glenn Beck who deliberately lie and deliberately foster hate and division.

American Values Contextualize Decline

Caleb Hamman
chamman@butler.edu

Amidst national debate on healthcare, foreign policy, and economics, with news outlets devoting coverage to pundits, officials, and political processes, it is easy to overlook the role of the American citizen in shaping public policy—the popular culpability in US decline.

To the extent American democracy functions democratically (see my earlier post and EAC chapter five), public opinion is an important variable in the furthering or the mitigating of growing challenges. Troubling trends in the American psyche are among the results of the newest study released by the World Values Survey.

The research, spanning more than fifty countries during the past four years, shows considerable divergence between American and world opinion on issues of importance.

Reaffirming The End of the American Century correlation between religious fundamentalism and rejection of science, the survey found that Americans were nearly twice as likely as non-Americans to be active in churches or religious organizations; simultaneously, Americans were 11 percent less likely to consider global warming “very serious” and three times more likely to consider it “not serious at all.”

Gaps also existed in attitude toward security and conflict resolution, reflecting a continued embrace of “hard power” in American political thought, with Americans placing more confidence in the military than non-Americans and placing less confidence in international organizations like the United Nations.

By far, the biggest gulfs between US and global attitude were in the area of economic policy. Here, Americans were much more likely than others to be tolerant of inequality, to disfavor government intervention in the economy, and to believe in the wealth-accumulating potential of hard work and individualism.

The contrast of attitude was particularly striking between the United States and the fifteen European countries surveyed. Europeans were almost twice as likely as Americans to strongly agree that incomes should be made more equal. They were also more likely to view circumstantial factors like luck and wealth as important to getting ahead, and they were much more likely to consider economic redistribution an “essential characteristic of democracy.”

Perhaps the most poignant aspect of the survey results is that they highlight an American disregard for problems the United States is uniquely victim to. Among advanced, industrialized countries, US levels of economic inequality and economic immobility are among those of the worst (see post referenced above, this post, and EAC chapter two). Despite the myriad social and political consequences of US economic problems, Americans appear remarkably misinformed and unconcerned. Meanwhile, the egalitarian measures used elsewhere to alleviate economic ills are revealed by the survey to be anathema in American thought, underscoring the difficulties faced by the current administration in its efforts to restructure the economics of health, taxation, and market regulation.

In discussion of issues like these, and in wider discussions about the rise and fall of international powers, the role of the public consciousness should not be overlooked, for particularly in democracies, popular attitude not only shapes the spectrum of debate, but is itself shaped by the institutions of policy and reform.

Bartels Finds Declining Equality and Influence

Caleb Hamman

chamman@butler.edu

Economic and political inequality are among the most significant aspects of U.S. decline. Both topics are the focus of the most recent work of Princeton Political Scientist Larry Bartels, Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. In his book, Bartels sets out to analyze the political causes and consequences of economic inequality, arguing that these are both substantial and urgently relevant to alleviating injustice.

Naturally, Bartels begins by assessing the extent to which economic inequality exists in the United States. After detailed review of current literature and government data, Bartels offers findings very much in line with those of The End of the American Century, essentially that “current levels of inequality rival those of the Roaring Twenties,” making it fitting to speak of a “New Gilded Age” or a “retrogression of historic scope.” As Mason points out, this sort of inequality can lead to monstrous disparities, such as CEOs making more than 500 times their average employee, and has effectively caused the United States to become more unequal than “any advanced industrialized country.”

Like The End of the American Century, Bartels finds that current inequality is not a recent phenomenon, but has been growing sharply since the 1970s. Although this observation is generally accepted, Bartels then goes on to make a less mainstream claim—that increasing economic inequality is a largely a result of public policy. While Bartels readily concedes that economic factors like globalization and technology have contributed to inequality, he staunchly refuses to attribute the entire dynamic to arcane “market forces” or inculpable “economic realities.” Rather, a significant role is played by political intervention, an idea Mason also highlights by discussing issues like the “elimination of the federal welfare system” and the “stagnation of the minimum wage.”

Bartels goes one step further. He argues that U.S. economic inequality is “profoundly shaped by partisan politics”—specifically that “middleclass and poor families” have “fared much worse under Republican presidents than they have under Democratic presidents.” This is not necessarily a novel notion, but rarely has it been supported by such detailed analysis. Using exclusively Census Bureau data and controlling for non-partisan variables such as international crisis, Bartels conclusively demonstrates that the incomes of most have grown at substantially higher rates under Democratic presidents than under their Republican counterparts.

After illustrating his findings with three chapter-length case studies, Bartels turns to his second major point—the political consequences of inequality. Here, his research is particularly disturbing. In calculating the recent responsiveness of U.S. Senators to their constituents, Bartels finds that:

Senators’ roll call votes were quite responsive to the ideological views of their middle- and  high-income constituents. In contrast, the views of low-income constituents had no discernible impact on the voting behavior of the senators…the statistical results are quite consistent in suggesting that the opinions of constituents in the bottom third of the income distribution were utterly irrelevant.

Examining the potential causes of this mass political exclusion, Bartels finds that “biases” in “senators’ responsiveness to rich and poor constituents are not primarily due to differences between rich and poor constituents in turnout, political knowledge, or contacting.” Rather, “the data are consistent with the hypothesis that senators represented their campaign contributors to the exclusion of other constituents.” As Mason puts it, “When people do not…contribute to political campaigns, they are less likely to be listened to by legislators or policymakers, and their interests are less likely to be taken into account in the political process.”

In analyzing the totality of his findings, Bartels delivers a particularly sobering assessment:

In Aristotle’s terms, our political system seems to be functioning not as a 'democracy,' but as an 'oligarchy.' If we insist on flattering ourselves by referring to is as a democracy, we should be clear that is a starkly unequal democracy.

Despite such foreboding, Bartels attempts to end with a more hopeful thought: Since inequality has been largely been brought about by conscious political action, there seems to be potential for prescriptive change. As Bartels puts it, “We can make these choices.” But as Mason points out, we are quickly running out of time.

Obama Defends Domestic Surveillance

Caleb Hamman
chamman@butler.edu

As described in chapter five of The End of the American Century, undemocratic trends in the U.S. political system are having immense effect in furthering American decline.

The Bush II administration deserves substantial culpability. Decider & Co. scissored the democratic fabric as they exacerbated economic inequality, infringed upon the rights of American citizens, and ruled by fiat decrees issued from a hierarchical decision-making structure.

Conversely, the Obama administration has brought about some welcome developments. A grassroots presidential campaign, an end to torture, and a more transparent governing style are some recent democratizing measures that bode well for the U.S. political system.

Still, other actions have been less than reassuring. Among the most ominous has been Obama’s refusal to depart from the Bush status quo on the issue of domestic surveillance.

Since January, the Obama Justice Department (DOJ) has taken action to ensure the legality of Bush’s domestic spying policies will go unquestioned, the details of the program will remain unknown, and surveillance practices will remain institutionalized for possible use by future administrations.

Supporting evidence is provided in abundance by the DOJ’s record in the ongoing Al-Haramain court case.

Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor, former lawyers for the now defunct Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, sued the Bush administration after they accidentally received documentation from the Treasury Department revealing that they had been subject to warrantless surveillance in 2004.

To review, Bush’s domestic surveillance program, operating without the use of warrants, was in direct violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) which permitted domestic surveillance only in the case of a court order. Bush’s spying policies were unquestionably illegal. His own DOJ refused to certify them and his attorney general, John Ashcroft, threatened to resign if they were continued (1).

To date, Bush’s spying program has withstood attacks against its legality by employing a clever bit of sophistry. The defenders of surveillance essentially argue:

1. No one can bring suit against the program who does not have standing.
2. No one can claim they have standing (because no one knows they have been spied on).
3. No one can be told they were spied on because the information is a “state secret.”

Because of its unlooked for gift from the Treasury Department, the Al-Haramain case appeared to be the first with substantial promise to penetrate this circular reasoning—at least until the Bush administration declared the document a “state secret” and Al-Haramain was forced to return it to the Treasury Department by court order (2).

For three years, the Bush administration continued to assert the state secrets privilege and thus prevent Al-Haramain from proving the standing necessary to question the legality of the surveillance program.

Recently things began to take a different turn. Last July, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that the state secrets privilege didn’t apply to the Al-Haramain case. Then, on Jan. 5, Walker ruled that, with some minor qualifications, Al-Haramain’s lawyers should be given access to the controversial document in order to establish standing.

Enter the Obama administration. Writing last week in Salon, Al-Haramain’s lawyer Jon Eisenberg described how Obama’s election had given the plaintiffs “hope” that they would see some “change we can believe in” in “the Justice Department’s handling of the case under Attorney General Eric Holder” (3).

Perhaps Al-Haramain’s lawyers had taken heart from Obama’s campaign Web site. Herein, “The Plan to Change Washington” describes one aspect of “The Problem” as being “Secrecy Dominates Government Actions” (4).

Specifically, “The Bush administration has ignored public disclosure rules and has invoked a tool known as the "state secrets" privilege more than any other previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court.”

Despite its rhetoric, Eisenberg testifies that Obama’s Justice Department “has continued to assert the state secrets privilege in the Al-Haramain case, even though Judge Walker ruled last July that the privilege does not apply.”

Also writing in Salon, constitutional and civil rights lawyer Glen Greenwald describes how “the Obama DOJ” is “not merely trying desperately to keep the Bush administration’s spying activities secret, and not merely devoting itself with full force to preventing disclosure of relevant documents concerning this illegal program, but far worse, doing everything in its power to prevent any judicial adjudication as to whether the Bush administration broke the law by spying on Americans without warrants” (5).

Greenwald details how “Obama lawyers have been running around for weeks attempting one desperate, extreme measure after the next to prevent this case from proceeding—emergency appeals, requests for stays, and every time they lose, threats of still further appeals.”

The process reached a climax late last month. On Feb. 27th, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an emergency request by Obama’s DOJ to halt further proceedings before Judge Walker. This ruling effectively ensured that Al-Haramain’s lawyers would have access to the top-secret document necessary to prove standing.

At this point, Obama’s lawyers took unprecedented action. According to Eisenberg, “they informed Judge Walker in a public court filing that if he intends to give us access to the secret filings in the case, the government will ‘withdraw that information from submission to the court’.”

As Eisenberg describes, this statement implies that “executive branch authorities (who? the FBI? the army?) will attempt to seize the documents from Judge Walker”—something that would be “a violation of the constitutional separation of powers, unprecedented in this nation’s history.”

From its actions in the Al-Haramain case, it seems quite clear that the Obama administration has chosen to defend the Bush status quo on domestic surveillance. Legal arguments aside, it’s a rather disturbing decision—one preventing the achievement of justice for past crimes and effectively guaranteeing that domestic surveillance practices will be available to future administrations.

It’s less than clear why the Obama administration has elected this position. It’s not as if they’ve merely invoked "state secrets" in order to protect a few pieces of sensitive information; rather, in exactly the same fashion as Bush, they’ve employed the privilege to have undesirable cases thrown out in their entirety, ensuring that the legality of domestic surveillance will never meet serious challenge.

At best, Obama’s surveillance policy is simply representative of a hesitancy to investigate past crimes. At worst, it’s an attempt to retain expanded, illegal powers for the executive branch and a tacit approval of establishing an above-the-law presidency effectively immune from judicial restraint.

Unfortunately, the context of past actions seems to rule out the least of all evils. Obama voted for the 2008 FISA amendments—bestowing legitimacy on surveillance practices and described by Yale Law School Professor Jack Balkin as “byzantine” and giving “new powers” to the presidency that are “either sketchy or opaque” and “will have to be worked out” by “the executive branch” (6).

Indiana Governor Has "No Idea" of Costs of Commercial Flights

Indiana's Governor Mitch Daniels, using a $1000 per hour state aircraft for a trip to Washington, appeared clueless when a reporter asked him if it might be cheaper to fly commercial and stay an extra night in DC.

Last weekend, Daniels was flying to Washington for the annual meeting of the National Governors Association when the plane developed a crack in one of the windows, forcing it to land in Columbus. He flew on from there on a commercial flight.

The state-owned plane, a King Air prop, costs $791 per hour for fuel plus $184 in maintenance costs for each hour of flying. The flight from Indianapolis to Washington takes about two hours.

According to the Indianapolis Star, when he was asked why he didn't fly commercial in the first place, Daniels said there was no commercial flight that would have gotten him to Washington on time. "I would've had to come the night before and buy a hotel room and I don't know what else." When asked whether it still wouldn't have been cheaper to fly commercial, even if it meant another night in a hotel, Daniels said "I have no idea."

This seems a peculiar response from the former director of the national budget, and a man who President Bush referred to as "The Blade" for his acumen at budget cutting. But even then, Daniels was not so good at keeping spending under control. During his tenure as director of the Office of Management and Budget from 2001 to 2003, the federal budget flipped from a $236 billion surplus to a $400 billion deficit.

So I took the liberty of checking up on prices for the gov. The Governors Association was meeting at the J.W. Marriott hotel in DC. A king size bed on a weekend night costs about $200--though almost certainly the governors attending the conference received a reduced convention rate. A commercial roundtrip flight from Indy to DC--non-stop and at least as fast as flying a smaller turboprop--also runs about $200.

So to fly commercial and stay an extra night would have been roughly $400. To fly the 9-seat King Air, without having to "buy a hotel room and I don't know what else" costs about 2k each way, for a total of $4000. Ten times as much, Mr. Governor.

Maybe this is trivial, but Daniels' cavalier dismissal of the question on costs betrays an arrogance and profligacy that is unbecoming of a public servant. Some of our Congressional representatives have grilled the bailout CEOs about their use of corporate jets. Surely our elected representatives should be held to at least the same standards, particularly in this time of deficits, belt-tightening, and sacrifice.



(Scott Adam's 2/25 "Dilbert" strip.

Galllup Poll Widget

I added a Gallup Poll widget to the sidebar of this page (scroll down on the right), which shows the latest favorability ratings for President Obama, and has links back to the Gallup home page for results of some of Gallup's recent surveys. Interesting and nifty!

The End of America's Disgrace

I only admitted this to my friends, but I was embarrassed about my country, and embarrassed to be an American during most of the past four years. For me, the President of the United States was particularly embarrassing and humiliating, but his cabinet and advisors were not much better. Even Congress acquiesced in Bush’s humiliation of America, and his undermining of the Constitution, and of our most fundamental values. The President authorized and advocated torture. Without apparent remorse, he violated international law and universal moral standards. He sent thousands of young Americans to their death in a useless, illegal and immoral war. He barely mentioned the tens (or hundreds?) of thousands of innocent Iraqis who lost their lives as a result of his personal crusade. The President approved the violation of habeas corpus, one of the most ancient and fundamental principles of law and human rights. He stifled freedom of speech and the press, and ridiculed his opponents, both at home and abroad. And even in seemingly trivial matters, he was an embarrassment; denying President-elect Obama and his family the use of Blair House during the transition was a final, departing, glaring example of his lack of even elementary decency and civility.

My own embarrassment even extended to my countrymen. We elected this jovial demagogue not once, but twice and even after all of this should have been clear to all. Eventually, I realized that I could not distance myself from my country—I am too much part of it. I also realized that Americans were only partly at fault for Bush. He exploited and played on our fears, and encouraged our baser instincts. This is the age-old strategy of demagogues and dictators everywhere, and it worked here too.

For me, all of this changed on January 20. Once again, I am proud to be an American, and—perhaps for the first time in my life—proud of the person we have elected as President. The November election itself was a revelation and an inspiration, but somehow it did not fully hit home until the inauguration. The two million people on the mall, many of them (like my daughter and her husband) arriving in the frigid pre-dawn hours. The poem, the music, the speech, and the benediction—all weaving together the same themes of unity, community, charity, justice, equality, freedom and faith. And especially Obama himself—a smart, hard-working, family man; an African-American; and a person who wants to help other people, especially the less fortunate.

What is perhaps most remarkable about this presidential transition is the absolutely huge difference from one man to the other. In past elections, I have been pleased with the election of some leaders (mostly Democrats, I have to admit), but I always felt that the change was incremental and marginal at best. The new guy was better than the old, but the difference was not earth shaking. This time, we have left behind the worst president in modern American history—a playboy millionaire who could barely compose a sentence—for a young man who braved amazing obstacles to rise to the top by hard work and intelligence, who has written books (on his own!), and who has dedicated much time to helping others.

Furthermore, his election has restored my faith in America, and in my fellow citizens. I actually did not believe that the U.S. could elect an African-American as President at this point in its history. But we did! Even Indiana voted for Obama (maybe because he can shoot 3-pointers!). The rest of the world, which understandably viewed Bush as a lightweight and a cowboy, is already reassessing the United States and its people. (As I document in my book, foreign publics increasingly blamed the disfunctionalism of the U.S. on its people, rather than on Bush alone). This is the first time in world history that a majority White country has elected a Black chief executive. The world has taken notice.

Obama’s election does not mean that we will soon solve all of America’s many problems. One man—no matter how talented and promising—can not do this, nor can one or two presidential terms. Over the past 20 years we have dug ourselves into a huge hole, and have squandered resources and reputation aplenty. We have lost our way and compromised our values. We have become a nation of individuals and consumers, rather than a community of citizens.

But in his inaugural address, President Obama called on us to begin rebuilding our shattered country. And he provides what any great leader does—an example for the rest of us.

U.S. Intelligence Predicts Reduced U.S. Dominance

A Washington Post article this week (9/10/08) reports on a forthcoming U.S. intelligence agencies report that “envisions a steady decline in U.S. dominance in the coming decades.” Thomas Finger, a top analyst for the U.S. intelligence community, delivered the preview in a speech in which he saw U.S. global leadership rapidly eroding in “political, economic and arguably, cultural arenas.” The one area of continued U.S. dominance—military power—was becoming increasingly irrelevant as an asset in global power and influence.

These are all themes of The End of the American Century, so should not be terribly surprising, except for the source—the U.S. government itself—and the sweep of the conclusions. It is not just U.S. diplomatic influence that is on the wane, but political, economic, cultural and military leadership as well. The multidimensional and interrelated aspects of U.S. decline are the central theme of my book, but it is startling to hear it expressed so bluntly from the top intelligence analysts of the federal government.

The intelligence report, however, misses a key element of the declining global influence of the U.S.: its domestic weakening. Fingar’s speech saw the decline in U.S. dominance coming from exclusively global trends: globalization, climate change, resource shortages. All of these are important, of course, but the root of America’s declining global influence is here at home. Just as at the global level, the domestic decay is multidimensional—it is political, social and (especially) economic; and affects education, health care, infrastructure, and competitiveness.

The United States has become the world’s largest debtor, and the governments of other countries are increasingly worried about the scope and scale of U.S. debt and fiscal weaknesses. Even the International Monetary Fund, normally concerned about debt and insolvency in Third World countries, has warned that the continuing large budget deficits of the U.S pose “a significant threat for the rest of the world.” Other countries are beginning to turn away from the United States, both for investments and for global economic leadership, and are increasingly abandoning the dollar as the favored international currency. This is one reason for the sharp and steady decline of the dollar compared to the euro and other international currencies.

In many other respects, as well, the United States is no longer seen as the standard for emulation by other countries. The U.S. has among the highest rates of both poverty and inequality in the developed world. This poverty and inequality contribute to highly uneven access to health care, so the U.S. ranks near the bottom of developed countries in most measures of health and medical care. Even our vaunted democracy, the “beacon on the hill” for centuries, is now so dominated by money and special interests that it is rarely cited by other countries as a model for political development. Global public opinion polls in the past showed foreign populations skeptical and wary of the U.S. government; increasingly now they reveal negativity toward the U.S. population, and even to U.S. ideals. All aspects of American “soft power” are withering away.

The Fingar report, like Fareed Zakaria’s new book The Post-American World, sees this global shift coming because of “the rise of the rest”—global powerhouses like China, India and Brazil that increasingly cut into the U.S. lead on the world stage. Zakaria asserts, indeed, that the shift is not about the decline of America, and writes about the many elements of this country’s continuing strength. Solidly within the U.S. establishment, both of these analyses ignore the sand shifting beneath their own feet. Only by confronting and addressing our own domestic weaknesses and problems can we begin to solve our international ones.