Editorial Board

Ken Dowdell - Publisher Jon Losness - Editor Steve Lund - Editorial Page Editor Joe Potente and Kathleen Troher - Assignment Editors

KENOSHA NEWS | SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 2013 | A6

Its in the governors hands now

enosha County residents have been waiting on an any day now decision on a Kenosha casino proposal for years. Any day now nally came on Friday, nearly nine years after county voters expressed their support for the proposal. The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs approved the Menominee Nations Kenosha casino project. While Fridays decision is certainly welcome, it does not completely clear the way for a casino on the site of the closed Dairyland Greyhound Park. Nothing will happen without Gov. Scott Walkers approval. The governors office issued a statement that there will be a 60-day comment period for the states 11 tribes before a decision is made. The statement also said, We will move forward with evaluating this casino using the criteria previously laid out by my administration. The three criteria are: no new net gaming, community support, and consensus among the 11 sovereign nations. The community support for the project is solid. Kenosha residents expressed their sup-

OUR VIEW
port in a countywide referendum in 2004, and the Kenosha County Board and the Kenosha City Council expressed their support by entering into agreements with the Menominee Nation, agreements that have been extended several times. The other criteria will be difcult if not impossible for the Dairyland project to meet, and we question whether they are valuable to the state or even relevant to a reasonable evaluation of the proposal. Net gaming opportunities could be measured many ways. It could mean closing a blackjack table or slot machine somewhere for every one that opens in Kenosha. But gambling opportunities have been lost with the closing of the states ve dog tracks. Will that be factored into the net gaming equation? The most bothersome criterion established by the governor, however, is the tribal consensus. It is highly unlikely, given the Potawatomi tribes staunch opposition in the

past, that all 11 tribes will welcome a Menominee casino in Kenosha. The Potawatomi operate a casino in Milwaukee, and a Kenosha casino will be a major competitor. But there also would not be a consensus of tribes to say no to a Kenosha casino. The Menominee will say yes, and the other tribes hoping for new casinos of their own might do the same. No matter what, there wont be a consensus. We think the project should be evaluated on its local support, on its potential effect on the local economy and the potential effect on the state economy. Its hard to imagine an $800 million or more investment would not have a positive effect on the local economy. Its hard to imagine a tourist attraction located near the state line would fail to draw customers from out of state, which would be good for the state economy. And the local support has already been demonstrated. Those are good reasons for the governor to approve this project.

The choice in Egypt

E

BY CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER WASHINGTON

VOICE OF THE PEOPLE Its hard to celebrate Labor Day this year
What a sad Labor Day! Republican governors are attacking unions. The gap between rich and poor is widening. The middle class is fading. The National Labor Relations Board, after years of non-functioning because appointed members were not approved by the Senate, nally has enough members to act on unlawful practices. Unions made the great middle class. Now workers are paid below liveable wages and must depend on the government to supplement low incomes. Yet Republicans have taken the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program out of their proposed Farm Bill. Rep. Paul Ryan voted against the McGovern Amendment (Rep. James McGovern, D-Worcester, Mass.) to the Farm Bill that would restore $2.5 billion to SNAP by cutting the commodities and insurance programs which benet ag businesses not the small farmer. With sequestering, the Farm Bill had to be cut. There is a lot of waste in the Farm Bill in the commodities and insurance programs. One-fourth of the children in the U.S. are living below the poverty line. It is disgraceful that the wealthiest country in the world cannot provide all children with proper nutrition, shelter and a good education. If the wealthy did not have subsidies, deductions and tax shelters to cut their income taxes, the U.S. Treasury would have another trillion per year in taxes. This money could go to offset the low wages of poor workers. Unions are needed more than ever to organize all the workers in the U.S. as the Wobblies tried to do in the early 20th century. We need unions to bring back more fair economic distribution. Vera Boone Twin Lakes

China attacks western ideas

BY RICHARD REEVES NEW YORK

Badtke deserves notice as demo derby champion

Kudos to the Kenosha News for great coverage of the Kenosha County Fair, in particular Sundays coverage of the last day. You noted that the Demolition Derby was a big draw with cars backed up on Highway C all the way to Camp Lake. You failed to mention that the winner of the derby was Wilmots own hometown boy, Marshall Badtke. It would have been nice to mention that he has entered demolition derbies for the past 10 years and nally won it. Most people dont know that a lot of time and money goes into getting these cars ready to be smashed up. A little recognition would be great. Sara Kaplan Twin Lakes

Editors note: Letters are welcome. They can be sent to Voice of the People, the Kenosha News, 5800 Seventh Ave., Kenosha, WI, 53140, or emailed to vop@ kenoshanews.com. Letters should be written as concisely as possible and should not exceed 275 words. We will publish letters from Kenosha County residents and subscribers. Letters must be signed with name, address and phone number. Names will be withheld on request, although priority will be given to letter writers willing to have their names published. We reserve the right to edit all letters. Writers are limited to one letter per month.

ive years after Richard Nixon resigned as president, I did a long interview with him in his hideaway ofce in a downtown federal building. We were talking about the travels and writings of Alexis de Tocqueville, the French author of Democracy in America. I was then seeking out the current counterparts of the Americans who talked with Tocqueville during his nine-month journey through the new and democratic United States in the 1830s. Nixon was my John Quincy Adams, an unhappy ex-president Tocqueville had met here. The French aristocrat asked the former president what he considered Americas greatest problem. Adams answered: Race. So did Nixon, though the view he gave of race and ethnicity was international rather than national. He told me he believed that the history of the 21st century would be a confrontation between East and West with the United States and China as the principal adversaries. The struggle, he thought, would not necessarily be military but, more likely, economic and ideological. Moreover, Nixon thought the East Asia, led by China would win. Holding the racial and genetic views of his generation, he argued that Orientals were simply smarter and superior to Caucasians, as he thought Caucasians were superior to Africans and African-Americans. The job of Western leaders, he told me, was to hold off that EastWest confrontation and defeat for as long as possible. Remembering that conversation, I was struck hard, to say the least, by a front-page story by Chris Buckley, writing from Hong Kong, in last Tuesdays New York Times under the headline: China Takes Aim at Western Ideas. Well. Here we go. Quoting from that article: Communist Party cadres have lled meeting halls around China to hear a somber, secretive warning issued by senior leaders. Power could escape their grip, they have been told, unless the party eradicates seven subversive currents coursing through Chinese society. These seven perils were enumerated in a memo, referred to as Document No. 9, that bears the unmistakable imprimatur of Xi Jinping, Chinas new top leader. The rst was Western constitutional democ-

racy; others included promoting universal values of human rights, Western-inspired notions of media independence and civic participation, ardently pro-market neoliberalism, and nihilist criticisms of the partys traumatic past. Western forces hostile to China and dissidents within the country are still constantly inltrating the ideological sphere, says Document No. 9, the number given to it by the central party ofce that issued it in April. It has not been openly published, but a version was shown to The New York Times and was veried by four sources close to senior ofcials, including an editor with a party newspaper. Opponents of one-party rule, it says, have stirred up trouble about disclosing ofcials assets, using the Internet to ght corruption, media controls and other sensitive topics, to provoke discontent with the party and government. The warnings were not idle. Since the circular was issued, party-run publications and websites have vehemently denounced constitutionalism and civil society ... Promotion of Western constitutional democracy is an attempt to negate the partys leadership, said Cheng Xinping, a deputy head of propaganda for Hengyang, a city in Hunan. Obviously, on one level, Mr. Xi is concerned rst about the survival of the Chinese Communist Party. Expanding on that, he and other party leaders are afraid that ideas, not nuclear weapons or drones, are the real danger to the country as well as the party. The Times focused then on what has happened in Guangzhou (formerly Canton), where the regional and ofcial newspaper has editorialized against the deep corruption that has made rich men of party leaders. Western anti-China forces led by the United States have joined in one after the other, and colluded with dissidents within the country to make slanderous attacks on us in the name of so-called press freedom and constitutional democracy, said Zhang Guangdong, a propaganda ofcial, citing the conclusions from the meeting of central propaganda ofcials. They are trying to break through our political system, and this was a classic example, he said of the newspaper protest. Some have gone further, saying that constitutionalism and similar ideas were tools of Western subversion that helped topple the former Soviet Union and that a similar threat faces China, Buckley reports. So, it seems that the East-West war, in both Muslim and Asian totalitarian countries, has begun. This may well be the story of our new century.

gypt today is a zero-sum game. Wed have preferred there be a democratic alternative. Unfortunately, there is none. The choice is binary: the country will be ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood or by the military. Perhaps the military should have waited three years for the intensely unpopular Mohamed Morsi to be voted out of ofce. But Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi seems to have calculated that by then there would be no elections as in Gaza, where the Palestinian wing of the Brotherhood, Hamas, elected in 2006, established a one-man-onevote-one-time dictatorship. Whats the U.S. to do? Any response demands two considerations: (a) Charles Krauthammer moral, i.e., which outcome offers the better future for Egypt, and (b) strategic, i.e., which outcome offers the better future for U.S. interests and those of the free world. As for Egypts future, the Brotherhood offered nothing but incompetent, intolerant, increasingly dictatorial rule. In one year, Morsi managed to squander 85 years of Brotherhood prestige garnered in opposition a place from which one can promise the moon by persecuting journalists and activists, granting himself the unchallenged power to rule by decree, enshrining a sectarian Islamist constitution and systematically trying to seize the instruments of state power. As if that wasnt enough, after its overthrow the Brotherhood showed itself to be the party that, when angry, burns churches. The military, brutal and bloody, is not a very appealing alternative. But it does matter what the Egyptian people think. The anti-Morsi demonstrations were the largest in recorded Egyptian history. Revolted by Morsis betrayal of a revolution intended as a new opening for individual dignity and democracy, the protesters explicitly demanded Morsis overthrow. And the vast majority seem to welcome the military repression aimed at abolishing the Islamist threat. Its their only hope, however problematic, for an eventual democratic transition. And which alternative better helps secure U.S. strategic interests? The list is long: (1) a secure Suez Canal, (2) friendly relations with the U.S., (3) continued alliance with the pro-American Gulf Arabs and Jordanians, (4) retention of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, (5) cooperation with the U.S. on terrorism, which in part involves (6) isolating Brotherhood-run Gaza. Every one of which is jeopardized by Brotherhood rule. What, then, should be our policy? The administration is right to deplore excessive violence and urge reconciliation. But lets not fool ourselves into believing this is possible in any near future. Sissi crossed his Rubicon with the coup. It will either succeed or not. To advocate a middle way is to invite endless civil strife. The best outcome would be a victorious military magnanimously offering, at some later date, to reintegrate the more moderate elements of whats left of the Brotherhood. But for now, we should not be cutting off aid, civilian or military, as many in Congress are demanding. It will have no effect, buy no inuence and win no friends on either side of the Egyptian divide. We should instead be urging the quick establishment of a new Cabinet of technocrats, rapidly increasing its authority as the soldiers gradually return to their barracks. Generals are very bad at governance. Give the reins to people who actually know something. And charge them with reviving the economy and preparing the foundations for a democratic transition most importantly, drafting a secular constitution that protects the rights of women and minorities. The nal step on that long democratic path should be elections. After all, weve been here. Through a half-century of cold war, we repeatedly faced precisely the same dilemma: choosing the lesser evil between totalitarian (in that case, communist) and authoritarian (usually military) rule. We generally supported the various militaries in suppressing the communists. That was routinely pilloried as a hypocritical and immoral betrayal of our alleged allegiance to liberty. But in the end, it proved the prudent, if troubled, path to liberty. The authoritarian regimes we supported in South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Chile, Brazil, even Spain and Portugal (ruled by fascists until the mid-1970s!) in time yielded democratic outcomes. How many times have communists or Islamists allowed that to happen? Regarding Egypt, rather than emoting, we should be thinking: whats best for Egypt, for us and for the possibility of some eventual democratic future. Under the Brotherhood, such a possibility is zero. Under the generals, slim. Slim trumps zero.

COMING SUNDAY: Scott Rasmussen on digital threats to the political class

Charles Krauthammers email address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.