USA Guatemala venereal disease tests in the 40s - nothing new

Now that's one heck of a headline. Trouble is, it's true.

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton apologised to the Central American country just the other day for her country's intentional infection of some 700 unaware prisoners and mentally ill patients with syphillis and gonorrhea between 1946 and 1948, during the Harry S. Truman administration.

The joint statement from Mrs Clinton and Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said: "Although these events occurred more than 64 years ago, we are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health. We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologise to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices."

Crisis? What crisis? A bit of perspective, please

Here are a couple of interesting calculations. The US is debating whether to hand over another $700 billion (let’s get those zeros right, we’re talking about $700,000,000,000, the US billion, not $700,000,000,000,000, the UK kind) to the banks. Forget the $500 billion they’ve already handed over. The world is inhabited by 6,700,000,000 people, give or take a few million born while I’m writing this. Divide the US banks’ $700 billion by the number of inhabitants and you get about $104 million per inhabitant. That’s perspective.

So let’s do the same for Spain (you can do your own maths for whatever 'developed' country you like if you have the figures). The population of Spain at the end of 2008 was 46,063,511. The amount of money Zapatero is handing over to the banks so far is €30,000,000,000. Divide the money among the inhabitants (we wish!) and you get €652,000,000 per inhabitant. That’s perspective, and enough to pay a mortgage or two. It would be handy to all those thrown out of their jobs by greedy companies taking advantage of the Crisis (yes, it has to be in caps).

Better not even try doing any of these figures for the banking executives’ bonuses, it would be too depressing…

(c) Alexander Bewick 2009

It's a fine mess you didn't get us into, Dubya

(Image by Sorel, Vanity Fair, 2008)

George W. Bush is gone. There are those who might say he was gone for a long time, even for his entire presidency. Never has a US President had such a low rating as he leaves office, a notoriously low rating period for any presidency. But does he deserve it? Probably not, as he didn’t seem to have anything much to do with his period in office.

Surrounded by his henchpeople (Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, George Senior, et al), Dubya was surely just a public face expounding in his twisted vocabulary what they wanted him to say. It was their words, not his, that issued forth in his quasi-Texan accent, though he had a way of messing them around in his imitable way. ‘Like a puppet on a string,’ goes the song.

To be fair, though, my use of the politically correct ‘henchpeople’ above implies that Bush was the head of something. Forget that implication: his head must have been as empty as his words.

Enough has been said in the world’s media -and certainly that of Spain, which held him in pretty minimal regard- about his mandate. Criticism of his presidency and of the people around him has been constant from anyone holding opinions anywhere left of Radical Right. The list is as endless as countless are their victims. Then again, he always made it clear that you were either with him or against him – but these would have been Cheney’s words. Someone else’s, anyway. In the end, though, he, or his wordsmiths, managed to divide his country so deeply, to wrought such profound injuries to the rest of the world as well, that enough voters turned against him anyway.

Is it any wonder then that Barack Obama was swept into office? Can anyone truly be surprised that the US’s first African-American President is being given a chance to make the fundamental changes that are so sorely needed for that magnificent country?

Would anyone be honestly puzzled if they saw a photo of Obama in the Oval Office scratching his head like Stan Laurel (of 1930s comedy fame) when he muttered to Oliver Hardy: “It’s a fine mess you got us into!”

(c) Alexander Bewick 2009

Only a few weeks have gone by since Barack Obama was elected the next President of the United States of America, and he is still surprising us. Not least for his choice of Bush’s Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates, to remain in his post for the simple reason that Obama believes him to be the right man for the job. He has reportedly settled on Hillary Clinton, formerly his bitter Democrat rival for the presidential candidacy, as his Secretary of State. Can you imagine such a thing in Spain?

If the dividing line between ‘left’ and ‘right’ in the US is fuzzy, this country is still bitterly divided, almost 50-50, between whom are often called Reds and Fascists, depending which side you’re on. Can you see Zapatero holding on to a minister or two of Aznar’s? – there were some good ones, by the way. Can you imagine your local Council keeping on a couple of the opposition’s people on after an election? They’d be called mad! Crazy idea!

No, for the most part, with very few exceptions at local level, whatever the previous lot have done flies out of the Town Hall window as soon as the new lot take their seats. Sometimes it’s even the seats themselves that fly out, too.

Yet these are troublesome times, when talent and experience should be more highly valued than loyalty to a political party – and when the humility of those who have to make these choices should be to the fore when making them.

The problem lies in a confusion among politicians, not necessarily of Spain alone, that distorts the meaning of loyalty to public service with that of a party. It is a shame, for we can hardly afford the luxury of dispensing with the past, if only because we should be learning from it.

And it’s the right thing to do, Mr. President.

(c) Alexander Bewick 2008