New frontier in US fundraising?
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/NewsDetails.aspx?storyid=335620 By JAMAL KANJ
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Thursday, August 09, 2012
Mitt Romney has just ended an international tour intended to prop his political credentials as a world leader.
In the first leg of his trip, he angered the otherwise temperate
Brits by voicing an unwarranted opinion on London's readiness for the
Olympic Games.
His second gaffe soon followed during the now common US presidential campaign pilgrimage to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.
During his next international stop, at a closed $50,000 a plate
fundraiser for Israeli sworn citizens and American donors, he credited
Israel's "providence "and "culture" for the economic disparity between
Israelis and Palestinians.
Romney walked out of the small private event with $1 million for his presidential campaign.
First, the figures used by his contrived GDP scale measuring cultural superiority were dead wrong.
Basic maths from the 2011 CIA book reveals that Israel's GDP was
10-folds of the Palestinians ($31,400 versus $2,900), not two-folds.
Second, Israel must have furnished the gullible Romney with the
incorrect data to show that Palestinians were doing better under
occupation, or else to hide the striking inequality between the two
so-called economies.
Being in the one per cent bracket of high US income earners, Romney
must have been "provident" at making money and legally evading paying
his fair share in income taxes - in 2010, he paid 13.9pc of his income.
He, however, comes across as obtuse in his understanding of the work of economic systems.
Economy is defined by various references as "self-managed social
system consisting of labour, capital and land resources involved in
production, trades, distributions and consumption of goods and services"
in a defined region.
Absence of the ability to control any of these economic pillars, a sovereign economy ceases to exist.
Israeli occupation policies inhibiting the basic economic principles
of the fledgling Palestinian market were protested broadly by the EU,
World Bank institutions, UN and human rights organisations.
Speaking at a UN seminar in February, UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon said Israeli "settlements and their infrastructure severely
restrict access to land and natural resources by the Palestinian
people".
The Israeli occupation has turned the Palestinian entity into a
consumption economy, contributing directly to Israel's GDP scale of
"superiority".
Bluntly speaking, it did not come as a surprise, hearing a racist
remark from a disciple of the Church of Latter Day Saints, which until
1978 did not allow blacks to take part in temple services.
I had my encounter with this church's teaching when several years ago a colleague shared with me the book of Mormon.
I was astonished discovering that, I, like the Lamanite tribe in the book, had a dark skin curse mark from God.
Romney's dullard GDP gauge of superiority is, nevertheless, self-defeating.
In retrospect, every culture has enjoyed affluence, when others, even
within the same culture (east and west Germany, North and South Korea)
were lacking.
In researching countries' GDP ranking, Germany was higher than Israel on Romney's cultural benchmark.
Fortunately, Germany does not have wealthy donors with the motivation
to manipulate US foreign policy enticing Romney to come drivelling to
Berliners on their advanced superior culture.
But who knows? Romney could turn out to be a real pioneer.
His Jerusalem fundraising broke a long held American taboo against seeking foreign base money in US election.
Following his successful outsourcing career, fundraising in foreign
capitals could become the new frontier in US presidential campaign
financing.
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