There’re People in Those Countries

One of the benefits of my relationship with BlueWater Partners is the interesting and diverse people I meet. Last week, I had the opportunity to spend some time speaking with a young lady from the Czech Republic. She is from a modestly wealthy Czech family and her take on the Russia/Georgia issue was interesting. The Czechs are still just getting used to a return to private, non-government ownership of property after the Russians left last time. Her own family has re-taken ownership of property that was controlled by the Russians for over thirty years. She feels that every bite taken by Russia only increases their appetite for further acquisition.

She said the governments of the former USSR countries (as well as other countries with a history of being taken over, like Poland) are eager to have United States military bases or missile sites on their land, but the people aren’t so sure. The governments feel the United States presence will deter possible takeover attempts. The people remain unconvinced. Many feel it is just the beginning of yet another powerful country posturing to take control of their smaller sovereign nations. As a Canadian, I often fail to consider what it must be like to live in a country so tenuously situated in the world. I also sometimes forget that every time a country like Russia moves into a country like Georgia, millions of lives are disrupted. It’s not just the casualties of the fighting who suffer. It is the thousands of people who went to bed owning a family home, with all the history inherent in such a home, and waking up to find that a remote government has decided that the family property would be of better use to the state if it was owned by the government. It should have been obvious to me, perhaps, but the conversation was enlightening. These people are just like you and I. It’s easy to lose sight of that.

By Myron Gushlak

A Nation of Whiners

I love Phil Gramm. He’s from that generation that calls a spade a spade. Today, if someone calls a spade a spade, he needs to apologize to those who might prefer shovels, give a token nod of the head to the other garden tools, and follow that immediately with an emphatic clarification that the spade in question is a hand tool and not a derogatory term, and a further explanation that the speaker in no way is referring to a card suit and has never been a proponent of gambling. I don’t agree with Gramm. I think things are pretty seriously out of whack at the moment. I’m reminded of an old saying, it sounds like it might be from Will Rogers, but I’m not sure, that went “When your neighbor loses his job, it is a recession, and when you lose yours, it is a depression.” In Grammland, everything is obviously just fine.

Senator Gramm was an economics professor at one time, so I’m sure he knows of what he speaks. Or in the very least, he has the credentials to voice an opinion. I don’t see why he needs to apologize for or “clarify” his remarks. And I certainly don’t see why he needs to resign from the McCain campaign. What is everyone so afraid of? Does Gramm calling us a nation of whiners make us whiners or diminish us in some way? Are we so fragile that we cannot look at ourselves and possibly admit, yes, maybe we do whine a little bit now and again. Even if McCain said we were whiners, which I hasten to clarify, he did not, so what? If my mother called me a whiner. I'd still love her. I would probably still vote for her if she was running for something and I was going to vote for her before she called me a whiner, and I’m fairly confident that I came away from that experience relatively un-scarred. I do not point to that moment as the source of my personal shortcomings.

Did anyone call in to work the day after Gramm’s original remarks and beg to take a sick day because of the trauma inflicted by Gramm’s opinion? Did thousands of people fall prostrate from the verbal lashing? Hundreds? Tens,even? No, I don’t get the whole tumult. Much ado about nothing, in my mind. I wouldn’t even care if Obama’s minister called me a whiner. In fact, I don’t think I would care if McCain called me personally on the telephone and said that I and I alone was a whiner. Though if that were the case, I’d probably whine about it in a blog.

By Myron Gushlak