Peter Weir's Film..."The Way Back"

If you google Sławomir Rawicz (1915 – 2004), dear readers, you will learn that he was a Polish Army lieutenant who was imprisoned by the Soviets after the German-Soviet invasion of Poland during WWII. In a ghost-written book called Walk, he claimed that in 1941 he and six others escaped from a Siberian Gulag camp and walked over 6,500 km (4,000 mi) south, through the Gobi Desert, Tibet, and the Himalayas to finally reach British India in the winter of 1942. In 2006, a BBC report based on former Soviet records, including "statements" allegedly written by Rawicz himself, showed that Rawicz had been released as part of the 1942 general amnesty of Poles in the USSR and subsequently transported across the Caspian Sea to a refugee camp in Iran and that his escape to India never occurred. Whether the story is true or fiction is irrelevant. I read Rawicz' book in 2005, 50 years after its publication. It was so starkly horrifying in its detailed portrayal of the Soviet gulags and their effect on the human spirit that I had to get through it in small doses over long months. After the gulag, Rawicz recounts the escape and heroic march from Siberia to India, which has its separate horrors of physical and psychological suffering. This evening I stumbled on "The Way Back", a 2010 Peter Weir film about a group of prisoners who escape from a Siberian Gulag camp during World War II. The screenplay by Weir and Keith Clarke, is inspired by the Rawicz book. It stars Jim Sturgess, Colin Farrell and Ed Harris. Peter Weir captures the tone and style of the book so well that 55 years after it appeared and 10 years after I read it, I still had to turn away from some of the scenes. The band of escapees embody a besieged and battered humanity that flee their tormenters rather than die in the gulag, even though the chance of survival is nil. “Nature is your jailer, and she is without mercy,” the guard tells a group arriving at the gulag. Wikipedia describes it : "...the unspeakable conditions, the grime, haunted faces, violent outbursts and eerie lighting — along with the startling contrast between the splendor of the natural surroundings and the ugliness of the camp — makes this place of death come alive..." Peter Weir has once again created a microcosm that reveals the vileness of debased human beings being ground into non-existence by the soaring indomitability of the human spirit. Weir is the master of the quiet human victory over the tragedy of evil. "The Way Back" is the latest example of his lifelong hymn to human dignity and invincibility. Read tbe book. Watch the film. You will be a more complete person for having done it.

Nasir Dead; Depardieu Has too Many Passports

There are two stories today. One is about the death of a dissident leader in northern Pakistan, hit by a US drone. The other involves the ongoing fight between French actor Gerard Depardieu and France over his tax status. These two stories may seem unrelated in the extreme, but they show two similar faces of our world - where everyone is reachable, everyone can move out of government control at least temporarily - everyone is vulnerable because technology is all-invasive. AND where money is often both the problem and the solution. ~~~~~~~~(1). An unmanned American drone has killed Maulvi Nazir, an extremist, Taliban/al-Qaida related, leader based in northern Pakistan near rhe Afghan border. Nazir, who often moved around and was wounded at least once by his US pursuers, was killed when two missiles hit the house in a village in South Waziristan where he was meeting with supporters and fellow commanders. Eight other people were killed, according to Pakistani security officials, speaking to western media on condition of anonymity. Nasir's death will be seen in Washington as affirmation of the value of the controversial US drone program. The US Defense Department, which does not confirm drone hits, would not confirm Nazir's death, but a spokesman said that if true, it would be "a significant blow" to extremist groups in the region. Pakistani military and government officials may, however, see his death as a problem, because Nazir did not focus on Pakistani targets and he was said to be cooperating with Pakistan. Their fear could well be that his successor may turn more directly on Pakistan targets, even though Nasir did support others who attacked Pakistan. In addition, the drone strikes infuriate many Pakistanis who see them as a violation of their country's sovereignty. They say that innocent civilians have also been killed, something the US rejects. Nazir's killing could cause even more friction in the already-tense relationship between Washington and Islamabad. However, recently, intelligence cooperation between Pakistan and the US military and CIA has been improving, after December's high-level meeting of defense and intelligence officials in Peshawar cleared the way to release a long-delayed payment of $688 million in US funds to the Pakistan military. The money is part of a regular program to reimburse some of Pakistan's financial outlays in fighting militants and patrolling the Afghan border. The Pakistani high commissioner in London told BBC today that Pakistan has told the US that it would prefer that the drones be given to the Pakistani military so that they can control and target border extremist leaders themselves. ~~~~~~~~~ (2). Gerard Depardieu has moved from France to Belgium...to become just the latest "tax exile." The new French socialist prime minister called him "pathetic." Depardieu answered in a public letter that he had never harmed anyone, that in his 45-year career, he has paid €145 million ($190 million) in taxes to the French government, and so feels free to pursue his life. The glitch is that today Depardieu's good friend, Russian president Vladimir Putin, granted him Russian citizenship. Russia's income tax rate is 13%, a lot better than the French 75%. But, Depardieu has already asked for Belgian citizenship and if he accepts the Russian passport, Belgium may not look so favorably on his petition. Too many choices - at least when it comes to passports - may not be a good thing.

Democrats and Norquist Slaughter GOP Lambs

Macbeth called it "a sound and a fury signifying nothing." That, dear readers, just about sums up what happened in the US Congress on New Year's Day 2013. The preceding night the Senate passed a compromise bill negotiated by Senate GOP Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Joe Biden. The vote was 89-9. Eight Senators, including Republicans Marco Rubio and Charles Grassley, voted against the Biden-McConnell deal to avert the fiscal cliff. Senator Rubio tweeted: "How can Barack Obama call his proposal a deficit reduction package if it uses tax increase to fund more spending & it increases the debt....I just couldn't vote for 'the compromise.' I ran for office because I wanted to be a part of solving these big problems, and time and again we're faced with options here that don't really do that," he said. "The real fiscal cliff is the one that awaits us, and nothing happened tonight to avoid that,” Grassley said, adding that Obama had reneged on campaign promises. He tweeted that "cliff negotiation to now show Obama proposes $600 billion increased spending paid for by tax wealthy NOT to reduce deficit like election promise." Grover Norquist, the influential president of Americans for Tax Reform, supported the Biden-McConnell plan. “This is progress in terms of making most of the Bush tax cuts permanent,” Norquist told CNN. “Is it enough? No. Does it do anything on spending? No. But that’s what the next four years are going to be. The next four years will be about clawing back the overspending of the Obama years — and now we need to get the spending down,” he added. “This is the beginning of the game,” he told CNN. “Take the 84 percent of your winnings off the table — we spent 12 years getting the Democrats to cede those tax cuts to the American people — take them off the table. Then we go back and argue about making the tax cuts permanent for everyone, and we engage in a four-year, three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust fight to cut spending every day....The GOP’s strongest tool in that effort is the debt-ceiling power, and the fact that the White House has to come and ask the House and the Senate for money every month or so because the President hasn’t done a budget. That’s where we’re going to have the continuing-resolution fight over and over again,” he said. “The spending fight’s going to last four years. This is not easy.” The House of Representatives passed the Senate bill on an up-and-down vote on Tuesday, unusual in that the vote was allowed by GOP Speaker John Boehner even though his GOP majority was not going to provide sufficient votes to pass it. The bill raises the income tax rate to 39.6% for incomes exceeding $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for couples, while making permanent the decade-old income tax cuts for everyone else, well above Obama's campaign vow to boost rates on earnings at lower levels - $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for families. The House concession in allowing its Democrat minority to provide the needed votes to pass the bill reversed a quarter-century of Republican opposition to raising any tax rates at all. Besides raising taxes on millions of middle-income families, the bill will extend expiring jobless benefits to the end of 2013, prevent cuts in Medicare reimbursements to doctors, and delay for two months billions in budget-wide cuts in defense and domestic programs slated for this year. The Associated Press quotes Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo, as saying he expects budget policy, including the higher taxes, "...to shave 0.8% off economic growth in 2013." Vitner predicts it will grow just 1.5% in 2013, down from 2.2% in 2012. The compomise bill allows the Social Security tax to go back up to 6.2%, amounting to a $1,000 tax increase for someone earning $50,000 a year, reducing after-tax income for all workers and hitting lower to middle income families the hardest, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, who calculates that the higher payroll tax will reduce economic growth by 0.6% in 2013. The tax increases in the bill on household incomes above $450,000 a year will slice just 0.15% off annual growth, Zandi said. The measure approved Tuesday would also prevent a potential doubling of milk prices and prevent a $900 salary increase for members of Congress in March. Representative Mark Cantor, GOP Majority Leader from Virginia, voted against the bill, along with many Republicans. The House vote was yea 257 - nea167, with the GOP members voting yea 85 - nea151 and the Democrat members voting yea172 - nea16. ~~~~~~~ So, America has a new tax-and-spend law which spends $10 for every $1 saved. This will add an estimated $4 trillion to the national debt in the next 10 years, while there is nothing in the law about either reducing the national debt or establishing a budget. I believe the GOP was badly out-manoeuvered by Obama and the Democrats. They were cornered by their fear of allowing middle class taxes to rise if they refused the compromise - but middle class taxes are rising with the bill. They wanted budget savings and got a few crumbs from Obama's continuing spending spree. Perhaps the greatest treason of all came from Grover Norquist and his "no new taxes" pledge signed and adhered to by many Republicans. But, Norquist inconveniently told the GOP House to vote for the Biden-McConnell compromise and fight later on the budget issues still to come. Republicans followed Norquist like lambs to the slaughter and they were left savaged and bleeding on New Year's evening. Perhaps it will occur to the new GOP House being sworn in tomorrow that political leadership is not about signing pledges. It is about putting one's principles and vision and intelligence to work for American citizens.

Casey-pops 2013 Predictions

It's New Year's Day, dear readers, and time for Casey-pops predictions for 2013. You can check my 1st January 2012 blog to see how I did this year - let me just say that I had the right topics but was premature wth most of my predictions. The world moved slowly in 2012. ~~~~So here goes : Casey-pops predictions for 2013. (1). President Obama will see his 'higher taxes- more expenditures" program seriously curtailed, not only by the GOP-led House but by moderate Democrats who see his stance as a menace to their re-election. Look for the February debt ceiling negotiation to extend beyond the deadline and the federal bureaucracy grind down for a week or so before agreement is reached. (2). The US will be forced to bolster its troop presence in Iraq to prevent Iran from de facto annexing it in the Iranian effort to gain control of a Syria freed from the al-Assad regime but afloat in chaotic regional political and religious fighting. (3). Russia will salvage its mideast presence by appearing to be the broker of the deal the sees al-Assad exit Syria for exile, probably in the Urkaine, while Russia saves the leadership of the al-Assad military by incorporating them into the new Syrian army. (4). Greece will struggle on with its European Union lifeline, but a serious effort by Germany to solve the problem of the Euro currency strength will lead to the beginning of a plan for a two-level Euro meant to relieve the fiscal troubles in Spain and Italy. (5). Despite her current health problems, before year's end, Hillary Clinton will form an exploratory committee for the 2016 presidential race, and with that, she, and busband Bill, will retake the leadership of the Democrat Party, pushing Obama into an early lame duck role, which he will gladly embrace because he will finally realize that he has no idea about how to control, or even be part of, Washington politics. (6). Raphael Nadal will announce his withdrawal from the weekly grind of the pro tennis tour and will, like Roger Federer, choose his tourneys - because his knees will no longer support the week-after-week punishment that his game forces them to endure. (7). And speaking of sports, I predict that Tiger Woods will win a golf major this year, and my bet is it will be the Masters. ~~~~~~ That's it, dear readers. Happy 2013.