Recently in The Thinking Opposition Category

In which I shockingly agree with EJ Dionne, America in Decline? IT'S THE ECONOMY STUPID ..the hidden issue of 2010

By epaminondas on February 4, 2010 6:43 AM | No TrackBacks

From HERE:

I asked Biden about the surprise applause line in President Obama's State of the Union speech -- "I do not accept second place for the United States of America." Will we hear more on the America-as-No.-1 theme?
What followed was a torrent, in red, white and blue.

"From me you're going to hear more," he replied emphatically. "I want to tell you something, because if we cede the ground to those who suggest that -- I don't mean foreigners, I mean domestic critics -- that somehow, we are destined to fulfill (historian Paul) Kennedy's prophecy that we are going to be a great nation that has failed because we lost control of our economy and overextended, then we might as well throw it in now, for God's sake. I mean it's ridiculous."

Combine with VDH, HERE:

Our military is rushing anti-missile batteries to Iran's Arab neighbors in the Gulf in anticipation of new Iranian military escalation.
As in the case of the 2004 Indonesian tsunami, the U.S. both gives the most aid to a devastated Haiti and still seems to receive the most criticism.

China has just warned us not to supply more armaments to Taiwan.

Our Predator drones continue to be the judge, jury and executioner of suspected terrorists in Pakistan.

What's gone wrong with Obama's dream of multilateral cooperation?

For starters, the world's tensions were not caused by, and remain far larger, than George W. Bush -- and thus cannot be so easily solved by his absence.

Obama also has apparently confused what people say with what nations do.

Dionne wants us to believe that all repubs can do is cut taxes and spend military dollars to counter the idea of decline..as opposed to creating a gazillion engineers and scientists forming the ground on which the economy is built, and VDH accurately points out that behind a monstrous economy you need more as well.

But there is no doubt that American supremacy is based on economic might (backing historian Kennedy's thesis), and that the dems believe that economy depends on govt guidance and formation. The republicans believe that the historical model of free markets and free enterprise FORMED economic might ..and the dem respond that against today's China, India, EU and low labor costs, that model is dead.

Sorry but we need a lot of the latter and a little of the former. We depend on the govt to ACCURATELY IDENTIFY which educational and economic items to fortify mightily with tax dollars to support scholarships and tax cuts and grants (hint...DIVERSITY as a mandated outcome does not help, nor IMHO does religiously motivated curtailment of research). We depend on the govt to prevent other govts from unfairly targeting our businesses, and ensuring fair trade is maintained, and finally we depend on the govt to ensure that foreign intimidation and force does not affect the growth of American business.

But the govt cannot create wealth.

It can only make the creation of wealth easier or harder. Creation of real wealth comes from the individual mind, and the individual back, then expanded to many.

LAW OF NATURE.

Read both articles, VERY WELL WORTH IT.

Pivot Meter at about 40%, Obama increases nuke weapons budget?

By epaminondas on February 2, 2010 6:27 AM | No TrackBacks

Image via Wikipedia

GOOD, gets support even though the people involved sound schizoid...

President Barack Obama is seeking increased funding for nuclear weapons research and security programs next year, even as his administration promotes nonproliferation and has pledged to reduce the world's stockpile of nuclear arms.
The administration on Monday asked Congress for more than $7 billion for activities related to nuclear weapons in the budget of the National Nuclear Security Administration, an increase of $624 million from the 2010 fiscal year.

NNSA Administrator Thomas D'Agostino defended putting more money into the programs, saying the U.S. needs the best nuclear weapons facilities, scientists, technicians and engineers as it moves toward eventual disarmament.

Anyone else think D'Agostino is cracked? That's not much money, but I expected cuts. The real import here is the hard recognition that a world without nuclear weapons IS a world which will have a world war. A cynic's recognition. They cannot reject the idea that they have to have a world without nukes so 'the children' don;t have to live in fear., but what they do tells all. Our warheads are probably approaching 30 years old. You can't just leave the things.

Fox firing of Mark Lamont Hill a mistake

By epaminondas on November 26, 2009 7:05 AM | No TrackBacks

In case you don't know who this guy is, go here and here.

But having listened to Hill over time, one need only hear Hill explain in good humor over time his opinions and analysis and you can see who he is.

Now there is a real good reason why Pat Buchanan is the house conservative over at MSNBC. Which is to discredit that which is to the right of the left, the left which dominates the new democratic party, which is 5 standard deviations to the left of leadership of people like Hubert Humphrey and Henry Jackson, and makes no distinction between equal outcome as a govt mandate domestically and in foreign affairs. Mr. Buchanan, is in my opinion, a bigot and nothing can more reinforce the emotional stupidities and blindness of THAT left then the belief that to their right lies ignorance and bigotry.

But Dr. Hill's presence on Fox was not to discredit the left as a bunch of freaks, but rather what his presence did was to explain kindly, patiently and laughingly why we to HIS right are doomed. He is a living example of our educational proclivities. He exists, IMHO, at the center of the political spectrum of dem leadership today. His lamenting about Obama not standing by Van Jones is merely because he could do so without consequence. One look at the some of the others on that crew like Cass ("The Constitution Doesn't Mean What it Says") Sunnstein, and Mark ("The 1st Amendment is an exaggeration") Lloyd tells you so. It's just that not enough sunlight was brought to bear on them in enough time

That Rupert Murdoch himself fired Hill tells us something negative about Fox. There is simply no reason to think that by having Hill on Fox was in any way giving support to Hill's extravagant ideas, merely seeking to have on display a true progressive unafraid to air and defend his views. Even when they are really OBNOXIOUS. We have to defend the views and ability to speak of the most obnoxious to defend our own.

Believe it.

There is a reason why Fox is both the most trusted and most distrusted new channel, putting sunlight on Hill and his ideas detracts from the latter and emphasizes the former.

Firing him is a mistake.

Replacing him we will find the likes of someone (if anyone) whose unpleasantness exceeds their volume and dislike for anything to their right, like Bernadine Dorhn Ayers, for instance. THAT is where Hill was from. And he happily engaged EVERYONE to air and defend those positions.

The right needs to hear that kind of person, every bit as much as the left needs to hear Goldwater on the religiously affiliated right, or face the realization that to them Harry Truman and FDR are actually xenophobic war criminals

A world where profit has no value? A better world?

By epaminondas on February 8, 2009 6:35 AM | No TrackBacks

I have written more than several times about our congregation and how it is populated by some of the most wonderful people I have ever known.

They are also all WAY to the left. Many want the USA essentially to be a commune (unvoiced). Well if it could be done, that would be okay. I'd enjoy being in this kind of gung ho operation. Of course, not only can't it be done, it would result in hideous rule by fiat in the name of the good of the people by those who were 'fit' to understand what that was.

A good bye last night was punctuated by the question (serious) as to whether Bush was worse than Nixon.

But earlier a very serious (and friendly) discussion ensued engendered by the stimulus bill.I offered the opinion that all efforts should be about jobs since only the expansion of jobs would make people confident enough to spend money which IS what would end this. The STD moneys in the bill came up as a prime villain. The lady in the discussion is a MASTER, and I mean MASTER of social work, intervention and solving the acute problems of families in crisis. She offered the opinion that the STD moneys WOULD create many jobs just like hers.

Her husband is a teacher.

As an aside she told me about a study that showed when you or your family miss 9 meals, you are in the street ... amid mass social unrest. I think that if the THOUGHT the fam might miss 9 meals intruded into my mind, it would be tea in the harbor time. I don't think I'd wait.

I responded that in the end, if we did not make things here, for a profit, it was going to be very difficult to keep an expanding economy. More, the tangible result of an expanding jobs market could not be sustained by working to diminish STD's. She responded that she was sick of hearing that jobs like the ones she did were without value (jobs like hers would also include my wife and daughter, btw). Of course, jobs like hers are compulsory in a well functioning society, and keep the society PRODUCTIVE, COMPETITIVE and VIBRANT, but when the discourse veered into how sick they were of emphasis on profit, in terms of what was needed in society, and in how education was structured (for jobs), I began to listen carefully.

A different way of being !

Now I would like a society where education was all about the classics, and we sat around as Alexander did with Aristotle in open freewheeling discussion amid intellectually superior peers. It would then be nice to have all these well balanced baccalaureates choose among the vocations to get their MS's, MA's. PhD's and JD's and MD's post graduation.

That would be nice and maybe the demand for social interventions of a dramatic nature in family life would actually decrease in this kind of society.

As a guide, back after HAMAS was elected the husband and I had a very friendly difference of opinion as to how mallebale they would prove. You can all fill in the blanks well, I think.

But, of course, those pesky people in XXXXX (choose your nation where making money means direct and immediate improvement in your and your children's lives) would still be there willing to fill the same function for 10% of the value those MA's and MS's would accept. And work for even less on an assembly line making flat screens, cars, dryers or any of the other items we need and want.

LAW OF NATURE, not susceptible to opinion, only observation. Capital is a force of nature. Someplace, somebody is willing to do the job for less, becuase their own needs dictate that, and if they can do the job reasonably well, and market has this knowledge, you are SOL.

Yet they could not accept that profit made their jobs possible even though their jobs were MANDATORY in society. Could not accept that if education did not result in people READY to work in competent fashion, the ability to discuss Marlowe vs Shakepeare would have no REAL value. Could not accept that without profit, entreprenuers ready to take big chances for the money they could make, there would be a paucity of the means to employ THEM.

LAW OF NATURE, not susceptible to opinion, only observation.

There was no headway to be made.

These are great people and admirable people.

You can guess how they voted.

And why.

COMMENTS HERE

Either the government fears the people or the reverse

By epaminondas on February 3, 2009 9:48 AM | No TrackBacks

American Thinker:

Traditionally Americans have loved to hate their Congress. But in the last several years our country has changed. Most clear thinking Americans no longer hate our Congress -- we now fear it.

The reason for this fear is, and should be, deeply disturbing. Those who have carefully followed the bailout bills that Congress has recently passed know just how pervasive the corruption has become. But the whole story goes much deeper than mere trillions of dollars. America is losing (or has already lost) its constitutional republic.

Americans also traditionally love to hate the rich and powerful. Tales of the 19^th century "robber barons" have the cultural status of epic myths in American history. Even if they were greedy and unscrupulous, the Rockefellers, Mellons, and Carnagies helped create wealth in this country. The acquisitions of their personal fortunes may have been ruthlessly pursued; but their fortunes were not solely obtained by stealing money from their fellow citizens using the power of the central government.

COMMENT HERE

Quick review of Obama's first 10 days

By epaminondas on February 3, 2009 8:20 AM | No TrackBacks

Foreign policy..... Rice to UN (UGH), she announces we are going to open with Iran without conditions, Barack seconds with his opening call to the holocaust minimizing Abbas, and 1st interview with racist Al Arabiya, and then we have this and this.

Apparently, according to Bill Gertz, Obama had been talking with Al Qaida about a truce since the fall or late summer.

Today he confirms he is talking with Iran and Syria. And of course we NOW have the appointment of 'Hillary is a monster', our 'investment in the middle east should be with Palestinians, and we should be prepared to invade Israel to protect our investment' , 'complaints from the jews about Obama are always about Israel' Susan Powers to a senior foreign policy position, something cynically claimed all along would happen by Obama's opponents, and derided by his supporters.

There isn't one single thing he has done which will help america in the foreign domain. To prove this all we have to do is to look at the increased and accelerated verbiage from Iran. Apologize, withdraw, grovel. VDH has the cue.

Obama appears to have a fundamental weakness and others outside the nation SMELL IT

Domestic - well he has been properly focused. But despite my hope that I can find hope, I just cannot understand how the current bill is going to stimulate anything significantly.

I could see how a WPA type infrastructure plan would net a few more jobs in a very hard hit industry, but when Macy's is laying off 7,000 and Home Depot, blah blah blah, the main problem ..destroyed consumer confidence based on REAL not perceived events..is left hanging. To build that confidence every move has to be based on more jobs and keeping jobs..even to the extent of REWARDING BUSINESSES FOR DOING SO.

More broadband is nice, but how this helps is beyond me

Fighting STD's is nice, but how this helps is beyond me

Capping salaries is a BAD IDEA (Hello McCaskill?). Fire people whose greed exceeds our needs. Capped salaries will make mediocre chiefs dominant. I want to kill all these bastards who invented absurd financial instruments as if they were REAL products ending up with an entire nation whose wealth was based on rising real estate values, since that's what the banks and investment houses invented cash for, but driving talented people to those businesses which remain uncapped WON'T HELP US OUT OF THIS.
Reward businesses who can MAKE THING at a profit. Stimulate THEIR eforts to expand and hire. Do NOT reinforce failure.
Forget buy america first. It's just a more polite Smoot Hawley. I know it doesn't feel right, but that' the world. We already did that once in 1932 and it didn't work out so well. Already we see riots in Britain over foreign (cheaper) workers coming to England 'taking jobs away from Englishmen' ... no those jobs would just then be done more cheaply in a another nation. LAW OF NATURE. Capital is a force of nature.

I see Obama trying to do some right things domestically and he still has a way to go before real disappointment moves in. But the reality is that just as Bush faced a situation in Iraq which Eisenhower said in 1945 would take 50 years to judge in Germany and Japan, yet he had to deliver in a ridiculously short amount of time - now Obama faces the REAL need of preventing the suffering of the people from robbing him of his chance, so he MUST put aside the childish ideas which are nice, but will not serve the main need.

I figure around May - June, at the latest, real disgust will filter from the opposition to the people, if it is not obvious that plans in place will help.

I know it is now chic to claim private enterprise, entrepreneurship, and property have failed (which is completely false..greed has no ideology including greed for power, Pelosi, Frank, Reid and Soros), but what on earth makes ANYONE believe that EVEN IF that was true, government ownership, direction and central control will work?
Employment in the 1930' after a brief gain, fell during the thirties. The USSR and every other central control plan failed. The EU has squashed the idea of a small man with a big idea making it out from under a blanket of social controls to success. If we 'save' ourselves at the expense of that idea, Americans will recognize, it's much more rewarding to work with 60% of the effort to make make 90% of what might be possible, and private entrepreneurial endeavors, just won't be worth the effort. There will be no more, Jobs, Gate, Ellisons, or wildcatters.

And that, people, will be that.

COMMENTS HERE

Rush is Wrong

By epaminondas on January 28, 2009 7:26 AM | No TrackBacks

There is a major brouhaha over Rush Limbaugh, Obama taking him on, and the seeming vacuum in republican leadership.

Obama warned repubs off listening to Rush, Rush responded by explaining why he hopes Obama fails (he doesn't want socialism to be a successful answer), and then criticism and response over the lack of republican leadership in opposition.

As a small businessman, about 70% of whose business depends on capital leases I can tell you what the last 5-6 months have been like. A VACUUM. After Lehman Bros failure, it took three months for a client to get approved again.

It's said that small businessmen and women are the leaders in what makes America great. Entrepreneurs unafraid to take risks to make new capital and expand the pie. I'm not even getting that chance unless this gets fixed. News of more layoffs, watching deflationary pricing cycles on what I consider the KEY ITEM - flat screen tvs (we all want them and no one needs one), things like Pfizer buying Wyeth as they, Home Depot, and Starrbucks cut people, and CA seizing banks are not things getting fixed. They are crushing to the confidence of the american people if they continue unabated, and that confidence is the ticket out of this (unless we stumble into a REAL WAR....a la 1941)

I believe the vigilance of the american people will ensure that we do not become the EU, a moribund, drifting, hedonist looking society with a few busninessmen and serious people swamped with too much regulation, govt, and PC requirements to have optimism enough about their own future to have more kids than people dieing.

I believe we will REQUIRE a successful set of emergency measures to be temporary. In the coming years there WILL be large pressure to unburden govt ownership of items such as preferred bank stock. The govt has no business in business EXCEPT as the ultimate guarantor of the safety of the people..the job they were hired to do. We DO recognize the danger, and we ARE very watchful and concerned.

On the other hand the failure of what we are trying to fix will engender more and more extreme measures as the failures grow, and real panic ensues as the govt will become the only thing between a large % of people and homeless hunger. People will do a lot of things to avoid seeing their families in this condition.

So while I disagree with so much of what Obama is doing and will kick and scream over some of it, I hope that he is a very successful president, and I'll take my chances with a lot of people like me holding his feet to the fire.

COMMENTS HERE

The essential truth: It's not americans who cannot get credit, it's the government that has none..irrespective of party

By epaminondas on December 13, 2008 6:50 AM | No TrackBacks

The day I heard Barack Obama tell Joe that he was going to take any potential fruit of his effort of mind and body in order to spread it around, so that everyone had a chance, and weighed that with Joe Biden smilingly affirming that taxes are patriotism, I picked up a book I haven't read since 1968, and began slowly to reread it.

You see, those words sounded familiar. This book, written in the early to mid 1950's is a chillingly ACCURATE predictor of today in both the minute word for word speeches we hear, and the granular detail of our situation.

Today we have a chorus of calumny made for the "common man" and "labor" by a left so dedicated to the idea that dialectic is truth that even their most fearful vision of what a neocon is, would be put to shame. Of course I speak of what is being said about the senators who prevented the government from another disaster this week by recognizing that we cannot save the present strutcture of the american auto industry.

IT IS NOT IN OUR POWER TO DO SO.

The reason we cannot even rationally attempt this effort is the same reason that Bush's "immigration" bill which promised secure borders along with a paroled amnesty process and some semi permanent immigration for temporary labor failed in a deluge of calls, telegrams, letters, and emails... we no longer believe the government would carry out their burden and their promise to us, and enforce secure borders.

Today we this get from the left this....

Harry Reid worked very hard -- indeed, he might have been willing to compromise too much -- to pull this together, but he noted last night, "By rejecting every good-faith bipartisan compromise -- including those from the White House and Senator Bob Corker -- it is now abundantly clear that Republicans have no interest in keeping the Big Three from collapsing.... Republicans may think that rejecting this legislation sent a message to the auto industry. Instead, they sent a message to every single American that they are more interested in settling scores than solving problems."

You see, we are supposed to believe that the UAW promise to get their benefits in line with those of workers at Toyota et al by 2011, will occur and that if it does not, the US govt will either enforce that or cut the auto industry off then.

Unfortunately the public simply does not believe the govt. or the unions. Crisis of confidence, the problem at the center of the economy.

New Republic:

Craven Senators Kill the Auto Deal

OK, let me get this straight. Tennessee Republican Senator Bob Corker, backed up by Alabama Senator Richard Shelby and South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, made it a condition of the auto companies receiving help that the United Auto Workers agree to a reduction of wages and benefits to the level of those paid by the Japanese companies that have plants in those senators' states. Desperate for the deal, the UAW and the Democrats agreed to a phased-in reduction, but the Republicans insisted on an immediate cut. The deal broke down, and Republicans--aided by a few Red State Democrats (e.g. Baucus, Lincoln, Tester)--used a filibuster to kill the bill, which would have passed on a majority vote.

That is an utter distortion since Toyota actually pays in wages SLIGHTLY MORE than the $29.78 that the US automakers pay, but never mind. 56% of the labor cost at GM, etc are BENEFITS.Is anyone arguing that workers at Toyota have no health insurance, cannot go to the doctor, cannot have 401k's? 30% of their costs are benefits. Labor unions are demanding that this structure be maintained or THEY will disappear, not american manufacturing.

Of course, this is not just about automobile companies. If you look at the history of the Great Depression, what tipped that event from a global recession to depression was precisely a series of dumb, craven--or in Keynes' word, "feather-brained"--moves by politicians blinded by ideology or by narrow self-interest. An interest rate hike here, a balanced budget there, a spending reduction or two, and we went from ten to twenty percent unemployment. Don't imagine for a moment that the failure to bailout the auto companies isn't one of those feather-brained moves.

In that case the first wrong move was to allow labor unions to impose this structure on an entire industry, NOT RESISTING HAVING US ALL PAY BLACKMAIL TO UNION BOSSES.

Put it this way. What we have learned from the economics of the Great Depression is that in order to end the spiral of unemployment, government has to throw money at companies and consumers. It should be trying to raise wages, not lower them.

The first distortion again. Foreign employers PAY MORE DIRECTLY TO THE WORKERS. They do NOT pay unions off.

The Wall Street bailout was a fiasco, but it was probably better than nothing. And the auto bailout was considerably better thought-out. Now there is a good prospect that two of the Big Three will fail, jeopardizing, perhaps, as many as a million jobs. That's exactly the kind of thing that Americans should not be doing. But don't tell that to those great patriots Corker, DeMint, or Shelby. They know better.

From AP:

Hourly wages for UAW workers at GM factories are about equal to those paid by Toyota Motor Corp. (TM) at its older U.S. factories, according to the companies. GM says the average UAW laborer makes $29.78 per hour, while Toyota says it pays about $30 per hour. But the unionized factories have far higher benefit costs.

GM says its total hourly labor costs are now $69, including wages, pensions and health care for active workers, plus the pension and health care costs of more than 432,000 retirees and spouses. Toyota says its total costs are around $48. The Japanese automaker has far fewer retirees and its pension and health care benefits are not as rich as those paid to UAW workers.

Perhaps in order to justify these unions all americans should simply agree to pay a surcharge whenever a new american vehicle is purchased in order to pay for the retiree benefits (such as health insurance for those retired younger than Medicare age) of union members. Think we'd sell a SINGLE AMERICAN CAR if the surcharge amount were shown as a line item on every vehicle's window sticker?

The fault here lies with the industry.
Management
Labor Management
Workers who voted for labor management which would greedily equal the rapacious stupidity of corporate management paying themselves more than COULD EVER be borne by americans who would eventually pay for cars and trucks.
It is not in the power of those same americans to save that industry now.
To try to do so will only make it all worse.
CHAPTER 11.

Reading the Tea Leaves...Rahm Emanuel? Chicago Rules

By epaminondas on November 8, 2008 7:13 AM | No TrackBacks

During this campaign we saw Barack Obama throw people away as soon as it was advisable to do so.
Samantha Powers
Robert Malley
Jeremiah Wright
Standouts in the the parade of Barack Obama being prepared to do WHATEVER IT TAKES.

Similarly, to get back in power, as leader of the democratic party's movement to achieve that in congress after 2004 Rahm Emanuel picked people to run in many states who MIMICKED as much as possible the conservative values which brought the republican party to rule in 1980 and beyond.
He didn't care if they were conservative dems.

Now we have a ruthless winner, who picked a ruthless winner to head up the White House.
Winning is going to be all.

READ IT AND BELIEVE IT...I GOT YOUR RAHM RIGHT HERE

"They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That's* the *Chicago* way!"

Now, if they apply this in the field of foreign relations as well.....
DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY BUILT FOR A GENERATION

And one more thing to remember ... from a son of a bitch ..maybe the biggest American son of a bitch in the 20th century...

I'm not quite sure if I should feel relief that people are appointed who will take effective action, or to be enraged that they will do it for a man who might feel the Constitutional constraints prevent him doing what he feels needs to be done.....maybe like packing the Supreme COurt with 13 justices?

The Republicans had better use their brains

People celebrate us at the grave rather early, don't they

By epaminondas on October 25, 2008 8:07 AM | No TrackBacks

In 1861 the major British newspapers famously enjoined that some who lived to see the birth of the USA would also live to see it's death.

Yadda yadda redux, thru 1914, 1939, 1941, 1948, 1964, Red Dawn, and lately the true morons of the arab world who see in failures of SOME mortgage backed securities, God striking the golden calf.

Add China.

"The Chinese system is superlative beyond comparison."

INSIDE CHINA By Willy Lam*
East-Asia-Intel.com, October 24, 2008
Western readers untutored in the Byzantine, antiquarian ways of the Chinese Communist Party leadership may be surprised that the CCP's propaganda machinery recently began an ideological campaign based on an article by senior cadre Liu Yunshan, "The Chinese system is superlative beyond comparison."
Liu, Politburo member and head of the party's Propaganda Department, wrote that "Chinese-style socialism has a superiority that is beyond measure; the China Model has demonstrated strong vigor and liveliness."
The financial tsunami that has hit the U.S. and Europe has given the CCP leadership a God-sent opportunity to lambast the "wanton ways of capitalism" and to sing the praises of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" or variants such as the "China model" and "Beijing Consensus."

Liu Yunshan

Irrespective of the fact that at least half of senior Chinese officials have sent their children and grandchildren to U.S. or European universities -- not to mention moving their assets overseas -- the cadres can't resist going on a binge of U.S. bashing. Take the chief executive of the China Construction Bank, Guo Shuqing.
While Guo, a protégé of Premier Zhu Rongji, had used U.S.-trained consultants to restructure the staid state bank before listing it on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock markets last year, he was effusive about the "superiority" of the Chinese economic model.
"We must shatter our superstitious beliefs in the foreign banking and financial systems," Guo said last week. "Foreign banks should learn from Chinese banks."
Liberal scholars in Beijing see at least two dangers from this triumphalism and other forms of self-congratulatory excesses.
Firstly, if the China model is such a world-beater, there is no more need for economic, let alone political reform. Opening up the Chinese financial and capital markets, for example, would only make it easier for junk bonds and derivatives as well as other sugar-coated Western financial products to make their way into China. It is therefore not surprising that the recently held plenary session of the CCP Central Committee had very little to say about further economic liberalization.
It is significant that in his talk about U.S.-China relations on Oct. 21, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson expressed concern that "some in China look at the recent failures in our financial markets and conclude that they should slow down their reforms." Instead, Paulson urged his Chinese friends "to learn from our significant mistakes and move forward with reforms that have the potential to produce important gains for China and its people."
Equally significant are mainstream Beijing views about the worthlessness of so-called universal values such as democracy and human rights.
CCP conservatives have long argued that "universal values" are invented by Washington as a "trap" to lure China into becoming a capitalist country through a process called "peaceful evolution."
Now that U.S.-style capitalism has proven to be worth little more than collateralized debt obligations, these conservative cadres argue, Beijing should not waste any more time on Western-style "universal values."
This argument runs counter to the thinking of relatively progressive leaders, such as Premier Wen Jiabao, considered the most liberal member of the Politburo. In an international press conference early 2007, Wen surprised observers by noting that institutions such as democracy and liberty were "universal values that should not be the monopoly of capitalist countries."
The implication was that, at least according to Wen, China should also embrace these values. With the ongoing tilt toward conservatism, however, the thinking of Wen and other forward-looking cadres will be mothballed for the foreseeable future.
Willy Lam is a Hong Kong-based China scholar and journalist specializing in Communist Party politics and foreign policy.

It's still amazing that after 232 years they just don't get it. Some important people just can't comprehend what america is.
There is a reason why, with all the turmoil, the value of the dollar has skyrocketed. Somebody has figured it out.
Meanwhile politicians kid themselves with delusional fantasies.

Yesterday I read about Reprieve making accusations about the USA..well...let's see them ante up

By epaminondas on June 3, 2008 6:59 AM | No TrackBacks

The British organization REPRIEVE 'helps' against the citizens wishes, and in opposition to the various local states here, as expressed by their votes, where the perpetrator having been found guilty is facing the death penalty, and whose main effort is against a power who (properly) does NOTHING to or about them should be very interested in Dr. Foroud Fouladvand.

Urgent Attention
Another free thinker is to be executed in Iran in the coming days
It is with great regret that I inform all freedom loving people of the world that the Mullahs' terrorist regime is about to execute one of Iran's finest thinkers, a true patriot, scholar and historian.

Dr. Foroud Fouladvand is a dedicated monarchist, a Ferdousi expert as well as expert on the history of Iran and Islam.

A confirmed report sent to the office of Dr. Fouladvand in London from inside Iran suggests that Dr. Fouladvand and two of his compatriots are going to be executed on Saturday, May 31, 2008 or possibly even sooner.

The two men to be executed alongside Dr. Fouladvand are Mr. Nazem Schmidtt, an Iranian/American citizen, aka Simorgh, and Mr. Alexander Valizadeh, an Iranian/ German citizen, aka Koroush Lor.

Dr. Fouladvand, a British citizen, was known throughout the Iranian community for his open criticism of Islam and the Mullah's tyranny.

Dr. Fouladvand, who is an expert on Islam, openly challenged the Qur'an in his daily television broadcasts for listeners both inside and outside Iran. His Television discussions were offensive to the Mullahs. On March 10, 2006, in a preplanned action, about 65 of his supporters refused to leave a Lufthansa plane in protest of the European Union's policy of appeasement of the Mullahs' regime.

Dr. Fouladvand was led to believe by an agent of the Mullahs' regime posing as a monarchist activist from within Iran that there were many Iranian patriots inside Iran who believed in him, and that a meeting with them would be fruitful in organizing and uniting people inside Iran to oppose the Mullahs. On October 13, 2006, Dr. Fouladvand and a number of his friends, including the above-named men, left London for the Turkish/Iranian border. The last news of Dr. Fouladvand's whereabouts was on January
17, 2007, when he was expected to meet the supposedly Iranian activists in the Kurdish province of Hakkary in Iraq, which is close to the Iranian border.

In January 2007, the agents of the Mullahs' secret police arrested and smuggled these three men into Iran, where they were imprisoned and were subjected to torture.

Please contact anyone you can. Alert government officials, the press, the Amnesty International and the human rights organizations in your country of residence.

The ' A plague on them all' view of Iraq from an Iraqi and Cordesman

By epaminondas on April 1, 2008 9:52 AM | No TrackBacks

Healing Iraq:

"This is not a battle against the Jaish al-Mahdi nor is it a proxy war between the United States and Iran," military spokesman Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner said, using the Arabic term for the Mahdi Army. "It is the government of Iraq taking the necessary action to deal with criminals on the streets."
(Link.)

This would be amusing if it were not so tragic. The US military, knowingly or not, is fighting Iran's wars for them in Iraq, not against Iran. SIIC and Da'wa (Iran's strongest allies in Iraq) are determined to retain control of the Shi'ite south, and the crackdown against the Sadrists, which caused them to revolt, is a feeble attempt to prevent them from taking over in the upcoming provincial elections. And to describe this ongoing intra-Shi'ite conflict as "the government of Iraq against criminals" is ludicrous at best, as the so-called "government of Iraq" had no problem in the near past when those hordes of criminals were taking to the streets cleansing Baghdad and the south from Sunnis with the active participation of "Iraqi security forces." But as we say in Arabic: 'If you know then it is a calamity. If you don't know then it is a greater one.'
This does not mean that the central government should not reassert control of Basra. It is not peaceful, it is a significant prize as a port and the key to Iraq's oil exports, and gang rule is no substitute for legitimate government. But it is far from clear that what is happening is now directed at serving the nation's interest versus that of ISCI and Al Dawa in the power struggle to come. It is equally far from clear that the transfer of security responsibility to Iraqi forces in the south is not being used by Maliki, Al Dawa, and ISCI to cement control over the Shi'ite regions at Sadr's expense and at the expense of any potential local political leaders and movements. Certainly, the fact that these efforts come after ISCI's removal of its objections to the Provincial Powers Act may not be entirely coincidental.

Is the end result going to be good or bad? It is very difficult to tell. If the JAM and Sadr turn on the US, or if the current ISCI/Dawa power grab fails, then Shi'ite on Shi'ite violence could become far more severe. It is also far from clear that if the two religious-exile parties win, this is going to serve the cause of political accommodation or legitimate local and provincial government. It seems far more likely that even the best case outcome is going be one that favors Iraqracy over democracy.

Anthony Cordesman

Much of the current coverage of the fighting in the south assumes that Muqtada al-Sadr and the Sadr militia are the "spoilers," or bad guys, and that the government forces are the legitimate side and bringing order. This can be a dangerous oversimplification. There is no question that many elements of the JAM have been guilty of sectarian cleansing, and that the Sadr movement in general is hostile to the US and is seeking to enhance Muqtada al-Sadr's political power. There is also no doubt that the extreme rogue elements in the JAM have continued acts of violence in spite of the ceasefire, and that some have ties to Iran. No one should romanticize the Sadr movement, understate the risks it presents, or ignore the actions of the extreme elements of the JAM.
But no one should romanticize Maliki, Al Dawa, or the Hakim faction/ISCI. The current fighting is as much a power struggle for control of the south, and the Shi'ite parts of Baghdad and the rest of the country, as an effort to establish central government authority and legitimate rule.

The nature of this power struggle was all too clear during a recent visit to Iraq. ISCI had de facto control over the Shi'ite governorates in the south, and was steadily expanding its influence and sometimes control over the Iraqi police. It was clearly positioning itself for power struggle with Sadr and for any elections to come. It also was positioning itself to support Hakim's call for a nine governorate Shi'ite federation -- a call that it had clear Iranian support.

The US teams we talked to also made it clear that these appointments by the central government had no real popular base. If local and provincial elections were held with open lists, it was likely that ISCI and Dawa would lose most elections because they are seen as having failed to bring development and government services.

There was no real debate over how bad the overall governance of the south was at the provincial level, how poor the flow of capital was from the central government in Baghdad, and how poor government-related services were even in Shi'ite areas. As recent ABC polls show, incompetence and corruption are not sectarian. The south may be more secure, but Shi'ites only receive marginally better treatment from the central government than Sunnis.
Members of the US team differed over how much the Sadrists had a populist base and broad support among the poor Shi'ite Iraqis in the south, and how well the Sadrists could do in any provincial and local elections, although most felt Sadr still had a broad base of support in Baghdad. One of the key uncertainties that emerged during visits to the south was over how elections would shape up when there were no real political parties operating with local leaders, and in a framework of past national elections that only allowed Iraqis to vote for entire lists (most with many totally unfamiliar names) for the main parties and that made no allowance for the direct election of members of the COR that represented a given area or district. Optimists hope for a populist upswell; realists foresee an uncertain mess.

There were also differences over how much Sadr was waiting out the effort to defeat Al Qa'ida before allowing the JAM to become active again, and how much he was repositioning himself to strengthen his political and religious position for a more normal political life. In practice, he may be doing both, may be as confused by the uncertain nature of Iraqi politics and security as everyone else, and may be dealing with a movement so fractured and diverse that effective control of even its mainstream is difficult to impossible.

It was also clear that Basra was a special case. The British position had essentially eroded to the point of hiding in the airport. There was a fair amount of bluster about joint planning, training, and patrols, but little evidence of substance. Moreover, the power struggle in Basra differed sharply from the struggle in the other Shi'ite provinces. Basra was essentially divided up among Shi'ite party mafias, each of which had its own form of extortion and corruption. They sometimes fought and feuded, but had a crude modus vivendi at the expense of the rest of the nation. Basra also had far more Iranian penetration in both the civil and security sectors than the other Shi'ite governorates. However, it was clear that Iran and the Al Quds force continued to be equal opportunity supporters of all the Shi'ite militias, and that Iran effectively was ensuring that it would support the winner, regardless of who the winner was.

No Jeffersons in sight.
I wonder if we looked as screwed up from Europe in 1785?

And just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water....

By epaminondas on March 25, 2008 8:21 AM | No TrackBacks

In the words of the famous pundit Luna Schlosser , "Oy vay iz meer"

U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney, whose district includes much of Martin and St. Lucie counties, is hoping he won't have to attend the Democratic Party national convention in Denver in August.

If he does go, that will mean the Democrats still haven't decided a nominee for the presidential election. And if neither Sen. Hillary Clinton nor Sen. Barack Obama has clinched the nomination by August, Mahoney says we may see a brokered convention, meaning the nominee could emerge from a negotiated settlement.

"If it (the nomination process) goes into the convention, don't be surprised if someone different is at the top of the ticket," Mahoney said.

A compromise candidate could be someone such as former vice president Al Gore, Mahoney said last week during a meeting with this news organization's editorial board.

If either Clinton or Obama suggested to a deadlocked convention a ticket of Gore-Clinton or Gore-Obama, the Democratic Party would accept it, Mahoney said.

Oh, man.

Can't we do any better than this?

The "Progressive's" defense of Jeremiah Wright

By epaminondas on March 22, 2008 9:19 AM | No TrackBacks

I have seen some blogs on the left side of town defend Mr. Wright on the basis of other leaders whose critical approach to the USA one might argue is a path to the improvement of America.

Foremost among these has been Frederick Douglass.

The usual defense runs around this very famous speech. Worth reading. Very worth reading.

In it Douglass properly rants :

"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour."

The comparison is to Wright's preached comment

Government "wants us to sing 'God Bless America' " despite treating black people as second-class citizens. "No, no, no," Mr Wright said, "God damn America!"

That speech was in 1852, the same year Uncle Tom's Cabin was released, while american men and women were slaves.

Since that speech, the great sin was washed away, as John Brown put it minutes before he was hung, by the blood of 800,000 americans, most of whom died for the purpose of the slaves' freedom, like it or not.

Since that sin, good men and women like Goodman and Schwerner have died just to get equality at the voting booth FOR OTHERS of a different color.

Since that sin affirmative action has been so effective that successful products of it (such as Michelle Obama), feel their accomplishments TAINTED by it (as any professionally excellent person ought)

Jeremiah Wright, in his disgusting, and historically stupid words about the tiniest and most oppressed people in the HISTORY of the planet makes plain his vast difference from a truly great human and leader like Douglass.

Jeremiah Wright, in his historically and factually IGNORANT words about Hiroshima and Nagasaki makes plain his distaste for the sacrifice of those American families of the QUARTER MILLION KILLED IN THE SERVICE at that time.

Jeremiah Wright displays for all his hatred, not for the sins of the few ..but the other groups he has contempt for.

It is this which makes Obama's personal defense of him, a critical reminder of his GALACTICALLY INCREDIBLE LACK of judgment.

And it is this which makes any comparison between the great Douglass and needlessly hateful and frankly racist Wright a farce.

Fredrick Douglass today might well find himself beside men like Bill Cosby.

I find it very hard to envision him next to those who purvey hate of other races, and religions as a means to ANY END worthy of reaching.

Whatever spiritual gain Sen Obama benefited from at the Trinity United Church, both he and now this nation have lost far more

Speaking of the most liberal senator in the USA ...

By epaminondas on February 15, 2008 7:24 AM | No TrackBacks

As we all probably know Obama has been rated as the most liberal in the Senate. However, we have in the Senate one who really should be more 'liberal' in terms of what the left considers 'social programs', 'social justice', and government right to tel you and I what is right (e.g. compulsory).

Bernie Sanders, the self avowed socialist ex-mayor of Burlington, Vermont, elected as an independent 'progressive', too left to be a democrat?

What does it mean that Obama is to his left?

MANAGUA, Nicaragua: President Daniel Ortega, who led the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua, says Barack Obama's presidential bid is a "revolutionary" phenomenon in the United States.

"It's not to say that there is already a revolution under way in the U.S. ... but yes, they are laying the foundations for a revolutionary change," the Sandinista leader said Wednesday night as he accepted an honorary doctorate from an engineering university.

Ortega led a Soviet-backed government that battled U.S.-supported Contra rebels before he lost power in a 1990 election. He returned to office last year via the ballot box.

In statements broadcast on Sandinista Radio La Primerisima, Ortega said he has "faith in God and in the North American people, and above all in the youth, that the moment of great change in the U.S. will come and it will act differently, with justice and equality toward all nations."

A slip of the tongue ..? I HATE this entire argument. Vlams, BNP, Charles, Atlas et al...

By epaminondas on November 12, 2007 3:27 PM | No TrackBacks

I admire the main cause of Paul Belien (yes, Virginia this all ends with a but). I admire his fortitude thru what the idiotic Belgian govt has put him thru. He seems to be fighting the good fight for the right things.

So what is this about?

But now there are those firing bolts back and forth across the Atlantic, including him in this goop melange of truth and fiction, of fascist heritage and racial discrimination, of deniers, and genocide, of defense of liberal western values, of wedges between america and her allies, and of nationalism, and racism, of borders and security and WHAT?

This surprise, but not, issue has raised it's very ugly head when Vlams Belang which seemed to me to be defending western values (whatever that means IS the issue, BTW) was rapped by a racist, neo nazi claim.

There is no doubt that their heritage looks to be that, and what they are now, in terms of individuals is at best a very serious question. Serious enough that they should, selflessly, if they are innocent and truly concerned, like Thomas Eagleton, step out of the way. BNP is another story and is past contamination as is truly on the other side. I will never pal up with them under any circumstances. What they are defending is not anything I value, not even peripherally.

In Europe we have "nationalists" who are essentially defending ethnic purity, and NOT values. We also have nationalists defending liberal western values, like the Bill of Rights.

Here we have men like Tom Tancredo, valuable honest, and defending SECURE BORDERS, tainted by things like this. Now I just don't buy that Tancredo is for a secure border because he thinks Mexicans not white enough to get across the border. IS THAT the confusion over Vlams Belang? Well we don't have pix of Tancredo with white power symbols in his home, 'paling up' with the CCC repeatedly, and other indicators, such as those we saw with the senator from Mississippi, Mr.Lott that differentiated him from us when the stupid Strom Thurmond birthday party burst over us.

Then comes Mr. Belien today with a somewhat ignorant of american minutiae (that's okay, believe me I'm sure I can't place Belgium politicians in the full spectrum of left to right either) defending himself somewhat and others a bit more forcefully in the racist claim counterclaim, and suddenly comes a money line of a Freudian moment (???) ....

The diminishing future of ethnic Euros everywhere is at stake,.....

Sorry, Paul, but I DON'T GIVE SHIT ABOUT ETHNIC EURO'S.
I never did. I never will.
I care about the folks who want the PEOPLE to be sovereign, not some book. I don;t care if those people who defend my individual right to bear arms, and tell everyone to go to hell, are WHAT SOME WOULD CALL MUSLIMS, or SHINTO, or ZULU.If other ethnicities will benefit america (and THEY FREAKING DO)..I am all for it, as long as they BUY INTO THE PROGRAM. Written in 1789 and amended at our pleasure.

Shockingly, I would have to say that line says for you, defending the position of ETHNIC EURO'S is a western value. I'm not going to defend Theo Van Gogh because he is a European ethnic, and he was defending his ethnicity by whacking Islam's intolerance.

Maybe defending the position of ETHNIC EURO'S in a growing deluge of other cultured and colored muslims is a western value, but it is NOT an american one, unless of course you are a member of the CCC

Do I have this all wrong? This is highly disappointing from Mr Belien.

This argument is sapping. These other forces such as Vlams Belang, BNP should SLINK away, reorganize, make penance without question, hesitation or equivocation, and quietly get out from under the weight of the past, if it is possible. They can contribute in their present form, and heritage ONLY NEGATIVE ENERGY

Judge Andrew Napolitano, who I usually agree with, blows it out his tuchus. Torture, the USA, Lincoln, and free men in warfare.

By epaminondas on September 28, 2007 11:32 AM | No TrackBacks

We begin this trail of American policy, and morality with Hillary and Bill Clinton on the subject of torture, and Brian and the Judge, one of the best, AND most entertaining shows on the radio (XM-168 9-12 AM East Coast).

Hillary notably expressed herself against any American POLICY of torture in special cases. I agree. The example given on the radio was, we capture Al Qaeda #3 who knows where a bomb in NYC is about to go off, therefore we need an American policy to set free the interrogators in such limited circumstances to do what they have to do.

The net of that would be that America would thus have a policy to administer torture.

Wrong.

The men on the spot would simply have to DO WHAT THEY DEEM APPROPRIATE, and face the music as Americans. If that means 12 men and women, it's called jury nullification. If not, it's called a pardon. Everyone assumes their responsibility, including a judge who suspends sentence if needs be. The men on the spot, the DA, the jury, the judge and the governor, and/or president. But the USA should NEVER have a policy to ADMINISTER torture. It is to Israel's denigration that they had one (which didn't work so well, as I understand it). Mr. Dershowitz and I part on this as well.

On most views of this type my own feelings parallel the Judge and THIS GUY

The Judge then took his proper view on this and jumped off the historical bridge by saying that killing such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki was immoral (and thus, how could Sherman escape from this?). The intentional killing of civilians (an assumption that this was the POINT of the bombing on the Judge's part) is immoral and illegal (i.e., therefore a war crime)

Sorry Judge, but HISTORY clearly says that Japan (revisionists aside) was NOT about to give in, and in fact on the day the Emperor was about to surrender, he was almost kidnapped and or killed by the Japanese Imperial Army.

Admiral Ugaki took off AFTER Nagasaki with intent to lead Kamikazes ANYWAY. Japanese radios stations resisted occupation forces after surrender. The Japanese Army had handed out 3 million bamboo spears to the civilians, as clear a message as their is about what they expected the Japanese people to do ..their duty to die rather than do the unforgivable.

American casualty estimates were about 250,000 killed and up to a million total casualties. As it was, there were 290,000 American servicemen KIA in the ENTIRE WORLD WAR. American estimates of japanese casualties were an unbelievable 3-4 million -KILLED.

Adm Leahy who was against the use of nukes went so far as to say when considering the invasion of Japan, and US demands...

"None of the points were draconian, at least compared to those imposed on Germany. Japan was to be "stripped of all" its overseas conquests, presumably to quarantine a nation that Roosevelt believed was genetically disposed towards acts of lawless violence. The president's policy of isolating Japan from the rest of Asia may have smacked of political eugenics, but nothing was said about occupation, demilitarization, war trials, or the emperor of Japan. Nor was there any hint of the worst fear of one JCS intelligence officer: a bloody invasion of the home island that would destroy the imperial Japanese government before it could negotiate a peace"

As for Truman, as ALL of the men there at the time point out, the Japanese rebuffed the American demand for surrender at Potsdam, after Germany was destroyed and had surrendered, even though by that time even the now horrific multi-division killing effort on Okinawa was wrapping up, and it was THIS example .. with the 1st and 6th Marine Divisions at about 50% casualties ..which they faced against this power which, anyone could see was not going to win, but never the less, would NOT relent.

So Truman faced - what, and endless blockade at the end of a war during which Japan had demonstrated GASHIN SHOTAN, the willingness to 'lick liver and drink bile' rather than give in, or an invasion with millions dead, or use of nuclear weapons, with prospectively no or few American casualties and an end to the war.

Sorry Judge, but we weren't fighting for moral correctness, as the men on Peleliu could have told you any day.

And now let's turn to the idea of killing civilians, the heart of your argument, and the idea that a just war can also be, among free men, against anyone else, CIVILIZED, and one Billy T Sherman.

Continue reading Judge Andrew Napolitano, who I usually agree with, blows it out his tuchus. Torture, the USA, Lincoln, and free men in warfare..

Iran and the reasoning of the western internal opposition

By bigadmin on September 9, 2007 8:26 AM | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks

In the ASIA TIMES this week we find this.....

Iran spinning centrifuges - and half-truths
By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - Iran's unexpected agreement with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, to resolve old issues surrounding its nuclear program in less than two months, and the fact that it has installed only two-thirds of the centrifuges previously announced, indicate that Tehran may be positioning itself for another bid for a diplomatic solution.

The IAEA report circulated to board members last week, which is still unpublished but has been leaked to the press, says only- 2,000 centrifuges have been activated. In mid-2006 and again in January, Iranian officials had said they planned to have a 3,000-centrifuge cascade spinning by some time last spring.....ElBaradei admitted that both technical difficulties and political considerations could have been factors in the shortfall. But he said, "My gut feeling tells me that Iran has responded positively to my repeated demands that it scale back the program."
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad announced this week that Iran had actually achieved the goal of 3,000 operational centrifuges. That was obviously aimed at appealing to his own domestic base of people who regard the uranium-enrichment program as a matter of national pride.

But as Peter Beaumont, foreign-affairs editor of The Observer in London, reported in January, Western diplomats and technical experts have long been "extremely doubtful that Iran has yet mastered the skills to install and run" such a large cascade of centrifuges. Iranian willingness to reach formal agreement in three separate meetings with ElBaradei in July and August to resolve all remaining issues on its past nuclear research by November was clearly aimed at moving the Iran nuclear dossier from the United Nations Security Council back to the IAEA and averting a military confrontation with the US

So, Iran has 2000 not 3000 (Is that true? If so, strike up the band?), and they want a deal (don't make it 'happy days are here again').

Let's take a close look at the way this is all set up as being a set of facts.

WHO IS GARETH PORTER, AND IS HE WRITING FACT OR DOES HE HAVE A POLITICAL PROJECT?

Continue reading Iran and the reasoning of the western internal opposition.

It's Chinatown

By bigadmin on May 28, 2007 9:05 AM | 2 Comments | No TrackBacks

'She's my sister' SLAP 'she's my daughter' SLAP 'She's my sister' SLAP 'she's my daughter' SLAP 'She's my sister' SLAP 'she's my daughter' SLAP
We all remember it.

That's Iraq and the war against KKK of Islamist facism.

When one reads this kind of stuf (Okay it's NYT, but Kamber is not that bad):

BAGHDAD — Staff Sgt. David Safstrom does not regret his previous tours in Iraq, not even a difficult second stint when two comrades were killed while trying to capture insurgents.
“In Mosul, in 2003, it felt like we were making the city a better place,” he said. “There was no sectarian violence, Saddam was gone, we were tracking down the bad guys. It felt awesome.”
But now on his third deployment in Iraq, he is no longer a believer in the mission. The pivotal moment came, he says, this February when soldiers killed a man setting a roadside bomb. When they searched the bomber’s body, they found identification showing him to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army.
“I thought: ‘What are we doing here? Why are we still here?’ ” said Sergeant Safstrom, a member of Delta Company of the First Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. “We’re helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us.”
His views are echoed by most of his fellow soldiers in Delta Company, renowned for its aggressiveness.

But then, of course we have Al Qaeda kidnapping our men, which is only the latest chapter in the war which was begun by them by the ruling to kill crusaders and jews (and long before that, really) and plunder their goods wherever they are. The war without end (until we decide to END it, permanently).

If we do nothing (1979-2001) they are emboldened. If we do something (2001 to now) they are enraged.

If we act in what we consider to be moral fashion after conquest, to bring democracy to a land which has known NOTHING but autocracy and brutality since Ur and Sargon, we get religious civil war impressed onto the amoral wanton Al Qaeda killers of Islam. If we act in John Foster Dulles, Pat Buchanan cynical paleo-national security means, and do little except manipulate we get brutal other nazis by function whose desire is no different TOWARDS US than the KKK of Islam.

Can't the answer be anything else than performance of a Temujin like example?

Early in 1221 he crossed the Oxus to destroy the ancient city of Balkh, then part of the Persian province of Khurasan, and dispatched his youngest son, Tolui (Tulë), the father of the Great Khans Mangu (Möngkë) and Kublai, to complete the subjugation of that province, which he subjected to such devastation that it has not fully recovered to this day.

Continue reading It's Chinatown.

A must read on american decline from the National Journal

By bigadmin on May 20, 2007 6:45 PM | No TrackBacks

Yes, it's another in the series. This one is more reasonable seeming, but misses WIDE at the conclusions

The Decline Begins
By James Kitfield, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Is the American era over?

There was a time, maybe 1972-77 or so, when I might have been swept away by the emotional drama, that 'yes, after 200 years we are due to decline'. But these post Vonnegutian weighted sand bag balet dancers of history have been at it unbelievably since before the civil war, when British papers were crowing that some of those who lived to see the Declaration of Independence would also see the american demise.

For a generation raised to wave the banner of triumphant Western democracies, and nursed on the mother's milk of American exceptionalism, the very idea seems an affront. Predominance is regarded as an American birthright. Less than a decade ago, the United States was held out as the rarest of historical anomalies, a lone superpower leading the world. Today, such talk of boundless promise already seems part of a receding past.

Really? To who? Tony Judt and Eric Foner? Jimmah and Jared Diamond? And who cared about being lone superpower as an end?

But wait a minute, let's see who and what the National Journal is, and then look at the piece .

National Journal is a weekly magazine about American politics and government, published by National Journal Group, Inc. Founded in 1969, it is widely read in Washington, D.C.. The National Journal is part of the Atlantic Media Company. Its chairman is David Bradley.
Its high subscription price (US$1,885 per annum) in part reflects its wealthy and powerful clientele, and also that most of its subscribers are institutions (such as government agencies, political bodies, lobbying firms, trade association, and other interest groups), rather than individuals.
It also produces a website titled NationalJournal.com, which includes in its stable of publications The Hotline and Cook Political Report.
Some of its best-known contributors are:
Carl Cannon
Richard Cohen
Charlie Cook
Clive Crook
Jonathan Rauch
Stuart Taylor Jr.
Murray Waas
On August 21, 2006, the National Journal announced a partnership with MSNBC to be a primary content provider for a new Politics section of MSNBC.com.

If you know some of those names, then you have the pic. But if not, then there is THIS, as well. Now none of this means they are like Rense, or Counterpunch, but more like a slightly more leftwards New Republic intended for up and coming Rahm Emanuel wannabees, who need to impress the moveon-like impresarios of cash (i.e. Sorosian dispensers) with the knowledge and attitudes imparted. Nor should one assume they are factless, or without the ability to make a point. All of which makes this article interesting. FULLY.

Continue reading A must read on american decline from the National Journal.

That warming thing

By bigadmin on April 7, 2007 7:07 AM | No TrackBacks

I have not yet seen persuasive evidence that humans are responsible for all global warming.

I have not yet been convinced that the warming demonstrated is NOT within normal parameters of history.

I have not yet seen ANY computer model able to predict even five years into the future, demonstrating in one swell foop that we do not have a fine understanding of how it all works, and, that we cannot figure out yet the measurements which wil contribute to that, and that making gross decisions based on incomplete understanding may lead us to do the wrong things.

Paul Erlich.

That said, two things are true.

There is every practical reason to conduct ourselves so as to avoid warming the globe. Political, economic, and military.
We are not going to avoid global warming by the route of freezing in the dark while driving to work on bicycles.

That's it. There is nothing more for me to say or express.

Peter Beinart, a self described Humphrey Lib, recants his Iraq position, and gets it all wrong, while getting it right

By bigadmin on February 24, 2007 5:40 PM | No TrackBacks

This is well worth the few minutes of a read (in case it is subscription only I will include it entire in the extended portion)

Basically Mr. Beinert, the leaving TRB of the New Republic answers his wife's question of why did he support 'this war' in the first place, by reference to a South African of his parents generation. This man, who impressed the young Beinart by commenting when asked how america could help beyond divestment and sanctions, was answered in effect that america could set the place free if we were but a different ('kind of') country. Of course we must hearken back to the days of yore when america's foreign policy was darkly along the lines of the United Fruit Company and its bankers at its worst, and along the lines of John Foster Dulles, and strict national security interests in the center of the bell curve. Frankly this line of thinking persisted right up until the moment we abandoned the Shia in southern Iraq, in 1991 (thanks Howie), and it's vestigial remains and resurgence can be seen in the ISG report.

The south african was looking for an america that acted against oppression, repression and racism to free peoples. This, by the way is a complaint, that pre Iraq, all my arab acquaintances voiced to me as evidence of american hyprocrisy.

Of course, Mr. Bush did not name freeing the Iraqis as the casus belli, but never the less, a major benefit was the freeing of the peoples of the land between the rivers, and, a primary result was hoped to be the establishment of democracy, as an antidote to the spread of jihadi freakdom, and the answer, therefore to avoiding a war of cataclysmic nature IN THE END. Now the last part of that is stated in no government papers. I can't think of any other conclusion set they could have been thinking of, however.

So why did Mr. Beinart change his mind?

In short, we are not good enough a nation (maybe no one ever will be) to act in the nature of doing good, and for that very reason. This is a prescription for evil to hold the initiative 100% of the time. Things went wrong, because we are found wanting in rightness?

If we must be nearly perfect to tackle evil as humans, then evil wins. Evil always acts. Evil has an untrammeled conscience. By comparison, George Bush is Hamlet. Clinton is lost in the mire of ADHD.

The perfect is not the enemy of the good.

It appears liberals like Mr. Beinart are Kerensky to Murtha, Pelosi, and Huffington's Lenin. They are blasted away into a bleak distance like a house of cards in the first breezes of the hurricane.

Let us be frank.

There is no more correct application of the words LIBERAL FOREIGN POLICY than the direct overthrow of Stalin light, with the purpose among others of creating freedom (which is why Buchanan becomes apoplectic)

Continue reading Peter Beinart, a self described Humphrey Lib, recants his Iraq position, and gets it all wrong, while getting it right.

A very informative look thru our own looking glass...OR.. bias can't be helped, but is fine when we know it's there

By bigadmin on February 21, 2007 6:17 PM | No TrackBacks

Some of you may know Mother Jones Magazine, a sometimes left of The Nation encomium of real hippiedom (i.e. Woodstock...yes I WAS really there), and Gaiaesque endeavors matured across the years.

I regret not reading it as much as I used to, they manage to make their points without the bitter, and effete stupidities which abound (IMHO) in The Nation, which gave birth to Counterpunch the way Lenin gave birth to Trotsky.

In the latest issue is a truly INTERESTING view of the war on terror and the campaign in Iraq. The article is an attempt at a scientific, or at least a methodologial approach by what we can assume to be those in academic and hopefully thoughful opposition to Mr. Bush's ideas on the gestalt we all face.

They have concluded that the venture in Iraq has increased jihadi attacks anywhere you care to look by any measure, and lessened our national security.

I have taken the trouble to take the entire 11 page (8.5 x 11) article, assemble and print to pdf. I sincerely hope the authors don't mind, but the links at Mother Jones simply didn't work, and I was forced to guess the url's just to make the article one piece and follow it to conclusion, sources remain missing.

The authors, Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank Research fellows at the Center
on Law and Security at the NYU School of Law, have thus deemed that our campaign in Iraq has increased the dangers in the world.

Every once in a while basic questions should be asked and delved into, so long as we don't become Hamlet.

The question asked and the one they attempt to answer is important.

Continue reading A very informative look thru our own looking glass...OR.. bias can't be helped, but is fine when we know it's there.

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