Sometimes the MSM does a good job.
This article on Kofi Annan, from Perry Anderson over at The Nation, is well researched and informative, and give us a partially new perspective on a number of things.
First of all, that Kofi Annan was a creation of the Clinton White House and was rammed down the throats of the collective security council by the Clinton White House.
Note the emphasis that I lay here on the Clinton White House: Anderson, of course, refers only to the US.
Why this emphasis? Because Kofi Annan didn't play the same game with the Bush White House as he did with the Clinton White House. He did not oppose US-led UN actions in what was left of Yugoslavia; he most certainly did when the US tried to lead the UN into concerted action against the failed state of Iraq. He was more than happy to let the French block the UN Security Council in order to desperately try to avoid French corruption from coming to the light of day and scrutiny.
This fits in nicely with the position of the Clintonistas, who were - and are - more than happy to use Iraq as a political tool against the Bush administration.
And, predictably, Annan pulled the UN out of Iraq when it was clear that they were being targetted by insurgents. What else could he have done?
Well, he could have addressed the General Assembly on the reasons why the UN was attacked in Iraq and point out to them that by attacking the UN, the insurgents were attacking the very structure of international cooperation, and that the member nations of the UN must condemn the attacks and work to ensure that the UN could operate safely. Not support the US mission - that would take the speculation here into the realm of wishful thinking - but support the UN mission of bringing order to chaos.
Instead he sacrificed those who died to appease the war critics, ensuring that the conflict would be longer, bloodier and for the people of Iraq infinitely more desperate than would have been the case if the UN had grown a backbone.
Anderson's take on Annan is a good one: never strong, nor an independent actor. A bureaucrat, with a failed education. He was the creature of the Clinton White House and never one of the Bush White House: when Annan's involvement in the Oil for Food scandal became clear, it was a series of Clintonistas that rallied to his defense.
Freitag, März 16, 2007
Montag, März 12, 2007
Bye Bye Chirac ...
The worst President that France ever had is finally going to disappear from the political scene.
Not a day too soon.
Why do I say the worst?
Because he was.
Most fundamentally, Chirac was responsible for the greatest foreign policy blunder of the Fifth Republic since Suez.
On September 11th, he proclaimed "We are all Americans".
He started off right: he supported UN Resolution 1368 and sent troops to Afghanistan.
But starting on 15 Oct 2001 things started to go downhill. True French solidarity lasted only slightly more than 1 month.
His reluctance to get involved is based on the fear of getting involved in the Third World. In sharp contrast to his predecessor, Mitterand, Chirac's life wasn't heavily impacted by WW2, and it shows.
On 15 Oct 2001 he acknowledged that a clash of civilizations was developing, but saw a completely, radically different solution: engagement and discussion, with the West needing to take on the responsibility for the plight of the developing world, whose production of terrorists was the result of poverty and misery in those countries.
This is, of course, a crass misunderstanding of modern terrorism, which does not have its roots in poverty and misery, but rather comes from the upper levels of Arab society and has its roots in the failure of those societies to achieve anything remotely like the economic development of the West, despite their heritage and money from oil. This failure, because Arab pride does not allow honesty, can only be the result of repression and subjugation of Arabs by the West, hence the West must be eliminated as a source of comparison in order for the failure of Arab culture not to be made so obvious. I know that this is a simplification, but this lies at the core of why modern terrorism is largely an Arab problem, with the use of Islamic fundamentalism not merely a welcome tool for this purpose, but rather one of the driving forces behind it.
The result of Chirac's fundamentally incorrect perception of the world led to the greatest fiasco of French foreign policy, one that will literally take decades to correct.
Almost one year exactly after the attack of 11 Sep, he basically said: "Attempting to change the regime in foreign countries means entering these countries and dealing with foreign cultures," and he felt that this was a very dangerous attitude.
He's right: changing the regimes in foreign countries is a dangerous thing, as things never turn out as you might like. But given the dangers that the failed countries of the Middle East represent, Chirac failed to provide any sort of alternative course besides "let's simply not do it".
This was born the obstructionist policy of France in dealing with the Middle East: France under Chirac actively broke with the US on dealing with the countries of the Middle East, first and foremost with Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
According to Chirac's biographer, both the political and military circles in France vastly underestimated the determination that Chirac had not to allow the US to follow its policies. Chirac decided to block the US at all costs. The threat of the veto at the UN virtually destroyed the UN as the premier place to work out the strategy of the West against the terror threats from the Middle East, as it basically came out of the blue. All observers, including the French, expected France to object and try to modify US behavior - which has been a constant in US-French relations since at least Suez - before then agreeing to US actions.
Instead, the threat of the veto suprised everyone and did the one thing that Chirac didn't really expect (but was more than willing to accept as fallout from his actions): it emboldened Saddam Hussein to resist any political solution, destroying any chance that there even could be a peaceful resolution of UN Resolution 1444. This is, I think, something that can be clearly laid at Chirac's door as the legacy of his short-sighted objections to the US policy towards Iraq in the wake of the post-11 Sep environment.
The attempt during the UN security council debates to build a counter-alliance with Russia, China, Germany and Belgium, as well as countries from Latin America and Africa was also unprecedented and correctly viewed by the US as a massive undermining of their position in trying to resolve the conflict with Iraq. Rather than show solidarity and also take responsibility for their own failures in the past (France was a major supplier to Iraq under Saddam Hussein and were active in the undermining of the sanctions), the French deliberately took the other side, perhaps not of being on the side of Saddam Hussein, but of being a belligerent neutral firmly opposed to whatever actions the US took.
This put France not in its traditional role of independent NATO partner, but put them instead in the camp that was opposed to the US exercise of power, a fundamental break with the long history and tradition of US-French relations.
Bluntly, this has been the greatest failure of any European president since Suez.
But it didn't stop there. Chirac never viewed European unity as a proponent for European unity as an end in itself, but much more as a nationalist politician seeking to create the best possible result for France, even at the cost of other European countries more dedicated to European unity than he. The abject failure of the European constitution in France, voted down by a solid majority, despite the advantages for France in a Europe unified under the draft constitution, underscored the contradictions that the people saw in Chirac: trumpeting European unity while ensuring that France was primes inter pares.
In terms of military affairs, Chirac will probably be remembered best by his call, in January 2006, for the French use of nuclear weapons if France and French interests are attacked. He did transform the French military from a draftee army to a professional, modern army, but he also ordered the testing of new nuclear warhead designs, despite world-wide protests, and elevated the Force de Frappe (the nuclear forces of France) to a much higher status than they had with the collapse of the Soviets.
Domestically, Chirac wouldn't have been President without Le Pen, whose surprisingly strong election results led to Chirac's success. Chirac has significant problems with corruption, dating from his time as the mayor of Paris, and this remains unresolved. Chirac is, fundamentally, extremely judgemental and identifies with a radical nationalist proto-socialism that he learned from his grandfather, rejecting free trade and globalism, but at the same time having no trouble whatsoever of being friendly with despots and dictators whilst showing distain for democratization and liberalization of the Third World. Chirac operates very much within the French elitist tradition and a deeply troubling cultural pessimism that shows at its core uncertainty about the universality of Western values.
The next president of France will have his or her hands full in cleaning up after Chirac. He will be remembered by history as one of the greatest catastrophes in French politics.
Not a day too soon.
Why do I say the worst?
Because he was.
Most fundamentally, Chirac was responsible for the greatest foreign policy blunder of the Fifth Republic since Suez.
On September 11th, he proclaimed "We are all Americans".
He started off right: he supported UN Resolution 1368 and sent troops to Afghanistan.
But starting on 15 Oct 2001 things started to go downhill. True French solidarity lasted only slightly more than 1 month.
His reluctance to get involved is based on the fear of getting involved in the Third World. In sharp contrast to his predecessor, Mitterand, Chirac's life wasn't heavily impacted by WW2, and it shows.
On 15 Oct 2001 he acknowledged that a clash of civilizations was developing, but saw a completely, radically different solution: engagement and discussion, with the West needing to take on the responsibility for the plight of the developing world, whose production of terrorists was the result of poverty and misery in those countries.
This is, of course, a crass misunderstanding of modern terrorism, which does not have its roots in poverty and misery, but rather comes from the upper levels of Arab society and has its roots in the failure of those societies to achieve anything remotely like the economic development of the West, despite their heritage and money from oil. This failure, because Arab pride does not allow honesty, can only be the result of repression and subjugation of Arabs by the West, hence the West must be eliminated as a source of comparison in order for the failure of Arab culture not to be made so obvious. I know that this is a simplification, but this lies at the core of why modern terrorism is largely an Arab problem, with the use of Islamic fundamentalism not merely a welcome tool for this purpose, but rather one of the driving forces behind it.
The result of Chirac's fundamentally incorrect perception of the world led to the greatest fiasco of French foreign policy, one that will literally take decades to correct.
Almost one year exactly after the attack of 11 Sep, he basically said: "Attempting to change the regime in foreign countries means entering these countries and dealing with foreign cultures," and he felt that this was a very dangerous attitude.
He's right: changing the regimes in foreign countries is a dangerous thing, as things never turn out as you might like. But given the dangers that the failed countries of the Middle East represent, Chirac failed to provide any sort of alternative course besides "let's simply not do it".
This was born the obstructionist policy of France in dealing with the Middle East: France under Chirac actively broke with the US on dealing with the countries of the Middle East, first and foremost with Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
According to Chirac's biographer, both the political and military circles in France vastly underestimated the determination that Chirac had not to allow the US to follow its policies. Chirac decided to block the US at all costs. The threat of the veto at the UN virtually destroyed the UN as the premier place to work out the strategy of the West against the terror threats from the Middle East, as it basically came out of the blue. All observers, including the French, expected France to object and try to modify US behavior - which has been a constant in US-French relations since at least Suez - before then agreeing to US actions.
Instead, the threat of the veto suprised everyone and did the one thing that Chirac didn't really expect (but was more than willing to accept as fallout from his actions): it emboldened Saddam Hussein to resist any political solution, destroying any chance that there even could be a peaceful resolution of UN Resolution 1444. This is, I think, something that can be clearly laid at Chirac's door as the legacy of his short-sighted objections to the US policy towards Iraq in the wake of the post-11 Sep environment.
The attempt during the UN security council debates to build a counter-alliance with Russia, China, Germany and Belgium, as well as countries from Latin America and Africa was also unprecedented and correctly viewed by the US as a massive undermining of their position in trying to resolve the conflict with Iraq. Rather than show solidarity and also take responsibility for their own failures in the past (France was a major supplier to Iraq under Saddam Hussein and were active in the undermining of the sanctions), the French deliberately took the other side, perhaps not of being on the side of Saddam Hussein, but of being a belligerent neutral firmly opposed to whatever actions the US took.
This put France not in its traditional role of independent NATO partner, but put them instead in the camp that was opposed to the US exercise of power, a fundamental break with the long history and tradition of US-French relations.
Bluntly, this has been the greatest failure of any European president since Suez.
But it didn't stop there. Chirac never viewed European unity as a proponent for European unity as an end in itself, but much more as a nationalist politician seeking to create the best possible result for France, even at the cost of other European countries more dedicated to European unity than he. The abject failure of the European constitution in France, voted down by a solid majority, despite the advantages for France in a Europe unified under the draft constitution, underscored the contradictions that the people saw in Chirac: trumpeting European unity while ensuring that France was primes inter pares.
In terms of military affairs, Chirac will probably be remembered best by his call, in January 2006, for the French use of nuclear weapons if France and French interests are attacked. He did transform the French military from a draftee army to a professional, modern army, but he also ordered the testing of new nuclear warhead designs, despite world-wide protests, and elevated the Force de Frappe (the nuclear forces of France) to a much higher status than they had with the collapse of the Soviets.
Domestically, Chirac wouldn't have been President without Le Pen, whose surprisingly strong election results led to Chirac's success. Chirac has significant problems with corruption, dating from his time as the mayor of Paris, and this remains unresolved. Chirac is, fundamentally, extremely judgemental and identifies with a radical nationalist proto-socialism that he learned from his grandfather, rejecting free trade and globalism, but at the same time having no trouble whatsoever of being friendly with despots and dictators whilst showing distain for democratization and liberalization of the Third World. Chirac operates very much within the French elitist tradition and a deeply troubling cultural pessimism that shows at its core uncertainty about the universality of Western values.
The next president of France will have his or her hands full in cleaning up after Chirac. He will be remembered by history as one of the greatest catastrophes in French politics.
Sonntag, März 11, 2007
The Gallstone Speaks...to the Stomach of Power?
In case you doubt that what I posted just a few minutes ago has some validity, then take a look at this post here and try and tell me that the ex-Mr. Jane Fonda isn't a useful idiot that thinks he's a revolutionary elite. Ok, progressive. Whatever.
To quote:
There is a lesson here for progressives. Since the anti-war sentiment was a factor of public opinion during the presidential race that made Bush defer tough decisions, the movement needs to create an even greater force of opposition that will become indigestible, a kind of gallstone in the stomach of power.
and this:
The first step is to build pressure at congressional district levels to oppose any further funding or additional troops for war. If members of Congress balk at cutting off all assistance and want to propose "conditions" for further aid, it is a small step toward threatening funding. If only 75 members of Congress go on record against any further funding, that's a step in the right direction – towards the exit.
Remember, Hayden was a visiting professor at Harvard recently and is a professor at Occidental College in LA.
We have all the attributes here: a willingness to subvert everything to the gaining of political power, radicalization for the sake of radicalization, unthinking and uncritical rejection of democratically legitimized government decisions.
To quote:
It is in the nature of truly mass movements that people choose the paths that seem to promise effective results, even victories. So it should surprise no one that much of the energy of the peace and justice movement flowed into presidential campaigns for Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich and ultimately John Kerry (the UnBush).
As a result millions of people become engaged politically on grassroots levels, many for the first time. The peace and justice message was heard more widely than before.
and this:There is a lesson here for progressives. Since the anti-war sentiment was a factor of public opinion during the presidential race that made Bush defer tough decisions, the movement needs to create an even greater force of opposition that will become indigestible, a kind of gallstone in the stomach of power.
and this:
The first step is to build pressure at congressional district levels to oppose any further funding or additional troops for war. If members of Congress balk at cutting off all assistance and want to propose "conditions" for further aid, it is a small step toward threatening funding. If only 75 members of Congress go on record against any further funding, that's a step in the right direction – towards the exit.
The important thing is for anti-war activists to become more grounded in the everyday political life of their districts, organizing anti-war coalitions including clergy, labor and inner city representatives to knock loudly on congressional doors and demand that the $200 billion squandered on Iraq go to infrastructure and schools at home. When trapped between imperial elites and their own insistent constituents, members of Congress will tend to side with their voters. That is how the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia were ended in 1975.
Two, we need to build a Progressive Democratic movement which will pressure the Democrats to become an anti-war opposition party. The anti-war movement has done enough for the Democratic Party this year. It is time for the Democratic leadership to end its collaboration with the Bush administration – with its endorsement of the offensive on Fallujah, the talk of "victory" and "killing the terrorists" – and now play the role of the opposition. The progressive activists of the party should refuse to contribute any more resources – volunteers, money, etc. – to candidates or incumbents who act as collaborators.
...
Three, we need to build alliances with Republican anti-war conservatives. Non-partisan anti-war groups (such as Win Without War) should reach out to conservatives who, according to the New York Times, are "ready to rumble" against Iraq. Pillars of the American right, including Paul Weyrich, Pat Buchanan and William F. Buckley, are seriously questioning the quagmire created by the neoconservatives. Strategists like Grover Norquist call the war "a drag on votes" and "threatening to the Bush coalition" that cost Bush six percentage points in the election. The left cannot create a left majority, but it can foster a left-right majority that threatens the hawks in both parties.
Four, we must build solidarity with dissenting combat veterans, reservists, their families and those who suffered in 9/11. Just as wars cannot be fought without taxpayer funding, wars cannot be fought without soldiers willing to die, even for a mistake. Every person who cares about peace should start their daily e-mail messages with the current body count, including a question mark after the category "Iraqi civilians."
...
Five, we need to defeat the U.S. strategy of "Iraqization." "Clearly, it's better for us if they're in the front-line," Paul Wolfowitz explained last February. This cynical strategy is based on putting an Iraqi "face" on the U.S. occupation in order to reduce the number of American casualties, neutralize opposition in other Arab countries, and slowly legitimize the puppet regime. In truth, it means changing the color of the body count.
...
Six, we should work to dismantle the U.S. war "Coalition" by building a "Peace Coalition" by the means of the global anti-war movement. Groups with international links (such as Global Exchange or other solidarity groups) could organize conferences and exchanges aimed at uniting public opinion against any regimes with troops supporting the U.S. in Iraq. Every time an American official shows up in Europe demanding support, there should be speakers from the American anti-war movement offering a rebuttal to the official line.
...
In short: pinch the funding arteries, push the Democrats to become an opposition party, ally with anti-war Republicans, support dissenting soldiers, make "Iraqization" more difficult, and build a peace coalition against the war coalition. If the politicians are too frightened or ideologically incapable of implementing an exit strategy, the only alternative is for the people to pull the plug.
Remember, Hayden was a visiting professor at Harvard recently and is a professor at Occidental College in LA.
We have all the attributes here: a willingness to subvert everything to the gaining of political power, radicalization for the sake of radicalization, unthinking and uncritical rejection of democratically legitimized government decisions.
Samstag, März 10, 2007
Answering A Question...
One of the better Blogs out there, Dr. Sanity, is basically asking the question of how we got where we are today, with the crisis of the western Spirit, to coin a phrase.
What we seem to be facing is not something that has recently happened, but rather is something that has accumulated over time. The crisis we are facing is not a crisis of the western Spirit, but rather a crisis of that ideology that dominated most of the last century, the crisis of socialism.
What did socialists want? They were radical utopianists, believing that they would be the culmination of the historical processes described by Marx, who was inspired by Hegel. Dead white males all of them.
The key to understanding socialism isn't the usual mickeymouse ideological palaver, but rather understanding that it was the attempt by European intellectuals of the 19th century to find a way to come to power, to grasp control of their societies from the hereditary genetic cesspools of European nobility. In order to do this, they had to create a new man, the utopia of a new man. To achieve their goals they also needed to generate a new mode of behavior, a pre-revolutionary actionism, embodied by the anarchists and nihilists that ended up generating WW1 by killing the Archduke Ferdinand and bringing ruin to the established societies of Europe. Germany was just a few meals away from socialist revolution, while England lost its empire due to exhaustion; France was decimated, losing an entire generation of petite bourgeoisie.
The key to any sort of revolution or pre-revolutionary activity is the creation of the activist, the committed party member whose dedication to the revolutionary goals stops at nothing, not with family, not with laws and civil society, not with morals, not with anything but the revolution as such.
This person believes that they understand society better than the society itself ever can, and that they are morally superior to that society, because the society is per definitio morally corrupt and incapable of reform. This moral superiority exists only in the minds of the revolutionary elite and is based on the need for destruction of the existing system, regardless of the costs, because the future goal, the radical utopian society, is valued above all. Destroying the existing society in order to achieve the radical utopian society is absolutely necessary, for in reality the revolutionary must transcend his or her former morals, social strictures and civil constructions.
The dedicated revolutionary has nothing but contempt for those living in what they believe to be the outmoded society, as the failures of that society condemn it, in the revolutionary socialist construct, necessarily to destruction, with the rebirth of the future radical utopian society guided, of course, by the revolutionary elite. This is standard leninist revolutionary theory, and serves as the core functionality for all communist revolutions in the 20th century.
It is, of course, condemned to failure as human nature will invariably bring the collapse of the revolution and it's descent, as has been the case for all socialist and communist revolutions, into corruption, mass murder and abject failure.
But the problem is that for a certain kind of individual, the potential for power is so fundamentally attractive that they will do anything, literally, to achieve the kind of power to reshape the world as they see fit.
For this purpose they need what they call, in the literature, "useful idiots". Useful idiots are a manifestation of the failure of society, as they are committed to destroy it without the necessary revolutionary consciousness: they possess, at best, "false consciousness" that after the revolution provides the basis by which the true revolutionary elite can purge them from any sort of position of power.
What makes a "useful idiot"?
First of all, that they can be manipulated by the revolutionary elite for their aims. The good and proper useful idiot is someone who unreflexively adopts revolutionary positions and thought as their own, unable to understand that they are adopting positions that lead to their own destruction. They are usually shallow individuals, failures themselves in bourgeois society, people of unsound intellectual abilities who adopt the revolutionary themes as a replacement for their own failure to leave a meaningful life. They parrot the terminology without being able to think for themselves, indeed adopting positions that invariably lead to their own destruction, as they long for superior positions in society - that they feel are wrongly denied to them - while the revolutionary elite will never allow them to take such positions, as they are reserved for themselves.
Unreflexive, unthinking support is the key: this is best spread amongst the young and impressionable, with special emphasis on recruiting the attractive, exploiting as well the loopholes and contradictions of sexual mores so as to appeal to the lower instincts. True revolutionaries are not distracted by such methods, but useful udiots are.
Further, useful idiots are the kind of political activists for whom literally everything is about politics, where politics are forcibly introduced into all streams of human activity, where the entire goal is the politicization of every day life, with the goal of "exposing" the contradictions of society and creating the kind of emotional responses that only radicalized politics (or fundamental religious fervor) achieves: the shutting down, as it were, of the higher intellectual thought processes in order to install unthinking hate and reflex disgust. The methods are well-known and require only funding and finding the necessary provocateurs to create a pre-revolutionary mass, unthinking and reflexive, furious with the existing power structure, with the demonization of their opponents, up to and including the declaration that the political opponents are not really even human (usually describing them as pigs, jackals, hyenas, dogs, etc).
Any existing society has its problems and contradicitons. That is why any given society can be attacked by not merely exposing those problems and contradictions - that is the start - but more fundamentally turning that society into nothing more than the problems and contradictions. Hence the positive aspects of any society must be nullified: if a society has a strong and robust economic sector providing high levels of employment, that must be attacked and the economy severally weakend in order to achieve pre-revolutionary status; if a society has strong family structures, then these must be destroyed for the same reason. The key for the revolutionary elite is to create the pre-revolutionary situation, where none are satisfied, where the demand for change and leadership becomes paramount, where the revolutionary elite can start to show itself and achieve control of the revolutionary process.
We're not talking here of any concrete example, any concrete society: this is much more the generic blueprint of how a leninist elite attacks any society, be it agrarian, developing, developed or whatever.
Now, Dr. Sanity asks this question:
Is it any wonder that we are horribly confused and disoriented, not knowing who we are or where we are going? Is it any wonder that today's events do not seem to have any rhyme or reason?
Does what I have written now start to make sense? I am not convinced that we are looking at a pre-revolutionary situation in the US, but we are looking at the attempt. The uncertainty, the lack of direction, the "failure" of the system are at the core of what we are looking at.
She also says this:
Somewhere in the last fifty years or so, the entire field of philosophy has been completely hijacked by its most narcissistically-inclined branch--politics. Metaphysics, epistemology, and even ethics, are all now subservient to politic hows. Normally there is a heirarchical relationship between all the branches; with the base being metaphysics, the study and the nature of existence. Epistemology is dependent on and closely related to metaphysics, and it is the study of how we know reality and existence; while ethics, the study of how humans should act, is dependent on epistemology. Politics--or how humans should interact in society--should be dependent on ethics. Yet in our postmodern world we have turned it all upside down. We are told how we should properly interact and it has become the ethical standard of behavior. Having set up this relativistic ethical standard; postmodern intellectuals can now question both how we know reality and even insist that it does not exist separately and independenly from our senses.
The question isn't how it came to this: we know that liberal society has been under attack for decades. Post-modern intellectuals have become the useful idiots of the 21st century: for them, everything is politicized, everything is interpreted by the filter of political activism and the core underlying will to power; the only thing that matters, literally, is power, its achievement, with little or no thought as to why this power is supposed to be achieved.
The Democratic Party has abdicated to the radical left that is now trying to write the future, a very ugly future, and is filled with useful idiots, the screaming and gesticulating fools whose fundamental lack of understanding for what they are doing will condemn either them to perdition or will lead to a massive break in the US body politic.
Which is exactly what any revolutionary elite wants. For them it's a win-win situation: on the one hand, the Democratic Party, if it collapses from within due to its own internal contradictions, with its great tradition and history, will be destroyed, sacrificed to radicalize a significant portion of American society; on the other hand, if there is a massive break in the US body politic, with massive alienation from the ideals and goals of this over 230 year experiment in republican democracy, the strains of that rupture will achieve the same effect.
Who is this revolutionary elite?
Well, they're not hiding. They have no need: no one is willing to take them at their word, just as no one was willing to believe what Lenin had written, as no one was willing to read what Hitler had written.
They are the people behind Move.On, behind the "democratic grassroots" activism, the people behind ANSWER.
And they truly believe themselves to be the revolutionary elite that will perservere, as they see their useful idiots falling over themselves to finance their own destruction. They do hide in the shadows, but only because they have been able to find so many useful idiots.
What we seem to be facing is not something that has recently happened, but rather is something that has accumulated over time. The crisis we are facing is not a crisis of the western Spirit, but rather a crisis of that ideology that dominated most of the last century, the crisis of socialism.
What did socialists want? They were radical utopianists, believing that they would be the culmination of the historical processes described by Marx, who was inspired by Hegel. Dead white males all of them.
The key to understanding socialism isn't the usual mickeymouse ideological palaver, but rather understanding that it was the attempt by European intellectuals of the 19th century to find a way to come to power, to grasp control of their societies from the hereditary genetic cesspools of European nobility. In order to do this, they had to create a new man, the utopia of a new man. To achieve their goals they also needed to generate a new mode of behavior, a pre-revolutionary actionism, embodied by the anarchists and nihilists that ended up generating WW1 by killing the Archduke Ferdinand and bringing ruin to the established societies of Europe. Germany was just a few meals away from socialist revolution, while England lost its empire due to exhaustion; France was decimated, losing an entire generation of petite bourgeoisie.
The key to any sort of revolution or pre-revolutionary activity is the creation of the activist, the committed party member whose dedication to the revolutionary goals stops at nothing, not with family, not with laws and civil society, not with morals, not with anything but the revolution as such.
This person believes that they understand society better than the society itself ever can, and that they are morally superior to that society, because the society is per definitio morally corrupt and incapable of reform. This moral superiority exists only in the minds of the revolutionary elite and is based on the need for destruction of the existing system, regardless of the costs, because the future goal, the radical utopian society, is valued above all. Destroying the existing society in order to achieve the radical utopian society is absolutely necessary, for in reality the revolutionary must transcend his or her former morals, social strictures and civil constructions.
The dedicated revolutionary has nothing but contempt for those living in what they believe to be the outmoded society, as the failures of that society condemn it, in the revolutionary socialist construct, necessarily to destruction, with the rebirth of the future radical utopian society guided, of course, by the revolutionary elite. This is standard leninist revolutionary theory, and serves as the core functionality for all communist revolutions in the 20th century.
It is, of course, condemned to failure as human nature will invariably bring the collapse of the revolution and it's descent, as has been the case for all socialist and communist revolutions, into corruption, mass murder and abject failure.
But the problem is that for a certain kind of individual, the potential for power is so fundamentally attractive that they will do anything, literally, to achieve the kind of power to reshape the world as they see fit.
For this purpose they need what they call, in the literature, "useful idiots". Useful idiots are a manifestation of the failure of society, as they are committed to destroy it without the necessary revolutionary consciousness: they possess, at best, "false consciousness" that after the revolution provides the basis by which the true revolutionary elite can purge them from any sort of position of power.
What makes a "useful idiot"?
First of all, that they can be manipulated by the revolutionary elite for their aims. The good and proper useful idiot is someone who unreflexively adopts revolutionary positions and thought as their own, unable to understand that they are adopting positions that lead to their own destruction. They are usually shallow individuals, failures themselves in bourgeois society, people of unsound intellectual abilities who adopt the revolutionary themes as a replacement for their own failure to leave a meaningful life. They parrot the terminology without being able to think for themselves, indeed adopting positions that invariably lead to their own destruction, as they long for superior positions in society - that they feel are wrongly denied to them - while the revolutionary elite will never allow them to take such positions, as they are reserved for themselves.
Unreflexive, unthinking support is the key: this is best spread amongst the young and impressionable, with special emphasis on recruiting the attractive, exploiting as well the loopholes and contradictions of sexual mores so as to appeal to the lower instincts. True revolutionaries are not distracted by such methods, but useful udiots are.
Further, useful idiots are the kind of political activists for whom literally everything is about politics, where politics are forcibly introduced into all streams of human activity, where the entire goal is the politicization of every day life, with the goal of "exposing" the contradictions of society and creating the kind of emotional responses that only radicalized politics (or fundamental religious fervor) achieves: the shutting down, as it were, of the higher intellectual thought processes in order to install unthinking hate and reflex disgust. The methods are well-known and require only funding and finding the necessary provocateurs to create a pre-revolutionary mass, unthinking and reflexive, furious with the existing power structure, with the demonization of their opponents, up to and including the declaration that the political opponents are not really even human (usually describing them as pigs, jackals, hyenas, dogs, etc).
Any existing society has its problems and contradicitons. That is why any given society can be attacked by not merely exposing those problems and contradictions - that is the start - but more fundamentally turning that society into nothing more than the problems and contradictions. Hence the positive aspects of any society must be nullified: if a society has a strong and robust economic sector providing high levels of employment, that must be attacked and the economy severally weakend in order to achieve pre-revolutionary status; if a society has strong family structures, then these must be destroyed for the same reason. The key for the revolutionary elite is to create the pre-revolutionary situation, where none are satisfied, where the demand for change and leadership becomes paramount, where the revolutionary elite can start to show itself and achieve control of the revolutionary process.
We're not talking here of any concrete example, any concrete society: this is much more the generic blueprint of how a leninist elite attacks any society, be it agrarian, developing, developed or whatever.
Now, Dr. Sanity asks this question:
Is it any wonder that we are horribly confused and disoriented, not knowing who we are or where we are going? Is it any wonder that today's events do not seem to have any rhyme or reason?
Does what I have written now start to make sense? I am not convinced that we are looking at a pre-revolutionary situation in the US, but we are looking at the attempt. The uncertainty, the lack of direction, the "failure" of the system are at the core of what we are looking at.
She also says this:
Somewhere in the last fifty years or so, the entire field of philosophy has been completely hijacked by its most narcissistically-inclined branch--politics. Metaphysics, epistemology, and even ethics, are all now subservient to politic hows. Normally there is a heirarchical relationship between all the branches; with the base being metaphysics, the study and the nature of existence. Epistemology is dependent on and closely related to metaphysics, and it is the study of how we know reality and existence; while ethics, the study of how humans should act, is dependent on epistemology. Politics--or how humans should interact in society--should be dependent on ethics. Yet in our postmodern world we have turned it all upside down. We are told how we should properly interact and it has become the ethical standard of behavior. Having set up this relativistic ethical standard; postmodern intellectuals can now question both how we know reality and even insist that it does not exist separately and independenly from our senses.
The question isn't how it came to this: we know that liberal society has been under attack for decades. Post-modern intellectuals have become the useful idiots of the 21st century: for them, everything is politicized, everything is interpreted by the filter of political activism and the core underlying will to power; the only thing that matters, literally, is power, its achievement, with little or no thought as to why this power is supposed to be achieved.
The Democratic Party has abdicated to the radical left that is now trying to write the future, a very ugly future, and is filled with useful idiots, the screaming and gesticulating fools whose fundamental lack of understanding for what they are doing will condemn either them to perdition or will lead to a massive break in the US body politic.
Which is exactly what any revolutionary elite wants. For them it's a win-win situation: on the one hand, the Democratic Party, if it collapses from within due to its own internal contradictions, with its great tradition and history, will be destroyed, sacrificed to radicalize a significant portion of American society; on the other hand, if there is a massive break in the US body politic, with massive alienation from the ideals and goals of this over 230 year experiment in republican democracy, the strains of that rupture will achieve the same effect.
Who is this revolutionary elite?
Well, they're not hiding. They have no need: no one is willing to take them at their word, just as no one was willing to believe what Lenin had written, as no one was willing to read what Hitler had written.
They are the people behind Move.On, behind the "democratic grassroots" activism, the people behind ANSWER.
And they truly believe themselves to be the revolutionary elite that will perservere, as they see their useful idiots falling over themselves to finance their own destruction. They do hide in the shadows, but only because they have been able to find so many useful idiots.
Guess He's Not Going To Get Many Invitations...
A small disclaimer: my grandmother on my father's side came from Czechoslovakia, so I've always had a bit of a soft spot for that tiny country.
And as an economist, I certainly can respect the fact that Vaclev Klaus is also a trained economist.
But the poor guy isn't going to be getting many invitations from Hollywood and elsewhere to come and party.
As you can see here, he sees the forest for the trees and calls it as it is: environmentalism is nothing more than a secular religion, and if environmentalism can be considered a science, then only as a social science, a soft science, one that relies on interpretation and induction rather than observable facts and deduction.
And he is absolutely right when he says the the whole damn thing is a waste of money: there are more important things to do.
And as an economist, I certainly can respect the fact that Vaclev Klaus is also a trained economist.
But the poor guy isn't going to be getting many invitations from Hollywood and elsewhere to come and party.
As you can see here, he sees the forest for the trees and calls it as it is: environmentalism is nothing more than a secular religion, and if environmentalism can be considered a science, then only as a social science, a soft science, one that relies on interpretation and induction rather than observable facts and deduction.
And he is absolutely right when he says the the whole damn thing is a waste of money: there are more important things to do.
Montag, März 05, 2007
No Basis For "Settled Science"
Hah.
Dr. Allegre now says that he has broken with the dogma of environmentalists. His colleagues are aghast that he would say such a thing.
So what did he say?
That the cause of climate change is unknown.
Unknown. Not the dogma of athropogenesis.
And he isn't a loony: he is the architect of isotope geodynamics. He advised the Apollo program on cosmochemical research.
And he is revulsed by the nihilistic nature of the climate research debate.
To quote:
Calling the arguments of those who see catastrophe in climate change "simplistic and obscuring the true dangers," Dr. Allegre especially despairs at "the greenhouse-gas fanatics whose proclamations consist in denouncing man's role on the climate without doing anything about it except organizing conferences and preparing protocols that become dead letters." The world would be better off, Dr. Allegre believes, if these "denouncers" became less political and more practical, by proposing practical solutions to head off the dangers they see, such as developing technologies to sequester C02. His dream, he says, is to see "ecology become the engine of economic development and not an artificial obstacle that creates fear."
At last we see someone within the climatology world see the forest for the trees.
I've long been highly antagonistic to environmentalism, as they fail virtually any economics test as to the utility of the actions proposed. Stern's use of an absurd discount rate guaranteed his results and choosing a more sensible one - say the risk-free rate of investment - leads to results that are radically different than what Stern claims.
The Copenhagen Consensus is something I can support: finding out what really matters and needs to be solved, rather than what academics desperately want.
Bluntly, the environmentalist movement has been hijacked by the failed power seekers of the left, desperate for a reason to maintain their "critical" - in quotes because it is anything but that - ideologies and the accompanying life style and prestige.
Plus it beats the hell out of actually working for a living, too.
Kudos to Dr. Allegre for his fundamental honesty and integrity.
Dr. Allegre now says that he has broken with the dogma of environmentalists. His colleagues are aghast that he would say such a thing.
So what did he say?
That the cause of climate change is unknown.
Unknown. Not the dogma of athropogenesis.
And he isn't a loony: he is the architect of isotope geodynamics. He advised the Apollo program on cosmochemical research.
And he is revulsed by the nihilistic nature of the climate research debate.
To quote:
Calling the arguments of those who see catastrophe in climate change "simplistic and obscuring the true dangers," Dr. Allegre especially despairs at "the greenhouse-gas fanatics whose proclamations consist in denouncing man's role on the climate without doing anything about it except organizing conferences and preparing protocols that become dead letters." The world would be better off, Dr. Allegre believes, if these "denouncers" became less political and more practical, by proposing practical solutions to head off the dangers they see, such as developing technologies to sequester C02. His dream, he says, is to see "ecology become the engine of economic development and not an artificial obstacle that creates fear."
At last we see someone within the climatology world see the forest for the trees.
I've long been highly antagonistic to environmentalism, as they fail virtually any economics test as to the utility of the actions proposed. Stern's use of an absurd discount rate guaranteed his results and choosing a more sensible one - say the risk-free rate of investment - leads to results that are radically different than what Stern claims.
The Copenhagen Consensus is something I can support: finding out what really matters and needs to be solved, rather than what academics desperately want.
Bluntly, the environmentalist movement has been hijacked by the failed power seekers of the left, desperate for a reason to maintain their "critical" - in quotes because it is anything but that - ideologies and the accompanying life style and prestige.
Plus it beats the hell out of actually working for a living, too.
Kudos to Dr. Allegre for his fundamental honesty and integrity.
Freitag, März 02, 2007
Finally a word of wisdom...
Well, finally something sensible in the FT. Today's op-ed from Philip Stephens (unfortunately behind their subscription service here) raises a point that I fear too many are not merely not hearing, but are as well putting their fingers in their ears and going "la-la-la-la" so as not to have to deal with the problems it raises.
Stephens' point is that it behooves the Europeans to support the US.
That right there makes him virtually a pariah amongst the MSM. But his point is solid and rational (almost a contradiction, there, coming from the MSM): that hard-headed, pragmatic solutions to the problems in the Middle East are out there. They are being pursued by the US and deserve to be supported, instead of automatically being vilified for the sake of feeling morally superior.
He also makes the point that the problems in the Middle East aren't the problems of the US: they are everyone's problems. And that the Europeans have abjectly failed in their own commitments and responsibilties: the failure of European nations to adequately man their NATO commitments in Afghanistan has led to speculation that NATO may fail there to secure the peace. The Canadians continue to fight heavy battles against the Taliban, for instance, but their NATO allies have failed to back them up: the Germans may claim historical reasons for their failure to commit troops to battle, but the French, Italians and Spaniards have no such justification for failing to commit combat troops to aid the Dutch, Canadian and British troops fighting in the South, let alone the American troops fighting there as well.
This is a singular failure of European foreign policies, one that emboldens the enemy. The European failure to work with the US - Stephens' analysis here is right on the ball, as financial pressure from the Europeans in the form of sanctions, accompanied by a carrot offered by the US, would show a concentrated and coordinated policy towards the Middle East by NATO and the West, something sorely lacking since the French decided that they were going to actively undermine US foreign policy solely because the US would not dance the French dance - is perhaps the major foreign policy blunder of the Europeans, equalled perhaps only by their blind and unquestioning support of the Palestinians, despite the almost unbelievable corruption and misuse of EU funds by those receiving them.
Stephens' point, that we all need to put rhetoric, posturing and schadenfreude behind us and work for the common good, is critical: the US has made a move towards multilaterism and discussion, it would well behoove the Europeans to support the US instead of carping.
Stephens' point is that it behooves the Europeans to support the US.
That right there makes him virtually a pariah amongst the MSM. But his point is solid and rational (almost a contradiction, there, coming from the MSM): that hard-headed, pragmatic solutions to the problems in the Middle East are out there. They are being pursued by the US and deserve to be supported, instead of automatically being vilified for the sake of feeling morally superior.
He also makes the point that the problems in the Middle East aren't the problems of the US: they are everyone's problems. And that the Europeans have abjectly failed in their own commitments and responsibilties: the failure of European nations to adequately man their NATO commitments in Afghanistan has led to speculation that NATO may fail there to secure the peace. The Canadians continue to fight heavy battles against the Taliban, for instance, but their NATO allies have failed to back them up: the Germans may claim historical reasons for their failure to commit troops to battle, but the French, Italians and Spaniards have no such justification for failing to commit combat troops to aid the Dutch, Canadian and British troops fighting in the South, let alone the American troops fighting there as well.
This is a singular failure of European foreign policies, one that emboldens the enemy. The European failure to work with the US - Stephens' analysis here is right on the ball, as financial pressure from the Europeans in the form of sanctions, accompanied by a carrot offered by the US, would show a concentrated and coordinated policy towards the Middle East by NATO and the West, something sorely lacking since the French decided that they were going to actively undermine US foreign policy solely because the US would not dance the French dance - is perhaps the major foreign policy blunder of the Europeans, equalled perhaps only by their blind and unquestioning support of the Palestinians, despite the almost unbelievable corruption and misuse of EU funds by those receiving them.
Stephens' point, that we all need to put rhetoric, posturing and schadenfreude behind us and work for the common good, is critical: the US has made a move towards multilaterism and discussion, it would well behoove the Europeans to support the US instead of carping.
Donnerstag, März 01, 2007
Another Reason Not To Trust Journalists...
Sometimes you gotta feel sorry for some journalists. They go and try to do a good story, spin a tune, and get taken in for a ride by those who are not only smarter than they are, but better at telling stories and spinning tunes than the journalist will ever be.
Seymour Hersh, for one.
If you look here, you can see how Hersh, thinking himself oh-so-clever, has swallowed the party line with hook and sinker. Whose party line? Why, that of Syria and Hezbollah: after all, I am sure that Hersh is thinking, the enemy of my enemy is my friend...
But it doesn't stop there: this shows how it's not just one man's opinion that Hersh has been been seduced by the dark side of the Force.
And it doesn't stop there either. Hersh is not only completely off on Lebanon, but has blown it describing Egypt as well, as can be seen here.
The reason why someone like Hersh is fooled?
Simple: he's a journalist. For him, getting the "story" is everything. If he doesn't get the story, he keeps on trying to get it.
Those who work for middle Eastern despots don't have that luxury. If they don't get the spin right, their families might die. These regimes aren't interested in PR for the sake of better ratings or maybe a Pulitzer, they're interested in PR of the kind that Hersh gives them because it is existential for the continued ability of the despots to survive.
Those who work to survive do it with vastly more elan and commitment than those who do it for a living, regardless of how much you might like your job.
The Sandmonkey put it this way, underscoring the sophist nature of modern journalism:
This is a man who could distort shit so well that he could disprove gravity.
Nothing more need be said.
Except that this is as good (from Beirut to the Beltway, see above):
Baer, Hersh and their friends have one thing in common: they all have abandoned reality for fiction. And we all know that fiction sells better. In the words of Hersh's proclaimed nemesis, George W. Bush, "Seymour Hersh is a liar".
Abandoned reality for fiction: it sounds like Hersh and his friends have so identified with the enemy of their enemy that they have assimilated Middle Eastern thinking patterns, becoming one with their rhetoric and the truth be damned.
And Seymour Hersh is considered to be one the best of the best in the MSM.
There's an old epithet in British English, the wog. While it probably comes from the use of pollywog as a epithet, there are those who made it into an acronym for "wily oriental gentleman".
I'd like to formally propose that wog be redefined.
Wishful old geezer, used to describe Carter Democrats, limousine liberals and anyone who thinks that Barbara Streisand has something meaningful to say about world politics.
You read it here first.
Seymour Hersh, for one.
If you look here, you can see how Hersh, thinking himself oh-so-clever, has swallowed the party line with hook and sinker. Whose party line? Why, that of Syria and Hezbollah: after all, I am sure that Hersh is thinking, the enemy of my enemy is my friend...
But it doesn't stop there: this shows how it's not just one man's opinion that Hersh has been been seduced by the dark side of the Force.
And it doesn't stop there either. Hersh is not only completely off on Lebanon, but has blown it describing Egypt as well, as can be seen here.
The reason why someone like Hersh is fooled?
Simple: he's a journalist. For him, getting the "story" is everything. If he doesn't get the story, he keeps on trying to get it.
Those who work for middle Eastern despots don't have that luxury. If they don't get the spin right, their families might die. These regimes aren't interested in PR for the sake of better ratings or maybe a Pulitzer, they're interested in PR of the kind that Hersh gives them because it is existential for the continued ability of the despots to survive.
Those who work to survive do it with vastly more elan and commitment than those who do it for a living, regardless of how much you might like your job.
The Sandmonkey put it this way, underscoring the sophist nature of modern journalism:
This is a man who could distort shit so well that he could disprove gravity.
Nothing more need be said.
Except that this is as good (from Beirut to the Beltway, see above):
Baer, Hersh and their friends have one thing in common: they all have abandoned reality for fiction. And we all know that fiction sells better. In the words of Hersh's proclaimed nemesis, George W. Bush, "Seymour Hersh is a liar".
Abandoned reality for fiction: it sounds like Hersh and his friends have so identified with the enemy of their enemy that they have assimilated Middle Eastern thinking patterns, becoming one with their rhetoric and the truth be damned.
And Seymour Hersh is considered to be one the best of the best in the MSM.
There's an old epithet in British English, the wog. While it probably comes from the use of pollywog as a epithet, there are those who made it into an acronym for "wily oriental gentleman".
I'd like to formally propose that wog be redefined.
Wishful old geezer, used to describe Carter Democrats, limousine liberals and anyone who thinks that Barbara Streisand has something meaningful to say about world politics.
You read it here first.
Dienstag, Februar 27, 2007
Why You Shouldn't Believe Journalists...
There are those who venerate certain journalists, like Edward R. Murrows and Ernie Pyle.
There is even a decent analysis here that covers why journalists are considered to be heroes:
People have always been curious about the flaws and eccentricities of their neighbors. In the fifteenth century, the earliest journalists, the professional news-ballad writers, quickly figured out what the public wanted to hear and buy: verses about executions, battles, coronations, crimes, violence, scandal, witches, oddities and magic. This was tabloid journalism in its infancy. The rhyming newswriters originated the image of the newsmongering journalist who gives the public what it wants no matter how ugly or coarse the story and its presentation may be.
...
On the big screen, the image of the journalist was magnified and put in noisy motion. Newspaper stories were filled with adventure, mystery and romance. They were tough urban modern talkies. The journalists were immediately defined on-screen by brashness and cunning.
...
By the early 1920s, audiences already knew that reporters were involved in some kind of story, no matter how bizarre or melodromatic. They accepted this as a matter of course.
...
The reporter as detective is probably one of the more popular categories, since both the journalist and the detective are curious inquirers trying to solve a mystery, whether it be a crime or a complex untold story.
...
The undisputed journalist hero is the war correspondent... During the 1940s, the war correspondent became a national folk hero. ... Some war correspondents were a variation on the oldest stereotype in newspaper films - the crime reporter. ... The war reporter is the perfect hero, whose daily work involved patriotism, danger, violence and drama. The war correspondant is where the action is, and a whole nation holds its breath while they risk their lives overseas to get the story back to the home front.
There is no denying that people like Murrows and Pyle were heros in this sense: they were out there, did the walk and deserved their fame.
But now we find out that there are frauds out there as well. George Polk, for instance. Here is someone who shaped not merely the beginnings of modern American journalism, but also has a prize named after him. Who remains venerated as a hero.
But was and is a fraud. He embellished his career and lied about it: he wasn't who he claimed to be, and indeed never could have been. His actual, real military career was above average, but that wasn't good enough: he made himself into the top ace of the Pacific Theatre of the time (11 kills) and that made him a war hero.
But no one in the field of journalism bothered to actually fact-check someone like this: it took until this month, almost 60 years later, for someone to find out the man was a fraud.
What is interesting is that Seymour Hersh won not one, but two George Polk Awards.
And it is also interesting that Al Gore was a military war correspondent.
Goes a long way to explaining why Gore thinks he invented the internet and thinks that global warming is real: the need for a heel to be a hero.
Which just goes to underscore the point: you shouldn't believe journalists. If they can't even get the facts right - George Polk built his reputation on being a war hero that he wasn't - about their heros, why should anyone - anyone - believe that they can get their facts right on anything more complex than the wedding list of two lawyers on Long Island?
There is even a decent analysis here that covers why journalists are considered to be heroes:
People have always been curious about the flaws and eccentricities of their neighbors. In the fifteenth century, the earliest journalists, the professional news-ballad writers, quickly figured out what the public wanted to hear and buy: verses about executions, battles, coronations, crimes, violence, scandal, witches, oddities and magic. This was tabloid journalism in its infancy. The rhyming newswriters originated the image of the newsmongering journalist who gives the public what it wants no matter how ugly or coarse the story and its presentation may be.
...
On the big screen, the image of the journalist was magnified and put in noisy motion. Newspaper stories were filled with adventure, mystery and romance. They were tough urban modern talkies. The journalists were immediately defined on-screen by brashness and cunning.
...
By the early 1920s, audiences already knew that reporters were involved in some kind of story, no matter how bizarre or melodromatic. They accepted this as a matter of course.
...
The reporter as detective is probably one of the more popular categories, since both the journalist and the detective are curious inquirers trying to solve a mystery, whether it be a crime or a complex untold story.
...
The undisputed journalist hero is the war correspondent... During the 1940s, the war correspondent became a national folk hero. ... Some war correspondents were a variation on the oldest stereotype in newspaper films - the crime reporter. ... The war reporter is the perfect hero, whose daily work involved patriotism, danger, violence and drama. The war correspondant is where the action is, and a whole nation holds its breath while they risk their lives overseas to get the story back to the home front.
There is no denying that people like Murrows and Pyle were heros in this sense: they were out there, did the walk and deserved their fame.
But now we find out that there are frauds out there as well. George Polk, for instance. Here is someone who shaped not merely the beginnings of modern American journalism, but also has a prize named after him. Who remains venerated as a hero.
But was and is a fraud. He embellished his career and lied about it: he wasn't who he claimed to be, and indeed never could have been. His actual, real military career was above average, but that wasn't good enough: he made himself into the top ace of the Pacific Theatre of the time (11 kills) and that made him a war hero.
But no one in the field of journalism bothered to actually fact-check someone like this: it took until this month, almost 60 years later, for someone to find out the man was a fraud.
What is interesting is that Seymour Hersh won not one, but two George Polk Awards.
And it is also interesting that Al Gore was a military war correspondent.
Goes a long way to explaining why Gore thinks he invented the internet and thinks that global warming is real: the need for a heel to be a hero.
Which just goes to underscore the point: you shouldn't believe journalists. If they can't even get the facts right - George Polk built his reputation on being a war hero that he wasn't - about their heros, why should anyone - anyone - believe that they can get their facts right on anything more complex than the wedding list of two lawyers on Long Island?
From the guys who keep on getting it wrong, another fine idea...
Sigh.
Today's FT column by Gideon Rachman is a case example of what is wrong with at least parts of the MSM.
First of all: he misses the whole damn point.
Second, he is so appallingly smug and smarmy - not ingratiating himself with the powers that be, perhaps, but most certainly ingratiating himself with the MSM - that I felt like washing my hands after reading it to get the pomade out.
Where to start?
First, as I said, he misses the whole damn point: he calls out what I would call the boogeyman argument, that the same politicians who called Saddam Hussein's bluff - have we forgotten that we know it was a bluff precisely because that bluff was called? - are now calling for the world to call Iran's bluff as well.
What he does is to bluntly state, without bluntly stating, that the causus belli in Iraq didn't exist and all those who saw it were blind (implying, of course, that he himself is among the sighted): the problem is that this is not merely a wonderfully imaginative interpretation of history, but also factually wrong: the causus belli, for those who have forgotten, was Iraqi failure to comply with the ceasefire as brokered by the UN. The failure wasn't forgetting to dot an i and cross a t, but rather was the deliberate policy of SH to mislead the UN and its proxies in order to continue to pursue actions that he had pledged to give up. The causus belli wasn't stockpiled of weapons of mass destruction, but rather the fact - the fact, Mr. Rachman - that Iraq was found in violation of its own ceasefire accords.
He does imply this: he does admit that the boy who cried "Wolf" was actually vindicated at the end of the day. But his analogy dies right there: those recognizing the causus belli were not the boy, but rather the men of the village who kept on coming when "Wolf" was cried, and decided, in variance with Aesop's fable, that it was time to kill the wolf rather than listen to the boy, who in this case is the MSM.
Mr. Rachman is, however, so smugly sure of his "facts" that he cannot concieve that the threat posed by Iran is anything more than a bluff. If we knew that Iran was bluffing, then there is no need to actively counter what Iran is doing, but could simply write it off as the usual pathetic posturing by a failing nation-state, the rhetoric a tad over the top, but hey, we all know how volatile Middle-Eastern rhetoric can be. So we don't need to take the Iranians seriously: they're just a bunch of wogs, after all (wog in the sense of "wily oriental gentlemen" and not in the pejorative).
What Rachman fails to understand is that the "failure" in Iraq is first and foremost a failure of the Iraqis. The failure (or does he only use the word "catastrophe" or "disaster" or whatever word the MSM defeatists are using today?) in Iraq had nothing to do with the causus belli: it has everything to do with the fact - I do realize how little the MSM is interested in facts - that Iraq was a failed state before even the first Gulf War, and Iraq thereafter was a causus belli waiting to happen, with massive financial and logistic support for terror groups - proven, not a neo-con fantasy - and with the despotic leader of that country, SH, dedicating significant assets to the development of the weapons that he claimed he never had.
But what is particularly galling is this flip and smarmy comment:
Today's FT column by Gideon Rachman is a case example of what is wrong with at least parts of the MSM.
First of all: he misses the whole damn point.
Second, he is so appallingly smug and smarmy - not ingratiating himself with the powers that be, perhaps, but most certainly ingratiating himself with the MSM - that I felt like washing my hands after reading it to get the pomade out.
Where to start?
First, as I said, he misses the whole damn point: he calls out what I would call the boogeyman argument, that the same politicians who called Saddam Hussein's bluff - have we forgotten that we know it was a bluff precisely because that bluff was called? - are now calling for the world to call Iran's bluff as well.
What he does is to bluntly state, without bluntly stating, that the causus belli in Iraq didn't exist and all those who saw it were blind (implying, of course, that he himself is among the sighted): the problem is that this is not merely a wonderfully imaginative interpretation of history, but also factually wrong: the causus belli, for those who have forgotten, was Iraqi failure to comply with the ceasefire as brokered by the UN. The failure wasn't forgetting to dot an i and cross a t, but rather was the deliberate policy of SH to mislead the UN and its proxies in order to continue to pursue actions that he had pledged to give up. The causus belli wasn't stockpiled of weapons of mass destruction, but rather the fact - the fact, Mr. Rachman - that Iraq was found in violation of its own ceasefire accords.
He does imply this: he does admit that the boy who cried "Wolf" was actually vindicated at the end of the day. But his analogy dies right there: those recognizing the causus belli were not the boy, but rather the men of the village who kept on coming when "Wolf" was cried, and decided, in variance with Aesop's fable, that it was time to kill the wolf rather than listen to the boy, who in this case is the MSM.
Mr. Rachman is, however, so smugly sure of his "facts" that he cannot concieve that the threat posed by Iran is anything more than a bluff. If we knew that Iran was bluffing, then there is no need to actively counter what Iran is doing, but could simply write it off as the usual pathetic posturing by a failing nation-state, the rhetoric a tad over the top, but hey, we all know how volatile Middle-Eastern rhetoric can be. So we don't need to take the Iranians seriously: they're just a bunch of wogs, after all (wog in the sense of "wily oriental gentlemen" and not in the pejorative).
What Rachman fails to understand is that the "failure" in Iraq is first and foremost a failure of the Iraqis. The failure (or does he only use the word "catastrophe" or "disaster" or whatever word the MSM defeatists are using today?) in Iraq had nothing to do with the causus belli: it has everything to do with the fact - I do realize how little the MSM is interested in facts - that Iraq was a failed state before even the first Gulf War, and Iraq thereafter was a causus belli waiting to happen, with massive financial and logistic support for terror groups - proven, not a neo-con fantasy - and with the despotic leader of that country, SH, dedicating significant assets to the development of the weapons that he claimed he never had.
But what is particularly galling is this flip and smarmy comment:
In a notably smug editorial written on the eve of the war with Iraq, the editors of The Weekly Standard wrote: "The war itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction." Well, indeed. And they ended with a flourish: "History and reality are about to weigh in and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdicts." Well, the verdict's coming in, chaps – and it is not looking good.
In most professions, a record of failure counts against you. Architects whose buildings fall down and doctors who maim their patients tend to suffer some sort of consequence. The same rules should apply to people who advocate disastrous wars. Take a look at the people who are arguing for an attack on Iran, consider their records – and run a mile in the opposite direction.
Well, first of all, Mr. Rachman: history's verdict won't be coming in according to your timetable. Iraq isn't over yet - despite the desperate desires of the left and the MSM (did I just repeat myself?) - and history's verdict won't be in for the next 20 years, if even by then. Only a rather smug newspaperman could believe that history's verdict will be delivered by a deadline of his own devising and according to his own desires.
Second of all, the editors of The Weekly Standard weren't being smug - not that they can't be at times - but rather I find it interesting that Mr. Rachman apparently can't tell the difference between notable smugness and being honest: the editors in that editiorial didn't say that they would be vindicated and that they would be right: the war itself clarified that (and as it turned out, clarity was stranger than anyone thought at the time, Mr. Rachman's selective memory notwithstanding.). History and reality did weigh in. But they're not done yet. Sorry, old chap.
I was originally going to call this entry "Smug and Smarmy" but decided not to: this entry title is a bit better.
You see, the MSM still keeps on getting it wrong: oddly enough, there is no discussion about the abilities and facts, but all sorts of rather silly speculation about intent. If journalists knew anything about intelligence - sigh - then they would know that knowing intents is, in the immortal words of Rumsfeld, one of the known unknowables. Abilities and assets are the facts of the world: that the West was fooled by the interesting epistomological challenge of the confusion, under a despot, between reality and perception is an interesting footnote, but one that is ultimately futile to disprove without the benefit of perfect hindsight (which the French still believe can be taught in advance). If your enemy believes that they have certain capabilities - under pain of hideous death if they don't - then it behooves any serious thinker to take their existence as a given: if your enemy is bluffing, then it is, to put it bluntly, silly that he also bluffs himself into believing that he has WMD when there "really" weren't any.
And as for that last bit of snide advice: I dare say the record of failed journalism is more than a tad longer. And yes, journalists suffer no sort of consequence for being appalling wrong, catastrophically wrong - Dan Rather may be out of his job, but he is certainly not suffering - and there is a basic rule to public discourse that applies here as well:
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
Take a good look at the people who are arguing that Iran is bluffing and that the Imams are just mouthing rhetoric, consider their records - and throw away the newspaper.
Freitag, Februar 23, 2007
Thrownness
There is so much to say. And Blogger forget to post this two days ago...
First of all you have the Democrats in their "Geworfenheit" (hard to translate German word: means "thrownness", in the Heideggerian sense) towards the death of their party. Embracing defeat as a way of life condemns them to irrelevance. They are on the record of showing their support not for the troops, but for the failure of the troops. Spin any way you want to, but the blood is on their hands. Pelosi and Murtha are a catastrophe for the party: the Democrats have failed miserably to understand why they lost the last presidential election, believing instead that their electoral success last November had everything to do with them and nothing to do with the abject failure of the Republicans to get their message across (of course, the Republicans do operate under the handicap of having their policies and words spun by the media against them...).
Why is it a catastrophe for the Dems? Because it is picking the wrong fight. Fighting a sitting president, regardless of his ratings, over executive rights - that which are constitutionally apportionated to the President - is a mistake, as Newt Gingrich found out when he tried to shut down the government. What the democrats have done is to attack the moral right of the President, under the system of government in the US, to wage war with the approval of Congress, but without voting instead to revoke the right of the President to conduct war, as was given to him by the Congress. In other words, it's a weasel act. The Democrats in this act showed their craven indebtedness to the antiwar left: an antiwar left that has everything to do with the old antiwar left and nothing to do with the world today.
The Democrats, fundamenally, appear intent on forcing a constitutional crisis on the President's war-making ability based not on an actual constitutional crisis, but rather on the fact that the war is unpopular and that the reasons that the US went to war were, in the eyes of the Democrats, mistaken. They weren't mistaken: review the facts, not the myth.
Further, what happens to the Democrats when the surge is successful, as all signs show it being? They've gone on public record of actively disapproving of something that is going to work, and that will backfire in their faces.
Second, you have the sad and tired Europeans completely clueless about what they are doing to themselves. They are not merely actively trading with a country that wants them thrown down and trampled on, but they are even subsidizing it because of the failure of their economies to adapt the the flattening of the world. No one is apparently interested in the open and deliberate evil perpetrated by the Iranian government - the ruckus raised by the left because of the execution of homosexuals and other "deviants" is overwhelming in its absence - because it would mean agreeing with Bush. Iran is arming Bosnian Muslims, but let's not talk about that because it would mean agreeing with Bush. And rather than talking the facts, the only talk from the left is their stencil of how this is *just* like the run-up to Iraq.
No talk of the suffering of the Iranians under their theocratic overlords, the systematic repression of human nature and the systematic denial of human rights in the name of a medieval belief structure - sorry, I'm insulting the Arab medievalists, it's pre-medieval, barbaric - no talk of anything remotely like the facts, the reality of the situation.
And thirdly, the tragedy of our times is its ahistoricity, its lack of thinking how history provides us with references that helps to explain today, that the errors of the past illuminate the errors of today. The global warming alarmists tell us to do what they say and a future world will be better: that is exactly what the eugenics movement did as well. The Germans were particularly good at eugenics, weeding their genetic base by 10 mn before the end of WW2; before they went that far, though, they had the massiv support of many scientists and institutions like the Ford Foundation and other god-damned do-gooders.
There is a quote from HL Mencken that is applicable: The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule it.
First of all you have the Democrats in their "Geworfenheit" (hard to translate German word: means "thrownness", in the Heideggerian sense) towards the death of their party. Embracing defeat as a way of life condemns them to irrelevance. They are on the record of showing their support not for the troops, but for the failure of the troops. Spin any way you want to, but the blood is on their hands. Pelosi and Murtha are a catastrophe for the party: the Democrats have failed miserably to understand why they lost the last presidential election, believing instead that their electoral success last November had everything to do with them and nothing to do with the abject failure of the Republicans to get their message across (of course, the Republicans do operate under the handicap of having their policies and words spun by the media against them...).
Why is it a catastrophe for the Dems? Because it is picking the wrong fight. Fighting a sitting president, regardless of his ratings, over executive rights - that which are constitutionally apportionated to the President - is a mistake, as Newt Gingrich found out when he tried to shut down the government. What the democrats have done is to attack the moral right of the President, under the system of government in the US, to wage war with the approval of Congress, but without voting instead to revoke the right of the President to conduct war, as was given to him by the Congress. In other words, it's a weasel act. The Democrats in this act showed their craven indebtedness to the antiwar left: an antiwar left that has everything to do with the old antiwar left and nothing to do with the world today.
The Democrats, fundamenally, appear intent on forcing a constitutional crisis on the President's war-making ability based not on an actual constitutional crisis, but rather on the fact that the war is unpopular and that the reasons that the US went to war were, in the eyes of the Democrats, mistaken. They weren't mistaken: review the facts, not the myth.
Further, what happens to the Democrats when the surge is successful, as all signs show it being? They've gone on public record of actively disapproving of something that is going to work, and that will backfire in their faces.
Second, you have the sad and tired Europeans completely clueless about what they are doing to themselves. They are not merely actively trading with a country that wants them thrown down and trampled on, but they are even subsidizing it because of the failure of their economies to adapt the the flattening of the world. No one is apparently interested in the open and deliberate evil perpetrated by the Iranian government - the ruckus raised by the left because of the execution of homosexuals and other "deviants" is overwhelming in its absence - because it would mean agreeing with Bush. Iran is arming Bosnian Muslims, but let's not talk about that because it would mean agreeing with Bush. And rather than talking the facts, the only talk from the left is their stencil of how this is *just* like the run-up to Iraq.
No talk of the suffering of the Iranians under their theocratic overlords, the systematic repression of human nature and the systematic denial of human rights in the name of a medieval belief structure - sorry, I'm insulting the Arab medievalists, it's pre-medieval, barbaric - no talk of anything remotely like the facts, the reality of the situation.
And thirdly, the tragedy of our times is its ahistoricity, its lack of thinking how history provides us with references that helps to explain today, that the errors of the past illuminate the errors of today. The global warming alarmists tell us to do what they say and a future world will be better: that is exactly what the eugenics movement did as well. The Germans were particularly good at eugenics, weeding their genetic base by 10 mn before the end of WW2; before they went that far, though, they had the massiv support of many scientists and institutions like the Ford Foundation and other god-damned do-gooders.
There is a quote from HL Mencken that is applicable: The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule it.
An inconvenient truth...
Mittwoch, Februar 14, 2007
Awakening...
This article by Ruth Dudley Edwards in the British newspaper The Telegraph reminded me of the occasional epiphany that I've had.
I spent the early 1980s in Germany working on a doctorate in Philosophy. I was more or less a liberal at that point in time, and even voted for Carter as the lesser of two evils (I couldn't pardon Ford for having pardoned Nixon...). Even as late at 1978 I remember agreeing with one of the Germans that I worked with that socialism was a historical necessity and must ultimately triumph.
I ran into rampant anti-Americanism almost from day 1, with my landlady of the time swearing that Reagan's election meant that There Would Be War, with a multitude (I remember counting 27 at one point) leftist groups at the University in Freiburg demanding our attention and commitment (hah!) in fighting imperialism, and with many professors more than willing to use their pulpit to bully the students into party-line group-think. I was a tad older than the others, and what little maturity that brought me helped.
I realized, as does Ruth Edwards, that intelligence and cleverness does not protect one from being incredibly foolish. My years in Germany have led me to the conclusion that the one thing Germany really needs - critical thought, critical in the sense that Kant meant it - is severely lacking, since critical thought is at best uncomfortable and at worst downright subversive to existing hypocrisies and dearly beloved shibboleths of oh-so-rational liberal society.
But back to Ms. Edwards:
When I left the public service, researching and writing the biography of the publisher Victor Gollancz, creator of the Left Book Club, and then a subsequent history of The Economist, made me realise how many clever people are fools. The Left were push-overs for communist propaganda, but they could at least recognise fascism as evil: the establishment found the whole notion of evil distasteful. I read enough Times and Economist leaders written by Oxbridge double-firsts welcoming the encouraging signs of statesmanship emanating from Herr Hitler to disillusion me forever about the wisdom of the commentariat: the default mindset is still to resist the notion that evil exists and that when bad people say bad things, they may just mean them.
As the 1930s establishment wrote off Churchill as a madman because, obviously, Hitler didn't mean what he said in Mein Kampf, so today we are still assured that the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is exaggerating when he says he wants to exterminate all Jews. But does anyone really believe that Abu Hamza was kidding when he said: "We ask Allah to make us shaheed (martyrs); our immediate duty now is to correct our own homeland?"
This is one aspect of the problem: that the liberal mind-set has enormous difficulties with the concept of evil and absolutely enormous faith - rather unbased, I would say - in the abilities of thinkers to be both clever and right.The problem ultimately lies in a much older problem, the one that Plato discussed in his The Sophist: the problem of sophistry masquerading as wisdom, of ability and skill without knowledge. The Sophist is the one who makes a business out of "doing" wisdom, who basically survives by being clever, clever in the 20th century British sense. For whatever worth the original sense of the word may have had - of someone who would bring his students to wisdom - it became corrupted by those who didn't bother to learn the true bringing of wisdom, but rather with merely the trappings of the same. In other words, those who were as good as the proper philosophers in spinning a good story to make a point, but not really caring about whether the point was real or not, whether it brought wisdom, knowledge, or was merely nicely spun. The difference between Schein and Sein, if you will.
Fundamentally, the Sophists held a relativistic view of knowledge and truth, that these were not absolutes.
Sound familiar? Of course it does.
Now, more people than you might think are actually interested in finding the truth behind things. It's a fundamental of human nature to do so, but we hairless flat-faced, lop-tailed walking monkeys are easily distracted by things like MTV and daily soaps and the like. In our modern, liberal society there are basically three paths to finding truth: religion, politics and critical analysis.
Religion is easy: you start to believe in a set of postulates that is largely a clear and rational structure for understanding the world. That might be something as deeply mystical as the Holy Trinity and catholic catechisms, the postulate of original sin and Jesus' sacrifice to save man from his own tendency to evil, or it might be something as cynical and abusive of "the Jews are the reason that we are poor and can't do anything". When I say religion is easy, I'm not being coy or denigrating, but rather I recognize the fact that for many with neither the time and patience for philosophical review, religion may be the only way of making sense out of the world or reaching an understanding of the meaning of what happens to them individually.
Politics is a tad more difficult, as you have the secular world with all of its discrepancies and contradictions. Political theory tends to the practical; political belief systems can be so deeply intertwined with religion that there can be no meaningful seperation. Politics is harder, but you have the company of your peers, such as they are, and marching for your political beliefs is something that people have been doing for ages.
Critical analysis is the hard part, where the chaff is seperated from the wheat. The problem with critical analysis is that it is perforce done in splendid isolation and if not accompanied by massive self-doubt then is largely useless: that is part of the reason why so much of what is called "critical" thought is not that at all, but rather the parroting of what professors long to believe about themselves.
Now I've gotton off-topic a tad.
Getting back to the article per ut supra, Ms. Edwards quite correctly points out the fundamental problem facing liberal society, liberal in the sense that most western societies understand themselves to be so. The problem is fundamental because as long as western societies continues to be uncritical about themselves, they will continue to be open to exploitation: the mistaken belief that if you are nice to others, others will be nice to you; the mistaken belief that people saying terrible things don't really mean what they say; the mistaken belief that evil is something that religion dreamed up to tell a frightening story to small children, but we as adults of course know that there is no such thing as the Devil.
That there is no such thing as evil.
Let's remember the Christian story of the Devil: an angel who rebelled against God. He seduced Eve to give to Adam the fruit of knowledge; his goal is to destroy the works of God, to negate what God has planned. He is relativistic, being neither omnipotent nor omniscient, relying on minions to do his deeds. His first and most fundamental deed is to bring Sin to man: not merely the temptation to do something that you know is wrong, but to then actually do it.
So, you're all rolling your eyes and thinking "great, another nutter".
I'd prefer to think of the Devil as metaphor, of the driving force that leads people to do things that they right well know they shouldn't: that can be as simple as a vegetarian deciding that they are damn well going to sit down to a good steak because they crave it so to the delusions of the murderer that his or her victims were all the time asking to be killed.
In that case, the Devil is hard at work in western society, and those who embrace barbarism, with its simple truths, black-and-white world structure, drastic punishments and lust for power, are doing, metaphorically speaking, the work of the Devil.
As Ms. Edwards says, quite correctly, we're not dealing with a clash of civilizations, we're dealing with civilization vs. barbarism.
Dienstag, Februar 13, 2007
Just to make one thing perfectly clear...
I refered in my last point to certain politicians in Europe.
This article refers to who I meant.
It's odd how sometimes words spoken in error can be the truth, and that one's protestations that something else was meant end up underscoring that you really did mean what you said, n'est pas?
The only real consolation in this whole disgusting situation is that the bastard will be out of office soon. That's really the only positive aspect of French politics right now: that regardless of who wins the election in France, Chirac will be out of office.
And will go down in history as the man who masterminded the complete and total failure of European security policies at the begin of the 21st century.
The Smoking Gun in Iran ...
Here's two links to the story.
First of all the Daily Telegraph, one of the larger Austrian newspapers, reports that Austrian weapons - in this case the Steyr-Männlicher HS .50 sniper rifle - that were sold to Iran - despite protests of the US and the UK - have surfaced in Iraq. Not one, not two, but over 100 have been seized in raids over the last 24 hours.
Second, who in Austria gave the OK to export these weapons to Iran?
Ernst Strasser, Ursula Plassnik and Wolfgang Schüssel: the former Interior Minister, Foreign Minister and Chancellor of Austria. They gave their approval for the deal despite the protests of the US and the UK. The deal was approved on 12 Nov 2004. The US ambassador to Austria then, Lyons Brown, requested in January 2005 that the sale not go through. But who actually arranged the deal?
Gert Rene Polli, the head of the Austrian BVT (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz und Terrorismusbekämpfung, Agency for Protection of the Constitution and Fighting Terrorism) arranged the deal.
So we're not looking at some behind-the-scenes back-room briefcase-of-cash kind of deal, but an official transaction between the government of Austria and the government of Iran.
Thanks, guys.
We're not talking about a sporting rifle, or some standard-issue buy-it-on-the-market deal. It fires a 12.7mm x 99mm round, i.e. .50 cal. It's considered to be a high-precision weapon, fired single-round from am manually-operated rotating bolt with a massive muzzle brake that reduces recoil significantly. It's considered to be one of the better sniper rifles out there.
The weapons in question, according to the Daily Telegraph article, cost Iran 10'000 pounds sterling as part of the deal: that's €15'000 Euros or closer to $20'000 plus per rifle. Per rifle.
Oddly enough, according to the Daily Telegraph. the advertised price in €5'019.
Within 45 days of the sale, the first American in Iraq was shot with such a weapon.
Gee, Austrian government, thanks for that help. We know you didn't want to really get involved, but do you really have to sell the Iranians the weapons that they now are using either directly or indirectly to kill Americans?
This is, literally, the smoking gun. Literally.
What else do people want to know? Here we have Iran, giving weapons it bought from Austria for internal purposes, arming the Iraqis or, alternatively, operating itself directly in Iraq, and there is no doubt, so need to persuade: this is the smoking gun.
So now what happens? Will the Europeans finally realize that dealing with Iran is not in their best interests? That Iran is doing nothing more than lying to them in their face?
Or maybe this will finally make an impact?
According to this report:
"In practice . . . the Iranians have pursued their programme at their own pace, the limiting factor being technical difficulties rather than resolutions by the UN or the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"The problems with Iran will not be resolved through economic sanctions alone."
Duh.
/rant mode ON
Sorry for the vernacular, but what a bunch of fucking goddamn idiots. How fucking naive do you have to be?
Iran has been playing everyone for a fool. Well, now is the time to for the goddamned Europeans to fucking get off their sorry, tired asses and get their fucking shit together.
The Smoking Gun is out there, everyone: what you you now going to fucking do about it?????
Do nothing, and you categorically, permanently lose the damn right to bitch about whatever the US and Israel does.
Oh, the historians are gonna love this. You can win a fucking Pulitzer by documenting what a bunch of fucking dickheads you had running Europe when Iran got the bomb and millions died. Make a film about it: win the goddamn Oscar for documentaries.
/rant mode OFF
Sorry for the language. I'm not sorry for the sentiments expressed therein.
Montag, Februar 12, 2007
Stranger than fiction...
This is, to put it mildly, an ... interesting development.
What is going on here?
My take on it is that we have two factors going on here, both predicated on errors of judgement and understanding.
On the one hand you have Putin, ex-KGB, steeped in the lore of the cold war and cold-blooded spook. He sees the existential threat to his Mother Russia not in fundamental Muslims, but rather the corrupting hand of the West. He sees what happened his beloved country when the Soviets collapsed, and never wants that to happen again. He is fighting for the soul of a more modern Russia, with the theological purity of a former Communist.
On the other hand you have Iran and Adhmajidan, steeped in the lore of the Iranian Revolution and hot-blooded theological revolutionary. He sees the existential threat to control of Iran by the Mullahs, not in terms of being defeated at the polls, but more fundamentally through the corrupting hand of the West. He fears the demographic surge of his own people, knowing full well that Iran has wasted its oil wealth in destabilization and futile weapons programs in the desperate search for local hegemony. He is fighting for the soul of a bound people, with the theological purity of a true believer.
Remember, of course, that Moscow has been a major supplier to the Mullahs in Iran: what is now going on is nothing less, it seems, than Realpolitik written large.
We all know the Realpolitik saying in the Middle East: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
In this case, I think we see the development of a new unholy alliance based on the ancient Russian fears of the triump of the West, coupled with the centuries-old Muslim resentment of the technology and political fervor of the West.
The goal of their collusion is nothing less than the driving out of the US from the Middle East and allowing Iran to establish local hegemony over the region in order to save itself from the coming collapse as the Iranians squander their future; the reward for Putin is nothing less than having out-played the Americans.
Dangerous times indeed.
Putin's rhetoric is that of the SovUnion during the highlight of his time in eastern Germany, of condemning the West due to its ability to undermine decades of Soviet military development by fielding magic weapons that the Soviets simply could not counter (guided antitank weapons on fast helicopters, cluster bombs with anti-armor submunitions, etc), and now Putin sees the US putting in antiballistic missiles in Poland and possibly elsewhere in eastern Europe. His solution is to use MARV, something not allowed under the old START (manoueverable warheads) and to ratchet up the cold-war bluster.
To paraphrase the Who: Welcome to the New World, same as the Old World.
Irresponsible...
Brigitte Mohnhaupt is going to walk out of jail in March.
She's a former member of the Red Army Fraction, the home-grown terrorists that murdered, robbed and lied their way into the hearts of the German left in the 1970s and 1980s.
She's going to be released because a court of law (Oberlandesgericht Stuttgart) has decided that she no longer represents a danger to society.
A danger to society.
She has abandoned her ways. She spent 24 years in jail for her part in the kidnapping and murder of the president of the German Employer's Association, Hans-Martin Schleyer. She was also involved in the murder of Siegfried Buback, one of the head German state prosecutors. In July of 1977 she fired the shots that murdered the head of the Dresden Bank. She tried to use a rocket attack on the office building of the German state prosecutors, and she tried to kill a US general in 1981 using an anti-tank weapon on his car.
She was arrested when she was getting weapons from a hidden depot.
The same court sentenced her to 5 times life and 15 years to boot. On the 27th of March she will have served the minimum time that such a sentence carries.
According to the court, there is no sign that she might start up her terrorist activities once again.
However, and this is what makes the decision of the court irresponsible, she shows no regret in having kidnapped, killed and maimed her victims.
None. Not one word.
Failing to take that into account is highly irresponsible of the court: the victims are the ones who here apparently have no voice in the matter. By failing to take into account this critical matter, the court ignores the fact that they are now giving freedom to someone who denied that to her victims; that they are now giving freedom to someone who took lives without regret and remorse; that they are now giving freedom to someone who does not deserve it.
And she does not deserve it: merely sitting out the sentence isn't enough. Regret and apologies to the victims are absolutely necessary for any sort of recognition that she deserves to be let out early.
This is irresponsible: condemning someone to 5 life sentences plus 15 years and then letting her out because she "no longer presents a danger to society". This is a perversion of justice: justice is not merely preventing dangers to society, but more fundamentally such prison sentences must act as a deterrent.
But in Germany life in jail means 15 years.
Irresponsible.
The American Dream
This is an interesting, albeit brief, note from Samir Al Mukrin in the Al Yuam newspaper from Saudia Arabia.
He has his point down pat: what is the American Dream?
Let me quote him:
For those now living in America or those who wish to do so, when you arrive in America and start facing life there, you can accomplish "the American dream," which means that in terms of life's goals and personal ambition, you can achieve your heart's desire. If you wish to achieve stability, start a family and live a quiet life, you can.
If you want to have fun and enjoy a meaningless, aimless life, you can. If you want to be a criminal and establish that sort of lifestyle, you can. If you want to become rich and live an upscale lifestyle, you can. If you want to enter politics and aspire to a position of influence, you can. All options are open, and all you have to do is decide and put in the necessary effort and be committed to it.
Moreover, you'll have no difficulty and need feel no shame in justifying any of this.
The man has understood what America is all about, something that those living there sometimes don't. Especially Democrats. The Anti-Americans are those who want the nanny state, who want government control of key businesses (Hi, Hillary), who want to make others live the way that they would then dictate because they know so much better (HAH!). For them the American Dream is a travesty, something to be rejected, to be fundamentally denied and made impossible.
The America Dream is exquisitely simple and can be summed up as this:
Being yourself and doing what you want to.
Nothing more, nothing less. But it also includes this corrolary:
But no one will give it to you: if you want it, you have to do it.
That's it.
This is why over more that 200 years that America has flourished: this is what is so subversive, so seductive, so damningly successful that even those abroad who publicly rant and rave about the evils of America almost invariably drop everything if they get a Green Card.
The real tragedy of the American Dream is that you can only do it in America. Everywhere else (almost) you can't live the American Dream: you have to live the dream of the Dear Leader, or the dream of the Imam, or the dream of the local warlord, or the dream of the tribal elders. All of these societal constraints, the pressures of societies desperately trying to hold together ancient value systems in a changing world, are detrimentall to the fundamental human striving to make things better for one's self and for one's children, with the hope that their lives will be better.
Only in America.
Donnerstag, Februar 08, 2007
War And Popularity
There is a common misperception of the US, not merely abroad, but in the US as well. This sentiment seems to be anchored in wishful thinking, rather than in historical reality or serious political thought that refers to existing law.
The US is not first and foremost a democracy. It never was, never has been, and is not, nor will it in all likelihood become such.
The US is first and foremost a republic.
One of the most amazing and profound collection of political thought is the Federalist Papers. If you want to understand how the US works, and have not read the Federalist Papers, then you do not know how the US works. Period.
Now, I'm not going to go into a long exegesis on the Federalist Papers. You can find them here.
Those who believe in popularity contests can go on believing that the US is first and foremost a democracy, which at the end of the day is nothing more than that.
The Federalist Papers are nothing less than a blueprint of how to think about modern representative government as we know it. They're not perfectly written - they're more than 200 years old at this point, what do you expect? - but their fundamental concerns are exactly the concerns that any serious student of politics needs to consider.
But getting back to the point: popularity contests aren't what the executive branch and the judiciary are all about (Congress, especially the House, more so...), but rather are tasked with running the country.
Which is why all the folks who are soooo concerned about popularity ratings should read this.
Wars in the US have never been about popularity, about getting elected or anything remotely like that. If anything, Presidents who ask permission from Congress to go to war invariably become less and less popular during any of their wars.
War is not about popularity: it is a contest of wills. Bowing to pressure from the street would eviscerate the war making ability of the US.
But then again, that's what those organizing street demonstrations want. Groups like MoveOn and ANSWER are largely hard-core socialist revolutionary groups, and their rage is not the rage of righteous anger, but rather the rage of the dispossesed and failure.
Mittwoch, Februar 07, 2007
The European Problem
In today's FT (link here) there is an interview with the French Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin.
The real problem in Europe is France.
Why?
Because the French cannot let go of trying to bamboozle the rest of Europe into going along with what are ultimately rather destructive French policies. France, as the Fifth Republic exists today, is a body politic that is severely handicapped by institutionalized corruption, coupled with an elite that truly believes in itself and is incapable of learning (after all, they have been imbued with the highest of political training in their elite schools, and if they needed to learn it, they were taught it there) not merely from their own mistakes, but also the mistakes of others.
Here is a key part of the interview:
... I think that economic patriotism is the very foundation of a European vision. Of course, with economic patriotism, I'm talking about European economic patriotism. There are many areas, where to be effective, we must unite our forces. In energy, we must aim to create global champions.
Let me translate that: European economic patriotism = European Protectionism.
Further:
FT: What about the obstacles in Brussels that block this economic patriotism?
DdV: We need to think about a better definition of the role of Europe towards its own member states. Europe must pay more attention to protecting its citizens in a globalised world. China protects the Chinese, America protects the Americans, I don't see why Europe should not protect the Europeans. We must correct the excessively liberal vision we have of Europe, which should defend liberty and markets, but also Europeans consumers and producers, just as others do. The idea we have sometimes of a competition pushed to extremes does not correspond to the vision I have of Europe.
As soon as alliances can be formed between big companies within Europe on a friendly basis, which is very important, as once we start to have unfriendly operations between European states we will enter into a dangerous logic of rivalries and competition that are risky. On the other hand, when Europe can gain big global powerhouses in strategic areas, that is part of my vision of how Europe should weigh more on the international scene. What happens in this case. We defend our jobs, our growth, our social model. Otherwise, we are weakening our growth, which is already below where it should be, and suffering consequences of unemployment, when we should be creating conditions of employment and fighting on equal terms with the other big partners of the world. There is a small revolution needed in Europe over the idea we have on the role of Europe and the weapons we give ourselves to act. We should have the means to impose a reciprocity. There's no reason we should always be giving without ever receiving.
This is nothing less than a naked call for European protectionism, bordering on mercantilism. The excessively liberal vision - he almost sounds like a Republican, n'est pas? - isn't the liberalism of politics, but rather a key word for socialists now across the board: he wants to regain state control over the markets. And believe me, competition pushed to the extremes certainly isn't what you have in Europe right now: competition has improved, but it is despte the best efforts, not because of them.
Alliances formed between big companies within Europe on a "friendly basis" is nothing more than double-speak for the establishment of monopolies (the French energy companies are meant here: they've been buying up European competitors right and left, reducing competition and therefore reducing consumer benefit...); unfriendly operations, of course, refer to foreign companies' attempts to buy French companies. Never! Perish the thought! Once the French - excuse me, the Europeans - have companies big enough to actually be global players, then it should start throwing their weight around.
The small revolution that he calls for is nothing less than an abdication to the oh-so-superior French ways of doing things. Reciprocity? The French don't want reciprocity, they want "What's mine is mine, what's yours is negotiable".
FT: Why do French people think they are the losers in globalisation?
DdV: It is the feeling that the world is changing so fast. Today we have an acceleration of exchanges, a modification of the balance of power, the appearance of new countries on the world stage, so we are constantly having to defend our jobs, growth and activity, as we are subjected to this process of globalisation. The vision sometimes given is that nothing can stop this process, which means spending power falls to make room for everyone in the world. The competencies of countries are being restricted as more and more countries impose themselves in the areas of new technologies and products, creating more competition.
But my conviction is that we have shown in France that we are capable of defending our economic model, providing we take the right measures, like our poles of competitiveness and our agency for industrial innovation. I think French people realise that we are not without resources. We can score points. We have world leaders in numerous sectors, as in oil, electricity, in many other areas of services, like Air France or our carmakers. The French have the impression that for too long Europe only wanted to open up to the world without ever defending its interests in the world.
Slow down, I want to get off: the French don't want to play the dynamic world game any more, but rather are calling for statism, for control over economic growth - not merely their own, but across the world, ensuring that the poor stay where they are - and ultimately over political developments. France is obviously seeing its old ways of manipulating its older colonies and business partners eroded, and wants to prevent anyone else from coming along.The interview goes on, ending with some rather appalling ideas about what is to be done in Iraq:
I see there is a big debate in the UK and US on how to get out of this. The answer must be a gradual and global response. We must act on every level to be effective. The first level must be an interior mobilisation in Iraq and a taking of responsibility internally in Iraq. We must start a national reconciliation, which means giving a place to everyone, which is not the case now. Everyone must participate in the recovery and reconciliation of Iraq. The second stage is on a regional level. All interests in the region must have an interest in the stability of Iraq. Is that the case at the moment? I am not sure. So we need to reinforce dialogue with the neighbouring states of Iraq, and we must create conditions for these states to have an interest in peace for Iraq and the region. We can clearly see today that lots of countries have ulterior motives and are getting an advantage from the instability in Iraq and the region. So we must act. Each of our countries has its own power or influence, which must be put in common, but there must be an objective.
The man is an unqualified idiot. Sorry: he is qualified, he is a product of the French system for producing elites.
What makes the ideas appalling is that there is absolutely nothing new there: this is exactly what the US has been doing in Iraq. But he is absolutely blind to the fact - the fact - that neither Syria nor Iran want Iraq to be a success: that is, right now, the core of the problem. He calls for blind activism - "So we must act." - but fails utterly to recognize that the only way that Syria or Iran would agree to a peaceful Iraq is for Iraq to basically be divided up between the two of them. Thinking otherwise would be complete ignorance of the historical political and social ties amongst the demographic groups of the area.
It *sounds* all so reasonable. It's the way that things would be worked out in modern-day Europe. But it's not the way the real world works.
Oddly enough, he does say one thing I agree with:
If we want to recreate a dynamic of peace in the Middle East, we must start from reality. The reality is that there is something wrong in Iraq. There are symbols that are stronger than anything else.
The only problem is that he has been listening to John Kerry (or is it the other way around?) and insists that the troops must leave as soon as possible.
The European problem that I refer to isn't that Europe can't compete internationally: it can. It builds great planes, make great machine tools, great cars, great wine, great cultural products as well. Its peoples have solid, good educations, in many cases world-class, and I would even venture to say that if Europeans really set their minds to do things, they can achieve amazing results.
The European problem is that you have a France in Europe that believes that only centralized state control can yield the results needed. This is without a doubt the least sensible way of achieving goals, since the decision-makers in such a system will make errors that will prevent the goals from being achieved.
The European problem is that they have yet to understand the 21st century and its challenges. The Europeans need to be liberated from the strait jacket of the EU and its tentacles of control and manipulation, liberated from a stultifying bureaucracy of technocrats whose only real goal is to protect a status quo that hasn't been viable since the early 1960s.
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