Edward Jayne

Professor Jayne's talk on Wednesday was very informative, but not all that surprising. After he started talking, I could tell how enthusiastic he was about everything in the Middle East, but I could also immediately tell that I would need to be on the look out for some biases (especially when he started saying some of his pretty obviously-prejudiced opinions about Jews). He kept insisting that he wasn't prejudiced, and that he himself was part-Jewish, but I was definitely able to pick up on some slightly-hostile comments (and I noticed Dr. Webb did, too).

That being said, I still found his talk to be very interesting, overall. One thing that definitely struck me was when Professor Jayne told us that the United States has been borrowing money for the War in Iraq from China. This was extremely perplexing to me because I can't seem to understand why we are borrowing money from a Communist nation when we refuse to do business with Cuba because they're Communist. It seems to me that we are against Communism when it's convenient to us.

According to Jayne, we are using money that we currently don't have to fight a war. At the same time, Bush went ahead and made two huge tax reductions for the rich (Professor Jayne compared this to buying a brand new BMW at the same time that you sent your kid off to Yale on your credit card). The government is then turning around and telling us that the war is going to help our economy, when in reality, we will be paying dearly for it in a few decade's time. According to Jayne, what Bush is doing can be compared to what Hitler did during World War II - giving the citizens a prosperous economy at the time and allowing future generations to deal with the debt when he's dead and gone.

It is, in my opinion a little radical to compare George Bush to Adolf Hitler, but at the same time, I have to agree with Jayne. We all like to think that our government is nowhere near what Germany's was in the middle of the 20th century, but according to Jayne, there isn't that much of a difference when it comes to foreign policy. Some of the statements made by Professor Jayne would be enough to open anyone's eyes to the current politics of the United States.