Thursday, January 16, 2025

Part I

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President Biden’s Farewell Address: President Warns Against What He Called the "Tech-Industry Complex” and an “Oligarchy"

Last night, Joe Biden, the 46th president of the United States, went before the American people sitting behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office to give a farewell address. Now, George Washington, the nation’s first president, delivered a farewell address, but in modern terms, you have to go back to 1961, January of 1961 when Dwight David Eisenhower was concluding his two terms as president of the United States.

Going back to George Washington, he issued two famous warnings. One was against the formation of too many treaties, which he referred to as entangling alliances, and the other was the development of permanent political parties in the United States. It was not long until the United States was actually doing both of the things that George Washington had warned against.

Skipping forward in time to President Eisenhower, he warned against the development of what he called a military-industrial complex, that he said would threaten the integrity of democracy. Now, considering the fact that General Eisenhower was the five-star general who led the United States and allies to victory in the European theater in World War II. Given that role, you would think that it was particularly poignant that President Eisenhower would years later warn about this military-industrial complex. But hold that thought because President Biden came to make a similar warning last night.

The context of a farewell address is poignant, and that’s particularly so when you are considering the farewell address offered by President Biden. And that is because just a matter of months ago, he did not intend to be giving a final address to the American people. And in a recent interview, he said that he believed if he had continued in the race, he would’ve beaten Donald Trump. But then he went on to say in that same interview with USA Today, he wasn’t sure he would be able to finish his term.

Americans watching the president deliver that speech last night probably had the very same thought. He was halting at times. He fumbled at other times. His age is clearly showing. The other usual function of this kind of address in recent American politics is thanking the American people for the honor of serving in the role. And President Biden, in his conclusion, did just that. He went on to speak of the United States. He said, “I still believe in the idea for which this nation stands, where the strengths of our institutions and the character of our people matter and must endure.” He, speaking to the American people, said, and I quote, “Now it’s your turn to stand guard. May you all be the keeper of the flame. May you keep the faith. I love America,” he said, “you love it too.” He concluded, “God bless you all and may God protect our troops. Thank you for this great honor.”

But in what is likely to be remembered as the most interesting part of his address, he went on to warn against what he called the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-wealthy people. He went on to say, “The dangerous consequences of their abuse of power if left unchecked.” And he said, “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.” He went on to warn against what he called as a tech-industrial complex, and he cited President Eisenhower’s warning about a military-industrial complex, and he went on to offer an updated version warning about leaders of technology and oligarchs, he said, who are threatening democracy. 

Now, before we go further, let’s just think about something very interesting. When you look at the development of a technological oligarchy in the United States, well, you’re obviously looking at something real. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos. You’re looking at titanic wealth being built up largely through being the survivor or innovator, depending upon the company, in a specific area of social media, or as is in the case of Bill Gates and other empires, multiple dimensions of a digital empire. But you’re also looking at something that was largely allied with the Democratic Party, at least until very recent history. So, if President Biden’s offering this warning, it’s not generally a warning against one party, it’s a warning basically against his own party, because there was a tie between Silicon Valley and the titans of the tech-industrial complex that frankly was not only leaning left but very much in concert with the state of California, and with its general liberalism in terms of the democratically controlled government there, also in the Pacific Northwest, but it was also an alliance with the National Democratic Party.

Now, more recently, Elon Musk has broken in terms of that pattern, clearly, identifying with Donald Trump and contributing massively to his campaign, even in some sense joining his administration. And you’re also looking at the fact that Mark Zuckerberg has redefined the rules at Meta, or Facebook, in ways that are quite pleasing to Donald Trump. And so, you look at this and you recognize, well, there has been a shift, but it’s interesting that Democrats didn’t warn against this force until all of a sudden, at least some of them were supporting the Republican Party.

Now, I also think there’s something to the president’s warning when you consider the power concentrated in just a few hands or in just a few companies. But again, much of that was made possible by the environment provided by Democratic leaders. And so, it’s hard to know exactly what the president’s warning about except, “Watch out what’s following me.” That appeared to be the main message. And he warned about a basic threat to civilization that is posed presumably by his successor as well as predecessor in that office, Donald J. Trump.

But he went on to say a couple of other things. In particular, he isolated the decision by Zuckerberg and Meta to stop using external fact-checkers, and he described that as a threat to democracy itself. He said, “We must hold the social platforms accountable to protect our children, our families, and the very democracy from the abuse of power.” Well, it’s interesting, but once again, when you look at this, you recognize that the fact checking was a big problem because the issue was who’s going to fact check the fact-checkers? There is no doubt there was political bias, as Zuckerberg and others have conceded.

And so, here you basically have President Biden describing the loss of a certain privileged position on the part of those on the left in particular, but it’s also clear that there are all kinds of misstatements and untruths that are spread through social media. The problem is that political control over that is going to be politically motivated, and frankly, that could be in either direction.

The outgoing president also called for increased taxation on the very wealthy. There’s a bit of dishonesty in that, frankly, because the very wealthy are paying a lot of taxes. In one sense, they’re paying more in terms of the percentages of income on certain forms of business and certain forms of income than others, but it’s also doubtlessly important, morally important, even politically important that we’re looking right now at the accumulation of vast power and wealth in just a few hands, and that’s dangerous under any circumstance.

But the president’s proposals are frankly not likely to get very far. For one thing, he called for an end to what he calls dark money. Now, once again, that sounds like something that you could use as a campaign slogan, “We are for checking facts and we are for eliminating dark money.” But here’s the issue. Dark money has basically, to a considerable extent, leveled the playing field, and that’s because you’re looking at the fact that all of the entities that deserve freedom of speech, deserve freedom of speech in the translation of their speech into support for a political campaign or a political cause.

And so, the Supreme Court and legislation basically recognized the fact that limitations on certain kinds of spending and even the identification of the sources of certain kinds of spending, was itself a distortion of a fair playing field. Now again, there is no doubt that there are all kinds of problems when it comes to funding campaigns and all the rest, but at this point, restricting that funding in ways that privilege one side is hardly the answer.

He also basically confronted the Supreme Court. He called for 18-year term limits on the Supreme Court, and he also called for what he described as, “The strongest ethics and the strongest ethics reforms the court.” “We need to ban members of Congress from trading stock,” he said, “while they’re in the Congress. We need to amend the Constitution to make clear that no president, no president,” he said, “is immune from crimes that he or she commits while in office. The President’s power is not…” I think he meant to say without limit., “It’s not absolute and it shouldn’t be in a democracy.”

Well, that’s absolutely right. Those last words are absolutely right. The power of a president is not without limit and in a democracy it’s really clear that all power be limited, it’s not absolute. But you really can’t translate that into a workable principle that says that a president while in office, executing the office of president, is going to be held to what, by the way, yesterday was estimated at being something like 300,000 federal laws and regulations. That’s impossible.

And furthermore, the president has to take many actions that are in truth, under the circumstances, perhaps even without legal justification. That’s honestly been done by almost every president of the United States. And it is history, it is the American people over time who make the decision about whether or not that was warranted. But no president can operate in office, and President Biden knows this full well, no president can operate in office with the threat of continual prosecution for operating as president of the United States. And given the recent history of President Joe Biden with say, the document scandal and all the rest, you would think that he would know that, but presumably, he couldn’t resist taking the shot on his way out.

In any event, it was the president’s final word in this context in the Oval Office. It was an act of historic significance and he knew it, and he did say thank you to the American people for the honor of serving as president.

Part II

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The Ceasefire Between Israel and Hamas: Agreement is Tentatively Reached in the Middle East

But the other big news yesterday was the news that Israel and Hamas have reached an agreement, at least a proposed tentative agreement for a ceasefire. The announcement was made by Qatar’s prime minister, and it is clear that the Qataris were deeply involved in facilitating the negotiations, but the negotiations were, according to an official communique, brokered by the United States. And that is a very, very interesting story.

But first, let’s just look at the substance of the agreement. It pretty much follows the proposal that was on the table months ago. And the question is, why did the parties come to an agreement on what was basically the same in structure just a matter of months ago? Well, it is because facts change on the ground, the situation has changed, and it has changed both for the Israelis and for Hamas.

In terms of Hamas, they’re in a weaker position. Israel killed their leader and, of course, has been prosecuting a military effort against them in Gaza, and the casualties have been high, and Hamas is increasingly isolated. Hamas is also in a weaker position because the loss of allies, and most importantly, that would mean Hezbollah there in Southern Lebanon. And so, Hamas is in a weaker position, and facts change on the other side as well. Israel is in a stronger position, and that’s because Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, is now in a position, it is expected, to carry through the affirmation of this agreement, even though he may have some members of his own coalition who balk or even oppose it. That was something that wasn’t true just a matter of a few months ago.

But there’s another big change, and that big change is openly acknowledged by everyone involved in this equation. And that big change is in the inhabitant of the Oval Office. Donald Trump, once he was president-elect, made very clear that he wanted the hostages released and for his own reasons internally and externally to the United States, he wanted a settlement. And that became an impetus for change. That was acknowledged by President Biden and by the Biden administration in communications yesterday.

It’s really clear that President Joe Biden wants to claim credit for this agreement, and he did propose the basic structure months ago, and members of his administration were following the lead, at least in terms of getting these conversations started that led to the agreement. But, even members of the Biden administration said it wouldn’t have happened but for the force of the fact that Donald Trump was coming into the White House, and that was a matter of force on both the Israelis and on Hamas.

And the reason why there’s an internal and an external dimension to this is that President Trump wanted the hostages freed so that he did not have to spend a lot of his own capital beginning a conversation all over again, going back to ground zero in this kind of agreement. But he also internally wanted to be able to direct attention to other issues, and he wanted to make very clear solidarity with Israel as our key ally. And clearly, there’s a continuity, there’s a commonality of interest between Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. Hamas understood that, and that was the impetus for Hamas to get this deal before Donald Trump came into the White House.

Now, the agreement between Israel and Hamas is not equilateral. That is to say, it’s not equal on both sides. The agreement is that there will be a 42-day period of ceasefire for what’s called phase one. And the reality is that the big issue is really the cessation of hostilities on the part of Israel for that time and the release of hostages, but not all of the hostages. It is believed that Hamas has, and these hostages are either living or dead, has about 100 continuing hostages. Only 33 of those would be released during the period of the ceasefire.

And on the other side, Israel is going to release what’s estimated to be about 1,000 prisoners. Israel is defining those as Hamas prisoners who were taken before the October 7 2023 attacks. But nonetheless, they are releasing about 1,000 enemies in order to gain about 33 hostages. And the reality, is there is no accounting at this point as to how many the hostages they will receive are, as the BBC reported, being delivered to Israel in body bags.

It’s a very sad situation. It’s a situation that is not unprecedented in Israel. For a long time, Israel, following its own understanding of self-definition and the morality of the state, it has been involved in prisoner exchanges and hostage exchanges that have honestly fueled what has amounted to an industry of taking hostages when it comes to Israelis, because the enemies of Israel know that Israel will pay disproportionately for the release of those hostages.

In one case, Israel released over 1,000, or at least Israel has admitted something like several hundred for the release of only a handful, and in some cases even one Israeli soldier. Now, there’s something noble about a nation saying, “We’re going to stand by the young people in our armed services, our own soldiers, those who wear our uniform.” But when you create a market basically for hostages, that market is almost assuredly going to expand. And so, you’ll notice this is 33 when it is expected right now that Hamas holds 100, and that means that Hamas still holds a big card. And anyone looking at the equation knows that the likelihood of moving from phase one to phase two and the release of all the hostages, that is something that Hamas, almost by definition, can’t afford to do because once it releases all those hostages, it is virtually vulnerable to anything Israel would do in response.

So, it’s a very pernicious situation, but there is the promise of a ceasefire. And on both sides there is widespread support for a ceasefire. It is estimated that something between 60 and 70% of Israeli voters are supportive of a ceasefire, at least for the time being, at least in order to see if they can get the hostages released and if they can create some kind of stable platform for peace. But even as Florida Senator Marco Rubio was being interviewed for confirmation as being President Trump’s Secretary of State, he made very clear that the assumption of the incoming Trump administration is that there can be no peace so long as Hamas is in power, period. Those are just about the words he used. There can be no peace if Hamas continues in power.

But at times, the most you can hope for is to buy some time and perhaps to free some hostages. And that’s where Israel is right now. But Israel’s Knesset has to affirm that agreement today, and that’s going to be a test of the Netanyahu government, and the situation’s going to have to remain stable on the ground long enough for phase one to be put into effect on Sunday.

Part III

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Cuba Off the State-Sponsored Terrorism List, For Now: President Biden Removes Cuba From Important List

But in terms of foreign policy, there was another huge story yesterday. On his way out, President Joe Biden removed Cuba from the list of nations that sponsor terrorism, and that’s a big deal. The list of states that are involved in state-sponsored terrorism, that’s a very bad list. It’s a list that the United States not only says American corporations can’t do business with, and there are repercussions beyond that, but America’s allies cannot either, and that’s a very huge deal.

Cuba, we need to note, has been on that kind of list since 1962 with the Castro communist revolution in Cuba. And President Biden, just in the closing days of his presidency, decided to remove Cuba from that list that would allow two things. Number one, Cuba says it will release some prisoners that America claims are political prisoners in Cuba. And furthermore, there could be an opening of at least some trade between Cuba, probably not, and the United States or American companies, but other companies with allied nations that would be following the same strictures.

On the other hand, this could be almost instantaneously reversed. Now, by the way, the history of this embargo has itself been very interesting and sometimes cloaked in absolute secrecy. For example, during his two terms in office, President Obama at one point took Cuba off the list, and then just before he left office, without any explanation, the White House put Cuba back on the list, and that’s where it has stayed until you now have President Biden taking Cuba off the list.

Why did he do it? Well, once again, there’s a very strange twist. The Vatican and other sources have admitted that Pope Francis requested just in recent days, that President Biden do this. Now, recall, that’s exactly what press reports even from inside the White House indicated happened when the president extended clemency to so many on death row in terms of federal crimes. The Pope asked him to do it, and he did it. Evidently, it is a similar pattern right now. And by the way, when you look at historical parallels, it’s hard to come up with two which are more parallel in one sense than Joe Biden and Pope Francis, and here they are connected once again.

But there’s another very interesting twist, because earlier in this edition of The Briefing I mentioned that Senator Marco Rubio is right now in the process of his Senate confirmation hearings, that are going quite well by the way, in which he will eventually become President Trump’s secretary of state. Properly, the Secretary of State of the United States of America. And you’re talking about the first Hispanic or Latino man to be in that position, and you’re talking about someone with a Cuban family heritage. The Rubio family left Cuba and migrated to the United States, specifically to Florida in 1950. So, that was before Castro’s revolution, but the Rubio family, along with the vast majority of the Cuban exiles, as they were called, who left Cuba and came to the United States, let’s just say they are vehemently anti-Castro, and they are against the communist revolutionary government there in Cuba.

President Trump in his first term was also very clear in keeping Cuba on this list. The expectation is, and the national media are talking about this openly, that Cuba may be off the list, the official list of the nations identified by the United States as being involved in state-sponsored terrorism, for a matter of days, because it is expected that under Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President of the United States Donald J. Trump, that Cuba, in all likelihood will find itself very quickly back on that list.

Part IV

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Starbucks is No Longer a Third Place: Famous Seattle Coffee Shop Chain is Changing One of Its Major Business Policies

Okay. In conclusion, let’s look at something that’s not of the same significance but is interesting about our culture. Starbucks has announced that its cafes are now going to be open for customers only, and that’s a radical change from the policy of Starbucks when it was begun, because when Howard Schultz began Starbucks there in Seattle decades ago, he did so while claiming not only to create a coffee business, but to create what he called a third place. That is to say not home and not work, but a third place. And Starbucks famously did not limit access to its cafes to those who were buying coffee. It was a third place, some kind of neutral public square, and Starbucks sold it as something of a way of life. And that was based upon a sociologist, Ray Oldenburg, who had actually written a book in 1989 entitled The Great Good Place, describing this kind of third place.

Now, for Christians, there’s a very interesting angle here because in the history of Christian theology and the understanding of the Christian Church, the Christian Church saw itself as a third place. That is to say, even as when I was growing up as a boy, I understood that home and work for my dad, home and work were very clearly understood, but so was church. Church was that third place. And so, it is interesting that the very emergence of a say, secularized third place, at least, is somewhat necessary because so few people know the church, a local church, membership in a gospel church. So few people now know that as a natural third place.

But as for Starbucks, well, it’s not about secularization, it’s about business. Starbucks says it is no longer going to be a third place, unless you’re paying. So, that’s a major change that made the financial pages, but as we know, there is more to the story than first appears. The very identification of what was called a third place is a sign of the fact that God made us social creatures. The very fact that that third place is now disappearing at Starbucks, that’s another sign of the fact that everything comes with a cost.

And for Starbucks, it was a cost that so many people, especially with endemic homelessness and frankly, people on the street, there was a cost to people coming into the stores and not buying anything, and honestly, chasing away or scaring off the people who might be coming in to buy coffee. It also tells you something else that Starbucks came right out and said that one of the problems was people were coming in to use the restroom rather than to buy coffee. Starbucks did not go into business intending to become that kind of third place.