"Mister One Per Cent" Loses South Carolina Primary

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Newt Gingrich came from behind to beat Mitt Romney handily in the Republican South Carolina primary last week.

Romney is a casualty of the ‘Occupy' movement, which has highlighted the growing gap between rich and poor in America - the so-called "99 per cent" of the population versus the ultra-rich "one per cent."

Romney has played into the hands of populists with flat-footed statements that demonstrate how out of touch he is in a country where millions are unemployed or having their homes foreclosed.

When asked during the primary contest about his income, this was his answer:

"For the past 10 years, my income comes overwhelmingly from investments made in the past, rather than ordinary income or earned annual income," he responded. "Then, I get speaker's fees from time to time, but not very much."

Not very much? From February 2010 to February 2011, Romney earned $374,327.62 in speaking fees - 10 times what an average worker in South Carolina makes in a year.

But even that is small potatoes. His fortune of about $250 million comes from his time as a "venture capitalist" with Bain Capital.

Romney has now released tax returns indicating that he and his wife, Ann, paid a tax rate of 13.9 per cent in 2010. He is among the top one per cent of taxpayers.

Romney's tax rate is below that of most wage-earning Americans, who may pay as high as 35 per cent, because most of his income flows from capital gains on investments. His holdings include an undisclosed amount in funds based in the Grand Cayman Islands, although his aides say he never used the location as a tax haven.

Romney wasn't a "capitalist" in the classical sense of the term - someone like Henry Ford or Thomas Edison, a businessman who founds a successful manufacturing company.

Following graduation from Harvard with law and business degrees, Romney joined Bain & Co., a global management consulting firm in Boston.

He then co-founded, with rich friends, the spin-off company Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm that became highly profitable by taking over companies and downsizing them in order to make greater profits. This often involved laying off workers, of course.

In other words, Romney simply got friends to pool money in order to buy (and in many cases destroy) companies. He's a child of privilege - how many readers of this article could get rich by first having access to millions of dollars?

Romney has defended Bain's practices by referring to the theory, first popularized by the economist Joseph Schumpeter in his book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, of "creative destruction." But Romney deliberately misinterprets the term.

Destroying firms to enrich investors isn't what Schumpeter meant by creative destruction. It refers to the fact that innovative or improved technologies, which create new products, can lead to the demise of firms producing things no longer in demand. They change the capitalist playing field.

When Xerox invented the photocopier, it was the end of the road for producers of carbon paper. The word processor finished off typewriters. And thanks to the digital camera, which doesn't require film, Eastman Kodak has just filed for bankruptcy.

Texas governor Rick Perry (of all people) called what Romney did "vulture capitalism." Even if Romney wins the nomination, given today's economic climate, there's little chance he can become president of the United States.

Can Romney Win the Presidency?

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

This coming Saturday, South Carolina will hold its Republican Party primary. The candidates include Mitt Romney, who was victorious in Iowa and New Hampshire; Rick Santorum and Rick Perry, two social conservative Christians, and the more secular Newt Gingrich.

Last week, more than 100 evangelical Christian conservatives gathered in Texas and voted overwhelmingly to rally behind Santorum, to create a united front against Romney. Their problem? Romney's Mormon faith.

Romney is a sixth-generation member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, as the denomination founded in the 19th century by Joseph Smith is officially known.

Mormons consider themselves Christians. However, the theological differences between Mormonism and traditional Christianity are so fundamental, experts say, that they encompass the very understanding of God and Jesus, what counts as Scripture, and what happens when people die.

The Mormon Church maintains that in the early 1800s, its first prophet, Joseph Smith, had revelations that restored Christianity to its true path. He bequeathed to his church volumes of revelations, including the sacred Book of Mormon, which includes an appearance by Jesus in the Americas shortly after his resurrection.

But no other Christian denomination has ever accepted divine revelations that go beyond the two Biblical testaments. After all, Muslims, too, recognize the entire Christian and Jewish Bible as divinely inspired, but also consider the Quran to be the final word of God as revealed to the prophet Muhammad.

Persecuted by other Americans - Smith himself was lynched by a mob in 1844 - the Mormons trekked across the American Great Plains under the leadership of Brigham Young in 1847, and created their own "Zion" by the Great Salt Lake in today's Utah (then still Mexican territory).

Romney's mother comes from Utah, but his father was born in a Mormon colony in Mexico. He is descended from Mormons who came to the Chihuahua desert in 1885 seeking refuge from American anti-polygamy laws.

Polygamy continued in the Mexican colonies after church elders officially banned it in the U.S. in 1890. It was the only way Utah was able to attain statehood six years later.

When it comes to the matter of his faith, Romney's time as a young missionary during his two and a half years in France was apparently pivotal. In a new book, "The Real Romney," Boston Globe journalists Michael Kranish and Scott Helman write that, "Having begun his mission with what he called thin ties to the faith, he became a stalwart believer."

In South Carolina, where about 60 per cent of Republican voters are evangelical Christian Protestants, Romney, a former bishop in the church, faces an electorate that, in many cases, considers Romney's faith apostasy.

It's possible that Romney will overcome this and other hurdles and become the Republican nominee in next November's presidential election. But unless the U.S. economy is at that time in a deep depression, he will lose to President Obama.

Secular people who don't care about any of this are more likely to be Democrats anyhow, whereas the evangelical backbone of much of the Republican Party will, in large numbers, find Romney's faith too hard to ignore.

They won't vote for Obama either, but they'll stay home in large numbers. (Of course African-American evangelicals will vote for Obama.)

In a sense, for many voters, bigotry (objecting to Romney due to his religion) will trump racism (opposing Obama because he is African-American) when they go to the polls.

To Name is to Claim

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

People of a certain age might remember the rather silly song “Istanbul (Not Constantinople),” first recorded by the Four Lads in 1953. One verse goes like this:

    Istanbul was Constantinople
    Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople
    Been a long time gone, Constantinople
    Why did Constantinople get the works?
    That’s nobody’s business but the Turks

The city of Constantinople, situated between the Black and Mediterranean seas, had been the capital of the Greek Byzantine Empire for more than a thousand years, and is still the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church. It was conquered by the Ottoman Turks, who were Muslims, in 1453. They would rename it Istanbul and it became the capital of their vast empire.

And despite what the song lyrics say, it may still also be part of the Greeks’ “business.” Peoples have long memories.

The song by the way, also noted that New Amsterdam became New York. That name change occurred in 1664, when the British ousted the Dutch from their colony.

To name, or rename, is to demonstrate hegemony and possession. Such changes have occurred throughout history. The biblical Canaan, for instance, became the land of Israel, which in later centuries was called, by succeeding rulers, Palestine. Part of it is again the modern state of Israel.

Some name changes are the result of decolonization, especially in Africa. The British colony of Gold Coast became Ghana, the name of an ancient empire, when it acquired independence in 1957.  Mali, the former French Sudan, was also named for an ancient empire, three years later.

Rhodesia, created by the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes, would clearly have to alter its name upon independence: It became Zimbabwe in 1980, and its capital, Salisbury, became Harare.

In the Congo, Belgian place names were also replaced after 1960. The capital, Leopoldville, named for King Leopold II, became Kinshasa -- and none too soon. Leopold’s harsh regime in the Congo between 1885 and 1908 had been directly or indirectly responsible for the death of millions of people.

In Europe, name changes have often reflected territorial or ideological transformations.

After World War II, when Poland acquired former German territory, the cities of Danzig and Breslau became, respectively, Gdan'sk and Wroc?aw. The Italian city of Fiume, ceded to Yugoslavia, was renamed Rijeka. It is now part of Croatia.

In Canada, the former Berlin, in southwestern Ontario, became Kitchener during World War I. There were similar anti-German name changes elsewhere in Canada and the United States.

Marxist ideology in the new Soviet Union created after the Russian Revolution resulted in many changes, as cities were renamed for Communist heroes: St. Petersburg became Leningrad, Nizhny Novgorod became Gorky, Yekaterinburg was called Sverdlovsk, Tsaritsyn became Stalingrad, and so on.

Ironically, in most cases, the post-Soviet Russian Federation has restored the old tsarist names, though Stalingrad is now Volgograd. For obvious reasons, the Russians have kept the name Kaliningrad, named after a Soviet president, for the Prussian city of Königsberg, captured from the Germans in World War II and annexed to the Soviet Union.

In the former Communist East Germany, the city known from 1953 to 1990 as Karl-Marx-Stadt is once again Chemnitz.  However, in Communist Vietnam, the old Saigon is still Ho Chi Minh City.

Even a different way of spelling the same word can indicate a change of status. The city of Montreal, when spelled with an e-acute, as Montréal, changes the sound of the word from “Munt-reeyol” to “Mon-reyal.” This also reflects shifts in political power in Quebec.

Prince Edward Island has had – and maybe still has? – at least three names. To the Mi’kmaq nation it is Abegweit or Epekwitk; when it was ruled by France, it was called Île Saint-Jean; and the British named it for Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, a son of King George III, in 1798.

To name is to claim.
       

Four Divided Cities, Then and Now

Henry Srebnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

Four major cities were divided due to war in the 20^th century. Two are completely reunited, one may someday again face partition, and one remains split in two.

At the end of World War II, Germany and Austria were each divided into four occupation zones controlled by one of the four occupying Allied powers: the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union.

The capitals of Berlin and Vienna were also split into four sectors, though each city was within that country’s Soviet zone.

The American, British, and French zones soon united as West Berlin, while East Berlin became the capital of Communist East Germany.

At first, the border between the Western and Eastern sectors of Berlin remained open, but in August 1961 the Communists built the infamous Berlin Wall, to prevent people escaping the east.

Checkpoint Charlie was the name given to the best-known crossing point and became a symbol of the separation of east and west.

The number of people who died trying to cross the wall during its 29 year existence was well above 200.

The wall was finally opened in November 1989. East and West Berlin were merged one year later with German reunification.

The four-power occupation of Vienna differed in one key respect from that of Berlin: the central area of the city constituted an international zone in which the four powers alternated control on a monthly basis.

During the 10 years of the four-power occupation, Vienna became a hot-bed for international espionage between the Western and Eastern blocs.The four-power control of Vienna lasted until the  Austrian State Treaty was signed in 1955, when Austria regained full sovereignty and the city was reunited.

The 1947 United Nations resolution to partition Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state stipulated the establishment of Jerusalem as a third, internationally administered, separate political body. It was to be a corpus separatum, under a UN‑appointed Governor.

But this never happened. When Israel declared its independence, on May 15, 1948, warfare with its Arab neighbours ensued. While the Jordanian attempt to take West Jerusalem failed, the Arab Legion held on to East Jerusalem, including the walled Old City, which includes the Temple Mount, with the al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock; the Western Wall of the Second Jewish Temple; and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

A no-man's land between East and West Jerusalem came into being in November 1948. Barbed wire and concrete barriers ran down the center of the city, and a crossing point was established at the Mandelbaum Gate.

In 1967, during the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, Israel captured East Jerusalem, along with the entire West Bank. East Jerusalem was subsequently annexed.

But Jerusalem remains a deeply divided city of two thoroughly antagonistic and mutually hostile communities who hardly set foot in each other's areas, who hardly communicate with each other, and who live very separate lives, mentally and culturally divided. 

However, a repartition of Jerusalem that would involve a return to the 1967 armistice lines would be difficult, as it would necessitate the eviction of some 200,000 Jewish residents of East Jerusalem from their homes.

An alternative to a territorial partition might be a partition of sovereignty, with an open city, so that the existing Arab populated parts of the city would be part of Palestine, and the existing Jewish populated parts of the city would be under Israeli sovereignty. Another version of this “condominium” solution might involve a form of joint sovereignty only over the Old City.

After all, the Jewish and Muslim holy sites (the Western Wall and the Temple Mount) are conjoined, nor can they be surgically separated. In any case, as the Israeli writer Avishai Margalit has asked, how does one divide a symbol?

Nicosia (Lefkosia in Turkish), the largest city in Cyprus, as well as its main business center, is the only divided capital in the world.

The southern section is the capital and seat of government of the Greek-run Republic of Cyprus. The northern part functions as the capital of the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

During the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, Turkish troops occupied northern Nicosia (as well as the northern part of Cyprus). A buffer zone, the Green Line, controlled by UN peacekeepers, was established across the island to separate the northern Turkish controlled part of the island from the Greek south.

After many failed attempts on reaching agreement between the two communities, the barrier at Ledra Street was re-opened in April 2008. It became the sixth crossing point between the southern and northern parts of Cyprus.

But the island remains partitioned and with no prospects of political union in the offing, so does Nicosia.