Contradiction in rhetoric and action is a pretty standard feature of foreign policy for countries around the world. We were reminded of that this week; while President Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton were giving speeches about how Egypt‘s President Hosni Mubarak should listen to the demands of his people, Mubarak’s army was flying American-made jets over protests sites and tossing cans of “Made in USA” tear gas into the very crowds of people Obama and Clinton demanded Mubarak listen to.

Here’s the contradiction: while supporting a government that suppresses its people with nearly than $1.3 billion in military aid a year, you demand a change in that country’s ruling scheme, but only when the country’s people rise up and protest.

The gaffes don’t help either. Vice-president Joe Biden said it was too early for Mubarak to step down and called him “very responsible.” Later, adding this, “I hope Mubarak … is going to respond to some of the legitimate concerns that are being raised,” according to the linked article above. He hopes.

Yes, the US is now reevaluating the aid package it sends Cairo’s way every year, but only AFTER Egypt’s governmental actions have become worldwide knowledge. Only AFTER everyone knows the reality of Egypt’s political situation and its effect on society.

This is far from the worst regime the US has ever supported. But it isn’t the best, and that $1.3 billion could do a lot of good instead of what it’s currently doing. Helping to suppress a people utterly fed up with a hostile government.

Ps. I came across this video today that deserves a look. This was made in 2007, when Mubarak was in office for 26 years. It calls for an end to his regime. Very powerful.

Thousand of troops are being deployed to different parts of Chile, a country recently ravaged by a massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake, to try to prevent looting and criminal acts, Al Jazeera reports.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has doubled the number of troops patrolling the hardest hit areas to almost 14,000. Her government has been accused of mishandling disaster relief efforts, especially because some of the troops are guarding stores full of supplies so desperately needed by the people.

Government officials say until supplies can be distributed fairly, no one is allowed to have any. This in an effort to prevent a survival-of-the-fittest scenario, similar to the one that emerged in Haiti weeks ago.

Hundreds of tons of food, water and aid are being flown in to Chile from abroad, but teams are struggling to distribute the materials evenly.

Looting

Residents of Concepcion, a town about 300 miles from the capital city of Santiago, have been the most vocal in their anger over relief efforts. Recently, some members of the town set a store on fire after armed guards prevented them from entering and taking supplies.

Food, water and aid is being distributed, for the first time since the deadly quake, today in Concepcion. Up to now, residents have had to rely on looting, which is becoming harder and harder as guards patrol the area, or on stockpiles of  food they may have had before the quake hit.

According to Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo, people in Chile are telling workers that the aid being supplied is not nearly enough. Government officials say they’ve now purchased all the food in Concepcion’s supermarkets and will begin to distribute it evenly shortly.

US aid

Secretary of State Hiliary Clinton arrived in Chile on Tuesday with the news that the US will send water purification systems and mobile hospitals very soon.

Clinton met with the country’s president, and plans to meet with the Chile’s president-elect, Sebastian Pinera, soon.

Death toll

Thus far, 795 people have been found dead. Relief teams are now making their ways to the more isolated but equally hard-hit neighborhoods, where they expect to find many, many more dead.

Hillary Clinton has accepted President-elect Obama’s offer to become secretary of state, finally uniting the two most popular democrats after a hard-fought primary season, the New York Times reports.

Two Clinton camp “confidants” confirmed her acceptance after she spoke with Obama for a second time in two weeks, with the intent to clarify some of his foreign policy standings in an effort to make sure the two are on the same page.‚  Last week’s meeting, according to one of the “confidants,” was quite general in nature.

The other source told reporters that the deal is pretty much done, however, while admitting that the alliance would most likely go through, the Obama camp has said no official acceptance has yet been made and none will be announced until after Thanksgiving

Clinton’s spokesman, Phillip Reines, told reporters that the deal is not yet final, but talks are “very much on track.”

The word comes after weeks of intense vetting and discussion, as well as efforts to ensure that if Clinton were to accept the nomination, her husband, Bill Clinton, would agree to certain conditions over his global businesses and philanthropic activities.‚  He complied with turning over the names and information of over 200,000 donors to the Obama camp, in an effort to ensure no conflict of interest would arise, clearing the way for his wife.

Clinton, as secretary of state, will have a very tough job ahead of her, especially after the last eight years, in which the Bush administration has strained relationships with several foreign powers.‚  However as First Lady, she did develop relationships with and travel to over 80 countries.‚  Her experience gives the department a strong background, something Obama has been criticized for lacking.

As one of the most powerful, prominent and popular democrats today, many supporters are ecstatic over the formation of this partnership.‚  This nomination, as opposed to a Vice-President post (which many were hoping for during the election) gives Clinton much more power on a global scale.

Last week, Blast News reported that‚  some of Obama’s early advisers may prove disappointing for many who voted for him based on his plans for change.

Indeed, it appears the criticism may be starting to accumulate. Dean Baker, one of the few economists who predicted the housing bubble, wrote the following for The UK Guardian.

Those following the meeting of President Obama’s economic advisory committee could not have been very reassured by the presence of Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, both former Treasury secretaries in the Clinton administration. Along with former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan, Rubin and Summers compose the high priesthood of the bubble economy. Their policy of one-sided financial deregulation is responsible for the current economic catastrophe.

[...]

While the Bush administration must take responsibility for the current crisis (they have been in power the last 8 years), the stage was set during the Clinton years. The Clinton team set the economy on the path of one-sided financial deregulation and bubble-driven growth that brought us where we are today. (The deregulation was one-sided, because they did not take away the “too big to fail” security blanket of the Wall Street big boys.)

For this reason, it is very discouraging to see top Clinton administration officials standing center stage at President Obama’s meeting on the economy. This is not change, and certainly not policies that we can believe in.

Live blogging Senator Hillary Clinton’s address at the DNC in Denver’s Pepsi Center:

10:03 PM:

Governor Mark Warner just concluded his keynote address. Well delivered, kind of boring, seemed like he was trying a bit to hard to preach. So far a lot of the night has been about bashing John McCain. Most speakers have reinforced what Senator Barack Obama has said in his many public addresses. The speakers are preaching unity, but none will do it better than Clinton, who’s coming up soon. Dennis Kucinich’s arm flailing performance was especially entertaining. What I hope Clinton does is try–as she has been doing at smaller events–to reach out to her supporters and try to make them understand that a vote for Obama is a vote for the democrats as a whole.

10:11 PM

Also, it does seem like this speech is getting a lot more press and attention than I thought. The reason I am interested is because of what I hope she will say to help Senator Obama, mainly how she will say it. Many are excited just to see how she handles speaking at the DNC, where, earlier this year, she hoped she’d be in Obama’s shoes. A lot of attention toward this address, she will deliver, but how effective will it be? Will her speech inspire her supporters? Will she be able to convince everyone that everything she said about Obama during her campaign should now be ignored? We’ll see soon.

10:15 PM

CNN’s Anderson Cooper says there’s about 10 minutes until the speech. I’ll check in when she starts. Chelsea Clinton will introduce her mother, Bill Clinton is on hand.

10:35 PM

It’ll start soon, one of the few times Cooper’s been wrong I guess.

10:40 PM

A video about Clinton’s campaign. Historic in every right, groundbreaking and progressive. Chelsea Clinton narrates and appears in front of a standing ovation.

10:42 PM

Senator Clinton appears on stage. She receives a standing ovation of nearly two full minutes. A shot of Bill Clinton in the audience shows him tearing up at the sight of his wife receiving such a warm welcome. His eyes are filled with pride.

10:45 PM

“Whether you voted for me, or you voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose.” She gets started right away. “We are on the same team.” Like I said, she tells everyone a vote for Barack is also a vote for the democrats and her as well.

10:47 PM

“No way, no how, no McCain.” New banners and t-shirts?

10:48 PM

She touches in with middle-class Americans. “Hard work…devotion to duty…love for your children and determination to keep going.” As she explains middle-class America, she explains the Clintons and the Obamas. Both have gone through all of that.

10:50 PM

“To my supporters, to my champions, to my sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you because you never gave in and you never gave up, and together we made history.” Talking about her campaign. Seems she got some of the unity talk out of the way at the beginning. She also pays tribute to two fallen democrats.

10:54 PM

A lot of personal talk so far. She’s telling her supporters that, if they vote for Obama, she’ll be there fighting for what she promised. And with him in office, that fight will be a lot less brutal and perhaps easy.

10:56 PM

Those are the reasons I ran for president, and those are the reasons I support Barack Obama for president.” There’s her connection. She’s now telling her supporters to now think of America, not her. To help struggling Americans, vote Obama.

10:58 PM

She’s talking about Obama’s platform. She connects Obama with middle-class America, he once was at he bottom, he’s made it to the top. He knows how to help others do it too.

11:00 PM

“I cannot wait to watch Barack Obama sign in to law a health care plan that covers every single American.” Basically this helps her too because if he misses any of this or somehow loses, she’ll be there in 2012.

11:02 PM

She offers her support and approval of Michelle Obama and Senator Joe Biden. Another attack on McCain, “we don’t need four more years of the last eight years.”

11:05 PM

She’s reaching out to women, urging them to vote democrat. Saying, I think, that this, her campaign, would never happen in the republican party. The democrats are progressive, they are moving forward, not standing still, “if you want a taste of freedom keep going.” She links the democrats with the groundbreaking work of Harriet Tubman.

11:07 PM

She ends with an urgency. Telling voters the time is now, don’t sit around, vote democrat and take this country back.

She pretty much nailed this speech. She could’ve talked more about Obama and unity, but I liked how she talked about her own views in the middle of the speech, and then asked voters if they were in the race for her or what she believes in, much the same of what Obama believes in.

That’s it from me and the DNC for tonight.

Tonight, all eyes will be on Senator Hillary Clinton. She’s used to it, but this time, the spotlight will cast a bitter glow.

As she takes to the stage to unite the party, she is essentially freeing it for her once rival, and now leader, Senator Barack Obama. Her speech comes a day before the hotly anticipated speeches of her husband, former president Bill Clinton, and the man who took what many thought (I didn’t) should have been her job, Senator Joe Biden.

Tonight, she’d give anything to be in Obama’s shoes. But her job is very important, to unite all democrats behind one leader. Many have questioned whether her and Mr. Clinton are putting their best four feet forward.

Some of the accusations are fruitless, personally I think she’s doing fine. How much can really be expected of a woman who almost won the candidacy so soon after she lost it? How quickly can her supporters turn around and put all their hope behind another candidate, one Clinton attacked so much just months ago? She’s done a lot, and she continues to do more. She has a strong voice and it will, tonight, prove to be game changing.

But that’s beside the point. Tonight will be Clinton’s time to shine, to prove to America that a vote for Obama is not just a vote for him, but a vote for her, for the party as a whole, a vote against the republicans and against John McCain. For she will, no doubt, have a place in Obama’s potential administration.

She isn’t headlining, but here’s hoping her words make headlines.

Editor’s note: BLAST officially endorsed Senator Barack Obama Jan. 10 as the Democratic candidate for president.

It was a tale of three speeches. On the night when the Democrats finally had their nominee, the two general election candidates — and the one just vanquished – all gave speeches laying claim to the title of Best Equipped to Be President.

The first, a plodding and awkward ramble, given in front of a grotesque lime green backdrop to what seemed like only a few dozen onlookers, gave viewers a taste of the John McCain they will see over the next few months: a grumbling curmudgeon who will try to steal the “change” platform from Obama by explaining his “change” means a third term of George Bush domestic and foreign policies that promise to change absolutely nothing. The listless, same-old speech from McCain was roundly panned by critics, even his buddies at Fox News, as not what he probably wanted compared to what everyone was about to witness from the new Democratic-elect.

The last orate, by contrast, was a soaring, transcendent victory claim given in front of 33,000 people; 18,000 who filled the arena and 15,000 more that stood outside in a constant, frenzied state. Everything that John McCain’s speech wasn’t, Barack Obama’s was.

In a booming voice that crescendoed over the uninterrupted screams and applause of the massive crowd, he gave the American people a taste of the Obama presidency: An end to the war, negotiations with our enemies, rescinding the ridiculous tax cuts for the rich and an actual energy policy were laid out as rebuttals to McCain, who has been in lockstep with George W. Bush on all the vital issues facing the people of the United States.

On the historic night when Obama finally became the west’s first real African American candidate for president, he pronounced, “America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past.”

And then there was the speech in the middle.

A defiant, grasp at something that has been lost for months, Hillary Clinton, who many were expecting to at least concede something last night, gave what was at best a confusing quasi-victory speech for someone who had just lost and at worst a selfish narcissistic view of the contest that dripped with delusion and self denial. Ceding no ground to Obama, except that “he and his supporters have run an excellent campaign,” she went on to mimic asking what everyone in the press has been for the last few days, “‘What does Hillary want?’” and then refused to answer. She left the door open to her future plans and addressed the crowd as if she had not just lost the Democratic Nomination for President, which, unfortunately for her, she just had.

What Hillary Clinton will do in the next coming months for now remains a mystery. She will almost certainly have to admit she lost in the coming days, and with any luck, will fade into the background. But the two who remain will undoubtedly give us more of the taste they gave us last night. For John McCain, it will be idea that the world is extremely dangerous and only a war monger like himself can run it. And for Barack Obama, it will be the chance to bring a new face, a new voice, to the Presidency, one that has never been heard before.

Let’s hope, this time, the American people make the right decision. Though, if they just listen to the speeches from last night, it will really become an easy choice.

WASHINGTON — In recent conversations, many of my Democratic friends have begun camping out for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Now, I must say, being in Washington for the past year and half has somewhat, how do you put it, numbed me to politics. Presidential campaigns began rallying their troops nearly two years before the 2008 Election Day with a few candidates throwing their hats in the ring before the end of November 2006.

But among Democrats, I’m finding conversations about the candidates to be the same. People are voting for their candidates for hopeful reasons. Hillary supporters by and large are looking to her to lead us forward based on her experience. Or maybe there’s a hint of nostalgia, having gone astray the past eight years from the good old years with Bill. Hopeful Hillary supporters are hoping that she can bring us back to the good times but forward from the havoc that the “evil Republicans hath wrought on America” over the past couple of years.

People who oppose Senator Clinton cite her lack of passion — her voice, which is often seen as being harsh and cold. Senator Clinton has been criticized vastly for coming off as too harsh however, if she were to show a softer feminine side, would this change the views of people who may have held critiques of her since 1992?

While Obama may not have the advantage of being in the West Wing previously, he does have one thing to give his supporters — hope. For many people, Democrats and Republicans alike, he creates an excitement when he brings a Kennedy-esque youthfulness to the stage, much like he did after his victory in Iowa on Thursday night.

However, even those he manages to rouse excitement in are skeptical about his lack of experience on the Federal level which is something he will have to overcome when being compared to Hillary Clinton.

What is really going to differentiate the winner from the loser in this race to the top of the Democratic ticket is really going to be how the voters value experience over passion. Voters this year seem to agree that we need a candidate who will take us forward but it’s going to be a fight to determine who will be the better candidate to take us there.