A corporation is authorized to act legally as a person. A corporation does have some similarities to a person. For example both have an instinct to survive. But it is doubtful you could ask a corporation to “do the right thing” when it means sacrificing corporate viability. Cases: Carbon Based Extraction (coal, gas and oil): survival depends on the world continuing to burn carbon. A lot of their corporate asset value is in the ground and they want to get . . .
Author: Timothy Schell
Our Friends?
It is good to have friends but sometimes you need to tell them the truth, if for example, they have used poor judgment or are exhibiting destructive behavior. Now might be the time! Nigerian Army killing protestors: Firing directly into an unarmed crowd at close range as they tried to flee. President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to control military abuse and restore security but has done very little since elected in 2015. In fact, the military has detained children, raped . . .
Vegetables Anyone?
Animosity toward immigrants is like disliking vegetables. We need them both! Construction for The Great Wall of China was started in the 7th century BCE and considerably expanded in 220 BCE by Qin Shi Huang (first emperor) and much later by the Ming Dynasty in the 17th CE. Our proposed wall would be a flimsy and hugely expensive imitation and not a viable candidate as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We need foreigners: Youthful, brave, energetic, hard-working parents, students and . . .
Lifestyles?
Who Votes?
The framers of the Constitution assembled at Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 were educated students of history familiar with the philosophies of Locke, Montesquieu and Aristotle. In 350 B.C.E., Aristotle wrote in Politics about three forms of government and how they evolve: Form: Starts As: Becomes: Rule by One Monarchy Tyranny Rule by Few Aristocracy Oligarchy Rule by Many Polity Democracy Aristotle had some interesting warnings about “Democracy”: The poor can outvote the wealthy and ruin a state by . . .
Mercenary War Globalism
Talk about Globalism: Blackwater or as it has called itself since 2011, Academi, is now a division of Constellis Holdings based in Reston, Virginia. Marketing Description of Services: “integrated security and technical operations, domestic and international training, security assessment and analysis, risk mitigation, and technology solutions.” In plain words: Runs an army for the United Arab Emirates using recruits from Latin America, Sudan and elsewhere to prosecute the Saudi led war in Yemen with a wink and support from the . . .
Dignity?
Revenge Delayed? … a dish best served cold. Being a bully must be its own reward, and intoxicating. But obsessive hatred of people from a foreign land doesn’t bode well when luck takes a turn. Even considering the options selfishly or as America First, where is the advantage denying help to refugees, reneging on humanitarian aid, or placing heavy sanctions on people already hungry? In the East there is a cultural value to ‘saving face’ or mianzi in Chinese. Dignity . . .
51st State
It is time for Puerto Rico to become our 51st state. The People: With 3.337 million people (2017) Puerto Rico has a larger population than 21 states and a density higher than all 50. As a state it would fall approximately between Connecticut and Iowa. The largest city is San Juan, the island’s capital. It has a population of 395,326 (2010), making it the 48th largest city in the U.S. History: Prior to Columbus’s discovery in 1493 on his second voyage . . .
Nationalism or Globalism
Globalism: Goods, capital and people should be able to move freely across borders. Versus Nationalism : Asserting sovereign control over one’s country. Nationalism is at the core of Brexit and the US election of 2016. A troubling aspect of this nationalism is its penchant for xenophobia and for ethnic and religious exclusion. It panders to fear of threats to linguistic, religious and cultural norms and wants to weaken global structures such as the World Trade Organization, NATO, the United Nations . . .
Big Enough?
How much is enough? Let’s face it as a species we misbehave. We require the police to maintain daily decorum and using history as a predictor, we need a military just in case. The DoD request for 2019 for $716 Billion says they need more: “To address the scope and pace of our competitors’ and adversaries’ ambitions and capabilities, we must invest in modernization of key capabilities through sustained, predictable budgets. Our backlog of deferred readiness, procurement, and modernization requirements . . .