Like a catalogue shopper, for the last decade the Ministry of Defence has ticked off desired items for purchase but now that the bills are coming in we can see we cannot pay them.
The previous government left us a military debt of £72 billion the equivalent of not paying our troops or buying equipment for the next two years. It means that from 2015, once we finish combat operations in Afghanistan, we are going to spend perhaps a decade in recovery, similar to the American recuperation post-Vietnam.
Guilt, stirred up by leftist thinkers, is now de rigueur in the west. But Pascal Bruckner believes our soul-searching is both hypocritical and injurious
#1
But Pascal Bruckner believes our soul-searching is both hypocritical and injurious
I agree, I never owned any slaves, neither did my Father, Grandfather, or Great Grandfaher,
I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IN ANY WAY THAT BLACK PEOPLE ARE HERE IN AMERICA.
So the guilt the activists would MAKE me shoulder doesn't work (And it makes them FURIOUS that it doesn't.)
After all their (Rev Jesse, Martin Luther etc) whole game is to create White Guilt, then exploit it.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/07/2010 12:44 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Jim, while none of us have ever owned slaves, a fair number of us were around during the civil rights days of the 50s and early 60s. People then had a point, and they were right.
The country is better about this today than it ever has been, but that doesn't change the point that up to just a generation ago, minorities faced real, substantial legal barriers to just living a decent life. The legal barriers are gone but there's still barriers in place. That Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, among others, play off that for their own benefit doesn't make those barriers less real.
Acknowledging that today isn't 'guilt' -- I don't feel guilty about history, but it would smart for me to learn from it.
There's no need for 'white guilt' or any other kind of guilt. There is a need for us all to continue in removing the barriers of the past. That's the kind of world a conservative should want to live in.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/07/2010 12:58 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Jim, I am old enough to remember when Percy Julian, a professor at the University of Chicago, tried to move into my home town, Oak Park, about 1960. There were riots, cross burnings, the works. I find it humorous that 20 years later, the town renamed Hawthorne Middle School in Julian's honor.
I am also old enough to remember how Daley I's pals in real estate made a killing by blockbusting and "panic peddling". As soon as a black family moved into a neighborhood, Daley's minions in Sanitation stopped picking up the garbage and the schools stopped receiving supplies. Then the real estate vultures would get on the phone and say, "Better sell your house, because (Those People) are destroying your neighborhood." Of course, the vultures bought the houses cheap and sold high to black families. But The Machine still didn't pick up the trash, and let the schools rot.
Steve is right. Everyone needs to learn from this. Anybody who wants to see a racist needs only to look in the mirror. We all have our prejudices.
It's unfortunate for all of us that the Sharptons and Jacksons et al prefer to harp on old inequities instead of celebrating progress. It is also unfortunate that their grandstanding confuses the issue (see "Jena 6").
I have been a community volunteer in schools and neighborhood for 30 years. I wish a whole lot of people in the Education Establishment would take this paragraph to heart: Bruckner seeks a more rounded history. Nations should celebrate their heroes and victories while acknowledging their stains, because there are no angels and sinners among nations. In the west, the balance needs to tilt back toward a celebration of achievements and heroes who have fought for freedom and equality. Elsewhere, a little self-criticism would go a long way.
The worst thing the minority kids I volunteer with can do is keep on nursing these ancestral grievances. I have seen kids come into kindergarten telling other kids "Your granddaddy owned slaves." The Educational Establishment, with its white guilt mindset, is reinforcing this. This damages the minority children. When they breathe this attitude in, it results in lack of willingness to take responsibility for one's own actions; it confuses bad manners and racist violence with standing up for one's race. It breeds the Ghetto Mindset, and the Ghetto Mindset stunts its children and perpetuates this evil.
#4
The problem with that argument is that Asians were also discriminated against, faced legal obstructions, and bias. That community took advantage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts and instead of stewing in self destructive behaviors jumped at the opportunities afforded to them. That why the new game is to label Asians the 'New White'. So today, high achieving Asians, particularly, female Asians are effectively discriminated against in favor of others of less merit in access to state owned and operated academia. Yep, we've come a long way.
I remember the 60s and the bemoaning of white flight from the cities when forced busing was imposed. What the usual suspects ignored was the upper and middle class black flight from the cities as well. That tore the critical mass apart that kept destructive social behaviors in place prior. However, its the guilt game to blame whitey for the consequence and not the unintended consequences that we reaped from 'desegregation'. Can't gain power if you can't tag the man.
Convincing the 'haves' and sustaining the belief that somehow raced based advantage and privilege had more to do with their accomplishments and wealth than hard work, education, and determination is key to the big...."level the playing field" progressive con. And what better method of anchoring the concept to reality than linking it to slavery, billed as an exclusively white based, European and colonial American interprise.
#8
egntle beings Y'all have missed my point.
The race wars of chicago, birmingham washington and elsewhere are also not MY doing, but the above mentioned race baiters ae tying to make ME feel guilty, go after the correct people.
But no it's easier and more profitable to make ME guilty by association,(You're WHITE therefore YOU DID THIS, NOW YOU'LL PAY)
HELL NO I DIDN'T.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/07/2010 19:51 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Mom: my daughter attended Percy Julian school.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/07/2010 19:52 Comments ||
Top||
#10
"The legal barriers are gone but there's still barriers in place."
#11
there are "no angels and sinners among nations." >/em>
If that is a statement that nations are not people, one cannot disagree. But if it is moral equivalence, which I suspect it is, those who want others to take it to heart should be put on a plane to stay in Riyadh to see what kind of reception they receive upon arrival. After a year there, they can preach to me about how little difference there is.
#12
The legal barriers are gone but there's still barriers in place.
Most of those barriers now are cultural and self imposed. Promoted by the Leftist who have little desire to see the black man off the democrats plantation.
Take east asians for example (Japanese, Chinese, etc...). They don't typically get better grades because they are asian - but because their culture values and stresses a good education.
On the other hand the 'welfare / gangsta culture' being promoted by hollywood and the leftist media values handouts, single-parent families and 'do what you want - you won't be held responsible and daddy FED will pay to raise your spawn or pay to murder it.'
#13
Besoeker: You are mistaken, sir. Everyone does in fact have some prejudices. Some are more subtle than others, but we do have them. And yes, there is discrimination. The local Electrical Worker's Union just got hit with sizable damages because the union boss denigrated a black applicant and demoted a white office worker for challenging the boss's actions. The union has to pay the white worker for lost wages and assorted punitive damages. If the facts are as the paper reported them (always that caveat) then the union deserved the penalties.
Perhaps I did not make myself entirely clear in the earlier post, so I will try again.
1. Racists, and people who gain power by exploiting racism, come in all colors.
2. Anybody who thinks he or she is not racist at any level is mistaken.
3. CF's observation that " most barriers are cultural and self imposed" is often correct. The Sharptons and their ilk foster the sense of grievance. Too many bright kids are told they are traitors to their race if they try to make something of themselves.(Cue "crabs in a bucket" analogy)
4. I interpreted the quotation I highlighted as "Nations are not people". That seems to fit the context of the article. Some cultures are indeed more toxic than others.
I interpret the author's statement, "A little self-criticism would go a long way" to mean that everybody needs to take a good look at themselves, not just white people.
5. We should never underestimate what evil people can do. The correct lesson to learn from race wars, slavery, etc is that people can and will find a way to justify any kind of evil, and we need to guard our hearts and minds against the attitudes that eventually produce these things.
#14
Besoeker, I self-censored. One of the perks of being a Mod. Figured I shouldn't post when I'm angry, which could set a bad example. However, my feelings on the subject remain unchanged.
Several weeks ago I wrote I thought Barack Obama didnt really want to be president. The post generated a fair amount of discussion, pro and con.
Michelles $375,000 Spanish vacation with the Daily Mail dubbing her a modern-day Marie Antoinette is further proof of my thesis. What man who wanted to be re-elected (or see his party do well in November) would let his wife go off on such an excellent adventure in these economic times? Of course no one denies the right of people to have vacations Im coming to the end of one myself on my beloved Bainbridge Island but closing Mediterranean beaches while booking 60-plus rooms in a five star Marbella hotel for her entourage? It is beyond tone deaf, perhaps to the level of subconscious (or even deliberate) self-sabotage.
At the very least, something most peculiar is going on. The first lady goes off on a jaunt worthy of 18th Century aristocracy at the very moment of her husbands birthday. Is somebody trying to tell us something? Is somebody trying to tell her spouse something? Or vice-versa? Who knows? You wont find out in the mainstream media thats for sure. They dont even bother to check Obamas college records. Perhaps the National Enquirer is on the case. They may be the only hope.
If I were still a member of the Democratic Party, I would be most concerned. What is going on in the White House seems to be so disconnected from the reality of our country with some indicating real unemployment at a staggering 22% as to be teetering on the brink of a pyschological disorder. And in this case that disorder would be a folie a deux of some sort because Barack and Michelle appear to be colluding in it in some way, whatever the state of their relationship. And that disconnect between them and the American people is growing.
#2
I wonder if choosing Marbella was also subconscious sabotage? Do a RB query on Marbella--lovely home of notorious arms dealer Monzer al-Kassar, Bashar's uncle Rifaat Assad, and Algerian terrorists, the Jihadi Salaphist Group.
#7
I wonder if choosing Marbella was also subconscious sabotage?
Marbella has long been known to everyone in Europe as the Gulf Arab gazillionaires' playground. The Saudi princes typically do what Barry's wife did, only on an even grander scale, and with blonde East European hookers flown in to their Marbella suites.
I don't know of any Americans-- let alone American politicians-- who go to Marbella. It's like selecting Dubai as your vacation destination. It's unbelievably tone-deaf.
Then again, maybe it was deliberate. Remember the bowing and (literally) scraping episode when Barry was introduced to King Fahd? Calling Chavez "amigo"? Telling an Egyptian audience that Zionism only sprang up as a result of the Holocaust?
Choosing the Saudis' preferred haunt as his and his wife's vacation spot is yet more evidence that Barry enjoys the image of himself as a lord among the third world crony capitalist elite.
#9
What is going on in the White House seems to be so disconnected from the reality of our country -- with some indicating real unemployment at a staggering 22% -- as to be teetering on the brink of a pyschological disorder.
Somewhere along the line Obama and Michelle act like society screwed them and they are owed despite living a privileged life. I don't think either one of them has really worked a day in their lives. I doubt that either one of them has experienced much hardship.
#12
Spot on Tipper. Too much effort and hard work involved in being president. The new has worn off, Barry is looking for a new toy, possibly Secretary General to the UN or some other international agency. I suspect the progressive 'fix is in' and he's stepping down to let the Hildebeast run in 2012. Look for a very, very vocal and activist former president.
#13
"I thought Barack Obama didnt really want to be president."
That's precious.
If by "President" you mean a leader bound by the checks and balances of the US Constitution, then you're right.
Make no mistake about it: The One loves the power his position gives him. The only thing he regrets is not having more and only being able to stay for eight years.
President Clinton's eight years in office took one hell of a toll on him too.
But in the end they had to drag him out by his finger nails.
These people are all the same.
Posted by: Marilyn Elmearong7030 ||
08/07/2010 22:25 Comments ||
Top||
#14
I think he actually did want to be President. I mean, you get this really cool private plane, you have a nice rent-free and mortgage-free place to live in DC complete with servants, you always win at golf....
But the work part? Nah...he didn't want THAT. And the worst thing as far as he and his wife are concerned....he can't get a higher position than the one he has now. So, he might as well blow off his current gig, enjoy the perks, and count on his pension kicking in in January 2012.
In short, he prefers yet another public-private partnership, the now-familiar progressive corporatist model that met with such success in Italy in the 1920s. Odd, how the private party in that arrangement always turns out to be the junior partner. And yet he maintains that state support does not translate into official control. He seems not to have learned the popular phrase: he who pays the piper calls the tune.
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.
