In an almost perverse irony, officials of Richmond, CA have decided to use eminent domain to seize underwater properties from banks, so they can directly offer homeowners refinancing. Struggling to deal with an ongoing foreclosure crisis, city officials first offered to purchase underwater properties from various banks at or near their current market value. Because none of these banks have accepted the offers or presented an alternative solution that mutually serves the state interest of economic stability and the banks’ interests of recouping their investment capital , the city is preparing to use the controversial practice of eminent domain in order to force a solution that keeps homeowners in their homes. (See full story… http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/policysocial-context/22911-eminent-domain-proposal-in-richmond-ca-advances.html.)
Although eminent domain has always been controversial, businesses have been more blatantly using their influence over local, state, and national governments over past decade or so to abuse eminent domain in order to force homeowners to sell their properties, sometimes at a significantly lower value than their market value. This is a particular problem for poor homeowners with low valued properties, who cannot afford to move, even when they are compensated. (The Castle Coalition, which advocates on behalf of homeowners facing abusive eminent domain practices, features numerous stories on its website, http://castlecoalition.org/.) That said, the irony of turning the tables on overly aggressive and harmful business practices does not necessarily justify the use of eminent domain in this fashion. Quite frankly, this type of government intervention is a form of a bailout for homeowners, who may have been irresponsible and took on too much risk, that really is not fair to more responsible homeowners. Unfortunately, a great number of public policies are not fair, so the only constructive means of judging such policies is to question whether they serve the broader interests of constituents and those interests can be addressed through a less intrusive approach. Homeowners struggling to pay underwater mortgages and ballooning adjustable loan rates did agree to the terms of the loans, even if they did not fully appreciate the implications of their decisions. That said, banks also agreed to these loan terms. In fact, these banks calculated a certain percentage of their borrowers would not be able to honor their obligations when they started using these exotic loans while they have aggressively pursued lending to individuals who were likely to default, relying on their ability to resell foreclosed mortgages/properties and collect on defaulted loans to turn a profit through destruction. In other words, banks set up people for failure and the 2008/2009 Great Recession, which started due do to too many foreclosures, overwhelmed their capacity to cope with defaults. Consequently, these banks and their shareholders took on big risks that helped cause great personal and social turmoil while they have yet to offer a meaningful remedy; therefore, Richmond does have a legitimate interest in using eminent domain to force a solution. Furthermore, it is probably fair to say most Americans would agree with a philosophy that states actors, i.e. people, businesses, etcs, should be judged on their behavior and their own beliefs. Big Banks are near perfect capitalist institutions; henceforth, they act solely to secure their perceived interests and suppress the interests of others when those interests conflict with theirs. Banks seek socialist policies like subsidies in the form of taxes breaks and bailouts when they provide a benefit to them, yet oppose paying taxes even when it is in the good of stabilizing the economy. Accordingly, banks support eminent domain when it is to their benefit and oppose it when it is used against them. Given this thinking, the city of Richmond has every right to use eminent domain against the banks, which have no right to protest as they would freely use eminent domain for their own purposes. Meanwhile, it is important to remember banks as corporations are not people and are not guaranteed the same rights as US citizens. In fact, their right to exist inside the United States is dependent upon their adherence to regulations, see the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution, and their value to consumers. Unfortunately, there are consequences, including legal challenges and economic blowback to using eminent domain against businesses as seen when Richmond could not resell some of its debt, for the use of eminent domain. Big banks have a great deal of leverage in our economy while the city has relatively little. Where Richmond extended its leverage to struggling homeowners in order to solve a growing communal problem, State and Federal agencies will probably need to extend their leverage to Richmond, if the city hopes to be successful in its policies. Opponents argue this type of action will only hurt residents, because no one will want to invest in an area where government seizes properties from businesses. In many respects, the potential consequences are similar to that of a municipality filing for bankruptcy or expanding regulations. This means local leaders must decide whether the particular interests at stake are worth fighting for. It is likely banks and other special interests groups will do whatever it takes to prevent this precedent from maturing and this could be devastating to the municipality, yet an affirmed authority of municipalities to use eminent domain would add to the leverage of all local and State governments while reminding businesses their existence depends up their uselessness, including whether they constructively or destructive serve state interests.
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Monday, September, 16th, 2013 was marked by yet another mass shooting in the Washington Navy Yard. Unfortunately, this massacre, which resulted in the death of 13 individuals, has far too much in common with the growing number of mass shootings the American People have witnessed over the last couple of decades. Just as with the Fort Hood massacre, as well as with the data dumps associated with Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, there appears to be serious failures when it comes to properly securing supposedly secure US security infrastructure and utilizing background checks for security clearances.
Meanwhile, commentators are already focusing on the weaknesses of gun laws and the mental health issues of the suspect. Subjecting gun buyers to wait periods before they can take their guns home may help discourage spontaneous acts of violence while closing loopholes in background check laws could also help prevent the wrong people from buying guns. For the mentally ill, there certainly needs to be a means of temporarily flagging individuals who present a significant danger. That is as long as reporting can be made more accurate and an appeals process is put in place for those who recover from such issues. Furthermore, addressing mental health issues can help save lives, yet there are many challenges. For one, mental health and other resources, such as a healthy support structure or temporary financial support, are not necessarily available, especially when individuals are inflicted by disorders that make them so dysfunctional that they cannot provide for their own needs or they have a low socioeconomically standing. In addition, cognitive behavioral therapy is largely geared toward self-actuating strategies, i.e. individuals must actively choose to address their inflictions, and guided introspection, i.e. councilors use a variety of methods to help individuals recognize unhealthy emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in order to facilitate the correction of these traits. This approach certainly has limitations, including the potential for councilors to over intellectualize innate, deeply entrenched behavioral, emotional, and broader psychological issues, as well as externally determined, exasperating circumstances, i.e. a person can’t think a broken leg is healed and start walking on water should he find himself injured in the middle of the ocean. Clearly, medications exist to assist councilors when treating individuals with underlying physiological issues, but our understanding of the human mind is incomplete while the field of psychology is composed of conflicting schools of thought and worldviews. Consequently, those most in need of help either find the treatment they need does not exist or the treatment available to them falls far too short of the intervention needed. Moreover, the threat of mass shootings will never disappear. As such, there are limits to what legislators, security officials, community leaders, and mental health professionals can do, yet there are things all of us can do to lessen the likelihood of these crimes. A lot of different factors leave the threat of mass shootings unchecked while it is our tendency to overreact to these tragedies with ineffective options already on the table. I think it is time the American People sit down and develop strategies that can address the underlying causes of these violent outbursts. In closing, there are thirteen families grieving the loss of their loved ones as the entire Washington D.C. community struggles to cope with the emotions of such a terrifying act. They and all those who have experienced similar event should understand their pain is felt and their pleas for action are heard by their fellow countrymen. Unfortunately, these crimes are complicated challenges that demand a myriad of novel solutions, thus meaningful action requires time. After the brutal rape of a New Delhi woman by four men lead to massive protests that inspired the eventual passage of legislation to crackdown on sex crimes and violence against women, justice has been served through four death sentences while democracy has responded to the needs of the weak. That said, this one tragedy and all those that have gone unheard in the world’s second most populous country over years should remind us in the developed world that the fight for basic human rights and civil protections is far from over. We still live in a brutal world that thoroughly neglects the interests of most people. India is a place where women are thoroughly mistreated and viewed as second-class citizens, at best. Given the number of women in India and the great injustices forced upon these women, as well as the myriad of individuals in lower castes, this is probably the most significant win for women’s rights in the past few decades. Western feminists and other civil liberties advocates should be focusing their attention on countries like India, because these places are where the greatest good can be done; whereas, countries like America are places where discrimination largely rests in inherited economic disparities that must be addressed as part of a larger socioeconomic struggle.
Furthermore, we too often take for granted the many civil liberties we enjoy on a daily basis while we continually threaten the stability of our extremely safe and prosperous society over arbitrary “ideological” stances that lack any degree of prudence. Where our democracy fails to pass a budget that actually recognizes what it costs to run our country and pay for those costs, which we are about to drop the ball about, the Indian democracy and judicial system has yielded something that actually reflects the needs of the Indian People. Clearly, America is a far more functional nation than India, but it is important to recognize India is growing more functional as we grow less functional. Where India is learning to serve the interests of its People, America must relearn what we are forgetting. Moreover, this is example of government serving its People and its People’s most basic interests. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/13/india-gang-rape-case-deat_n_3919601.html While the democratization of Egypt remains stalled by the military crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood and the Syrian crisis shrinks from the spotlight as world powers embrace solutions that serve their purposes, forces of moderation are actually working in the Middle East. Recently elected Iranian President Hasan Rowhani announced his country has converted 40 percent of its 20 percent-enriched uranium into nuclear reactor fuel on Thursday, September, 12th, 2013 while Rowhani seems to have taken his cue from Syria and enlisted Russian President Putin to help facilitate the building of a working relationship with the West. Taking into consideration the reality that Iran was the most significant threat to regional stability and the interests of the International Community before the Arab Spring, this trend of moderation truly helps the region.
Just as the Arab Spring revolutions were sparked by the suicide of one man, the moderation of Iran could help stabilize the region in the long-run. If Middle Eastern countries can move beyond violence, which largely comes from a handful of governments as well as terrorists, and start addressing the grievances of their Peoples, the region can start rebuilding and addressing the interests of the Peoples. Ironically, Iran could prove to be a source of hope and leadership, if President Rowhani can continue to shift his government away from provocative, destabilizing policies. Once the new leader starts to develop relationship with the world, the next test is whether he can enact reforms that will address the grievances of his People, instead of crushing opposition as we saw in 2009. Meanwhile, it appears Russia has decided to take on a more proactive role in global affairs through the use of soft power. In doing so, the former superpower may well succeed in expanding its sphere of influence through nonmilitary means, just as America did. Although the US often looks to our European allies and other partners like Japan for assistance in our dealing with uncooperative states, Russia may well be best positioned to help resolve some of our ongoing conflicts. While the United States has been forced to isolate “rogue” states, Russia, as well as China, has been able to use America’s absence to forge deeper relationships. In essence, Russia and China are positioned to be America’s good cop where we have had to be the bad cop, which only makes sense as Russia has been America’s bad cop since the beginning of the Cold War when it comes to countries in our sphere of influence. Certainly, Russia, as well as China, has its own internal issues that the US cannot support and there is likely to be conflict over how the Russian-American team resolves conflicts, but this could be the start of a beautiful friendship. That said, there are serious issues with the solution to Syria’s use of chemical weapons. For example, Russia continually degrades the credibility of American intelligence while the current solution does nothing to address the interests of Syrian opposition forces, i.e. the reason there is a war. Russia has, however, already convinced the Assad regime, which is in a state of duress, to recognize its chemical weapons are a means to its undoing, so Russia may well be able to pressure Assad to embrace moderation and limit his attacks to opposition forces. On the flip side, the US should now work to develop a convincing alternate, which can keep Syria stabilized, to the Assad regime, so that Russia might support a seize-fire agreement that the opposition forces can also accept. All people rely on psychological defense mechanisms to protect themselves when they feel insecure and/or threatened. These defense mechanisms vary in type and complexity while they may be activated under a variety of circumstances, including when individuals feel emotionally vulnerable, when individuals are insecure in their identity/social position, and when individuals encounter novel information or find their views being challenged. Unfortunately, defense mechanisms can help us as much as they can hurt as us. For example, a freeze response can prevent an individual from escaping danger. Meanwhile, an impulse to react with hostility to anyone who questions deeply entrenched beliefs leaves individuals stagnant and open to manipulation from “true believer” attacks. Defense mechanisms can also help explain paradoxical behavior, such as a woman who refuses to accept her mother’s obvious deceptions/manipulations, i.e. doing so would shatter her sense of security, a man who welcomes criticism from his friends while he lashes out at any remarks made by his wife, because his intimate relationship with her leaves him more sensitive to the betrayal of her dissenting opinions, or the councilor who nitpicks at someone’s less critical faults because she does not know how to address, or she does not want to recognize, the reality of his deeper problems.
Unfortunately, defense mechanisms can hinder our ability to effectively communicate and resolve conflicts with others, unless we are trained to overcome both our own defense mechanisms and the defense mechanism of others. One simple, very effective method is to state a potentially offensive observation in the form of a joke. Doing so allows individuals to process unsettling information without interference from their defense mechanisms. Defense mechanisms are like shields, so it is important to deliver a piece of information in such a way that the recipient never feels threatened, i.e. his shields are never raised; otherwise, our defense mechanisms divert our attention away from properly processing uncomfortable information and cause us to seek out responses that will allow us to avoid the discomfort. Furthermore, governments and other non-human actors, also respond to given situations with “defense mechanisms.” That is, when they can properly be modeled as a single “rationale” actor. Consequently, competing countries often experience strife when they attempt to address issues where one or more of the parties perceive an internal lack of strength or an external threat. For example, China and the United States are economic rivals; both perceive a threat from the other and both have internal insecurities that can be used to hurt their vital national interests. Consequently, the American and Chinese bilateral relationship can be rocky at times while many critical issues that undermine both countries’ interests go unresolved. In order to address these issues without creating a conflict, both sides need to continually build trust, so the US and China will know any concessions will be met with equal concessions from the other side. Looking at the civil war in Syria, both China and the US have interests in ending the conflict, yet those interests are not so vital and direct that either country should feel threatened by the other side’s efforts to deal with the problem, unlike Russia versus the US. Not only would these two superpowers coming together help end the Syrian crisis, it would help build a more meaningful working relationship between both China and the US while it would also build stronger multilateral relationships between the world’s largest powers, including Russia. Clearly, how the US and China frame the Syrian issue will determine if the other side will take offense at given options, i.e. do not make it about democratic revolution for China’s sake, do not insult the US for seeking military action, and do not harp on Russia’s support of the Assad regime when trying to find a solution. Most importantly, by removing American and Chinese leaders from charged issues that are almost certain to cause some kind of friction, it is possible to use the Syrian crisis as a vehicle for expressing and recognizing how each nation interprets and utilizes different information in order to build a relationship that can bridge our differences on issues that more directly and critically affect our interests. In other words, sometimes it is easier to deal with other peoples’ problems than our own, so we can then use the solutions we developed for their analogous problems on ourselves as doing so makes it easier to overcome our struggle with our defense mechanisms. Moreover, it also important to recognize that this type of diplomatic trust building and avoidance of defense mechanisms can be used by all actors to address conflict provoking issues. |
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