#1
naked alarmism and shaded half-truths mixed with enough disconnected facts to sell. while i agree with the main thesis, Al Gore would be proud of the methodology.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
05/17/2010 6:45 Comments ||
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#2
Ummm...we could use a bit more alarmism when it comes to the defective economic policies coming out of DC.
Peter Schiff should be quoted here more often. Economics will determine the course of the WOT and the future of this country, not the other way around. People lose sight of the ball, but the fact of the matter is that one tactic of asymmetric warfare is to get your enemy to spend themselves to death defending against possibilities.
We are losing and very few recognize that (even here).
#4
ION CHINESE MIL FORUM > [BBC] THE LONG ERA OF CHEAP FOOD IS OVER. Those Milyuhns-and-Zilyuhns of mostly poor Persons around the World, espec those residing in the POVERTY-STRICKEN THIRD WORLD, may still suffer from starvation + low crops yields regardless of how Good or Bad, Cheaply or Expensive FOOD PRICES are manipulated in World Markets.
* SAME > NATIONALISM ON THE RISE IN AL NATIONS DUE TO GLOBAL STAGNATION | WILL THE GLOBAL RECESSION LEAD TO WORLD WAR IV? GLOBAL STAGNATION STRENGTHENING THE NATIONALIST RIGHT EVERYWHERE, POTENTIALLY lEADING TO A WHOLE KIND OF COLD WAR [Global = Universal].
RISE OF STATE-LED = "STATE CAPITALISM" may lead to
* PERMANENT? STATE-GOVT SUPPORT, CONTROL of TROUBLED DOMESTIC INDUSTRIES seemingly vacated by PRIVATE COMPANIES
* RISE OF REGIONAL BLOCS + BILATERAL DEALS. TransRegional???
* TRADITIONAL STATE/GOVTS-LED GEOPOL = INTERNATIONAL DIPLOAMCY give way to GEOPOLITICS-N-DIPLOMACY-BY-MULTINATIONAL/CONGLOMERATE [Boards of Directors-Trustees]. MIL ARMIES-FIREPOWER REPLACED BY HI-TECHS + ECONOMIC, PROFIT YIELDS???
If for some inexplicable reason you wanted to reawaken German nationalism, how would you go about it? I suggest a three-part strategy.
First, you would replace the rock-solid German currency by one with very shaky economic foundations, against the wishes of almost the whole German population (which, of course, you would not deign to consult).
Second, you would make sure that same population paid for the gross and dishonest profligacy of the Greek government: a profligacy that was rendered possible by the adoption of the very currency that the German population did not want in the first place.
Third, you would do everything possible to ensure that the crisis will spread, last for a long time, cost a fortune in failed attempts to solve it, and fall mainly to the Germans to pay for.
It goes without saying the second and third parts of the strategy should be against the wishes of the German population whose opinion, however, should be bulldozed aside as being of no account.
There are two great advantages to the strategy I have proposed. The first is that it would achieve what many people might otherwise have thought impossible: it will morally justify and render respectable German nationalism in the eyes of all reasonably impartial observers. Why, indeed, should the Germans, who have practiced economic prudence and providence for sixty years, at least relative to everyone else, pay for other people to live above their means and to retire early on high pensions?
The second great advantage of the strategy I have proposed is that the hostility it evokes in the Germans would be thoroughly reciprocated in those countries to whose rescue the Germans population, against its will, would supposedly have come. This is because, along with the German rescue, will come hard and even harsh conditions, such as that governments should reduce the number of drones that they employ. The Germans will be seen to have thrown their weight around precisely because they are Germans; and self-pity will not permit the rescued' to see that they and their own governments are to blame for their sorrows.
With a little luck and attention to detail, the situation might evolve into war, first civil and then international.
It was interesting to read the French press during the evolution of the crisis. With its habitual Cartesian clarity, the French political class has spoken, all but unanimously, of the need for European solidarity with Greece.
What does solidarity mean in this context? Who is supposed to have solidarity with whom, given that four fifths of the German population (and a majority of the French) never wanted the common currency that was imposed on them, and that the majority of the German population sees no reason why it should pay for the ouzo of useless Greek civil servants?
The solidarity is that of the political, bureaucratic, and apparatchik class of Europe against everyone else. That class is reacting like someone who, hearing deep and ominous rumbles in the ground below below, tries to paper over the crater of a volcano.
#2
The socialist impulse seems to be failing them over there. Could we please be next?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/17/2010 12:03 Comments ||
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#3
A "volcano"? Please, enough of the Pajama-idiocy about the faraway countinent about which they know next to nothing.
There's utterly no risk of political violence or civil strife in Germany. The Germans, the nordics, the Swiss and for that matter the Czechs and the Balts will do fine.
Especially if these nations follow the lead of the editorial board of the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper and create their own DM-based currency union. (The editorialists specifically mentioned all the Germanic countries + Poland, Czech and Finland).
#4
They would have to include the Baltic states if only to keep the Russians from gobbling them up again. With this sort of currency union they could recreate the old Hanseatic League ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/17/2010 12:50 Comments ||
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#5
We have a lot more in common with the Hanseatic nations than we do with southern Europe. Here's hoping they secede from EMU, in which case we should get cracking on a US-NHU (New Hanseatic Union) Free Trade Agreement.
Also, note that expansive government in northern Europe is nowhere near so corrosive and damaging as it is outside of northern Europe. The main reasons are cultural: the Swedes, Germans etc may not believe in God anymore but they retain the old Protestant work ethic, they're frugal, they've resisted the importation of huge numbers of dole-seeking non-Europeans, and perhaps most importantly, their pols and unions have nowhere near the levels of corruption that you see outside of the north. Unlike the UK, they rein in their banksters and focus on producing real stuff they can export rather than living off of serial asset bubbles stoked by their central banks. Sweden and other nordics reformed their banking sectors about 15 years ago, and they've had decent-- and sustainable-- real growth since then, with low inflation.
Germany and Sweden are governed better, have less corruption, than CA, NJ, NY, MA, IL or MI. We should strive to make our country more, not less, like northern Europe. Splitting it off from corrupt, incompetent southern Europe and bankster-ridden Britain would make this outcome more likely.
#6
Greece, the Caliphornia of EUrope. Only proportionately smaller.
Dang, you people, as a Californian I get tired of being the Rantburg whipping boy. I understand that California is run by crooked morons who have bankrupted the state. But then, this whole country is run by crooked morons who have bankrupted all of us. And not all of the crooked morons in Congress are from California, either. There is a pretty good representation from all across the country. Not only that but the illegal aliens who have grabbed control of California's legislature are here because of federal government corruption and irresponsibility. That is a problem for all of us, not just those of us who happen to live in California.
#8
Nothing personal to you. I lived there 25 years. But when the people of Caliphornia voted down Arnold's five proposed referenda at the instruction of the teacher's union, they sealed their fate.
The politicians in Caliphornia seem less crooked than the politicians in much of the country, based on what I see. It's the voters who have been rolled by the state employee unions. Once you get to that point, it doesn't make any difference how honest the pols are. That's why Chris Christie is in office in New Jersey but could never be elected in Caliphornia.
#9
Ahnuld's predecessor, Gray "Pay for Play" Davis, was unquestionably corrupt.
As former CA Assembly Speaker Willie Brown recently admitted in a signed editorial, the California politicians' practice securing union contributions in exchange for allowing these same public sector unions to scam huge pension increases for themselves, while not illegal, has been a massive abuse of the public trust. This is the biggest factor behind CA's fiscal debacle, and it's fair to label it a corrupt practice.
#10
I voted for all five of Arnold's ballot propositions. I read them and they all made sense. I got the feeling that Arnold was making a serious effort to get a grip on California's problems. The unions beat the crap out of him and I think he kind of gave up after that. The worrisome thing is that if Arnold couldn't do it, who can?
#12
Please, enough of the Pajama-idiocy about the faraway countinent about which they know next to nothing.
'Theodore Dalrymple', the author of this article, is a Brit who has lived and worked in several African countries and who splits his time between the UK and a home in France.
#13
EU6305 said in #10 "I voted for all five of Arnold's ballot propositions. I read them and they all made sense. I got the feeling that Arnold was making a serious effort to get a grip on California's problems. The unions beat the crap out of him and I think he kind of gave up after that. The worrisome thing is that if Arnold couldn't do it, who can?"
I agree completely!! The voters of this state (CA) volunteered to be fu@ked in perpetuity by the unions. The product of our failed educational system, logic is dead.
#17
WMF > DECLASSIFIED GERMAN ARCHIVES REVEAL ADOLF HITLER IN 1937 DESIRED TO FORM A GERMAN-BRITISH-CHINESE MIL ALLIANCE ["Far East Plan"] AGZ JAPAN, + TO SEND GERMAN TROOPS TO FIGHT AGZ JAPAN IN CHINA. HITLER'S DESIRE TO USE NEW TRILATERAL ALLIANCE TO RECOVER GERMANY'S LOST FORMER COLONIES IN MICRONESIA/PACIFIC FROM JAPANESE CONTROL, FORCE JAPANESE WITHDRAWAL FROM CHINA, MANCHUKO [Manchuria], + KOREAS. ALLIANCE-LED JOINT MILITARY OCCUPATION OF JAPAN FOR AT LEAST 10 YEARS, CONVERSION OF JAPAN INTO NEW ALLIANCE ALLY-MEMBER.
I imagine that about the only two things forbidden in Alabama would be to tout Confederate ancestry, as it would be deemed an unfair advantage. And I won't say what the other one is, though folks can guess.
#10
Things he could have added: Alabama State flag, pictures of John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Robert E. Lee, Bear Bryant and Elvis, a wolf hybrid dog with puppies, a Holy Bible, a Caterpillar tractor, and Crimson Tide paraphernalia.
If you want to watch someone squirm, take a look at the two-minute videotape of Attorney General Eric Holder dodging Republican Rep. Lamar Smith's question of whether "radical Islam" motivated the Times Square bomber. Holder, who last year called America "a nation of cowards" for refusing to talk frankly about race, plainly didn't want to say what is plain to everyone else, that Faisal Shahzad, back from five months in Waziristan, launched his terror attack because of his Islamist beliefs.
Holder is not the only one who wants to shield us from this obvious truth. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, questioned about the bomber's motives, said he might have been acting out of opposition to the health care bill. Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein said he might have become unhinged by the foreclosure of his Connecticut home. Similar dignitaries have advanced similar theories. The Christmas underwear bomber, Barack Obama initially said, was an otherwise unspecified "isolated extremist." Fort Hood killer Nidal Hasan, we were told by journalists, may have been a victim of post-traumatic stress disorder -- although he never saw combat. Back in the George W. Bush years, we were told that the gunman who started shooting at the El Al counter at LAX had just chosen his target at random, and The New York Times found nothing significant when the Mumbai killers targeted a Jewish community center.
Why the reluctance to state the obvious truth, that we are under attack from terrorists motivated by a radical form of Islam? My theory is that these well-intentioned folk see the American people as a Howling Mob. They think that if Americans find out that Islamists are attacking us, they will go out and slaughter innocent Muslims. They think that Americans are incapable of understanding the simple truth that while most terrorists are Islamists, the large majority of Muslims are not terrorists.
Of course, the evidence is that Americans are quite capable of holding these two ideas in their heads. Even after Sept. 11, there were only a minuscule number of attacks on Muslims, and many more Americans went over to their Muslim neighbors and offered to help if they had any trouble. They didn't even need to hear the almost instant assurances from Rudy Giuliani and George W. Bush that all Muslims were not terrorists to bake a cake and bring it over.
The Howling Mob theory explains a lot of otherwise puzzling things. It helps to explain why Janet Napolitano's Homeland Security Department, tasked with finding possible terrorists, set about tracking disgruntled military veterans and gun owners. Just the kind of people who turn into a Howling Mob!
It helps to explain journalists' desperate search for racist epithets at the tea parties -- and their lack of interest in the actual violence that has been common at rallies against the Arizona immigration law and antiwar marches. It helps to explain the Justice Department's decision to drop the case against the New Black Panthers who were violently intimidating voters in Philadelphia on Election Day.
It helps to explain why Solicitor General Elena Kagan was willing to work in the Clinton White House after Bill Clinton signed the law banning open gays in the military -- a law Kagan has said she detests. Hey, he was just trying to propitiate the Howling Mob.
It should go without saying that it's ridiculous to believe, as many liberals do, that just about everyone west of Manhattan and east of Hollywood likes to go around wearing white sheets. On a novel issue like gays in the military, many Americans have been moving away from Clinton's 1990s position and toward Kagan's, even while they move away from her views on other issues like abortion.
As it became obvious that the Democrats' health care bills and the Obama big government programs were opposed by most Americans, some liberals resorted to a variant of the Howling Mob theory: Americans were against these programs because they didn't like having a black president. This, despite the fact that Obama was elected by the largest percentage margin in the last 20 years.
When you see a smart man like Eric Holder saying stupid things, you know something else is going on. You're seeing a high official who regards most of us as cowards, who believes the truth could make us a Howling Mob. Does Barack Obama feel the same way?
#1
The Howling Mob theory explains a lot of otherwise puzzling things. It helps to explain why Janet Napolitano's Homeland Security Department, tasked with finding possible terrorists, set about tracking disgruntled military veterans and gun owners. Just the kind of people who turn into a Howling Mob!
Then there is the Simpering, Reverse Racist, Apologist, Don't Want to Offend any Muslims at Any Costs, Hate America First, PC Theory.
#2
When you see a smart man like Eric Holder saying stupid things, you might begin to realize that 'smart' and 'stupid' are not mutually exclusive terms.
#3
They think that Americans are incapable of understanding the simple truth that while most terrorists are Islamists, the large majority of Muslims are not terrorists.
Or they understand that the majority of muslims support the terrorists in their effort to extend Dar es Salaam, however tepidly and discretely, as they have for centuries. But they don't want to admit this truth because they know how the American people will react.
Instead they hope to contain this episode of muslim expansionism until it burns out. But unchecked, it will go out of control and result in a mushroom cloud over an American city. And then they all will find out what it means to trample out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.
#4
Which do you think is more likely with this administration if a mushroom cloud grows over an american city:
1) Finally identify Islam Extremist (or any part of Islam at all) as the problem. Or Identify Iran and/or Pakistan and/or North Korea and/or etc...
2) Blame it on the 'Tea Party' / Militia / Conservatives / Arizona / Those-evil-republicans. Even if they have to blind the investigators to 'Islamic' evidence.
3) Identify Islam / Iran / etc... but slant it as 'our fault' or 'Bush'es fault' or the Tea Party's fault for our Imperialism.....
#1
You only have to read to paragraph 8 to discover it's the U.S.' fault. These people don't seem to grasp, it isn't where or how your troubles start that matters. It's where and how they end.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/17/2010 9:10 Comments ||
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#2
At least he acknowledges Pak army/ISI involvement!
I've changed his disingenuous title to make it more obvious
Recent attempted extremist attacks with international connections should prompt us to take a deeper look at root motives instead of simplistically faulting religion.
The tired cries of the un-nuanced, such as former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani...Many of these criminal acts are direct blowback in response to our foreign policy missteps.
The admitted Times Square attacker, Faisal Shahzad, who is of Pakistani origin and ethnically Pashtun, did not have a history of radicalism up until close to one year ago. Like the overwhelmingly majority of Pakistanis, Shahzad held a sharply negative view of the expansion of drone attacks in the Wazirstan province of Pakistan, which have resulted in a large percentage of civilian causalities.
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/17/2010 09:22 ||
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#1
Grrrrr! The author makes no mention of the fact that the cowardly terrorists hang out among civilians and receive support from them. (aiding and abetting the enemy).
His view is we (the USA) should just quit and let the terrorists rule. Give them what they want and maybe they won't hurt us.
F*ck that!
I'm surprised how many liberal b*stards fall for this line of thinking.
Imagine people spouting this crap during WWII
Posted by: Mike Hunt ||
05/17/2010 13:02 Comments ||
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#2
To add... The terrorists hate the drones because they work and they have no defense for them.
So now they trot out the poor-civilians-being- killed schtick (aka wedding-party-in-the-desert-at-3am) to try and convince the liberal dupes among us to apply pressure to the US government to get them stopped.
Posted by: Mike Hunt ||
05/17/2010 13:06 Comments ||
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#3
ION CAIR, PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > IN US, SECOND SUCCESSFUL BOMB ATTEMPT YOU DIDN'T HEAR ABOUT | CAIR: US OFFICIALS AND NATIONAL MEDIAS IGNORE [successful] FLORIDA PIPE BOMB MOSQUE BOMBING | US FBI INVESTIGATING MOSQUE PIPE BOMBING AS POSSIBLE DOMESTIC TERRORISM.
Instead the Feds-Police + Medias are wrongly focusing on SHAHZAD FAISAL'S failed = "fizzled" Times Square Car Bomb attempt INSTEAD OF THE SUCCESSFUL, POTENTIALLY DEADLY FLORIDA ATTEMPT WHERE THE PERPETRATOR(S) GOT AWAY AND HAVE YET TO BE DETERMINED ANDOR CAUGHT???
* SAME > [Satire] AN AMATEUR BOMBER IN NEW YORK. PAK was doing a fantastic job usurping the MIDDLE EAST'S + ARABS' postion as TOP EXPORTER OF WORLD-CLASS TERRORISTS, JIHADISTS + SUICIDE BOMBERS, ETC. UNTIL F *** N *** G *** SHAHZAD FAISAL CAME ALONG WID HIS ALLEGED PAK MILTERR-TRAINED INCOMPETENCE AND ALL BUT RUINED THE PAK LOCAL TERRORIST-MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY.
PAK "QUALITY/PRODUCT CONTROL" WAS BLOWN TO CAMEL-REENIES BY SHAZAD'S CLAIM OF LINKAGE TO PAKISTAN - NOT SURE IFF THE PAK MILITANTS CAN LEGALLY SUE SHAHZAD [US? PAK? UNICC? Courts]FOR COPYRIGHT, PLAGIARISM, + ALL-AROUND PERJURY + SLANDER AGZ THE MILITANTS', PAK'S GOOD = BRAND NAMES???
As 'CUZIN PARIS HILTON would say agz EVIL DASTARDLY PENCIL ABUSERS > HANG 'IM HIGH, D *** NG IT, HANG 'IM HIGH!
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.
By Michael Barone
