When Warren Buffett criticized President Bush's tax cuts while plumping for the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, he garnered prominent, adulatory headlines ... Consider that as the context for two pieces of information:
First, the observation, amid a column in today's Wall Street Journal, about Berkshire Hathaway's cash mountain: "Mr. Buffett would rather not resort to the simplest way of solving this problem -- paying excess cash out to shareholders in the form of a dividend. Since he owns roughly 26% of Berkshire's shares, a cash dividend would saddle Mr. Buffett with one of the largest personal-income tax bills in American history. That's not the kind of thing at which he likes to excel. Mr. Buffett's reluctance to pay a dividend leaves him with little choice but to buy big companies outright."
Second, the news (again, from the Wall Street Journal) that Mr. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is joining in a bid to buy $3 billion in tax credits from Fannie Mae. Reports the Journal: "The credits are virtually worthless to Fannie Mae and require the company to take losses each quarter as their value declines. Companies such as Berkshire Hathaway and Goldman Sachs could use them to offset federal tax expenses."
Neither Journal article places the news in the context of Mr. Buffett's stated support for higher taxes.
#4
The wicked neocons are still around, many of them command Armored Divisions. Many wear a Flag patch on the shoulder of their Uniforms.
These wicked people are often US Marines as well.
When George Bush came into the Division they stood up and cheered.
Do you know WHY Obama never goes to see the US troops, is never shown shaking a soldier's hand...its because when he walks into an auditorium (IF he ever decided to be so stupid) full of US servicemen...he would get dead Silence.
Being a neocon isnt an abstract, it isnt gone bye bye just because its not in the news as much...but its out there by the hundreds of thousands....and its wearing a uniform and carrying a gun and you are sitting drinking your coffee because somewhere rocky and hot the US neocons are saving you ass.
#5
Barry has studied the demographics of the volunteer military. He knows where tho majority of our soldiers come from and how they vote. Why would he waste time with Southerners?
#8
I am of mixed minds about Neoconservatives, as they embrace both positive traits, like a strong, aggressive foreign policy that seeks to enlarge real democracy; but they also have a severe downside.
This is a willingness to accept a leftist status quo in domestic social policy. Seen in Republican presidents who have powerful foreign policies, yet neglect domestic issues, allowing Democrats and leftists far more power than they should.
Right now, for example, the Neocon domestic policy would be to oppose Obamacare. But if it were to pass, that would be the end of the debate. Obamacare would be written in stone forever, and no effort would even be tried to eliminate it as a failed scheme, even if the Republicans held a 3/4ths majority in both houses and the presidency.
To make matters worse, Neocons are infested with a creepy willingness to abide internationalism, and other such foul conspiracies. They do not seem to grasp that by doing these things, it severely undermines what they struggle for in foreign policy.
Why fight tyrants for real democracy, then cede it to anti-democratic forces just because they throw good cocktail parties? It is self defeating.
Add to this alignments between Neocons and those who do care about domestic issues, but whose theories are so wild as to be unsupportable, like the CATO institute. Yet Neocons embrace such groups at the expense of far more reasoned thinkers.
#9
The "tea parties" and town hall meetings are essentially libertarian. There is no conservative policy agenda -- only a demand that the government stop trying to run our lives.
Crane makes a cogent observation here. One can argue there is clearly Neo-Con vs. Tea Party conflict. But as with all capital L Libertarians he advocates that adherence to strictly negative rights is the only way to preserve liberty. Standing up for what your for may get you most of the way. However, history has taught us there are times when its necessary to fight what your against.
#12
The "tea parties" and town hall meetings are essentially libertarian.
Libertarians break down into 3 groups: those who think that the Donks aren't liberal enough, those who think that the Reps aren't conservative enough and those who just want to smoke pot. Philosophically, Libertarianism is pretty straightforward, but when you look at who the L's are you see it's nearly impossible to make generalizations. The Donks and Reps also have their internal contradictions, but nowhere near the level that the L's have.
Anyway, the point is that describing the Tea Party movement in terms of any political party is a mistake. They are obviously neither just Donks nor Reps, but they are even more obviously not Libertarian.
You might argue that, by using the word "libertarian" with a little 'l' the author only meant to discuss it as a philosophy. If so then his point is facially incorrect, as conservatism is the only mainstream political philosophy today which even remotely resembles libertarian philosophy.
#13
I am a libertarian neocon. I discount the libertarian open borders nonsense and a lot of the neocon domestic spending. However, my neocon beliefs are a bit flexible. I'm a believer in the J curve. Yeah you can make an instant democracy but its gonna be a long tough slog so perhaps a stable dictatorship is better in the short term. Especially as it allows the US to leave before our historically proven 4 year tolerance for a conflict runs out.
#16
Taken with salts. It is the LA Times Opinion column. Personally, I think the Trunks stand a better chance of winning in 2010 and 2012 if they look different than the left wing extremist Democrats. Washington is way out of control. Money for Congress is like meth for a speed freak or crack for a crack head.
#17
NS, are you seriously suggesting that Specter, Scuzzyfava, Snowe, Collins and Jeffords strongly support intervention abroad in the cause of freedom?
The hurt that moves Pakistan is from a wound more recent1971
By Khurram Hussain
On a recent trip to India, I was moved by the genuine concern people have about Pakistan. As a Pakistani living in the United States, I am subjected daily to serious exasperation, courtesy the American media. Americans do not understand Pakistan because they do not care. And there is no real knowledge without caring. Indians certainly do care. Pakistan has been on the Indian mind since the moment of their co-creation. India and Pakistan are like two ends of a thread tied in a fantastic Gordian knot; their attachment magically survives their severance. And how the love grows! The recent Jaswant Singh controversy over Jinnah only partially unveiled how Pakistan is critical to the ideological coherence of Indian nationalism in both its secular and Hindutva varieties. But behind this veil, Pakistan has always been internal to Indian politics. It should come as no surprise then that establishment Indians (bureaucratic and political elites, intellectuals, media types, and the chattering classes) are well-versed in the nuances of Pakistani society. Indians understand Pakistan like no one else does, or can.
Still, there is this curious blind spot: no one in India appears to remember 1971. Worse, no one seems to think it relevant. For all their sophistication, Indian elites continue to understand Pakistan primarily with reference to the events of 1947. Anything else is incidental, not essential. The established Indian paradigms for explaining Pakistan, its actions and its institutions, its state and society, have not undergone any significant shift since the Partition. The tropes remain the same: religion and elite manipulation explain everything. It is as if the pre-Partition politics of the Muslim League continues to be the politics of Pakistanwith slight non-essential variations. More than 60 years on, the factors may be different but little else has changed.
This view is deeply flawed. It reflects a serious confusion about the founding event of contemporary Pakistani society. The Partition has a mesmerising quality that blinds the mind, a kind of notional heft that far outweighs its real significance to modern South Asian politics. The concerns of the state of Pakistan, the anxieties of its society, and the analytic frames of its intellectual and media elites have as their primary reference not 1947 but the traumatic vivisection of the country in 1971. Indians have naturally focused on their own vivisection, their own dismemberment; but for Pakistan, they have focused on the wrong date. This mix-up has important consequences.
First, Indians tend not to remember 1971 as a Pakistani civil war, but rather as Indias good war. It is remembered as an intervention by India to prevent the genocide of Bengalis by Pakistanis. The fact that the Bengalis themselves were also Pakistanis has been effaced from the collective memory of Indian elites. This makes 1971 merely another Kargil, or Kashmir, Afghanistan or Mumbaian instance of Pakistan meddling in other peoples affairs, and of the Pakistani militarys adventurism in the region. This is why mention of Balochistan at Sharm el-Sheikh created such a stir in India. It was literally incomprehensible to Indians that Pakistan could accuse India of meddling in its internal affairs. Surely, this is the pot calling the kettle black. But what the Indian mind perceives as Pakistans ongoing divorce from reality is in fact Pakistans most fundamental political reality. The Pakistani establishment has internalised the memory of 1971. In all things, and at all times, it must account for India. Dismemberment has the requisite effect of focusing the mind on existential matters. Nothing can be taken for granted.
Second, the Indian establishment routinely misconstrues as ideological schizophrenia the Pakistani intellectual classes complicated responses to India. The nuances of the Pakistani experience of India are the very picture of incoherence to them. Worse, Pakistanis often frustrate the project of creating a common South Asian sensibility to bridge the political gaps between the two communities.
But again, no one in India accounts for 1971 when making such grand universalising (and, if I may add, genuinely noble) plans for the future of the region. Pakistani intellectual elites share with their Indian counterparts the normative horror of what the West Pakistani military did in the East. How can anyone in their right mind not deem such behaviour beyond the pale? But horror does not preclude abiding distaste for the Indian states wilful opportunism in breaking Pakistan apart. It is for this reason that while the intellectual classes in Pakistan, especially the English language press and prominent university scholars, have almost always condemned their states involvement in terrorist activity inside India proper, they have remained largely quiet concerning Kashmir. Whats good for the goose is good for the gander. Kashmir does not seem so different to them than East Pakistan.
It is for this same reason that there was no great outcry about the isis supposed involvement in the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul. The general sense among the educated elites was that India deserved it for trying to encircle Pakistan through Afghanistan. Indians process this either as paranoia or as a visceral hatred of India that blinds Pakistanis to facts. Perhaps there is some of this too. But it bears appreciating that Pakistan is a post-civil war society. Fear and anxiety concerning Indias intentions in the region are hardly limited to the so-called establishment in Pakistan. It is a general fear, a well-dispersed fear, a social fear. And a relatively coherent fear at that.
This leads to the third, and perhaps the most important point. The Indian establishment does not see Pakistan as a normal society. The substance of this abnormalcy is religion, which is also the irreducible difference between the two societies. It is the original sin and a foundational incoherence that is ultimately inescapable. And it has tremendous explanatory power. It explains both the ideological nature of the Pakistani states hatred of India and, simultaneously, the states manipulation of the zealous masses for its own ends. That these two explanations do not hold together coherently is besides the point to most Indians. This is an old story and is as such sensible. In the Indian imagination, Pakistan is endlessly regurgitating the politics of Jinnah and the erstwhile Indian Muslim League. While Indian politics moves on, Pakistans holds eerily still. I am certainly not one to deny that there are some obvious asymmetries between India and Pakistan. The nature of the relationship between religion and politics is certainly one of them. But it bears mentioning that perhaps the most relevant asymmetry concerns the repeated defeats suffered by the conventional Pakistani forces at the hands of their Indian counterparts. This asymmetry is neither that complicated nor particularly abnormal. It illuminates the actions of the Pakistani state as essentially strategic and only incidentally ideological. And in that sense, it allows an interpretation of Pakistan as a fairly pedestrian, even normal post-conflict society in its relations with its much larger neighbour.
Ultimately, this is the real value of a renewed focus on 1971 rather than 1947. It normalises Pakistan. It allows for discussion of real differences between the two societies and the two states, rather than of reified stereotypes that have little political relevance any more. This is not to justify the actions of the Pakistani state, which are in many cases entirely unjustifiable on both moral and political grounds. It is merely to hope that a mutual comprehension of normalcy may lead to peace and progress. Certainly, no one will deny that there is value in that.
The author is with the Religious Studies Department at Yale University. He is also a member of the MacMillan Initiative on Religion, Politics and Society at Yale and a doctoral fellow at the Centre for Global Islamic Studies at Lehigh University.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/05/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
I am sorry. You can not "normalize" a state where Universities award PHDs in Physics for arguments about how many Jinn can fit on the head of pin.
You can not "normalize" a society that refuses to turn over the mass murderers Osama and Z-man.
Their whole society appears to be insane. End of Story!
Stephanie Gutmann, "The Corner" @ National Review.
Two offhand remarks by the winning and losing candidates in last nights New Jersey election reflect increasingly polarized attitudes toward the elderly and end of life issues.
In making his concession speech, Democratic governor Jon Corzine was consoling his followers when he said, My mother is probably the only one thats happy tonight. Shes a Republican. Shes 93 years old so, were not going to worry too much about that.
The line got a big laugh.
When victorious Republican Chris Christie made his victory speech, he told the story of an elderly constituent he met on the campaign trail. He said to me, Im 90 years old, and Im going to vote for you. But you better do what you promise. Because if you dont, Im going to vote against you in another four years. The line also got a big laugh, but it sounded more joyous, less sneering, and less subtly derisive.
Just a straw in the wind, but the Corzine remark mirrors a callousness, a coarse attitude about the dispensability of the aged, that one sees in the debate over health-care reform.
Posted by: Mike ||
11/05/2009 06:48 ||
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#1
Isn't it amazing with such a 'broken' health care system how many people we have older than 80 or 90.
The Natural Edges Salon in Dallas, Texas, is a rowdy barbershop where black men gather to loudly talk smack, politics and sports.
But on one wintry November morning last year, the men suddenly stopped talking. Someone turned the radio off, and the barbers' clippers stopping humming. A man had just challenged the customers' manhood.
The man was President-elect Obama. He was giving a televised speech challenging men to get involved in their communities.
The men had heard the message before, but this time they could relate to the messenger. Obama had shared their struggles -- raised by a single mom, never really knowing his father -- but had never used his struggles as an excuse.
Nor could they anymore, some of the men decided. Seven joined Big Brothers Big Sisters of America that morning, barber Michael Johnson says. One of them was Johnson, who says he grew up without his father but was saved by the friendship of an older man. "I just said, 'You know what, I can do this today instead of tomorrow,' " Johnson said. '' 'Tomorrow may be too late. I can save a young man's life today.' "
As the nation approaches the first anniversary of Obama's election, the glow of Obama's ascendancy may be fading. But it's still burning bright for some black men. Inspired by Obama, a growing number of black men across the nation have decided to become mentors and pledged to become better fathers, community leaders say.
"I've never seen anything like it," said David Miller, co-founder of the Urban Leadership Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, a group that works with other civic groups to mentor black and Latino boys. "I have seen a renewed sense of hope and optimism that's unprecedented," Miller said. "I was at the point where I was starting to give up."
It could be easy to overstate Obama's impact on black men. Some say they see no change in black men's conduct since Obama was elected. And few would say that a black man sitting in the Oval Office is going to wipe out the challenges black men have faced for generations.
But black leaders say something across the nation seems to be stirring. And hopefully as a result a whole bunch of idiots whose name starts with "Reverend" will be out of a job soon.
Three of the nation's largest black fraternities have formed a partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. The fraternities -- Omega Psi Phi, Alpha Phi Alpha and Kappa Alpha Psi -- are holding a summit in Atlanta, Georgia, in December to decide how to recruit more black men as mentors.
The number of black men volunteering at Big Brothers Big Sisters has increased. About 800 more African-American men have become big brothers since Obama's election, compared with the same time last year, a group spokeswoman says.
Although they didn't reach their goal, a record number of black men -- 650,000 -- participated this year in an annual Million Father March. The nationwide march was organized by the Black Star Project, a nonprofit group based in Chicago, Illinois.
A foundation headed by billionaire George Soros, an Obama supporter, is investing $15 million in a three-year campaign to help black men. Soros' Open Society Institute designed the Campaign for Black Male Achievement to improve the lives of black men and boys by offering grants to groups across the country.
Numbers tell some of the story, but Obama's biggest impact on black men might be psychological, Miller says.
"I use Obama as a sort of an unofficial national spokesman when I talk to men about responsible fatherhood," Miller said. "I show black men multiple images of Obama with his children and his wife. Even with the criminals and the thugs, they get excited."
Black men still need to step up, say some who work closer to the issue.
At the Atlanta chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters, Rita Owens, the vice president of development, says she hasn't seen any more black men volunteer since Obama was elected. "We can't see any influx of black men volunteers," she said. "We do not have enough black men stepping up. We have more Caucasian men stepping up."
And Karen Mathis, president and CEO of Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America, says the need for black men is still urgent. She says that about 40 percent of the boys waiting to be matched in the program are black. But only 15 percent of the mentors are black men, she says.
Perhaps Obama's effect on black men can't ultimately be measured by numbers but by mentoring relationships that often take years to nurture.
When Johnson, the Dallas barber, decided after hearing Obama's speech that he wanted to be a big brother, someone was there to sign him up. The Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity had dispatched volunteers to Johnson's barbershop to sign up black men as big brothers that day.
But Johnson also had an example from his own life to inspire him. He was mentored since he was 9 years old by one of the men responsible for forging the partnership between black fraternities and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.
That man is Dale H. Long, national chairman for Alpha's partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Partnership. Johnson made Long the best man at his wedding when his own father declined to attend.
"I wanted to give back just like Dale took time out of his life to give back," Johnson said. "[Long] had a family, but he chose to be a big brother to me."
Long said, "Obama can't do it by himself." He decided to "step up my game" even more after Obama was elected. "In order to be a man, our boys have to see men," Long said.
And be encouraged by men as well. When Long learned that his former little brother, Johnson, had decided to be a big brother, he drove to Dallas to make sure he was at Johnson's side when he signed up. "I was just thrilled beyond belief," Long said. "That let me know that I was of some kind of value to him."
Now Johnson is passing it on. He spends each week with Kedrick Howt, an 11-year-old Dallas boy. They go to movies, play basketball and talk about growing up without his father. "I can almost picture myself when I was his age, going through what he's going through," Johnson said. "It's like, some days, I'm looking in the mirror."
Kedrick's mother, Laura Howt, says her son felt abandoned by the men in his life. Howt divorced Kedrick's father. "My son shut down," she said. "He stopped caring. He didn't want to talk to anybody."
Johnson says her son has changed. He made all A's and one B on his latest report card. He seems happy, and he no longer talks back. "He's made an incredible difference," Howt says of her son's big brother. "I had given up all hope of him being a good black man. He's made my job easier."
Kedrick sounds giddy when he talks about his big brother. "He taught me how to be respectful. He taught me how to be a man," Kedrick said. "I listen to him because he's part of my family."
When asked about Obama, Kedrick didn't have much to say. Big issues like the Obama effect on black men are off of his adolescent radar for now.
So is the prospect of growing up without an older man to guide him into manhood.
When asked what his life would be like without his new big brother, Kedrick paused. "I don't even like to think about it," he finally said. "I like to think on the bright side."
#2
Simply treating societal symptoms again. Showing photos of Barry's lovely fammily, watching people smile, and hoping for cultural change is not enough.
#6
While undeniably chronic in a few, the "don't get it" crowd appears to be expanding among ALL demographic groups. Not entirely certain what to attribute it to, TeeVee maybe? Too many rats in the box syndrone? Multiple causes I suspect.
Frontpage Interviews guest today is Victor Davis Hanson
FP: Victor Davis Hanson, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Id like to talk to you today about radical Islam and the Obama administrations ability and inclination, or lack thereof, to confront it.
Whats the best way to begin this discussion?
Hanson: Thanks Jamie.
The paradigm of discussing radical Islam is entirely different after January 20. Jihad has been institutionalized now as a benign personal odyssey rather than explicatory of the sort of murderous attacks we have seen since 1979 directed at the West, most recently with the four Islamic plots to kill Americans by radical Islamists since Obama has taken office.
Obamas interview with al Arabiya and his Cairo speech had two clear themes: his own personal heritage makes him uniquely qualified to undo the Bush damage; and we in the West have been equally culpable for the strained relations.
This sort of moral equivalence is little concerned with any redress of pathologies that in fact led to 9/11: Western appeasement of, or indifference to, radical Islam, whose extremism was the natural dividend of a region torn by enormous oil wealth, and age old statism, tribalism, gender intolerance, and dictatorship. In the era of Obama, radical Islam and the West merely have different narratives, rather than a fascistic creed trying to destroy the notion of Western freedom and tolerance.
Abroad as both sides refocus on the Afghanistan theater, somehow Obama is more demoralized by our victory in Iraq than the Islamists are by their defeat; and we have forgotten in the Bush reset button rhetoric that support for bin Laden and suicide bombinggiven the terrible dividends they earnedhad plummeted in polls in the Middle East. In addition, in the Bush did it Obama narrative there was no mention of the arrest of Dr. Khan, the Syrian exit from Lebanon, the surrender of the Libyan WMD stockpiles, or the absence of another 9/11.
The result is that many in the radical Islamic worldespecially after Obamas serial trashing of the Bush-era security protocols like retaps, intercepts, and Guantanamo may well be emboldened to think that either America questions its successful efforts at thwarting another attack since 9/11, or in some strange way sympathizes with some of the writs against itself.
FP: What explains the Obama administrations behaviour and viewpoint in this context?
Hanson: a) Obama is a product of his education and early life, in which America being culpable for a variety of sins was the gospel , as we see from his associates like Ayers, to his minister like Wright, to the general force of his community organizing in Chicago, to his most partisan voting record in the Senate;
b) Obama, like many elites on the left who thrived in the academic and organizing/grant-giving world, understood that his exotic name, his mixed heritage, his fathers Muslim roots could all be combined to present some sort of revolutionary aura within the confines of the university that would pay career dividends, and then among the general public, if packaged with a charismatic and conciliatory persona, could make one feel comfortable and good about ones supposed liberality; he thrived on being a revolutionary lite figure in a non-threatening manner, and its hard to give up a winning hand at this late stage;
c) Obama has almost no real experience with an America outside the victim politics of Chicago and the melodramas of the university. He has never run a business, never worked hard with his hands, never had to meet a budget, never understood how money is made, but instead essentially pleaded his cause to win fellowships and grants, dispensed someone elses money as a board member, made claims against government (organizing), and written his autobiographies at a young age.
Life, in other words, was pretty easy, as the path from Harvard Review to Nobel Prize Winner was characterized by smoothing rhetoric and a host of people who, for a host of psychological reasons of their own, wished to give him something for something he didnt earn. Now he oddly seems surprised that not all those abroad are as wowed as the 2008 American electorate. Rest at link
Posted by: ed ||
11/05/2009 00:00 ||
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#2
Being born and raised in the States as opposed to Islamaville is a plus. Growing up with srong male role model usually helps young men a bit. Having worn a uniform and served one's country would have been an enabler as well. The list goes go on and on.
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.
The Natural Edges Salon in Dallas, Texas, is a rowdy barbershop where black men gather to loudly talk smack, politics and sports.
