Carlos Alberto Montaner is a Cuban-born writer, journalist, and former professor. He is one of the most influential and widely-read columnists in the Spanish-language media, syndicated in dozens of publications in Latin America, Spain and the United States. He is also vice president of the Liberal International, a London-based federation devoted to the defense of democratic values and the promotion of the market economy. He has written more than twenty books, including Journey to the Heart of Cuba; How and Why Communism Disappeared; Liberty, the Key to Prosperity; and the novels A Dog's World and 1898: The Plot. He is now based in Madrid, Spain.
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Carlos Alberto Montaner
Madrid, Spain
Carlos Alberto Montaner is a Cuban-born writer, journalist, and former professor. He is one of the most influential and widely-read columnists in the Spanish-language media, syndicated in dozens of publications in Latin America, Spain and the United States.
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Government programs, such as Social Security under F.D. Roosevelt, were also innovations and changes. There is a need for a program of national healthcare in the United States of America, and this will be a change that can come from politicians, if they have the support of the voters. Articles like this one by Montaner sound fine on the surface, but really are written with an agenda of promoting the private sector as the only source for good in the society and a low-tax, small-government future. The USA spends far less than the OECD average on government, and the result is millions without health insurance, a crumbling infrastructure, and too-big houses filled with Chinese junk.
The author wrote: "The function of American politicians is not to generate changes but to regulate them."
Very well said! Every child believes that there is a magic wand that can make all the wishes come true. Only adults know that there is no such magic wand.
Most changes are results from a long process of confrontation, compromise, and eventually cooperation among different ideologies. But for contradictory ideologies, there is no compromise but only hard fought battle.
For example, what will be the best way to "unite" with Nazi? Not compromise or cooperation, but direct combat. It will be naive to think that one party can simply reach out to the Nazi party and achieve world peace.
Most people who believes in a "uniter" in today's atmosphere are committing the same mistake. The Republican party has been slowly but surely running away from most of the principles of democracy -- from the basic principle of serving the majority (rather than a few), to the protection of personal right.
The only "change" that is possible under the circumstances is similar to the 2006 election -- rooting out those astray politicians and gives the power to public servant that actually has the "public" in mind.
We don't need a naive politician calling for meaningless "change" right now. The regulation of changes we need is to identify the right ideology and rooting out the wrong one.
Sage words about American democracy spoken by someone who was born under a dictatorship and now writes from a country whose democracy has made it all the way to its early 30s. The author's background has lead him to a reactionary characterization of American leadership. Americans do live in an open society, yet we do expect our politicians to act rather than just react. The changes we seek are in both the style of our government and in the substance of its structural response to the challenges we face. Things like the cost of health care don't just "happen" because of technology that drops from the sky. These things are created, produced and sold by human beings in a market place that has rules written by human beings. It was a political decision to massively increase NIH's budget, which then begat an acceleration in biomedical technology. Similarly, our employer based health insurance system is a result of wage controls imposed during WWII. All conditions brought about by human agency.
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Featured Comments
Government programs, such as Social Security under F.D. Roosevelt, were also innovations and changes. There is a need for a program of national healthcare in the United States of America, and this will be a change that can come from politicians, if they have the support of the voters. Articles like this one by Montaner sound fine on the surface, but really are written with an agenda of promoting the private sector as the only source for good in the society and a low-tax, small-government future. The USA spends far less than the OECD average on government, and the result is millions without health insurance, a crumbling infrastructure, and too-big houses filled with Chinese junk.
January 31, 2008 5:31 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on January 31, 2008 05:31
The author wrote: "The function of American politicians is not to generate changes but to regulate them."
Very well said! Every child believes that there is a magic wand that can make all the wishes come true. Only adults know that there is no such magic wand.
Most changes are results from a long process of confrontation, compromise, and eventually cooperation among different ideologies. But for contradictory ideologies, there is no compromise but only hard fought battle.
For example, what will be the best way to "unite" with Nazi? Not compromise or cooperation, but direct combat. It will be naive to think that one party can simply reach out to the Nazi party and achieve world peace.
Most people who believes in a "uniter" in today's atmosphere are committing the same mistake. The Republican party has been slowly but surely running away from most of the principles of democracy -- from the basic principle of serving the majority (rather than a few), to the protection of personal right.
The only "change" that is possible under the circumstances is similar to the 2006 election -- rooting out those astray politicians and gives the power to public servant that actually has the "public" in mind.
We don't need a naive politician calling for meaningless "change" right now. The regulation of changes we need is to identify the right ideology and rooting out the wrong one.
January 31, 2008 3:57 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on January 31, 2008 03:57
Sage words about American democracy spoken by someone who was born under a dictatorship and now writes from a country whose democracy has made it all the way to its early 30s. The author's background has lead him to a reactionary characterization of American leadership. Americans do live in an open society, yet we do expect our politicians to act rather than just react. The changes we seek are in both the style of our government and in the substance of its structural response to the challenges we face. Things like the cost of health care don't just "happen" because of technology that drops from the sky. These things are created, produced and sold by human beings in a market place that has rules written by human beings. It was a political decision to massively increase NIH's budget, which then begat an acceleration in biomedical technology. Similarly, our employer based health insurance system is a result of wage controls imposed during WWII. All conditions brought about by human agency.
January 31, 2008 12:58 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on January 31, 2008 00:58