#secstate

[aelement]

Rockin’ in red | 2009 - Qatar

[goodolewoody]

“$500 billion opportunity for Exxon, Russia in Trump cabinet pick” MADDOW BLOG

[hungrypresidents]

There, the Massachusetts Democrat went to Pat’s Steaks and ordered a cheese steak — with Swiss cheese. If that weren’t bad enough, the candidate asked photographers not to take his picture while he ate the sandwich. Shutters clicked anyway, and Kerry was caught nibbling daintily at his sandwich — another serious faux pas. -- The Washington Post

[puerto-nic0]

I'd be a terrible Secretary of State. They're be a new book releasing early in France or a movie premier in Italy or a new game out early in Japan and I'd just be 'Sorry Mr/s President, there an uhhhhhhh.... diplomatic crisis in Italy I need to borrow Air Force One for a couple days'

[statedept]

On April 4, 1949, Secretary of State Dean Acheson signed the most successful military-political treaty in the world. This treaty has been protecting citizens and keeping peace around the world ever since. Happy Birthday, NATO!

[wilsoncenter]

41 years ago today, President Richard Nixon announced a settlement to the war in Vietnam.

Here, a young John Kerry watches the announcement on TV.

[xincendiax]

Protest Culture

So Secretary of State John Kerry was meeting with China's Vice Premier at my university today to talk about 100Strong and US-China exchange programs, which is pretty cool. But there was a pretty big protest going on outside the building because of his presence. Which is fine, obviously - staging a protest is a right that we're accustomed to and it's a good way to flex political expression. However, the protest happening today was against the Keystone XL Pipeline. Now, I totally get protesting the pipeline and the fracking that will go along with it. But you do realize that the Secretary of State is the one inside the building? It's not like the people behind the pipeline project are there. Secretary Kerry literally cannot do a single thing either for or against the project, and he has a lot of more important shit to worry about (China, Iran, etc).

Look, I'll say it again: protesting is great. It's an amazing tool for social change - think the March on Washington, the student Vietnam protests of the 70s. But sometimes protest culture can get out of hand, and unfortunately the only thing really hurt by this is the cause itself. Occupy Wall Street is a perfect example of this. Some of the original ideas behind the protest were great: highlighting corruption on Wall Street and income inequality is an engaging and sympathetic cause. But Occupy exploded and became more about the act of protesting, professing so many "objectives" and causes that it lost all meaning. This was only exacerbated by its dispersion throughout the US - as someone who lives in DC, I walked past the "Occupy K Street" version that was happening in Farragut Square. It was a joke. Just an ugly, sketchy, grimy set of dirty tents roped off in the middle of what is usually a lovely grassy area, full of crooked signs and people who stared at you as you walked past. What was the point of that?

That's what I'm trying to say here, I guess. As soon as Occupy became a buzzword, it lost a huge amount of whatever power it might have had - and when it became a punchline, well. The same can be said about this random Keystone protest today. People seem to think that any big-name government official will be the perfect setting because of the instant publicity. But what's just as important as publicity is relevance. You know what protests would have been relevant today? Iran's nuclear program. Involvement with Syria. NSA information gathering. But today's protest was totally irrelevant. And unfortunately, that irrelevancy won't be reflected on the over-eager college students - it will reflect on the anti-fracking, anti-Keystone XL movement. Flexing your growing political muscles is all well and good, but NOT when you could be hurting the movement you're trying to promote.

[odinsblog]

I guess John Kerry is doing aight as SecState, but I can't help but think Susan Rice would be a lot more kick ass. Hillary's got me thinking that the SecState position should be kinda like a succession of badass ex Vampire Slayers

Or something like that