h/t Gates of Vienna
Since last February I have predicted that the Muslim Brotherhood would win elections in Egypt. People have thought me very pessimistic. Now the votes are starting to come in and its much worse than I thought. But my prediction that the Brotherhood and the other Islamists would gain a slight majority seems to have been fulfilled and then some. According to most reports the Brotherhood is scoring at just below 40 percent all by itself.
Why worse? For two reasons:
First, the votes we now have come from the most urban areas of the country. If there are Facebook sophisticates theyre going to be in Cairo and Alexandria. If the moderates do that bad in the big cities, whats going to happen in the villages up the Nile? If the fascist party came in first in some European countries Social Democratic districts you know you are in trouble.
The Brotherhood came in first in Cairo and Alexandria. Think about that. Of course there are millions of migrants from rural areas in those places but thats also where the middle class, such as it is, lives.
Second, the moderate parties didnt even come in second they came in third or close to it. The Salafiststhat is people who are even more radical than the Muslim Brotherhoodcame in second. That they did that well is a surprise. That they did that well without bumping the Brotherhood down a notch is really shocking.
#4
"They import half their food. They have money for two months of imports".
Many worked in Libya also. Major problems to overcome. The pipeline to Israel and Jordan keeps blowing up so no money coming in from that. My concern is the Canal. I look for problems there next.
#5
My concern is the Canal. I look for problems there next. The Suez Canal has been closed for many years at a time, and the world seemed to get along without it. How long can Egyptians do without eating?
#6
At some point the Muslim Brotherhood was going to be in charge of an Arab country. Now they have to govern a country rather than oppose its rulers. That's not going to be easy--the country is broke and can't feed itself.
I think the MB will be too busy trying to prevent another Egyptian uprising to stir up much trouble in the region.
#10
IIRC after their defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War AGZ iSRAEL, NASSER = EGYPT tried to close the Suez to any + all types of US-Western shipping, but ultimately changed their mind to deny access to only US-Western Warships [includ military logistics] when they saw how their own + Arab economies were badly suffering, + espec after how alternate routes only seemed to strengthen
Israel. The USSR at the time preferred to send mostly weapons to the ME, NOTSOMUCH FOOD + CONSUMER GOODIES - IT TOOK THE FAILURE OF THE POST-YOM KIPPUR WAR 1973 OIL CRISIS VEE THE US; + RISE OF MUSLIM-LED DOMESTIC TERROR THREATS AGZ REGIONAL MUSLIM GOVTS. TO REMOVE THE RESTRICTIONS.
In 2008, I wrote a book called Liberal Fascism. That title came from H. G. Wells, one of the most important socialist writers in the English language. He believed, as did his fellow Fabian socialists, that Western democratic capitalism had outlived its usefulness....
Wells was hardly alone. Such arguments were being made in all the Western democracies, under a thousand different banners. Most progressives rejected terms like fascist or Communist, but they still touted foreign tyrannies as superior to the outmoded democratic capitalism of the 19th century.
Lincoln Steffens, the muckraking journalist, was a great fan of both Italian fascism and Soviet Communism. He returned from a trip to Russia to proclaim, I have seen the future, and it works!
Some things never change.
Andy Stern announced recently that hes been to the future, and it works. In this case, the future resides in China, which he says has a superior economic system. The conservative-preferred, free-market fundamentalist, shareholder-only model so successful in the 20th century is being thrown onto the trash heap of history in the 21st century.
Whos Andy Stern? Hes just the guy who, until last year, ran the Service Employees International Union, which under his leadership spent more than any organization to get Obama elected in 2008, some $28 million. Comparatively, Sterns influence in the Democratic party eclipses that of, say, the allegedly sinister Koch brothers or anti-tax activist Grover Norquist among Republicans. Stern himself visited the White House more than any other person during Obamas first year in office (53 times).
Stern sees the Chinese governments allegedly keen ability to plan its way to prosperity as the new model for America. It is an argument of profound asininity. China had five-year plans before it started getting rich. Under the old five-year plans, China killed tens of millions of its own people and remained mired in poverty. What made China rich wasnt planning, it was the decision to switch to markets (albeit corrupt ones). The planners were merely in charge of distributing the wealth that markets created....
...the core problem with China envy is not economic but moral. To the extent that Chinas economic planning works, it does so because China is an authoritarian country. (Japan has been planning its economy within democratic restraints and has been dying on the economic vine for nearly 20 years.) You can hit your building quota a lot more easily when you can shoot inconvenient people and trample property rights at will. The Three Gorges Dam displaced more than a million people who were given three choices: move, jail, death.
Stern joins a long list of liberals whove seen China embrace authoritarian capitalism and conclude that the secret to that success had to be the authoritarianism. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, my usual whipping boy in this department, has written thousands of words rhapsodizing about his envy of China. President Obama himself has said hes envious of Chinas president and has touted Chinas infrastructure spending as something to emulate.
If you want to copy China because its authoritarian capitalism is better than our democratic capitalism, it seems pretty obvious that what you envy is the authoritarianism. H. G. Wells had a phrase for that.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/02/2011 09:00 ||
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#1
This envy of other systems has gone on for years. What we have had for the last three years is not Capitalism. Western Capitalism works period. I remember hearing a story about the best economic plan under Stalin. Stalin was given several ideas but one fellow said that Western Capitalism was the best. The idea was that when economic winter came under a Capitalist economic system the winter was much shorter. That recovery was more vigorous. Well that man was dead in two months time I understand. Russia at this time is more Capitalism than we are in my opinion. With Obama people another story can be told of two men walking down a street and one has a dog. The one is envious so kills the others dog. Why did you do that?. You had a dog and I didn't so now we are equal.
#2
The envy takes different forms. During the brew-ha-ha of the Florida recounts I remember a number of my friends opining over the superiority of the parliamentary system that allows for rapid elections and provides the party in power with a majority in Parliament as well as the executive position.
I'm not bashing the parliamentary system, mind you, just pointing out the habit of grass is greener.
What I find truly interesting is that liberals can go on a carefully crafted tour of Cuba or China that avoids the poverty and still remain clueless. Are they willfully ignorant or just plain ignorant?
#5
Of course 'authoritarianism' is the point. H. G. Wells may not have captured it as succinctly as Orwell did in Nineteen Eighty Four:
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2011 10:41 Comments ||
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#6
Such envy lies amongst the progressive elite. It has a resurgence every so often when it happens to get a boost from an admirer such as BO and his followers. It dies away under a leader such as Reagan.
I don't know why the admirers of such a system don't realize it doesn't work.
#8
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power."
Boy, that sums up Bambi and today's Dems, Dr. Steve. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/02/2011 14:11 Comments ||
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#9
Can't be - I know for a fact that many of my University professors labeled FASCISTS as the "Authoritarians", while COMMIES were the "Totalitarians"???
#11
Rj, spelling lesson of the day; from a former English teacher -- you get credit for proper usage, but points off for spelling:
>brouhaha
/ˈbruhɑˌhɑ, ˌbruhɑˈhɑ, bruˈhɑhɑ/
1. excited public interest, discussion, or the like, as the clamor attending some sensational event; hullabaloo: The brouhaha followed disclosures of graft at City Hall.
2. an episode involving excitement, confusion, turmoil, etc., especially a broil over a minor or ridiculous cause: A brouhaha by the baseball players resulted in three black eyes.
Origin: 188590; < French, orig. brou, ha, ha! exclamation used by characters representing the devil in the 16th-cent. drama; perhaps < Hebrew, distortion of the recited phrase bārūkh habbā ( beshēm ădhōnai ) blessed is he who comes (in the name of the Lord)
#3
Chinese business were expected to borrow $600b but only $500 was borrowed so the rate cut was to increase liquidity by pumping an extra $50b into the economy. China with $2t of reserves is in a better position than other economies and has more levers it can use.Expect to see a soft landing rather than a hard landing that is facing Europe.
#4
With a world slowdown I look for them to sink more money into gold. So to protect what money you have you don't risk it. Now if its the government spending the money well they will do more of the same of what they have been doing. They are playing money games like everyone else. Everything is dropping so do you make up for that by throwing cheaper money at it. Everyone should know that after Christmas the bottom will fall out. The market will drop till after New Years. Best just to look the other way if you want to be happy in this world. Just for a little bit anyway.
I don't know Obama, but I know what it's like to be in his class, his caste; I used to be in it, or at least aspire to it.
He cannot compromise because he is of a caste that cannot touch the lower classes: the workers, the business owners, the gun owners, the churchgoers -- Republicans (of the Main Street variety, not the Wall Street subgroup.) For an intellectual to contact these untouchables is to pollute his mind. Thus he remains safe from bothersome facts.
Contrast him to the Founders. Say what you want, they all were involved in a range of activities that brought them in touch with the natural world and the human world. Washington commanded backwoodsmen in the French and Indian War. Even John Adams had a farm. They engaged in farming and business. They lived surrounded by ordinary people.
But Obama went from private school to small private college to the Ivy League, then various sinecures.
For instance, I know Hyde Park, the president's former home. It is an enclave, a bubble, plunked into the South Side. I've worked on campuses and in downtowns. The modern government and corporation seal themselves off from the less tidy aspects of life, as they seal themselves off from bad weather and noise.
Even when among the hoi polloi, the intelligensia are aloof, floating above it all, like a 17th century duke oblivious to the horse droppings on the street in London....Obama is like that: the coccoon of his mind and thoughts and ideology blurs out the unseemly sights and smells of cities or, say, failed stimulus programs.
Of course, Obama like so many of his generation must detach from the chaos of his family. A generation of latchkey kids is inheriting the world. They cannot, dare not, express their sense of being lost, and fear. So they float through life, ignoring the nastiness....
And as they subscribe to a worldview that human beings are nothing special -- we are just a pool of chemicals wandering aimlessly through a pointless existence -- just being alive isn't enough for them. They must be more. They must be hip, they must be cool. They must be above it all.
Their minds, so powerful exercised on fantasies and so lacking in contact with reality, become powerful at creating fantasies....When those mental gyrations fail, the Obamanauts have nothing to fall back on. This creates panic and despair. Then their fear and dread of the Others propels them into rabid attacks on those Others.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/02/2011 09:04 ||
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#1
Republicans (of the Main Street variety, not the Wall Street subgroup.)
I don't know why this canard gets perpetuated. There hasn't been a 'Republican' Wall Street in a long time.
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.
Andy Stern announced recently that hes been to the future, and it works. In this case, the future resides in China, which he says has a superior economic system. The conservative-preferred, free-market fundamentalist, shareholder-only model so successful in the 20th century is being thrown onto the trash heap of history in the 21st century. 
He cannot compromise because he is of a caste that cannot touch the lower classes: the workers, the business owners, the gun owners, the churchgoers -- Republicans (of the Main Street variety, not the Wall Street subgroup.) For an intellectual to contact these untouchables is to pollute his mind. Thus he remains safe from bothersome facts.
