Loathed by most of the punditocracy (the folks at Samizdata twitch at the sound of his name), Iain Duncan Smith is, perhaps, the last decent, honorable man left in British politics.
The blame game is already under way. Five masters of the universe have already fallen on their swords as part of the price of the taxpayers' unprecedented bail-out of our stricken banks. But the enforced departures of those who ran HBOS and RBS are only the start of the story.
As an angry, bewildered public search out the culprits, no one would be too surprised if Threadneedle Street comes to resemble some latter-day Appian Way, lined with crucifixions of the bankers, brokers and traders who brought our economy to its knees.
But perhaps we all bear some share of the blame. The banks and finance houses bombarded us with credit cards, personal loans, mortgages and remortgages up to ludicrous multiples of annual income, and elastic overdrafts. No one made us take the money. Many of us were happy to rack up debts comforted by the thought that ever-rising house prices would float us off the rocks of personal bankruptcy.
One million home owners resorted to the insane expedient of withdrawing cash on their credit cards to pay their mortgages. You cannot legislate against greed. But ignorance also lies behind our national financial disaster.
Almost four million people take time off work because of money worries, while 11 million admit to relationship problems for the same reason. Much of the extraordinary levels of personal debt is unsecured and a result of doorstep-lending to poor people on housing estates. Debt is one of the biggest causes of family breakdown and, with recession upon us, more children will undergo the trauma of seeing their parents part, thereby damaging their chances.
Levels of financial literacy are declining among adults, according to research from Abbey Banking. More adults are failing a simple GCSE-level exam in personal finance. The Financial Services Authority found that one student in three is constantly overdrawn.
The lesson is clear: in a world dominated by complex financial instruments, young people need to know the difference between a secured and an unsecured loan, an overdraft and a personal loan, a junk bond and junk, as much as they need to know about getting and holding down a job.
Personal finance should be part of the school curriculum. The Government agrees but does not want to make it compulsory. Today, Care for the Family, which already helps families look after their children, will launch Quidz In to promote financial literacy among the young.
Our children are growing up in a different world from the sweets, singles and cheap fashions of the 1960s and 1970s. They spend more time watching television and playing with computers and are more vulnerable to the pressures to spend money they do not have.
A simple phrase for this is pester power: companies want children to recognise logos and brands by the ages of two or three, so making it harder for their parents to keep saying "No". It may be a long way from designer brands in the nursery to obscene bonuses in the City boardroom. But somewhere along the line, we have to break the chain.
Iain Duncan Smith is chairman of the Centre for Social Justice And the former leader of the Conservative Party before being ousted by the soon-forgotten Michael Howard.
IF Sen. Barack Obama is elected president, our re public will survive, but our international strategy and some of our allies may not. His first year in office would conjure globe-spanning challenges as our enemies piled on to exploit his weakness.
Add in Sen. Joe Biden - with his track record of calling every major foreign-policy crisis wrong for 35 years - as vice president and de facto secretary of State, and we'd face a formula for strategic disaster.
Where would the avalanche of confrontations come from?
* Al Qaeda. Pandering to his extreme base, Obama has projected an image of being soft on terror. Toss in his promise to abandon Iraq, and you can be sure that al Qaeda will pull out all the stops to kill as many Americans as possible - in Iraq, Afghanistan and, if they can, here at home - hoping that America will throw away the victories our troops bought with their blood.
* Pakistan. As this nuclear-armed country of 170 million anti-American Muslims grows more fragile by the day, the save-the-Taliban elements in the Pakistani intelligence services and body politic will avoid taking serious action against "their" terrorists (while theatrically annoying Taliban elements they can't control). The Pakistanis think Obama would lose Afghanistan - and they believe they can reap the subsequent whirlwind.
* Iran. Got nukes? If the Iranians are as far along with their nuclear program as some reports insist, expect a mushroom cloud above an Iranian test range next year. Even without nukes, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would try the new administration's temper in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf.
* Israel. In the Middle East, Obama's election would be read as the end of staunch US support for Israel. Backed by Syria and Iran, Hezbollah would provoke another, far-bloodier war with Israel. Lebanon would disintegrate.
* Saudi Arabia. Post-9/11 attention to poisonous Saudi proselytizing forced the kingdom to be more discreet in fomenting terrorism and religious hatred abroad. Convinced that Obama will be more "tolerant" toward militant Islam, the Saudis would redouble their funding of bigotry and butchery-for-Allah - in the US, too.
* Russia. Got Ukraine? Not for long, slabiye Amerikantsi. Russia's new czar, Vladimir Putin, intends to gobble Ukraine next year, assured that NATO will be divided and the US can be derided. Aided by the treasonous Kiev politico Yulia Timoshenko - a patriot when it suited her ambition, but now a Russian collaborator - the Kremlin is set to reclaim the most important state it still regards as its property. Overall, 2009 may see the starkest repression of freedom since Stalin seized Eastern Europe.
* Georgia. Our Georgian allies should dust off their Russian dictionaries.
* Venezuela. Hugo Chavez will intensify the rape of his country's hemorrhaging democracy and, despite any drop in oil revenue, he'll do all he can to export his megalomaniacal version of gun-barrel socialism. He'll seek a hug-for-the-cameras meet with President Obama as early as possible.
* Bolivia. Chavez client President Evo Morales could order his military to seize control of his country's dissident eastern provinces, whose citizens resist his repression, extortion and semi-literate Leninism. President Obama would do nothing as yet another democracy toppled and bled.
* North Korea. North Korea will expect a much more generous deal from the West for annulling its pursuit of nuclear weapons. And it will regard an Obama administration as a green light to cheat.
* NATO. The brave young democracies of Central and Eastern Europe will be gravely discouraged, while the appeasers in Western Europe will again have the upper hand. Putin will be allowed to do what he wants.
* The Kurds. An Obama administration will abandon our only true allies between Tel Aviv and Tokyo.
* Democracy activists. Around the world, regressive regimes will intensify their suppression - and outright murder - of dissidents who risk their lives for freedom and justice. An Obama administration will say all the right things, but do nothing.
* Women's rights. If you can't vote in US elections, sister, you're screwed. Being stoned to death or buried alive is just a cultural thing.
* Journalists. American journalists who've done everything they can to elect Barack Obama can watch as regimes around the world imprison, torture and murder their foreign colleagues, confident that the US has entered an era of impotence. The crocodile tears in newsrooms will provide drought relief to the entire southeastern US.
Sen. John McCain's campaign has allowed a great man to be maligned as a mere successor to George W. Bush. The truth is that an Obama administration would be a second Carter presidency - only far worse.
#2
That's because most Mexicans will be in the US in the very near future.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
10/20/2008 15:42 Comments ||
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#3
I think Peters and Al between them have most of the list. To which I'd add:
* Climate change. Expect Obama to follow the lead of the UN and the Europeans to impose a carbon tax, proceeds to be given in part to international organizations to hire more apparatchiks.
* Law of the Sea. Signed, sealed, delivered to the Senate for ratification.
* International Criminal Court. Ditto.
* HIV assistance in Africa. To be reworked away from what has been successful in favor of a UN dominated (and therefore ineffective) approach.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/20/2008 17:00 Comments ||
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#4
I've posted Derb's view on what Tranzi dominance will do to evolutionary research.
#5
Steve, I think you are wrong about HIV in Africa. I think the world will suddenly notice Obama's extensive efforts there and give him credit for everything positive that was done (but ignored) under Bush.
#6
I agree RJ. The only thing "W" will be credited with under a Obama/Dem administration will be "war crimes." I also think we'll see Obama sending thousands of troops and or Obama Corps volunteers to Africa to ..... fix things.
#7
Quite a list. Now add a couple Supreme Court judges and the lack of presidential veto over Congressional looniness; then try and tell me sitting this election out is a genius strategy.
#9
Well, Obama is so absurdly pro-abortion, that in his philosophy it's okay to kill off the American population, and "his own" black race in disproportionate numbers, to boot. After that, everything else is small potatoes. Obama's relativistic world view and his own psychology (you gotta read this) will propel him into greater and greater grabs for power and recognition.
ABC News' Matthew Jaffe Reports: Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., on Sunday guaranteed that if elected, Sen. Barack Obama., D-Ill., will be tested by an international crisis within his first six months in power and he will need supporters to stand by him as he makes tough, and possibly unpopular, decisions.
"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."
"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."
Not only will the next administration have to deal with foreign affairs issues, Biden warned, but also with the current economic crisis.
"Gird your loins," Biden told the crowd. "We're gonna win with your help, God willing, we're gonna win, but this is not gonna be an easy ride. This president, the next president, is gonna be left with the most significant task. It's like cleaning the Augean stables, man. This is more than just, this is more than think about it, literally, think about it this is more than just a capital crisis, this is more than just markets. This is a systemic problem we have with this economy."
The Delaware lawmaker managed to rake in an estimated $1 million total from his two money hauls at the downtown Sheraton, the same hotel where four years ago Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., clinched the Democratic nomination. Despite warning about the difficulties the next administration will face, Biden said the Democratic ticket is equipped to meet the challenges head on.
"I've forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know, so I'm not being falsely humble with you. I think I can be value added, but this guy has it," the Senate Foreign Relations chairman said of Obama. "This guy has it. But he's gonna need your help. Because I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, 'Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?' We're gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I'm asking you now, I'm asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you're going to have to reinforce us."
"There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, 'Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don't know about that decision'," Biden continued. "Because if you think the decision is sound when they're made, which I believe you will when they're made, they're not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they're popular, they're probably not sound."
Biden emphasized that the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border is of particular concern, with Osama bin Laden "alive and well" and Pakistan "bristling with nuclear weapons."
"You literally can see what these kids are up against, our kids in that region," Biden said in recalling when his helicopter was forced down due to a snowstorm there. "The place is crawling with al Qaeda. And it's real."
"We do not have the military capacity, nor have we ever, quite frankly, in the last 20 years, to dictate outcomes," he cautioned. "It's so much more important than that. It's so much more complicated than that. And Barack gets it."
After speaking for just over a quarter of an hour, Biden noticed the media presence in the back of the small ballroom.
"I probably shouldn't have said all this because it dawned on me that the press is here," he joked.
"All kidding aside, these guys have left us in a God-awful place," he then said of the Bush regime, promptly wrapping up his remarks. "We have the ability to straighten it out. It's gonna take a little bit of time, so I ask you to stay with us. Stay with us."
No crisis under McCain....? What is it Joe, Russia tanks take the breakaways? Norks invade SKOR? Israel destroyed? China invades India? All privately owned firearms recalled for safety inspections? One world currency? What have you been briefed Joe?
#1
The icky part is imagining what passes through the mind of his puzzled Democrat crowd, because they are unfamiliar with the expression "gird your loins."
#2
obama is the son of a God? Kim Jong hates competition.
"I've forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know.."
Ummm, I thought biden was the one to advise obama - not exactly encouraging. Perhaps McCain will avoid these potential problems in his administration like Besoeker said.
#3
Paraphrasing here, but following 9/11, General Tommy Franks remarked that situations like this could bring "Martial Law" to the United States. The impositionm of Martial Law would permit an Obama administration and dem congress to set the Constitution aside (2nd Amendment included) and execute sweeping social changes, ie, property seizures, tax levies, travel restrictions, relocations, detentions, prisoner releases, benefits allocations, etc, with total impunity. Former SECSTATE Lawrence Eagleburger said today that he was very fearful of an Obama administration and so am I.
Obama will CREATE this in cahoots with his foreign interest buddies in order to do what he wants. He already has said we need a military civil force in place of regular law enforcement.
If this happens, just like Powell, tons of people will flock to Obama in order to be included in the NEW ORDER.
Trying to do some research--does anyone know if Obama's mother was Jewish (albeit non-practising)? thanks
#10
Hand gesture? They already have one: put your hands together to make an O, then hold it up to look toward the glorious future... or something like that.
#12
The impositionm of Martial Law would permit an Obama administration and dem congress to set the Constitution aside ...... with total impunity.
No, Be. NOT with total impunity. In fact your statement contains the exact reason the Founders included the Second Amendment (not self defense, or hunting, or target shooting, or collecting or...) And why the NRA and true civil libertarians have so adamantly opposed the sort of registration efforts that ended up taking the guns out of the hands of private citizens in the rest of the Anglosphere.
#13
This is more than just, this is more than -- think about it, literally, think about it -- this is more than just a capital crisis, this is more than just markets. This is a systemic problem we have with this economy."
Uh-oh.
Obama plans to destroy free enterprise, no doubt. And no doubt Soros is involved. And the Bildeburgers--who have been trying to make a "one world" economy to better their own business interests for years.
Byron York, National Review (Boldfaced emphasis added.)
. . . Joe the Plumber is much more than a zinger in McCain's stump speech. In recent days, the Joe the Plumber phenomenon has taken on a deeper meaning for McCain's audiences, for two reasons. First, he is a symbol of their belief that Barack Obama is going to raise their taxes, regardless of what Obama says about hitting up only those taxpayers who make more than $250,000 a year. . . . The second reason Joe the Plumber resonates with the crowds is what his experience says about the media. Everybody here seems acutely aware of the once-over Wurzelbacher received from the press after his chance encounter with Obama was reported, first on Fox News, and then mentioned by McCain at last week's presidential debate. Wurzelbacher found himself splashed across newspapers and cable shows, many of which reported that he didn't have a plumber's license, that he wasn't a member of the plumbers' union, that he had a lien against him for $1,182 in state taxes, and that he failed to comprehend what many commentators apparently felt was the indisputable fact that Barack Obama would lower his taxes, not raise them. As the people here in Woodbridge saw it, Joe was a guy who asked Barack Obama an inconvenient question -- and for his troubles suddenly found himself under investigation by the media.
In the audience Saturday, there were plenty of people who were mad about it. There was real anger at this rally, but it wasn't, as some erroneous press reports from other McCain rallies have suggested, aimed at Obama. It was aimed at the press. And that's where Tito Munoz came in.
After McCain left, as the crowd filed out, Munoz made his way to an area near some loudspeakers. He attracted a few reporters when he started talking loudly, in heavily-accented English, about media mistreatment of Wurzelbacher. (It was clear that Spanish was Munoz's native language, and he later told me he was born in Colombia.) When I first made my way over to him, Munoz thought I was there to give him the third degree.
"Are you going to check my license, too?" he asked me. "Are you going to check my immigration status? I'm ready, I have everything here. Whatever you want, I have it. I have my green card, I have my passport -- "
I was a little surprised. Did Munoz really bring his papers with him to a McCain rally? I asked.
"Yeah, I have my papers right here," he said. "I'm an American citizen. Right here, right here." With that, he produced a U.S. passport, turned it to the page with his picture on it, and thrust it about an inch from my nose. "Right here," he said. "In your face."
Munoz said he owned a small construction business. "I have a license, if you guys want to check," he said.
Someone asked why Munoz had come to the rally. "I support McCain, but I've come to face you guys because I'm disgusted with you guys," he said. "Why the hell are you going after Joe the Plumber? Joe the Plumber has an idea. He has a future. He wants to be something else. Why is that wrong? Everything is possible in America. I made it. Joe the Plumber could make it even better than me. . . . I was born in Colombia, but I was made in the U.S.A."
The scene turned into a mini-fracas when David Corn, of Mother Jones, defended press coverage. Munoz was having none of it. Why, he asked, would the press whack Joe the Plumber when it didn't want to report on Obama's relationship with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber? "How come that's not in the news all the time?" Munoz said. "How come Joe the Plumber is every second? I'm talking about NBC, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN."
A black woman with a strong Caribbean accent jumped in the fray. "Tell me," she said to Corn, "why is it you can go and find out about Joe the Plumber's tax lien and when he divorced his wife and you can't tell me when Barack Obama met with William Ayers? Why? Why could you not tell us that? Joe the Plumber is me!"
"I am Joe the Plumber!" Munoz chimed in. "You're attacking me."
"Wait a second," Corn said. "Do you pay your taxes?"
"Yes, I pay my taxes," the woman said.
"Then you're better than Joe the Plumber," Corn said.
That set off a general free-for-all. "I'm going to tell you something," Munoz yelled at Corn. "I'm better than Obama. Why? Because I'm not associated with terrorists!"
And so it went. I walked away for a few minutes to strike up a conversation with the woman who had jumped into the debate. Her name was Connie, and she said she had been born and raised in Antigua, in the West Indies. "I immigrated to the United States over 20 years ago," she told me. "It's my home. America has become my home. I came here freely of my own free will because I loved it, and I loved what it had to offer, and I don't want to see it ruined."
I asked her whether it was difficult, as a black person, to support McCain at a time when probably 90 to 95 percent of black voters support Obama. "I have always been a conservative," she told me. "I'm mad. I was extremely upset to see the way the media went after Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. . . . To see the drive-by media and the Obama campaign attack two ordinary Americans simply because one of them managed to get Barack Obama to tell the truth, it was shameful and disgraceful." . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
10/20/2008 10:47 ||
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#1
I asked her whether it was difficult, as a black person, to support McCain at a time when probably 90 to 95 percent of black voters support Obama..
Caribbean, Nigerian, Central American blacks came here to better themselves, their future, and their families. They, like all immigrants white, black, yellow, are the people who do not accept 'keeping to the old ways'. They believe in an America where if you work hard enough you and your posterity can make it. America worked hard in the latter half of the 20th Century to remove institutions which would obstruct those seeking to better their lives only to see new institutions erected with the objective to keep 'wrong' Americans from having truly equal opportunity. The American philosophy is that if one works hard enough he or she can obtain what others have achieved. The Socialist philosophy is that no one but those of the inner party are entitled to that 'what' and damn anyone else from having it.
#3
Munoz said he owned a small construction business
I'm starting to get the impression that when immigrants first come here, they vote Democratic because that party promises to give them stuff. After becoming a citizen and getting a little stuff of their own - job, house, busines, whatever - they drift over towards the Republicans because that party promises not to take things from them.
SHOULD Barack Obama win the presidency and Democrats take full control of Congress, next year will see a real legislative attempt to bring back the Fairness Doctrine - and to diminish conservatives' influence on broadcast radio, the one medium they dominate.
Yes, the Obama campaign said some months back that the candidate doesn't seek to re-impose this regulation, which, until Ronald Reagan's FCC phased it out in the 1980s, required TV and radio broadcasters to give balanced airtime to opposing viewpoints or face steep fines or even loss of license. But most Democrats - including party elders Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Al Gore - strongly support the idea of mandating "fairness."
Would a President Obama veto a new Fairness Doctrine if Congress enacted one? It's doubtful.
The Fairness Doctrine was an astonishingly bad idea. It's a too-tempting power for government to abuse. When the doctrine was in effect, both Democratic and Republican administrations regularly used it to harass critics on radio and TV.
Second, a new Fairness Doctrine would drive political talk radio off the dial. If a station ran a big-audience conservative program like, say, Laura Ingraham's, it would also have to run a left-leaning alternative. But liberals don't do well on talk radio, as the failure of Air America and indeed all other liberal efforts in the medium to date show. Stations would likely trim back conservative shows so as to avoid airing unsuccessful liberal ones.
Then there's all the lawyers you'd have to hire to respond to the regulators measuring how much time you devoted to this topic or that. Too much risk and hassle, many radio executives would conclude. Why not switch formats to something less charged - like entertainment or sports coverage?
For those who dismiss this threat to freedom of the airwaves as unlikely, consider how the politics of "fairness" might play out with the public. A Rasmussen poll last summer found that fully 47 percent of respondents backed the idea of requiring radio and television stations to offer "equal amounts of conservative and liberal political commentary," with 39 percent opposed.
Liberals, Rasmussen found, support a Fairness Doctrine by 54 percent to 26 percent, while Republicans and unaffiliated voters were more evenly divided. The language of "fairness" is seductive.
Even with control of Washington and public support, Dems would have a big fight in passing a Fairness Doctrine. Rush Limbaugh & Co. wouldn't sit by idly and let themselves be regulated into silence, making the outcome of any battle uncertain. But Obama and the Democrats also plan other, more subtle regulations that would achieve much the same outcome.
He and most Democrats want to expand broadcasters' public-interest duties. One such measure would be to impose greater "local accountability" on them - requiring stations to carry more local programming whether the public wants it or not. The reform would entail setting up community boards to make their demands known when station licenses come up for renewal. The measure is clearly aimed at national syndicators like Clear Channel that offer conservative shows. It's a Fairness Doctrine by subterfuge.
Obama also wants to relicense stations every two years (not eight, as is the case now), so these monitors would be a constant worry for stations. Finally, the Democrats also want more minority-owned stations and plan to intervene in the radio marketplace to ensure that outcome.
It's worth noting, as Jesse Walker does in the latest Reason magazine, that Trinity Church, the controversial church Obama attended for many years, is heavily involved in the media-reform movement, having sought to restore the Fairness Doctrine, prevent media consolidation and deny licenses to stations that refuse to carry enough children's programming.
Regrettably, media freedom hasn't been made an issue by the McCain campaign, perhaps because the maverick senator is himself no fan of unbridled political speech, as his long support of aggressive campaign-finance regulation underscores. But the threat to free speech is real - and profoundly disturbing
#1
The congressional response to overwhelming voter input regarding the $ 700B bailout clearly proves that Washington could give a damn about what voters want. If the Dems want the "fairness doctrine" they'll get it under an Obama administration.
#2
They should be careful what they wish for. When time honored American rights like Free Speech get crushed, then the corresponding respect of the people for the Government gets crushed with it. When people no longer feel a part of the Government and that their Government is oppressive, then bad thoughts begin to form. The American way has always been to talk about such thoughts rather than simply begin to shoot. The Dems should think long and hard about the law of unintended consequences before they begin to tamper with American traditions.
#3
The dems know that there is almost nothing they could do that would more effectively galvanize their opposition than to pull this stunt. You want to see marches on Washington? You want to see switchboards swamped? You want to see a huge block of voters so riled up that they actually get active on something? Then do this and watch the shitstorm hit the fan.
#4
I am optimistic that technology will provide the means to keep ahead of any new regulations our new socialist overlords can throw at us. The Soviets were not able to suppress the samizdat networks, and they had decades of experience at suppression.
#8
Never heard of Phillip Glass. I was just looking for a silver lining. I really think the fairness doctrine sounds very unfair. But that's typical of donk programs like affirmative action which was supposed to relieve discrimination but really institutionalizes (reverse) discrimination. Or Social Security which gives me a distinct feeling of insecurity.
The Old Scout spends the first part of his column talking about church he goes to it, you know, but hes allowed to talk about it and have it inform his world view, because hes a good man unlike the cheese-wranglers and the fistula-pishers and whatever ineffective invective he gets out of the Froth-O-Matic this week then he slides in this howler:
I let other people carry the conversational ball when it come to religion, or politics, these days. Ive known enough old bores to not want to be one of them.
Well, in fairness, most typewriters don't come with a mirror. . . .
Its the usual Keillor twaddle a humorless, scattershot ramble of run-on sentences and unsourced assertions, and I didnt see anything that set it apart from the dozens of sour broadsides that preceded it. . . . It doesnt matter what Clinton signed; it doesnt matter that Bush and McCain tried to raise alarms; theres not an jot of responsibility on Keillors side, because if anything goes wrong it can be traced to the one simple fact that shapes his world: the other side is composed of despicable, cowardly, dishonest, cynical bastards still upset that Jolson's reputation is sullied by his use of blackface. On his side: angels. The man makes a Manichean look like an agnostic Unitarian.
But I suspect this line may have thrilled some:
Low dishonesty and craven cynicism sometimes win the day but not inevitably. The attempt to link Barack Obama to an old radical in his neighborhood has desperation and deceit written all over it.
Let us now examine his reasons:
Sorry, there arent any. Youll have to take him at his word that its low, dishonest, craven, cynical, desperate, and deceitful. And if you werent paying any attention, you might believe that the entire affair can be accurately described as an attempt to link Sen. Obama to an old radical in his neighborhood, as if some harmless old Bolshie lived down the street, and theyd occasionally nod while taking out the recycling.
Its possible that Keillor has no idea of the connections between Sen. Obama and Bill Ayers (and his wife, she of the famous endorsement of starlet-stabbing), in which case its proof that his column slides unedited down the gullet of modern journalism. This would not make him the most uninformed columnist in the country, but he would certainly be above average. If he does know, though, and chooses to regard discussion of the relationship as beyond the realm of civilized political discourse, well, the standards have certainly changed. Or rather the old standards are being selectively applied.
Here are the curious facts of modern politics:
1. Ayers was dedicated to killing American soldiers to ensure that Vietnam was ruled by Communists.
2. Ayers is unrepentant, and proudly posed for a photo standing on an American flag.
3. This is irrelevant. It is irrelevant to then, because the cause was just, if the execution was irrationally exuberant; it is irrelevant to today, because Ayers is now an educator, and a respected member of the intelligentsia.
4. This says nothing about education or the intellegentsia, except to attest to their broad-mindedness.
5. There is nothing wrong with Ayers, but nevertheless his associations with Sen. Obama the fund-raising at his house, the Woods Foundation, the Annenberg Challenge, the book blurb are circumstantial, tenuous, and meaningless, because A) Obama was 8 when the crimes occurred, and thus unable to give the full-throated condemnation he later felt, but managed to suppress while coming up the ranks of Chicago politics; B) one could not avoid Ayers in Chicago, which is a very small city; C) if Obama did feel deep distaste, there was never really a good time to bring it up, and D) many other respectable people had no problem associating with the fellow, and E) Ayers is not advising him now, any more than, say, Louis Farrakhan is. The last point is important, because it means we should trust Obamas judgment. Hes the kind of fellow who turns out not to seek Ayers advice when running for national office. And that's enough.
Now. You have to ask yourself how the media would cover a long-standing association between John McCain and a fellow who, in the hurly-burly-mixed-up-folderol of the Civil Rights Era, went a little too far and burned some Black churches, or led a group devoted to blowing up abortion clinics. Mind you, he was never convicted technicalities, which was ironic, because Conservatives hate those but he went on to serve on school boards and charity foundations that advocated for States Rights, an issue dear to conservative hearts. Imagine the deets are the same cozy fundraisers, serving on the same boards, McCains name on Bomber Bobs memoir. Add to that some other parallels say, McCain attended a church that praised a fellow who believed black people were descended from the devil, and believed Jesus was an Aryan.
John McCain wouldnt be the nominee, and if by some chance that happened, this association would be draped around his neck every day.
You may disagree with this, but I dont think Ive attempted any deceit here. Deceit would entail lying about what Ayers did, and insisting they had a connection when there was none. You could say its almost deceitful to say theres nothing there whatsoever, but thats up for debate. But you can imagine Keillor writing 14 pre-election columns that never mentioned the McCain friend who tried to blow up a Planned Parenthood clinic. I think it would matter, and it wouldnt be desperation to point it out.
I dont think Obama shares Ayers views now, if ever; he strikes me as an intellectual Zelig. But its interesting how nothing matters. No, amend that the small things matter, which is why Joe the Plumber has to be vetted, and Bidens gaffes ignored. The big things are in the past, and the past is irrelevant. The past matters only if it has a sin that proves the stain inherent in the culture, a stain that will be washed out in the coming reign of goodness and light. The past is a stone, and you cant run towards the sun unless you drop it, and tell yourself youre starting anew with every step you take.
Odd how the sun always seems to be the same distance away, no matter how light you travel. Well, there must be a shadowy group that's pushing it out of our grasp. Find them!
Posted by: Mike ||
10/20/2008 06:28 ||
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#1
he strikes me as an intellectual Zelig
Descartes in his writings on First Philosophy [I think therefor I exist], raises an interesting question. What's the difference between a great god and a lesser god. Which in turn leads to further extensions - Why would a great god need to deceive? Why would a great god need to hide? [that is one in which perception by those outside is possible, not one in which those on the outside choose not to perceive.] Extrapolate that to mere mortals, why would a great candidate need to deceive, why would the candidate need to hide?
Liberals pretend that only President Bush is preventing the U.S. from adopting some global warming "solution." But occasionally their mask slips. As Barack Obama's energy adviser has now made clear, the would-be President intends to blackmail -- or rather, greenmail -- Congress into falling in line with his climate agenda.
Jason Grumet is currently executive director of an outfit called the National Commission on Energy Policy and one of Mr. Obama's key policy aides. In an interview last week with Bloomberg, Mr. Grumet said that come January the Environmental Protection Agency "would initiate those rulemakings" that classify carbon as a dangerous pollutant under current clean air laws. That move would impose new regulation and taxes across the entire economy, something that is usually the purview of Congress. Mr. Grumet warned that "in the absence of Congressional action" 18 months after Mr. Obama's inauguration, the EPA would move ahead with its own unilateral carbon crackdown anyway.
Well, well. For years, Democrats -- including Senator Obama -- have been howling about the "politicization" of the EPA, which has nominally been part of the Bush Administration. The complaint has been that the White House blocked EPA bureaucrats from making the so-called "endangerment finding" on carbon. Now it turns out that a President Obama would himself wield such a finding as a political bludgeon. He plans to issue an ultimatum to Congress: Either impose new taxes and limits on carbon that he finds amenable, or the EPA carbon police will be let loose to ravage the countryside.
The EPA hasn't made a secret of how it would like to centrally plan the U.S. economy under the 1970 Clean Air Act. In a blueprint released in July, the agency didn't exactly say it'd collectivize the farms -- but pretty close, down to the "grass clippings." The EPA would monitor and regulate the carbon emissions of "lawn and garden equipment" as well as everything with an engine, like cars, planes and boats. Eco-bureaucrats envision thousands of other emissions limits on all types of energy. Coal-fired power and other fossil fuels would be ruled out of existence, while all other prices would rise as the huge economic costs of the new regime were passed down the energy chain to consumers.
These costs would far exceed the burden of a straight carbon tax or cap-and-trade system enacted by Congress, because the Clean Air Act was never written to apply to carbon and other greenhouse gases. It's like trying to do brain surgery with a butter knife. Mr. Obama wants to move ahead anyway because he knows that the costs of any carbon program will be high. He knows, too, that Congress -- even with strongly Democratic majorities -- might still balk at supporting tax increases on their constituents, even if it is done in the name of global warming.
Climate-change politics don't break cleanly along partisan lines. The burden of a carbon clampdown will fall disproportionately on some states over others, especially the 25 interior states that get more than 50% of their electricity from coal. Rustbelt manufacturing states like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania will get hit hard too. Once President Bush leaves office, the coastal Democrats pushing hardest for a climate change program might find their colleagues splitting off, especially after they vote for a huge tax increase on incomes.
Thus Messrs. Obama and Grumet want to invoke a political deus ex machina driven by a faulty interpretation of the Clean Air Act to force Congress's hand. Mr. Obama and Democrats can then tell Americans that Congress must act to tax and regulate carbon to save the country from even worse bureaucratic consequences. It's Mr. Obama's version of Jack Benny's old "your money or your life" routine, but without the punch line.
The strategy is most notable for what it says about the climate-change lobby and its new standard bearer. Supposedly global warming is the transcendent challenge of the age, but Mr. Obama evidently doesn't believe he'll be able to convince his own party to do something about it without a bureaucratic ultimatum. Mr. Grumet justified it this way: "The U.S. has to move quickly domestically . . . We cannot have a meaningful impact in the international discussion until we develop a meaningful domestic consensus."
Normally a democracy reaches consensus through political debate and persuasion, but apparently for Mr. Obama that option is merely a nuisance. It's another example of "change" you'll be given no choice but to believe in.
And tax or regulate it regardless of the source? Let's reduce the CO2 emmissions 10% from each source individually. We can either all reduce our metabolisms 10% or kill off 10% of us. I think the latter could work quite nicely as long as I get to make the selections.
#6
This will be another over-reach by the dems. The EPA might, in its stove-pipe bureacrat's view, be able to enact this crap, but there is no way it is going to be put into action. The lawsuits will fly as soon as the ink is dry on the paper. Obambi will see this boomerang on his so fast it'll make his head spin. Business, and there are lots of those out there, will raise a huge campaign against this idiocy. But I do hope they try this. It will be another example, writ in crayon for all to see, what enviro-nuttiness combined with liberal feel-good politics will do to this country.
If John McCain manages to overtake Barack Obama, the media will have a ready answer for the result: racism. Over the past generation, every time a black liberal candidate runs for public office, pundits are quick to assert that the so-called Bradley Effect will rear its ugly head and deny justice in America for another African-American.
The Bradley Effect refers to the proposition that white voters lie to pollsters when they claim to support a black candidate, because of prejudice. Every time Barack Obama lost a primary to Hillary Clinton, someone offered race as an explanation.
It's a comforting narrative for liberals. But it defies the reality of the campaign that gave birth to it. In 1982, California's Republican Attorney General George Deukmejian was trailing badly in the campaign for governor against African-American Democrat Tom Bradley, the popular mayor of Los Angeles. But he won the election by 93,345 votes out of nearly eight million cast.
Public pollsters and others were stunned; they'd already proclaimed Bradley the victor and turned their attention to the U.S. Senate race between Republican San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson and Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown. Pollsters also predicted a Jerry Brown victory. Mr. Wilson won handily.
The explanation for both Republican wins was simple. Voters rejected two liberal candidates. While political insiders and the Bradley people were shocked at the election results, the Deukmejian campaign was confident of victory -- thanks to the information it was getting from private pollster Gary Lawrence.
With less than a month to go, Mr. Bradley did enjoy a double-digit lead. Then the Deukmejian campaign focused on the increasing crime rate in Los Angeles under Mayor Bradley's watch. A major effort was made to turn out disaffected Democrats in the rural interior of the state. People there were incensed at a confiscatory handgun initiative on the ballot supported by Bradley liberals but vigorously opposed by Mr. Deukmejian.
New campaign commercials shifted attention to the solid and steady hand of the then Attorney General Deukmejian, a welcome change from the quixotic and chaotic reign of Gov. Brown. The campaign also stoked concern that, as mayor of a big city, a Gov. Bradley might make Los Angeles, not California, a priority.
Private, daily tracking polls showed that, with a retooled campaign, Mr. Deukmejian methodically closed the gap. On the Sunday night before the day of the election -- usually the last day of tracking polls the campaign will pay for -- Mr. Deukmejian had closed to less than two percentage points. The campaign polled Monday night, too. It showed Mr. Deukmejian less than 1% behind. Private pollster Lawrence Research predicted to the campaign a razor-thin victory -- exactly what happened.
The public polls stopped polling too soon, missing the Deukmejian surge. Most important, they ignored the absentee ballot. Mr. Deukmejian's polling asked if people had voted absentee; other polls, including the exit polls, did not.
Tom Bradley enjoyed the same type of love affair from the media that Barack Obama does today. Both candidates have appeared larger than life and hardly fallible. Indeed, both have compelling stories and project as decent, well-intentioned public servants. That is part of their appeal. But when the lights of the campaign shined brightly on the candidates, their flaws became more apparent.
In short, Mr. Bradley was defeated because he was too liberal, not too black. Mr. Obama was struggling in the polls until the economic news distracted voters from becoming more aware of how liberal he really is. If John McCain wins, the Bradley Effect will be trotted out to explain it. Nevertheless, it will be Mr. Obama's political views, not his skin color, that voters reject.
#1
I think another overlooked factor in the Bradley defeat - which in a close race would have alone explained the outcome - was the existence of a gun-control proposition on the ballot. As I recall, this unsurprisingly boosted turnout by quite a bit in rural, non-coastal, GOP-dominated areas. Those voters naturally were more inclined toward a Central Valley Republican than an LA mayor.
The salience and particular electoral twist of individual ballot propositions in states that have them are often overlooked by pundits, but not, in my experience, ignored by professionals when plotting campaign strategies.
#2
I don't think Americans are all that racist but I do think we tend to lie to pollsters more often than the pollsters would like to admit. Sometimes it has to do with the girlfriend listening in or the 12 pack we just finished.
Othertimes we like someone because of a speech or two but as we look into the details of the person and their plans we lose that childlike infatuation.
The whole discussion on racism is designed much like the baseball couch kicking dirt on the umpire's shoes. It doesn't matter what he says, he won't change the Umps call. I don't think a call has ever been changed because of onfield theatrics, but the next call.... It's a form of low-level terrorism designed to change behaviors i the future. Call 'em racist now and see if they don't bend over backwards to disprove the charge no matter if it means voting against their principles.
The State of Israel has packed more history into her sixty years on the planet which she celebrates this week than many other nations have in six hundred. There are many surprising things about this tiny, feisty, brave nation the size of Wales, but the most astonishing is that she has lived to see this birthday at all. The very day after the new state was established, she was invaded by the armies of no fewer than five Arab countries, and she has been struggling for her right to life ever since.
From Morocco to Afghanistan, from the Caspian Sea to Aden, the 5.25 million square miles of territory belonging to members of the Arab League is home to over 330 million people, whereas Israel covers only eight thousand square miles, and is home to seven million citizens, one-fifth of whom are Arabs. The Jews of the Holy Land are thus surrounded by hostile states 650 times their size in territory and sixty times their population, yet their last, best hope of ending two millennia of international persecution the State of Israel has somehow survived.
When during the Second World War, the island of Malta came through three terrible years of bombardment and destruction, it was rightly awarded the George Medal for bravery: today Israel should be awarded a similar decoration for defending democracy, tolerance and Western values against a murderous onslaught that has lasted twenty times as long.
Jerusalem is the site of the Temple of Solomon and Herod. The stones of a palace erected by King David himself are even now being unearthed just outside the walls of Jerusalem. Everything that makes a nation state legitimate blood shed, soil tilled, two millennia of continuous residence, international agreements argues for Israels right to exist, yet that is still denied by the Arab League. For many of their governments, which are rich enough to have solved the Palestinian refugee problem decades ago, it is useful to have Israel as a scapegoat to divert attention from the tyranny, failure and corruption of their own regimes.
The tragic truth is that it suits Arab states very well to have the Palestinians endure permanent refugee status, and whenever Israel puts forward workable solutions they have been stymied by those who interests put the destruction of Israel before the genuine well-being of the Palestinians. Both King Abdullah I of Jordan and Anwar Sadat of Egypt were assassinated when they attempted to come to some kind of sane accommodation with a country that most sane people now accept is not going away.
The process of creating a Jewish homeland in an area where other peoples were already living though far fewer of them than anti-Israel propagandists claim was always going to be a complicated and delicate business, and one for which Britain as the Mandated power had a profound responsibility, and about which since the Balfour Declaration of 1917 she had made solemn promises.
Yet instead of keeping a large number of troops on the ground throughout the birth pangs of the State of Israel, Britain hurriedly withdrew all her forces virtually overnight on 14 May 1948, thus facilitating the Arab invasions the very day, one of which was actually commanded by a former British Army officer, John Glubb (known as Glubb Pasha). Less than four years earlier, Britain had landed division after victorious division in Normandy, now Partition and flee was the Attlee governments ignominious policy, whose consequences are still plaguing the world half a century later in Kashmir and the Middle East.
We owe to the Jews, wrote Winston Churchill in 1920, a system of ethics which, even if it were entirely separated from the supernatural, would be incomparably the most precious possession of mankind, worth in fact the fruits of all wisdom and learning put together.
The Jewish contribution to finance, science, the arts, academia, commerce and industry, literature, philanthropy and politics has been astonishing relative to their tiny numbers. Although they make up less than half of one per-cent of the worlds population, between 1901 and 1950 Jews won 14% of all the Nobel Prizes awarded for Literature and Science, and between 1951 and 2000 Jews won 32% of the Nobel Prizes for Medicine, 32% for Physics, 39% for Economics and 29% for Science. This, despite so many of their greatest intellects dying in the gas chambers.
Civilization owes Judaism a debt it can never repay, and support for the right of a Jewish homeland to exist is the bare minimum we can provide. Yet we tend to treat Israel like a leper on the international scene, merely for defending herself, and threatening her with academic boycotts if she builds a separation wall that has so far reduced suicide bombings by 95% over three years. It is a disgrace that no senior member of the Royal Family has ever visited Israel, as though the country is still in quarantine after sixty years.
After the Holocaust, the Jewish people recognised that they had to have their own state, a homeland where they could forever be safe from a repetition of such horrors. Putting their trust in Western Civilisation was never again going to be enough. Since then, Israel has had to fight no fewer than five major wars for her very existence. She has been on the front line in the War against Terror and has been fighting the Wests battles for it, decades before 9/11 or 7/7 ever happened. Radical Islam is never going to accept the concept of an Israeli State, so the struggle is likely to continue for another sixty years, but the Jews know that that is less dangerous than entrusting their security to anyone else.
Very often in Britain, especially when faced with the overwhelmingly anti-Israeli bias that is endemic in our liberal media and the BBC, we fail to ask ourselves what we would have done placed in their position? The population of the United Kingdom of 63 million is nine times that of Israel. In July 2006, to take one example at random, Hizbullah crossed the border of Lebanon into Israel and killed eight patrolmen and kidnapped two others, and that summer fired four thousand Katyusha rockets into Israel which killed a further forty-three civilians.
Now, if we multiply those numbers by nine to get the British equivalent, just imagine what WE would do if a terrorist organization based as close as Calais were to fire thirty-six thousand rockets into Sussex and Kent, killing 387 British civilians, after killing seventy-two British servicemen in an ambush and capturing eighteen. There is absolutely no lengths to which our Government would not go to protect British subjects under those circumstances, and quite right too. Why should Israel be expected to behave any differently?
Last month I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, researching a book about the Second World War. Walking along a line of huts and the railway siding where their forebears had been worked and starved and beaten and gassed to death, were a group of Jewish schoolchildren, one of whom was carrying over his shoulder the Israeli flag, a blue star of David on white background. It was a profoundly moving sight, for it was the sovereign independence represented by that flag which guarantees that the obscenity of genocide which killed six million people in Auschwitz and camps like it will never again befall the Jewish people. Happy birthday, Israel and Shalom.
At this writing it is too early to say how bad the '08 market crash will get, how long it will last and how rude the subsequent awakening will prove.
And yet with leading stock markets tumbling 30 percent in recent weeks; major banks, insurers and investment houses taken over, nationalized or altogether collapsed; and with Washington's efforts to affect the situation about as effective as reading a newspaper against the wind, some conclusions can already be drawn.
First of all, John McCain's candidacy has been clobbered; the market trauma is too massive, the administration's response too confused and ineffective and the repercussions to the middle class will have to be harsh. It's become an economic election, and most voters are likely to attribute this catastrophe to the Republicans. In fact, chances are high the GOP will pay in more than one term, even if not the 20 years it spent in opposition following the Great Crash. Moreover, McCain's economic shallowness, now compounded by his running mate's, makes it difficult to vote for him even regardless of his affiliation.
Just where a Barack Obama presidency will lead is an entirely different question. Chances that he will emerge an FDR are low, if not for any other reason than because the man who ended the Great Depression brought with him some valuable executive experience as governor of New York and before that as undersecretary of the navy. He knew to both doubt and work the bureaucracy; Obama lacks policymaking experience, as even The New Yorker observed in its unsurprising endorsement last week. And yet in a few weeks he will likely be tasked with restabilizing and inspiring the global economy. And when that transition arrives, the Republican Party will do well to ask itself where it failed - where it failed in crowning George W. Bush, where it failed in failing to oversee his actions and inactions, and where it failed in designating his successor.
THE SECOND conclusion is that this tsunami will put capitalism on the defensive for the first time since the fall of communism.
Capitalism's many enemies had awaited this moment for decades, following in despair its successive gains, beginning with Deng Xiaoping's dismantling of China's socialism, then with the unraveling of the East Bloc and finally with India's and continental Europe's retreats from their distinctive versions of socialism.
Now, with George W. Bush himself conceding that only government intervention can solve the current market crisis, temptation is high to question capitalism's very validity.
Well, that would be ludicrous. Not only because the alternatives, including all the mild varieties of social democracy from Keynesianism to the Swedish model, have been tested empirically and proven untenable, but because what has now transpired is not the result of capitalism's activation - but of its abuse. And that abuse constitutes the moral failure that is at the heart of the Second Great Crash.
THERE ARE two levels to the moral failing which has led us where we have arrived: the financial and the historic.
Financially what began with the manipulation of credit in the American housing market soon caused a price collapse, as weak lenders failed to repay exorbitant mortgages, which in turn made them sell their houses all at once, which then made prices fall and foreclosures abound.
Now it suddenly emerged that assorted financial institutions had been excessively invested in the housing market - both when compared to their other investments and in terms of their overall ratio of investments to paid capital. That is how some of them could not sustain a collapse in the housing markets.
Meanwhile, banks that were excessively invested in securities that were tied to the housing market also began to teeter and sell assets, but in doing so only exacerbated the glut, further depressing the markets and reducing their own liquidity. Beyond there, up in the high-management echelons, executives whose pay was linked to their success in expanding sales and profits were pushed to exceed reasonable risk and effectively gamble. This, in a nutshell, is what happened financially.
Morally, all this added up to a culture of gambling, one that had lost touch with textbook capitalism, where caution and responsibility are hallmarks.
THE MORAL collapse had its financial turning point in 2004, when the Federal Reserve ignored clear signs that the housing market was ill, and still left credit at a ridiculously low rate of 1 percent. With credit so cheap, it is no wonder that people were tempted to abuse it. However, the Fed's dereliction that fateful moment was but a detail in a broader picture whereby America responded with conceit the morning after the end of the Cold War.
With its ideological, strategic and economic victory swift, unequivocal and unexpected, America's leaders abandoned themselves to the devices of self-congratulation. It never crossed their minds that their great nation, too, might have to correct a thing or two about the way it conducts its own life. This mind frame was so deeply rooted that it even survived 9/11, a trauma that in fact made a self-righteous America embark on a world-mending crusade, the gist of which was: "We know how to run countries, and will now make the rest of you do as we do."
Well, America sure has had remarkable credentials in running countries, both its and others', but in recent years some things in its own country had really spun out of control, both financially and morally. Now all this must be mended regardless of America's designs abroad, but even more so if it is to remain in the business of mending the world.
#1
Moreover, McCain's economic shallowness, now compounded by his running mate's,
Call me back when either of the Democratic candidates gets job outside of politics; it'll probably be a first-time-in-their-life for them.
(Oh, I'm sure they could get a job on the board of some venture capital fund or some other such politically connected form of de-facto bribery. I mean a real one where they'll have to fish, cut bait, risk getting their hand hurt by something other than carpal tunnel, weld...)
#2
Oh, also call me back when Freddie and Fannie May stop becoming de-facto government agencies, that don't have to live under the same laws everyone else does because their goals are Politically Correct.
#3
--- The 2008 crash is a result of a true collective Mania. Except for very few, the USA suffers from economic shallowness & all are now paying the price.
--- The "deep thinkers" during the Mania were the Pig Men and financial pirates who made out like bandits, always with their exit strategy in mind. Those who bailed out of the markets with large quantities of cash equivalents can now pick & choose from the available bargains.
--- The political class continues to be clueless about the scope of the current disaster. For example, all still chatter about keeping housing prices higher than what potential buyers can truly afford. Nothing in 0's skill set or in the skills of his supporters suggests an 0 presidency will result in anything other than bumbling, missed opportunities, and misallocation of resources. This extensive catastrophe will continue to unfold after Inauguration Day, and thus the GOP will have another chance within 4 years, but it will have to come up with candidates more promising than those in the headlines today. The electorate also needs a lot of economic education.
ROME (Routers) Diligent investigative reporters were shocked to learn today that many, indeed most of the captured slaves in yesterday's battle in Lucania who proclaimed "I am Spartacus" were actually misleading military authorities, and not the famous rebel leader at all.
One of the investigators, Probius Ani, lead chiseler at the Tempora Romae, shared the details. "We looked into their backgrounds, and while they were all slaves at one time or another, few of them had formal gladiator training, nor did they universally use the Thracian style of combat for which he was well known."
After the defeat, when authorities demanded to know which of the defeated was the leader, at first one of them jumped up and declared himself Spartacus**. But the situation quickly grew confused as another, and then another, and then dozens and hundreds of the defeated curs shouted out the same claim. Legitimate demands of proof of identity, gladiators' licenses, and tax and divorce records from them were met with a sullen resistance, making it impossible to tell which to properly punish.
"These slaves have no credibility," noted a proconsul on the scene. "Why should we grant any respect to a campaign based on false pretenses? Why should we not just spread their wealth around, and crucify them all?"
Given their duplicity against the news media and other legitimate authorities, it is increasingly difficult to argue otherwise.
Professor KC Johnson of the superb Durham in Wonderland blog wrote last week on the attempts the GOP has made to link Senator Barack Obama to figures such as former Weathermen terrorist and current UIC education professor William Ayers, and controversial Columbia Prof. Rashid Khalidi. Johnson is unhappy at the linkage, but the reason isn't what you'd think. Here he is:
For the GOP attack to work, Ayers and Khalidi have to be viewed as exceptional figures--wholly unlike nearly all other professors. Obama's judgment can hardly be questioned if his "buddies" were not marginal characters but instead people who resemble lots of other academics, especially since Obama lived in an academic neighborhood (Hyde Park) and spent several years teaching at the University of Chicago Law School.
Yet the truth of the matter is that the basic pedagogical and academic approaches of Ayers and Khalidi fit well within the academic mainstream. Ayers is, after all, a prestigious professor of education (hardly a field known for its intellectual diversity, as I have explored elsewhere). Khalidi was of such standing that Columbia hired him away from the U of C, and named him to chair its Middle East Studies Department. From that perch, he presided over a wildly biased anti-Israel curriculum, even as he informed readers of New York that students of Arab descent--and only such students--knew the "truth" about Middle Eastern affairs.
I agree with [Governor] Palin that there's a scandal here--but it's not that Obama, among his hundreds of associations with academic figures, was acquainted with, and received support from, Ayers and Khalidi. The scandal is the evolution of a groupthink academic environment that has allowed figures such as Ayers and Khalidi to flourish. The tolerance for extremism is on one side and one side only: the academy doesn't offer carte blanche endorsement to some types of unrepentant domestic terrorists or to figures who suggest that politically incorrect ethnic groups know the "truth." Imagine the chances of someone who had bombed abortion clinics in the 1980s becoming a prominent education professor. Or consider the likelihood of a man who claimed that Jewish and only Jewish students knew the "truth" about Middle Eastern matters becoming chairman of a major Middle East Studies Department.
As anyone who followed the [Duke University] lacrosse case understands, professors with worldviews like those of Ayers or Khalidi are hardly out of the norm in the academy.
I'm not sure what's more damning here: linking Senator Obama to exceptional figures like Ayers and Khalidi, or linking them to unexceptional figures like Ayers and Khalidi.
Prof. Johnson is certainly correct about the American academy: once you venture away from the hard sciences, you encounter a world in which people like William Ayers, Rashid Khalidi, Ward Churchill and others like them are not just ordinary and common-place, but both accepted and powerful.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/20/2008 00:00 ||
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ION GUARDIAN > MORE AND MORE OF JAPAN'S YOUTH TURN TO COMMUNISM BECAUSE THEY THINK CAPITALISM HAS LET THEM DOWN.
Looks like CHINA's Textbook producers have another geographic Map region to "accidentally" alter or label as [future]Chinese territory, besides the KOREAS???
#2
FREEREPUBLIC > NO PLACE TO HIDE [WEATHER UNDERGROUND Informant: WU Planned to ELiminate 25 Milyuhn Americans]. Perhaps up to 40 Milyuhn Amers or so as per Chin liason officio's requirement to support Commie takeover of America???
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
SHOULD Barack Obama win the presidency and Democrats take full control of Congress, next year will see a real legislative attempt to bring back the Fairness Doctrine - and to diminish conservatives' influence on broadcast radio, the one medium they dominate. 
