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The Global Citizen: Foreign Policy
Great nations should pay their bills. But in the last two weeks, House Republicans on two important panels voted on party lines to sharply decrease funding for international organizations, peacekeeping missions, and human rights, putting the United States back on the world community's "dead beat" list. In a climate of an increased national debt and a laundry list of transnational problems facing our nation, it is irresponsible to play politics and gamble with our foreign policy.
After Election Day 2010, one frequently repeated analysis was that this election was not about foreign policy. Voters’ minds were focused mostly on domestic issues such as the economy and unemployment, and weren’t giving much thought to America’s relations with the world outside our borders. However, the dramatic shift in power in Washington, DC means that some new members coming to Congress, and some current members taking on new roles, may have a profound impact on the United States’ engagement with the United Nations, International Criminal Court (ICC), and other multilateral organizations which Citizens for Global Solutions strongly supports.
Citizens for Global Solutions is pleased to announce that a majority of our endorsed candidates were elected to Congress on Tuesday, with 74% of the House and Senate candidates endorsed winning in both chambers. While there are still a total of 14 races undecided, it appears that next Congress we will have 144 House Members and 10 Senators that we have built relationships with through our Global Solutions PAC. While 61% of the approximately $23,000 contributed to House races went to winners, only 29% of $22,500 contributed to Senate campaigns went to winners.
Of course there were some stunning defeats. The loss of Sen. Feingold will be felt far and wide, and the defeat of Rep. Sestak is particularly hard.
But Tuesday's election by and large proved that Americans continue to reject platforms that are out of the mainstream. Politics appears, for the time being, to have been stopped at the water's edge.
Chuck Hagel, a former Republican Senator, published an op-ed in the Washington Post that reflects many of the ideals that Citizens for Global Solutions is working towards. He stresses the need for the United States to take a collaborative role in the global community, working together with other states to solve critical issues:
On June 22nd, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) hosted a summit for Next America, an organization of young professionals who are just beginning their careers in the foreign policy arena. Discussion at the summit revolved primarily around the challenges that the new generation will be forced to confront as they advance into positions of leadership in foreign policy.
It's amazing that what passes for political courage in national politics seems commonsense at the municipal level. New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg told the U.S. Conference of Mayors:
If you haven't done so already, do yourself a a big favor and check out U.S. Policy World, a project of Foreign Policy in Focus .
US Policy World (USPW) is a web-based, free content project designed to develop progressive policy papers with broad expert and public participation using Wiki technology.
In Mason City, Iowa there is a daily newspaper called Globe-Gazette . This past Sunday, Senator Barack Obama had a commentary piece on the Globe-Gazette's op-ed page. The Senator responds to some of the criticism of his recent broad foreign policy speech at The Woodrow Wilson Center of a couple weeks ago.
Detached from reality; surely that is the only explanation for the conduct of the member of Congress and/or their staffer when they added language to the House Foreign Operations Appropriations bill that would limit economic aid to some countries supporting the International Criminal Court (ICC) .
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