by Daniel Korski | Aug 31, 2008 | Cooperation and coherence, Influence and networks, North America
As the Gulf Coast gets ready to evacuate and plans for the Republican Convention have been throw into disarray, an interesting question has emerged. To what extent can the Obama campaign use its well-established, grass-roots network to assist the official recovery effort?
Yesterday in Ohio, Senator Obama said he would mobilize its e-mail list of supporters to encourage them to volunteer or send contributions:
We can activate an e-mail list of a couple million people who want to give back. I think we can get tons of volunteers to travel down there if it becomes necessary.
Helping victims of crises can be politically-expedient, as well as the humanitarian thing to do. When Russian-Israeli tycoon Arcadi Gaydamak used his money to build “refugee” camps for victims of Hezbollah’s rockets he wrote himself into Israeli politics.
Barack Obama does not have money, but it is common knowledge that his campaign’s e-mail/grass-roots network is the largest in political history, and campaign team expects to raise $1 billion online during the 2008 campaign, 12 times as much as John Kerry raised through online fundraising in 2004. Many analysts believe that Obama, despite what the national polls say, will eventually pull ahead of McCain because of the national, internet-aided network.
But the idea of using this network for national, non-partisan purposes is novel, though logical. If it is eventually used to help victims of the hurricane and if Obama is elected to the White House could this network be “federalised” or serve as a nucleus of a new Kennedy-style Peace Corps or a way to take the newly-established Civilian Reserve Corps a step further?
by Charlie Edwards | Aug 30, 2008 | Conflict and security, Off topic
Hurricane Gustav has already swept through Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. After Cuba, its projected path will take it over the Gulf of Mexico, before arriving on US shores. New Orleans has already begun a mandatory evacuation for coastal districts and parishes.
You can follow preparations for Gustav on the the Red Cross’ Twitter feed.
A wikipedia page for Gustav (2008) was created today and is being regularly updated.
The Eye on the storm blog is also offering a running commentay.
Update 1: The Gustav Information Center has been created for coordinating volunteer knowledge-sharing related to Hurricane Gustav.
Update 2: Predicted route of Gustav has been updated.
Update 3: New predicted route.
by Alex Evans | Aug 30, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, North America
From a Newsmax interview done before her nomination as McCain’s running mate:
What is your take on global warming and how is it affecting our country?
A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.
Wow. That is so not where John McCain is on climate. It’ll be fun to watch this pan out…
by Charlie Edwards | Aug 29, 2008 | Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, East Asia and Pacific
When Gordon Brown became Prime Minister he hit the ground reviewing. From education to health, welfare to security no policy area was too large or small. One such area was national security where he promised both a review and a strategy, and he delivered both, if not exactly on time.
9000 miles away in Australia, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will soon publish his long awaited review of national security. According to some analysts, one of the first things he will do is appoint Duncan Lewis as his national security adviser. Major General Lewis will co-ordinate Australia’s long-term security planning. Interestingly, one of Brown’s first decisions on becoming PM was to do away with a similar post in the Cabinet Office (Permanent Secretary on Security, Intelligence and Resilience) preferring instead to have three individuals at the same level: Robert Hannigan (security adviser to Gordon Brown) plus Jon Cunliffe and Simon MacDonald).
According to various internal and media reports Kevin Rudd is due to publish a ground-breaking national security statement this coming week. By the sound of it, the strategy will be pretty similar in nature and scope to the UK Government’s work. There is also a likelihood that that Kevin Rudd will outline some of the changes to the national security apparatus which many believe has focused too much on counter terrorism.
Australian public servants will also want to thank Ric Smith, who was put in charge of the review into Homeland Security. This could have been a major opportunity to rearrange bureaucratic deck chairs – and cause all sorts of problems – which the DHS is currently facing. Instead he has recommended against the creation of a department of homeland security, saving precious time and resources and a major headache for public servants and Ministers.
