By RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Kislyakov)
The year 2007 can safely be described as Russia's year of combat aviation.
Both in July at Le Bourget in France and in August at Zhukovsky outside Moscow, thousands of spectators held their breath as they watched stunts performed by MiG and Su planes equipped with vectored-thrust engines. It was a sight to be proud of. The planes featured were all land-based, although it is aircraft carrier aviation that makes up the effective core of the present-day air forces around the world.
Russia has planes that can be used on carriers. For example, the MiG, or rather the MiG-29 KUB (the acronym stands for aircraft carrier combat training). But they are exported to India under a contract to equip their future aircraft carriers.
Russia cannot be said to be blind to the role of aircraft carriers or the navy in modern warfare. In today's unpredictable world, even the mere appearance of a formidable ship featuring three service components sailing off a trouble spot is capable of producing a sobering effect on a potential aggressor.
It was therefore not surprising that in the middle of the year Admiral Vladimir Masorin, commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy, announced plans to reform the country's naval forces and build a blue-water navy with the world's second largest fleet of aircraft carriers. Or rather, in the next 20 years, Russia aims to create six aircraft carrier strike groups, giving it the world's second largest surface navy after the United States.
An aircraft carrier looks impressive, but needs a strong escort. Current world practice, where the U.S. is the trend-setter, dictates their operation within strike groups. Such a group, aside from the multi-role giant, also contains up to six combat escort vessels, including one or two GM cruisers, one GM destroyer, and two or three anti-submarine destroyers or frigates.
The American standards are, of course, not necessarily a guide for Russia, but so far there has been no evidence that the make-up of their strike groups needs to be changed.
Thus, six aircraft carrier strike groups are to be built in 20 years' time, including all the components and sparing no expense.
Heh. Sure. Pull my finger. Really. C'mon.
One thing, however, immediately comes to the mind, which concerns the organizational philosophy. Not long ago, in early 2004, Russia's Defense Ministry prepared a blueprint for building up the Navy until 2040-2050. The main planks of the blueprint were giving up the "ocean" aspect of protecting the country's interests and instead focusing on small-class vessels operating within a 500-km zone of territorial waters. "We are now abandoning the large-class ships we have or inherited from the Soviet era, and are moving to multi-purpose vessels," said Admiral of the Fleet Vladimir Kuroyedov, the then commander-in-chief of the Navy.
According to him, "Russia will have its own frigates and corvettes unmatched by anything else in the world." He said, "aircraft carriers belong to the next decade, and to speak of them now is a bit too soon." But, he said, Russia's only aircraft carrier "Admiral Kuznetsov" would remain. No one, he said, was going to write it off or sell it. "We have not even given that any thought," Kuroyedov said.
They'll just watch it rust.
The story of the ill-fated "Kuznetsov" will be taken up later, but now it is worth examining the two programs defining the future of the Russian navy that only took two years to draw up.
Conceptually, they are worlds apart. What makes them related is pointless bravado statements like "unmatched by anything else" or the "second largest."
Does Russia have grounds for planning the construction of so many carriers in the next twenty years? Let's calculate the prospects. Russian shipyards will have to launch one aircraft carrier every three years and four months if the plan is to be fully completed.
Which is why it won't happen, right there. Russian shipyards have no capability to do this and they aren't going to have it in the next decade. Russia is just now beginning to absorb some prosperity with the oil money, and any shock to that revenue stream puts them in the dumper. They haven't fixed their other serious problems: goverance, transparency, corruption, and demographics.
A carrier is ~$5 billion to build and a half-billion a year to operate with escorts. A single carrier has maintenance and upgrade costs that could run a hundred million a year. Plus you have to build the escorts, and the Russians will need a bunch. The Russians can't do it, at least not more than one carrier, and if we're to believe the revision of the Chinese economy, they can't do more than one carrier either.
Compare this with what the Americans did in 22 years from 1981 to 2003: they built six aircraft carriers during that time. The last one, "The Ronald Reagan", although completed with a fantastic speed in about 30 months and hitting the water in mid-2003, did not join the active fleet until January of last year. Its running and other trials took almost three years.
In other words, it took the Pentagon a quarter of a century to achieve what we are trying to do in only 20 years. But the Americans, even with taking into account their unprecedentedly high naval ship-building potential, had many other resources: money, armaments, sailing personnel, and flying crews. Logistics also met expectations.
What does Russia need? The first thing is money. Experience shows that it costs about $4 billion to build a modern aircraft carrier with a nuclear-powered propulsion plant (any other is unsuitable for this global system of weapons). Monthly maintenance costs (excluding personnel pay) are over $10 million. When untangling the mind-boggling information about Russia's present defense budget, we find that with a current bill of $35 billion a year and a defense order of just over $12 billion, the country will have to spend more than a billion dollars a year on the construction alone. The military, left "high and dry," will tangibly feel the pinch of the missing billion.
But this would be possible only under the unrealistically ideal conditions where the pace of work is timed down to a minute and there is no inflation. Yet the military budget is not stretchable and cannot rev up like a speedboat. Then will come the second ship, the third and the next, and this at a time when the completed ones will have to be run and maintained. Or will the project call for building more than one at a time? If so, the costs will become much more impressive.
After the ship is built it needs to be fitted with aircraft. Russia is going to compete with ships that carry a complement of 90 units each. Our carrier-based Su-33 fighter has evolved from the modified Su-27 Flanker jet initially developed for air defenses in the late 1960s. By the beginning of 2002, the country had produced just 24 of them. Nothing is known about plans to increase their production or develop new models. The first maiden flight from the deck of the "Admiral Kuznetsov" took place in 1995.
Now a word about the "Admiral Kuznetsov" carrier. Launched in 1989, it has spent most of its life under repair. When an attempt was made to use it in sea trials in 2003, it started to sink. Once in 2004 and twice in 2005 landing accidents incapacitated it for long spells. And all that was accompanied by fires and multiple failures of the propulsion machinery. The ship is a classic mess with every part of it rotten or diseased.
It's no big secret why only the U.S. and Britain can build and operate carriers properly: it's enormously expensive AND you need a sea-faring tradition that understands, in its bone marrow, how to make ships work. The U.S. and Royal navies have that. The French and Soviet Russian navies do not. That is why the Charles de Gaulle has problems that limit it to the lightest of sea duty and why the Admiral Kuznetsov is a wreck. It's going to be interesting to see if the Indian Navy can pull it off, but it does seem that they understand the underlying issue: the Indian Navy has, for the past three decades, worked hard to build a seafaring tradition and a Navy from the bottom-up.
Just to complete the picture, here is a telling report from the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies: As of 2004, Russia had only 12 pilots capable of flying deck-based aircraft. Consult this memo: an aircraft group of Russia's "rival" has 3,000 elite-trained pilots, all put through grueling tests.
Yet even if one air-capable group is built, armed and manned, there will be nowhere to base it, to say nothing about supply or repair. Out of Russia's four fleets, only the Northern and the Pacific ones can handle aircraft carriers.
Meanwhile, the Northern Fleet has built no new storage facility, floating base or fixed mooring pier since 1993, because of the lack of financing. Compared with giant shipbuilding yards, ship repair facilities are fairly modest. However, the Northern Fleet considers ship repairs a high priority to keep it in good fighting condition and order. Their priority is not unique, but rather typical of the Navy as a whole. Ship repairs are currently financed at 6% of their requirements. In the Northern Fleet more than 200 combat ships, submarines and auxiliary vessels are in need of repair and only 10% of them have been repaired in recent years.
Now take a look at India. Without any pomp it is going to launch its first 40,000-ton aircraft carrier in 2012. Aircraft have also been taken care of - they will come from Russia.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti
Posted by: john frum ||
11/18/2007 09:58 ||
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#1
Solve the fiscal issues in Two Words:
Oil money.
The issue for the Russians, Chinese and Indians is sea-time. YOu have to put to sea and operate in order to get the numbers of sailors the amounts of experience they need to run a blue-water navy.
Until they get 3 carrier battle groups each, and keep at least one at sea at all time, in operational configuration daily, they will not be able to develop and operate such a fleet.
The only reason the Brits can do so now is that they are coasting in centuries of tradition and ecades of experience. They are running out of those.
"It could be the worst movie I've ever seen" ... "[T]he out and out worst, most disgusting, most hateful, most incompetent, most revolting, most loathsome, most reprehensible cinematic work I have ever encountered." ... "It portrays the members of our Marine Corps in the most disgusting way imaginable." ... "This film is an atrocity.
It is zero stars." ... "I honestly was close to vomiting when I saw the film." ... "It is a slander on the United States of America." ... "Everyone associated with this film ought to be ashamed." ... "Will it inspire future terrorists? Of course it will!"
That's prominent movie critic Michael Medved on the new film "Redacted." Lest anyone think that Bill O'Reilly's recent outrage over the film is an overreaction, Medved tells Bill, "It's worse than you think."
#1
Medved is a film critic of considerable experience. He's seen Gigli and Heaven's Gate and Ishtar and Cutthroat Island. If this one is worse than those . . . (shudders).
Posted by: Mike ||
11/18/2007 22:58 Comments ||
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CNN hits bottom and digs: All six debate questioners appear to be Democratic Party operatives. So much for "ordinary people, undecided voters". To paraphrase Junior Soprano, CNN is so far up the DNC's hind end, Howard Dean can taste hair gel.
In a nutshell, CNN's six "undecided voters" were:
A Democratic Party bigwig
An antiwar activist
A Union official
An Islamic leader
A Harry Reid staffer
A radical Chicano separatist
#1
From this article I suppose hes the Ralph Nader of the Republicans. The left is funding him in hopes he go independant and shaves enough votes from the Repubs so they lose. Politics as usual.
US presidential politics has become a circus. I for one am discouraged for our future.
#6
Paul's drawing a reeeeally large percentage of his base from the lunatic left - I saw a couple of our local trust-fund hippie types driving around with Ron Paul posters in the back windows of their station wagon. I think he's a bigger threat to the Quislingcrats, especially if they nominate the Hildebeest, who's anathema even to many leftists because of (1) her earlier "support" of the war effort, and (2) her naked lust for power. Yeah, I know, I know..."naked lust" and "HIllary Clinton" bring some images to mind that most normal folks wouldn't want to process. I partially agree with BrerRabbit's Ralph Nader analogy, but his votes are still likely to be sliced out of the Demonrats' hide.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
11/18/2007 13:38 Comments ||
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#7
Aside from the nutjobs at the core of his support (conspiracy loons, anti-semites/jewbaiters, neonazis, unrealistic isolationists, etc), he has captured the "surrender now" and "Blame the US First" crowd that doesn't want to be tied up with Hillary and the Dems.
Stormfront and Ron Paul and Dialy Kos and DU: they love bashing the US, and blaming it on "neocons" and Jews.
Speaking as a misfit unassimilated foreigner, I think of Thanksgiving as the most American of holidays.
Christmas is celebrated elsewhere, even if there are significant local variations: In Continental Europe, naughty children get left rods to be flayed with and lumps of coal; in Britain, Christmas lasts from Dec. 22 to mid-January and celebrates the ancient cultural traditions of massive alcohol intake and watching the telly till you pass out in a pool of your own vomit. All part of the rich diversity of our world.
But Thanksgiving (excepting the premature and somewhat undernourished Canadian version) is unique to America. "What's it about?" an Irish visitor asked me a couple of years back. "Everyone sits around giving thanks all day? Thanks for what? George bloody Bush?"
Well, Americans have a lot to be thankful for.
Europeans think of this country as "the New World" in part because it has an eternal newness, which is noisy and distracting. Who would ever have thought you could have ready-to-eat pizza faxed directly to your iPod?
And just when you think you're on top of the general trend of novelty, it veers off in an entirely different direction: Continentals who grew up on Hollywood movies where the guy tells the waitress "Gimme a cuppa joe" and slides over a nickel return to New York a year or two later and find the coffee now costs $5.75, takes 25 minutes and requires an agonizing choice between the cinnamon-gingerbread-persimmon latte with coxcomb sprinkles and the decaf venti pepperoni-Eurasian-milfoil macchiato.
Who would have foreseen that the nation that inflicted fast food and drive-thru restaurants on the planet would then take the fastest menu item of all and turn it into a Kabuki-paced performance art? What mad genius!
But Americans aren't novelty junkies on the important things. The New World is one of the oldest settled constitutional democracies on Earth, to a degree the Old World can barely comprehend. Where it counts, Americans are traditionalists.
We know Eastern Europe was a totalitarian prison until the Nineties, but we forget that Mediterranean Europe (Greece, Spain, Portugal) has democratic roots going all the way back until, oh, the mid-Seventies; France and Germany's constitutions date back barely half a century, Italy's only to the 1940s, and Belgium's goes back about 20 minutes, and currently it's not clear whether even that latest rewrite remains operative. The U.S. Constitution is not only older than France's, Germany's, Italy's or Spain's constitution, it's older than all of them put together.
Americans think of Europe as Goethe and Mozart and 12th century castles and 6th century churches, but the Continent's governing mechanisms are no more ancient than the Partridge Family. Aside from the Anglophone democracies, most of the nation-states in the West have been conspicuous failures at sustaining peaceful political evolution from one generation to the next, which is why they're so susceptible to the siren song of Big Ideas communism, fascism, European Union.
If you're going to be novelty-crazed, better the zebra-mussel cappuccino than the Third Reich.
Even in a supposedly 50/50 nation, you're struck by the assumed stability underpinning even fundamental disputes. If you go into a bookstore, the display shelves offer a smorgasbord of leftist anti-Bush tracts claiming that he and Cheney have trashed, mangled, gutted, raped and tortured, sliced 'n' diced the Constitution, put it in a cement overcoat and lowered it into the East River. Yet even this argument presupposes a shared veneration for tradition unknown to most Western political cultures: When Tony Blair wanted to abolish, in effect, the upper house of the national legislature, he just got on and did it.
I don't believe the U.S. Constitution includes a right to abortion or gay marriage or a zillion other things the Left claims to detect emanating from the penumbra, but I find it sweetly touching that in America even political radicalism has to be framed as an appeal to constitutional tradition from the powdered-wig era.
In Europe, by contrast, one reason why there's no politically significant pro-life movement is because, in a world where constitutions have the life expectancy of an Oldsmobile, great questions are just seen as part of the general tide, the way things are going, no sense trying to fight it. And, by the time you realize you have to, the tide's usually up to your neck.
So Americans should be thankful they have one of the last functioning nation-states. Europeans, because they've been so inept at exercising it, no longer believe in national sovereignty, whereas it would never occur to Americans not to. This profoundly different attitude to the nation-state underpins, in turn, Euro-American attitudes to transnational institutions such as the United Nations.
But on this Thanksgiving the rest of the world ought to give thanks to American national sovereignty, too. When something terrible and destructive happens a tsunami hits Indonesia, an earthquake devastates Pakistan the United States can project itself anywhere on the planet within hours and start saving lives, setting up hospitals and restoring the water supply.
Aside from Britain and France, the Europeans cannot project power in any meaningful way anywhere. When they sign on to an enterprise they claim to believe in shoring up Afghanistan's fledgling post-Taliban democracy most of them send token forces under constrained rules of engagement that prevent them doing anything more than manning the photocopier back at the base.
If America were to follow the Europeans and maintain only shriveled attenuated residual military capacity, the world would very quickly be nastier and bloodier, and far more unstable. It's not just Americans and Iraqis and Afghans who owe a debt of thanks to the U.S. soldier but all the Europeans grown plump and prosperous in a globalized economy guaranteed by the most benign hegemon in history.
That said, Thanksgiving isn't about the big geopolitical picture, but about the blessings closer to home. Last week, the state of Oklahoma celebrated its centennial, accompanied by rousing performances of Rodgers and Hammerstein's eponymous anthem:
"We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand!"
Which isn't a bad theme song for the first Thanksgiving, either.
Three hundred and 14 years ago, the Pilgrims thanked God because there was a place for them in this land, and it was indeed grand. The land is grander today, and that, too, is remarkable: France has lurched from Second Empires to Fifth Republics struggling to devise a lasting constitutional settlement for the same smallish chunk of real estate, but the principles that united a baker's dozen of East Coast colonies were resilient enough to expand across a continent and halfway around the globe to Hawaii.
Americans should, as always, be thankful this Thanksgiving, but they should also understand just how rare in human history their blessings are.
#1
I don't believe the U.S. Constitution includes a right to abortion or gay marriage or a zillion other things the Left claims to detect emanating from the penumbra, but I find it sweetly touching that in America even political radicalism has to be framed as an appeal to constitutional tradition from the powdered-wig era.
Quoted for the Holey Sh*t, he's right, I've never thought of it that way aspect.
Posted by: Thomas Woof ||
11/18/2007 9:49 Comments ||
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#2
Americans should, as always, be thankful this Thanksgiving, but they should also understand just how rare in human history their blessings are.
This American is.
And I wake up every morning grateful that my ancestors got on those boats.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
11/18/2007 23:14 Comments ||
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General Michel Aoun's parliamentary coalition is falling apart. This was confirmed when MP Michel Murr , a leading member of Aoun's Change and Reform parliamentary block decided to take a different position in regards to the presidential elections. Murr, father of Defense Minister Elias Murr announced Friday from Bkirki that he would support any president chosen from a list drawn up by Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir even if Aoun and Hezbollah did not agree with him on the name. Murr said he and at least seven MPs from Aoun's Change and Reform Bloc would attend Wednesday's session to "elect a compromise president chosen by Nabbi Berri, Saad Hariri and the patriarch."
Another leading member of Aoun's coalition sided with Murr with regards to the presidential elections: A statement issued by MP Elie Skaff's Popular Bloc stressed that Bkirki's commitment to its fundamentals "promoted consensus" over the next president. It said efforts to find a compromise president have reached a "turning point ... when Speaker Berri and MP Hariri paved the way for a constitutional election session which requires agreement in advance between the (government) loyalists and the opposition on a name and cannot go straight to parliament unless consensus was achieved."
Aoun , who attacked Sfeir's list even before it was issued, had threatened to block a two-third quorum to elect a new head of state for Lebanon if the president-to-be did not enjoy popular backing and urged deputies from his Change and Reform Bloc to boycott Wednesday's session set to elect a new head of state. "We will not support any president, not even if elected by a two-third quorum, if he does not enjoy popular support," Aoun had said. Aoun did not define 'popular support'.
Continued on Page 49
This article starring:
Elias Murr
Elie Skaff
Fouad Siniora
Michel Aoun
Michel Murr
Nabbi Berri
Nasrallah Sfeir
political analyst Sami Haddad
Saad Hariri
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2007 00:00 ||
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President Emile Lahoud, whose mandate will expire on November 24, will leave office after he has served all of a mandate which includes a controversially extended three-year term since 2004. Described by most of his opponents as 'Syria's ruler in Lebanon or puppet,' Lahoud has stood firm in the face of the anti-Syrian ruling majority, insisting on serving his term 'up to the final minute.'
Lahoud was not only attacked by local opponents but - since the 2005 assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, blamed on Lahoud's close allies, the Syrians - was snubbed by most foreign officials, notably the Americans, French, British and Germans.
Lahoud was renowned for his strong backing of the resistance - the Shiite Lebanese militant movement, Hezbollah. Posters were erected near the southern suburbs of Beirut, Hezbollah's hotbed, proclaiming 'in our term we managed to defeat Israel.'
Continued on Page 49
This article starring:
Hezbollah
Elias Hrawi
Emile Lahoud
Foaud Seniora
Michel Aoun
Nasrallah Butros Sfeir
Prime Minister Rafik Hariri
resolution 1559
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
only Syria will miss ol' Liver-lips
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/18/2007 7:58 Comments ||
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One final note. There is a certain type of survival that tends to be ignored, the further one moves toward the survivalism described above. I am speaking of protection from crime, invasion, terrorism, or any other direct threat by a person or group of people against another. Acknowledging the existence of these real dangers would contradict contemporary notions of progress.
I will do my best to explain this thought in greater detail.
In progressive circles, ordinary crime is viewed not as a real hazard that must be confronted in the same manner as other dangers (such as hurricanes), but as a type of socio-political dysfunction that must be rectified. A burglar, for example, is not seen as breaking into someones home and endangering life and property, but rather as displaying behavior that is caused by a flaw in the structure of society: unequal distribution of wealth, insufficient education, racism, etc.
According to the progressive view, the primary danger involved is to the criminal, who is liable to be mistreated by a system whose raison dêtre is to oppress the supposed class to which the criminal belongs.
After the Second World War, but particularly after 1960, this type of thinking became virtually unchallenged among the ranks of the caretaker class: social workers, public defenders, activists of one stripe or another, therapists, etc. At its core a neo-Marxist ideology, it began to exhibit new forms derived from post-modern psychology, typified by the work of the Hungarian-born psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, author of The Myth of Mental Illness.
Szaszs work is multifaceted, but what is relevant here is that he relativized deviancy. This paved the way for the claim that mental illness is a social construct based on power relations. In other words, whoever is dominant in society determines who, and what behavior, is deviant. For instance, so goes the argument, under a capitalist system, the oppressed classes are labeled deviant whereas the upper classes, who cause all the mayhem, are labeled normal.
(Szaszs theories, incidentally, also helped pave the way for the release of numerous psychiatric inmates onto the streetsafter all, mental illness is a mythtransforming them overnight into legions of homeless people.)
The influence of Szaszian behavioral relativism has been immense. The perpetrator/victim relationship has been stood on its head. The victim is now the burglar, while the hapless homeowner, as a representative of the social class who makes the rules, becomes the perpetrator of imagined systemic crimes against the burglar and his brethren.
In this world of progress, it is the criminal who must be protected. This is closely related to the drive to advance the interests of deviants of all varieties. In any situation where a deviant causes damage and endangers the ordinary citizen, progress steps in to shield the deviant and place the blame on society. Meanwhile, the deviant behavior is explained away or even elevated; for example, museums displaying graffiti as art. One is reminded here of Daniel Patrick Moynihans memorable phrase, defining deviancy down.
Progress requires that humans be members of an equal, undifferentiated herd. The moment one attempts to protect the citizen and shun the criminal, the herd has been destabilized. One could, of course, re-homogenize the herd by eliminating criminals, as was done by certain 20th century totalitarian regimes. But in the West, this option has been omitted thus far from mainstream progressive thinking.
And from the point of view of the progressive camp, this makes sense. Violent anti-social behavior usually advances their cause. It demoralizes the majority, riddles people with guilt, employs hordes of caretakers and hand-wringers, and in general serves as a tool for blackmailing the West and delegitimizing its culture. When and if the totalitarian Left achieves unchallenged dominance in the West, perhaps we shall see Soviet-style cleansing of common criminals. Then they can say, see, it was all due to capitalism.
All of the above applies, on a global level, to terrorism. The terrorist is the burglar. He has become a victim by virtue of his automatic affiliation with an oppressed class (the Third World). The Western countries, obviously, are the homeowner.
To admit that the terrorist is deviant, or that something is awry in his culture, would violate one of the central tenets of progress: all cultures are equalon the condition that they be oppressed. Western culture, like the homeowner, deserves no protection.
Thus my original assertion that acknowledging the existence of these real dangers would contradict contemporary notions of progress.
#1
Dr. Szasz is an atheist, and being 87 years old, will also be testing that theory shortly. Meanwhile, Great Britain puts homeowners in jail and anger management classes for defending their property against the misunderstood yobs who are just as sane as they are, and maybe moreso.
#2
The reason the pols really don't care directly about crime is because it is not a direct threat to their power. It only becomes a threat when enough voters get pissed off and start backing someone promoting 'law and order'. To paraphrase Governor William J. Le Petomane, "We've gotta protect our phoney baloney jobs, gentlemen!" That's why they went after Benny Goetz. He was treated as a direct threat to the legitimacy of the state which had/has treated its citizens as expendable to the sociopathic elements of the society. That's why governments around the world will spend an inordinate amount of time and effort going after those who defend themselves, their families, and their property because it shows the rest of the citizenry that the state is unable or unwilling to perform one of the fundamental rationales for the existence of the government.
#3
Szasz is being unfairly pilloried as relativizing deviancy, though it is fair to say that he helped empty the institutions, but not as much as Jack Nicholson. Szasz also said that society could pass laws to punish behaviour and that people were responsible for their behaviour, i. e. no insanity defence as there is no such thing as insanity but there is such a thing as anti-social behaviour. You do the crime, you do the time.
#6
To admit that the terrorist is deviant, or that something is awry in his culture, would violate one of the central tenets of progress: all cultures are equalon the condition that they be oppressed. Western culture, like the homeowner, deserves no protection.
Good article. This is precisely why I have ZERO faith in the democrats ever managing to adequately deal with terrorism. They simply will not accept responsibility for the logical outcome of their multiculturalist agenda.
It is unusual in our day to find a philosophical work that is profound, erudite, and oblivious to current intellectual fashion. I have just finished reading such a work: An Intelligent Persons Guide to Modern Culture, by Roger Scruton. Whom Fjordman greatly praises, IIRC.
First published in 1998, it is a thoughtful attempt to explain the demise of Western culture.
Scruton takes on all the familiar antagonists: deconstructionism, contemporary art, the youth culture, and much more. They scatter in disarray before his mighty pen. For example, discussing the role of artists in contemporary society: Art is no longer a reflection on human life but a mechanism for excluding it. As for the more vulgar varieties of pop music:
We witness a reversal of the old order of performance. Instead of the performer being the means to present the music, which exists independently in the tradition of song, the music has become the means to present the performer it has a tendency to lose all musical character. For music, properly constructed, has a life of its own, and is always more interesting than the person who performs it.
I particularly enjoyed his debunking of deconstructionism, the best such effort I have seen. Scruton traces the development of this exaltation of nothingness, showing how it is intimately connected with the culture of repudiation, that phony pose of our self-styled intellectuals who claim to be in a permanent state of rebellion against the authorities. He shows how deconstruction became a quasi-theological underpinning of the culture of repudiation, enabling people to believe that they are in the opposition, even as they are being swept up by the dominant wave:
The subversive intention in no way forbids deconstruction from becoming an orthodoxy, the pillar of a new establishment, and the badge of conformity that the literary apparatchik must now wear. But in this it is no different from other subversive doctrines: Marxism, for example, Leninism, and Maoism. Just as pop is rapidly becoming the official culture of the post-modern State, so is the culture of repudiation becoming the official culture of the post-modern university.
Scruton delves into a thorough analysis of the Enlightenment and its aftermath, tracing the main lines of thought through the 19th century to Modernism, Post-Modernism, and finally the morbid state of collapse in which we now find ourselves. He presents several interesting hypotheses, including the notion that art, in its post-Enlightenment sense, stepped in to fill the void left by the collapse of religion as a guiding force in the West.
Explore these fascinating insights when you read the book in its entirety.
#2
Intellectual fashion is a repugnant term. Unfortunately, it is applicable to the trendies who pollute the pages of the New York Review of Books. With the long delayed croaking of Norman Mailer, we have once less narcissistic gas bag.
The decline of the dollar, symbol of US global hegemony for the best part of a century, may have become so entrenched that some experts now fear it is irreversible.
After months of huge and sustained turmoil on the money markets, lack of confidence in the world's totemic currency has become so widespread that an increasing number of international traders are transferring their wealth to stronger currencies such as the euro, which recently hit its highest level against the dollar.
"An American businessman over here who is given the choice would take anything but the dollar," David Buik of Cantor Index said yesterday. "I would want to be paid in yen, and if not yen then the euro or sterling."
Matthew Osborne, of Armstrong International, added: "The majority would say sterling. There are a few dealers in the City who may take the view that they'll take dollars now, while they're cheap, and hold on to them for 12 months.
"But the problem is so serious that there are people who in July or August might have been thinking, 'I'm paid in dollars, how annoying' for whom it's now a question of, 'Do you have a job; do you have a bonus?' "
The collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market in the US, which is fuelling the dollar unrest, has already brought down one British bank, Northern Rock, and has forced others to declare vast losses. Yesterday, just as it appeared that the dollar might have finally reached its floor, there was another warning that the sub-prime crisis is going to get worse. The US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, warned an international business summit in South Africa: "The sub-prime market, parts of it will get worse before it gets better." Huge numbers of US homeowners are still cushioned by introductory interest rates set when they took out loans in 2005 or 2006, he said. When these introductory offers run out, their interest payments will increase, setting off another wave of defaulting and repossessions. And the dollar is enduring its rockiest spell in recent memory.
Kenneth Froot, a Harvard university professor and former consultant to the US Federal Reserve, warned yesterday: "Part of the depreciation [of the dollar] is permanent. There is no doubt that the dollar must sink against periphery currencies to reflect their increase in competitiveness and productivity."
Professor Riordan Roett, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, told Bloomberg News: "There is a loss of confidence in the dollar and the US. It may only reflect the widespread dismay with the Bush administration, but it is obvious that the next administration, of either party, will have a steep uphill struggle." As well as reaching its lowest level against the euro, which has been trading at more than $1.47, the dollar has also fallen to its lowest level against the Canadian dollar since 1950, sterling since 1981, and the Swiss franc since 1995.
Its plight was made still worse by a jarring signal from China that it was switching to other currencies. Cheng Siwei, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, told a conference in Beijing: "We will favour stronger currencies over weaker ones, and will readjust accordingly."
The warning was reinforced by a Chinese central bank vice-director, Xu Jian, who said the dollar was "losing its status as the world currency".
China has stockpiled £700bn worth of foreign currency, and has only to decide to slow its accumulation of dollars to weaken the currency further. Last month, in a humiliating turn of events, the central bank in Iraq, four years after the United States invaded, stated that it wished to diversify reserves from a reliance on dollars.
Korea's central bank has urged shipbuilders to issue invoices in the local currency and take precautions against the weakened dollar, and three of the world's big oil exporters, Iran, Venezuela, and Russia, are demanding payment in euros rather than dollars. Iran insisted that Japan should make all its payments for oil in yen, rather than dollars.
Warren Buffet, who is reputedly the richest man in the world, was asked on the US network CNBC last month what he thought was the best currency in the world to own now. He answered: "Not the US dollar."
The Wall Street Journal ran an online poll asking people which currency, they would prefer to be paid in. The euro came top, ahead of sterling, with others such as the Canadian dollar, yen and Swiss franc trailing far behind. One respondent wrote: "Being an expat in Europe with a European employment contract, I am paid in euros, and happy to get paid in euros, and shop in the US, just as long as the cycle lasts through my retirement, so I can pick up pension in Europe and retire in the US."
The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates twice since September to revive the US economy, but the cuts combined with the possibility that more were on the way made the dollar less attractive to investors. Yesterday, it recovered slightly when one Federal Reserve banker, Randall Kroszner, dampened speculation about further interest rate cuts, saying that rates were low enough to get the economy through a "rough patch".
Problems with the greenback, combined with cheap air fares, have encouraged more Britons to go shopping across the Atlantic. British tourists spent £785m in New York last year, the city's marketing and tourism organisation said yesterday. There were 1,169,000 visitors to New York from the UK in 2006, with 54 per cent going for four to seven nights and 31 per cent staying for two to three nights. They spent an average of £112 a day. The average age of the UK visitor is 40.
Christopher Heywood, director of tourism PR for NYC & Company, said he expected the dollar crisis to attract yet more British shoppers. "The savvy traveller who's coming here for the shopping can really get a bargain. They're coming with one suitcase and leaving with two or three," he said.
"We have people coming over here even for weekend trips to shop for the famous brand names. People are coming for the department stores that everyone around the world knows, but also for the boutique stores out of the centre of Manhattan, anything from Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue to Bleecker Street in the West Village and SoHo."
Emphasis added. I have certainly been considering the effects of this idea when deciding where to put my money for now.
#2
I'd love to see the results of a survey that tested for the recognition of an old-style C-Note. I'm confident that a Pre-Monopoly-Money hundred dollar bill can still get a person just about anything they want on the street, no matter where they are in this world.
#3
Nonsense. Even the comment by the Harvard guy is dubious - currency value depends on economic vitality plus fiscal situation, and there's no sign the US is losing its leading economic role.
The Roett comment is classic BDS academic idiocy. Remember, the only issue that other actors care about in regard to Bush is the federal budget situation - so if Roett is saying that fiscal incontinence is the problem, it's Bush's worst failing but something even worse with his opponents.
This is almost entirely a discussion of what in the long term is only a short term market situation. The status of the dollar as the reserve currency (or oil currency) won't change. China SHOULD diversify their foreign currency holdings - common sense, especially with the US showing so little budget discipline.
The US currency is valued partly for the confidence holders repose in US financial and governmental institutions. With respect to financial matters, that confidence is unchanged. Market logic dictates diversification, but the closest proxy to the "risk-free" financial instrument is, and will remain, US government bonds. That, plus the continuing general economic dominance of the US, mean the dollar will be just fine in the long run.
I'm much more concerned about European-based stocks I own through mutual funds. With a few exceptions, Europe may not be a place to have your money as various demographic and cultural/economic factors kick in.
In my view, any European based instruments are relatively safe for about 4 years, but not beyond that time frame.
In fact it may seem like a risky proposition, but I'd buy USD while they are cheap like there's no tomorrow, if you have funds avaiable in other currencies or instruments based on other currencies.
#5
Anyone ever heard of the FOREX market?
There is no such thing as being "stuck" with dollars, or yen or anything else nowadays.
Absolutely no such thing.
#6
It strikes me that these stories tend to be PUSHING the idea rather than reporting it. When black markets and drug dealers start refusing dollars, then there's a problem.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
11/18/2007 9:17 Comments ||
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#7
True - but there are relative gains and losses in holding securities for one or another currency.
Many US consumers have indeed been imprudent in their choices and a whole lot of finance people have improved their own wealth as a result. But there are bigger structural issues going on right now.
Among them is the huge distortion created by China's unwillingness to let the Ren find its natural market value. Whether or not the US could in fact influence the value of the dollar right now, there's a game of Chicken going on with China. The Chinese amassed dollar securities but kept their currency artificially low in order to continue to export heavily. The low dollar calls their bluff.
Unfortunately, in games of Chicken it's not uncommon for one of the players (or both) to end up crashing. The Chinese economy is indeed more fragile than ours. But if the Saudis dump the dollar for oil sales, all bets are off.
We have GOT to stop transferring wealth to the oil producers.
#10
In this little game of beggar-thy-neighbor watch the Euro scream first, I hear little noises already. Boeings running a 15% off sale on Dreamliners.
Posted by: Thomas Woof ||
11/18/2007 9:43 Comments ||
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#11
We are living in an age where the value of the dollar is artificially influenced by several thing, some of them already mentioned above. Add artificial run-ups in commodity prices due to speculation and a credit market saturated with sophisticated trading instruments that disguise real risk, and you got a game where no player has any real idea what is actually going on.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/18/2007 12:21 Comments ||
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#12
I blame this whole clusterfcuk on university educations. This great need to be like everyone else has led the financial industry down the slippery slope. Today's grads are taught to think one way and one way only. Back in the 1990s, every one of the 50 states had budget surpluses, yet none saved a penny, and all have increased taxes sinse then. SHEEP ! Sheep following along without thought, without long range plans. Show me a man with a diploma, and I'll show you a fool looking for a line to stand in. Yesterday's captains of industry and banking would have reaped a sorry harvest of these airheads. They can't create a stable investment, because they can't determine what works and what doesn't work. After all, that would be judgemental. And, when you can't be judgemental giving loans, then everyone gets too much for too little, and we all go bust together.
Well, go bust if you want, but those of us who can think outside the university confines will own our houses and make our payments, and live within our means. And home school if we know what works best.
#13
The value of the dollar is set by the market. The market is made up of the geniuses who bought all those derivative securities based on sub-prime loans. The market is motivated by two and only two things; fear and greed.
Greed motivated the EUro-investors to buy those derivatives and greed for growing exports led Bush and Paulson to talk down the dollar. A tipping point was reached, probably when the Fed dropped rates the second time and confidence that the US monetary authorities had any interest in preserving the dollar as a store of value was seriously eroded.
Ultimately markets work on confidence that each party can properly evaluate the risks and rewards of a transaction. When that confidence is undermined, rationality goes out the window and fear and panic take over. That is what nearly happened. Bush and Paulson have publicly backed a strong currency. The Fed won't be dropping rates. This may stabilize things but these guys have shot their credibility.
To know what is really going on you have to know who is buying and who is selling. And sometimes that can be very difficult to know; not only because market movers try to disguise their moves.
I am sceptical that the Saudis were behind this run on the dollar. It is hard to see what they would gain from instability and the destruction of the dollar as the world's currency. They've made lots of money off America in Democrat and Republican administrations. They've bought the best State Department we can staff.
The Chinese, and their friends around the world, however, have a lot to gain by attacking our financial hegemony at the same time that we seemed to be recovering some of our reduced military hegemony.
Further, the Chinese have not done nearly so well under the Bush administration as they did under Clinton. They seem likely to have financed the Clintons for a long time. Should Hildebeast become the nominee and the election be at all close, I would not be surprised to see another run at the dollar next October in an effort to tilt the election Hildebeast's way. In that case my suspicion that this was a test run by them will be confirmed.
#14
This decline in the Dollar was inevitable once George Bush went on a crusade against Islamofascism. All the dictatorships in the ME have huge amounts of dollars in reserve and no intention of becoming a democracy.
Trashing the Dollar may make them poorer, but it weakens our democracy effort and keeps the dictators in power a little longer.
This trend has been exacerbated by China who's main policy since Tienamin Square has been "Build a Chinese Wall against Peaceful Evolution".
Simply stated, in dictatorships political considerations trump economics every time.
Our currency is going to be undervalued until these guys fall, and that may be sooner rather than later.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
11/18/2007 14:23 Comments ||
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#15
Way too many people on both sides of the aisle are reading too much into the dollar's status as a reserve currency. Several dozen developed countries are roughly on parity with the US in terms of nominal per capita GDP without having their currency being the reserve currency. In many ways, having the dollar used as a reserve currency is a curse for our exporters* and workers. It means that our currency is perpetually overvalued, since everyone uses it for reasons unrelated to our domestic economy, which makes our products too expensive to sell abroad. It's time some other currency replaced the dollar as the world's reserve currency. The euro, the yuan, the yen - whatever...
* That would mean companies that manufacture in the US. P&G has no problem manufacturing for the Chinese market in China, of course, but most smaller American companies don't have that option. Not to mention that US workers don't get many jobs from P&G's operations in China.
#16
It strikes me that these stories tend to be PUSHING the idea rather than reporting it.
Le bingo, RC.
in dictatorships political considerations trump economics every time
This needs to be etched upon the tombstone of every nation we are obliged to crush in our path towards a world decontaminated of tyranny and theocracy, China's included.
#17
Nation destruction is cheaper than nation building. Maybe we should take a second look at the costs and benefits of current GWOT tactics. Maybe enemy life should be devalued.
#18
"The housing slump is expected to end up costing banks, hedge funds and other lenders an estimated $400 billion as defaults on home loans rise, according to Goldman economist Jan Hatzius. A $400 billion loss is equal to just about 2.5 percent of U.S. stock market capitalization - or a bad day on Wall Street, he wrote in a commentary on Thursday."
"But most stock investors don't react aggressively to capital losses the way banks and other lenders do. A bank that aims to maintain a capital ratio of 10 percent would need to shrink its balance sheet by $10 for every $1 in credit losses, the note said. That means that if lenders end up suffering just half of the $400 billion in potential credit losses, they could be forced to reduce the amount they loan by $2 trillion. Such a drastic credit crunch could have dire consequences for the economy."
I smell a government bailout coming, a la 1980's savings & loans.
#19
It means that our currency is perpetually overvalued, since everyone uses it for reasons unrelated to our domestic economy
A currency will not be perpetually overvalued as a result of being the reserve currency. There are benefits that accrue to the issuer of the reserve currency, not inconsiderably seigneurage.
Our problem is not so much over or under valuation as that we have lost the ability to control the value of the dollar by allowing so many to fall into Chinese hands without them being an equal trading partner. China should never been allowed to join the WTO, a gift from Clinton and his friends on Wall Street.
It's time some other currency replaced the dollar as the world's reserve currency.
#21
could be wrong, of course, but I don't see a bailout happening. In the S&L failure, it was innocent average Joes losing their life savings due to unscrupulous bankers, which made for an easy "appeal" to the general population to bail them out with Fed $. In this case, too many greedy bankers, speculators and people with poor credit (none with much sympathy or empathy in the gen. population) who got in over their heads. I don't see the broad appeal for "fairness" working for these people. It doesn't work with me
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/18/2007 16:07 Comments ||
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#22
NS: A currency will not be perpetually overvalued as a result of being the reserve currency. There are benefits that accrue to the issuer of the reserve currency, not inconsiderably seigneurage.
You say seignorage, I say over-valuation. Bottom line that they're opposite sides of the same coin. The price we pay for seignorage is an over-valued currency. The whole reason the dollar is sinking is because parts of the world have decided not to treat it as a reserve currency. A reserve currency is one in which countries hold their national monetary reserves. If the dollar is less-and-less a reserve currency for foreign countries, demand for it goes down, meaning that its exchange rate goes down. In other words, the over-valuation caused by its status as a reserve currency is reversed.
#23
The whole reason the dollar is sinking is because parts of the world have decided not to treat it as a reserve currency.
On that we don't agree. There are many reasons the dollar is sinking, but the main one is that we have put too many dollars in the market by running too many large deficits, primarily with China.
#24
The bailout will be "to help all the poor people" who were entranced into taking out mortgages they could not afford by evil bankers avoid defaulting on their mortgages and being evicted in foreclosure by supplementing their payments directly and through restructured loans guaranteed by the FHA or Freddie Mac.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/18/2007 16:31 Comments ||
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#26
NS: There are many reasons the dollar is sinking, but the main one is that we have put too many dollars in the market by running too many large deficits, primarily with China.
The reason we're running large trade deficits with the world is because of the dollar's status as a reserve currency - the dollar's resultant over-valuation leads to our over-consumption of imports. The end of the dollar's reserve currency status will also lead to the reversal of these trade deficits. We import goods not because we like foreigners, but because domestic goods are priced out of the market because of an overvalued dollar.
#27
The dollar's over-valuation vis a vis the Chinese currency has noting to do with our status as a reserve currency and everything to do with a variety of Chinese laws and anti-free market and private property rights practices that prevent the Chinese currency from freely adjusting against the dollar.
#28
"Then there's seigniorage, technically the interest-free loan the U.S. receives from the millions of dollar bills held offshore. ``Printing a $100 bill is almost costless to the U.S. government, but foreigners must give more than $100 of resources to get the bill,'' Palley says. ``That's a tidy profit for U.S. taxpayers.''"
#29
There is a well organized diss the US Dollar program on websites and blogs all over and has been for a few months. Someone is waging war on the dollar. It's not just the bad news from the financial markets or anything the Chinese are doing.
I don't have the '06 numbers, but that should be enough to see that the dollar is simply moving around in relation to other currencies the same way it has for decades. In fact, I'd say the bulk of the latest dollar slide is over, and it's about time for wise investors to start buying dollars.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/18/2007 20:19 Comments ||
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#32
MN: Lets sit back, look at some facts and ease our worries. Leave the vrying abobut the dolar to the lefties.
I'm not one of those who thinks we're gonna be buying a loaf of bread with a backpack full of $100 bills. Some of the commentary out there is pure silliness. And you're right about the dollar move being within the historical band, if you view the euro as an aggregate of the predecessor European currencies. I just happen to think that the dollar's status as a reserve currency is a net negative for the US economy. We overconsume and underproduce due to the overvaluation that results from its reserve status.
Last month, 138 Muslim scholars addressed an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders in which they call for a new dialogue between Christianity and Islam based on sacred texts.
Entitled "A Common Word Between Us and You," the document claims that the shared Muslim and Christian principles of love of the One God and love of the neighbor provide the sort of common ground between the two faiths that is necessary for respect, tolerance and mutual understanding.
The publication of this letter coincided with the anniversary of a previous open letter in response to the pope's controversial Regensburg address on Sept. 12, 2006, when he appeared to link violence in religion to the absolute transcendence of God in Islam. His point was that according to Muslim teaching, God's will is utterly inscrutable and therefore unknowable to human reason - with the implication that divine injunctions cannot be fully understood and must be blindly obeyed.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: tipper ||
11/18/2007 00:25 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11 views]
Top|| File under: Global Jihad
#1
How can "real debate" occur with an opponent whose creed exonerates lying?
#2
Christian mission work is either prohibited or frustrated in the Muslim countries. They attempt to justify their oppression, by claiming that Islam is the only legitimate belief system, and other faiths are unconscionable. Christians could make the same claims but don't, because doing so would threaten the handful of church members who live under Islamic persecution. And even questioning Muslim practises, is claimed to be a violation of their human rights. Muslims claim both a right to recruit in the West, while denying reciprocal rights. In practise, I have found that Muslims have no ability to understand the concept of fairness. They expect us to jump hoops for them. And many of our leaders do exactly that.
Then there is the issue of both extremist preachings by Wahabist, Khomeinist and Ikhwanist vermin who infest the West, and the sharia privileges claimed by the angry immigrant class. Needless to say, even a hint of blasphemy uttered against Islam, ignites a death warrant in the Muslim world.
We indulge Muslim subversion, while they seek the eradication of both alien religions and politics from their backward cess pools. There is an alternative to debate and dialogue: dictate. And we should do it while we can.
#3
We indulge Muslim subversion, while they seek the eradication of both alien religions and politics from their backward cess pools. There is an alternative to debate and dialogue: dictate. And we should do it while we can.
Which is why I continue to agitate for imposition of military dictatorship in all occupied Muslim majority nations that America is forced to subjugate. Not doing so has seen us rewarded with the installation of shari'a law in both Afghanistan and Iraq. This should have been an unmistakable signal that Islam will only greet Western leniency with the utmost of ingratitude and uncooperative obstruction.
#6
AGain, we have an article by an individual who refuses to acknowlege the texts of either the Koran or the Bible as a place to focus. Simply because he refuses to acknowledge the Bible as relevant or the Koran as relevant. IF there trully were a discussion DIRECTLY involving the texts of both the Islamist and the Christian, the Bible would body slam the Koran during round one. There is text in the Bible that would tear apart the Koran.
The most important being that in EVERY INSTANCE, ALL laws and statutes from God to man in the Bible were given to God from God Himself. God never appeared to Mohammed, only an angel did. I would rather follow the laws of the one on the judgement throne, rather than from one who will not be seated on the judgement throne.
#7
*Correction* The most important being that in EVERY INSTANCE, ALL laws and statutes from God to man in the Bible were given to man from God Himself.
Yes, America, I am a thought criminal. Consider my confession: I am not wasting the effort in refuting this ideologically near-sighted spew. However we need to know what thought-fertilizer fuels the enemy. At least, Marx peppered his Communist Manifesto with some populism, however perverse.
1. While I have deep reservations about the death penalty for a number of reasons, I will gladly suspend those misgivings once the gradually intensifying social unrest reaches critical mass. Little would please me more than to see the likes of Bush, Cheney, Condi, OReilly, Perle, Clarence Thomas, Bolton, Negroponte and a host of others who have committed and enabled some of the most grievous crimes in history dangling lifelessly from the end of a rope.
Unable to compete in the field of ideas, Beauzeau falls back on tradition and wants to kill his political enemies. He would allows serial killers like Ted Bundy, mass murderers like Richard Speck, and child murderers like the animal that killed Jessica Lunsford to live long and prosper.
2. I view Zionism as a mental disease. The criminal apparatuses which pass themselves off as governmental structures in DC and Jerusalem do need to be wiped off the map. A majority of the constituencies in both the US and Israel view their governments with disgust and contempt. Both ruling bodies are infected with supporters of the Zionist plague and frequently implement policies which serve to inflict abject misery on millions of human beings.
I view Zionism as a political movement. Whether it's an idea whose time has passed or not is open to debate, but that it was a successful political movement is not. The "criminal apparatuses" in Washington and Jerusalem were voted in by their constituents. The infestation of Zionists is probably explained by the fact that they're more organized than rival Paleostinian groups.
Judging by results, this is a good thing. Paleostine in the West Bank is full of bloodthirsty nutcases under the ineffectual control of Abbas. In Gaza it's full of even more bloodthirsty nutcases under the more effective control of Hamas. Jordan is the only Israeli neighbor that's not a basket case: Egypt is ruled by an hereditary dictatorship with a democratic veneer; Lebanon was until recently a colony of Syria and Hezbollah is now trying to make it a colony of Iran; and Syria is a one-party dictatorship in the classic mold.
3. While I am not a direct participant, I wish the Animal Liberation Front great success in their endeavors. Under our depraved system of capitalism, the property ALF destroys and the profits they stymie are sacred. Yet the billions of sentient beings they champion are mere objects which we can wantonly subject to maiming, torture and death.
Under Beauzeau's depraved system, we'll avoid hurting any white mice while we allow humans to keel over in large numbers. I'm old enough to remember when polio was a disease that happened to kids you knew. Typhoid, smallpox, and diptheria weren't conquered that long ago. There are reasonable limits to everything, of course -- allergies are more common today than they were in the heady days of my youth, because we isolate ourselves from the great outdoors -- but Beauzeau is welcome to go live in NWFP so his kids can catch monkey pox and polio while he tries to argue the local mullahs out of slaughtering goats.
4. I loath the Holocaust industry. Zionists have hijacked and exploited a horrific tragedy, cynically employed it to enact their own ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians, and used it as a justification for the continued existence of the monstrous state of Israel. While it is profoundly tragic that the Nazis tortured and murdered so many Jews, there were also significant numbers of Romas, homosexuals, and socialists who suffered similar fates. Besides, there have been many genocides throughout human history, including the one we have been inflicting upon Iraqis through the Gulf War, Clintons heinous economic sanctions, and the present illegal occupation.
So, really, it's six million dead Jews, a few million dead Slavs, only a few hundred thousand dead Gypsies, no count I can recall seeing on dead homosexuals and socialists, so we should get over it and move on dot org. So the Nazis tried to exterminate the whole people -- men, women, children, babies at the breast. Big deal.
No one denigrates all the non-Jews murdered by the Nazis. Certainly no Jew I've ever talked to has. The term "holocaust" is generally applied only to the Jewish portion of the Nazi murders, the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." The numbers for all victims are usually put between 9 and 11 million, which means Jews accounted for the majority of the dead by any measure. Only the Gypsies suffered as much proportionately, though all of the victims suffered the same individually.
None of them, Slavs and Gypsies included, are as important to Beauzeau as the Saudis and Syrians being killed in droves by the American troops and their Iraqi allies in support of an elected Iraqi government. This is "genocide" by definition, because he says it's so.
And Sammy was really much to be preferred over an imperfect attempt to accomodate most of the competing parties within the country.
5. I long for the collapse of the American Empire. While we cant predict what will arise to fill the ensuing vacuum, at least it will present an opportunity for us to create a more humane and just sociopolitical order.
Something like what Zim-bob-we has, no doubt. Or would Beauzeau prefer something along the lines of Soddy Arabia? Probably he's waiting for the Soviet Union to come back.
When the American empire eventually does collapse, the world will be deprived of a society that was founded on the principle of individual liberty -- a principle that's been under assault almost from the time the ink dried on the Constitution. A bit of that American ideal has rubbed off in places in Europe and the Far East, but I believe that if we go, so go the other places where the idea of liberty has been struggling to take root.
When the American empire eventually collapses, the world will be left to societies that are ruled, rather than governed. Those who set themselves up to tell others what to think and how to behave will have no check. It will be a world of mullahs and satraps and commissars and soviets and gauleiters.
We will cease to be The People and we will become The Masses. That thought sickens me.
6. I believe the world would be a much better place if Wall Street and Madison Avenue ceased to exist. The greed, narcissism, and exploitation spewing forth from the entities and industries they represent are toxins to the human soul.
I believe the world would be a much better place if it was Beauzeau free. The rest of us would then be free from periodic narcissistic manifestos spewing forth pre-digested opinions of people who're incapable of predictive thinking.
7. I admire and support demonized people and entities such as Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Hamas as true champions of victimized people. Our ruling class portrays them as threats and terrorists because they have the cajones to stand up to the biggest, meanest, and most powerful bullies in history. Are they perfect? No. Are they admirable? Definitely.
Compañero Beauzeau mispelled "cojones."
Chavez is a bully and a blowhard. Castro is an old-style commie who impoverished a fairly prosperous nation while kissing the Russian foot. He's now well into his dotage and the world will be a better place when he passes from the stage, to be briefly replaced by his brother and heir.
Beauzeau's admiration for Hamas, I find breathtaking, as though he's looked for the most evil organization he can think of to admire. If he had been alive in 1939 he'd have had a picture of Hitler or Tojo on his wall.
In the last paragraphs of Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution, he expressed the idealistic hope that the new Russia would be known for the pyatiletka (5-year plan) rather than for the pogrom. That was before the Yezhovshchina, and it was, of course, before Trotsky died with a hatchet in his head.
8. I despise the American flag. Since 9/11, its nearly ubiquitous presence has helped foster a cancerous form of patriotism and nativism. The Stars and Stripes has become a symbol of imperialism, oppression, and state terrorism. And yes, I have burned an American flag.
Glad to hear it. I support your right to burn the flag. I also support the right of your fellow citizens to take umbrage and poke you in the eye.
9. I consider capitalism to be an abomination and a crime against humanity, the rest of the sentient beings on the planet, and the Earth. I am aggressively pursuing its demise through my intellectual efforts, including writing, educating, motivating, and publishing on my brain-child, Thomas Paines Corner at http://www.bestcyrano.org/thomaspaine/.
Somehow we guessed you were an "anticapitalist." We've also got a pretty good assessment of your IQ. And "sentient" refers to the ability to feel or to perceive. It is not the same thing as "sapient." Codfish are sentient, but not sapient. So are nudibranches, for that matter.
10. I have known, befriended, and helped so-called illegal immigrants, and will continue to do so. People flooding the United States from Mexico are doing so because of the abject poverty caused by our neoliberal economic terrorism, NAFTA, and our support of their right wing oligarchs who joyfully implement the Washington Consensus, a recipe for misery for the poor and working class amongst their people. Illegal immigration is a forced migration caused by the ever-growing hubris and avarice of our moneyed elite.
If something's against the law it's illegal. No need for quotes. Since capitalism's such an abomination, why are all the Mexicans coming here? Why aren't Americans going there? You can complain about right wing oligarchs all you want, but the country's problems are rooted a lot more deeply in the legacy of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or Partido Revolucionario Institucional. Think long on the implications of that name. It ruled Messico for most of the 20th century. Unlike any major American party, it's a member of the Socialist International.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/18/2007 1:13 Comments ||
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#2
Why is it that, if America is so evil and hated, people risk (and suffer) death trying to get here? Why aren't people flocking to socialist paradises like Cuba?
#5
This guy is an extremist even for a leftist. Don't get too excited! But even if you draw straight lines back to a centrist position, the indications are still upsetting.
#6
Silentbrick, they are, but very very sick humans. This particular specimen is ubersick.
The cure may be to let them live in a paradise of their choice (paradise mandatory, choice of venue theirs) and the lenght of stay should correspond to the degree of sickness progression. Their passports would expire shortly after departure and new one can be only issued after they spent the alloted time inthe paradise.
If not practical for some reason, a "paradise" colony could be established on, say, Prince Charles Island (under Baffin Island). They could form the word peace in snow with their naked bodies all day long.
#13
I view Zionism as a mental disease. . . . I loath the Holocaust industry. . . . I long for the collapse of the American Empire. . . .
It's like clockwork. Scratch an anti-American, find an anti-Semite underneath.
Posted by: Mike ||
11/18/2007 9:37 Comments ||
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#14
Okay, fess up. Was it you Frank? Tu? Maybe RedDawg?
Posted by: Thomas Woof ||
11/18/2007 9:45 Comments ||
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#15
So why doesn't he move to the Palieo Paradise?
I'll be willing to pass the hat.
Jason Miller is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed himself intellectually and spiritually. He is Cyranos Journal Onlines associate editor (http://www.bestcyrano.org/) and publishes Thomas Paines Corner within Cyranos at http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/. You can reach him at... (go to the link to get his email)
#16
When you are an egomaniacal narcissist and have nothing to show for your efforts, it is obviously THE MAN'S! fault! That is brilliance is unrecognized is certainly no fault of his...
#17
Everyone like this clown is the same: The are sure in their own minds that "when the revolution comes" they'll all be commissars. What they will actually be is face down in a ditch with a bullet in the back of the head, administered by the actual commissars that the aforementioned useful idiots have installed. Suckahs...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/18/2007 12:27 Comments ||
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#18
About those anti-Zinoists who are not antisemitic oh no, never, never. My perosnal observation is that you will never see them say, burning Sudanese flags due to the genocide agaist Blacks. They don't protest occupation of Cyprus by Turkey or the rape and enslaving of foreign servants in Saudi Arabia. None of those worthy causes is worthy their time and attention. The only people they care about are those who dance with joy when one of them has smashed the skull of sime babies, those who have spent sixty years being fed by us and still want to kill us, those who teach genocide to their children at as a earlmy ade as four: the Palestionans. Not all the Palestinins: they dodn't care for those who aren't copmmitted to kill Jews. This guy doesn' care for Blacks, Philipino, Cypriots or even Palestinains. He only cares about Jews. To, have them exterminated.
He is a Nazi. An alter-Nazi (ie a Nazi in the skin of a leftist). And I wish him the same he wants to others.
#19
Both ruling bodies are infected with supporters of the Zionist plague and frequently implement policies which serve to inflict abject misery on millions of human beings.
Utterly disregarding how the vast majority of Muslim Misery is self-inflicted.
I long for the collapse of the American Empire. While we cant predict what will arise to fill the ensuing vacuum, at least it will present an opportunity for us to create a more humane and just sociopolitical order.
This resembles nothing more or less than how fanatical homosexuals seek to destroy the nuclear family, despite the vast majority of them having been born into one. This lunatic detests the exact freedom he is excercising by vomiting forth this tripe volcano.
Everyone like this clown is the same: The are sure in their own minds that "when the revolution comes" they'll all be commissars. What they will actually be is face down in a ditch with a bullet in the back of the head, administered by the actual commissars that the aforementioned useful idiots have installed.
Ding, ding, ding ... we have a winner! Look closely at the following picture.
What do you see?
Some Gruppenführer officer candidates or two potential bars of soap?
Both the Liberal Left and their Neo-Nazi counterparts share this same delusional perception that somehow they suddenly will be showered with unearned wealth and undeserved power once some unspecified political gangsters have overthrown the capitalistic system. Those who get M. Murcek's "bullet in the back of the head" will be the lucky ones. Concentration camps, slave labor factories, gulags and the gas chambers are what would await most of the Liberal Left's ranks of effete anti-American stooges. Particularly, ones like übertool Jason Miller.
#20
Imagine no matter how many times you screech about the eeeevilll Joos and capitalism/fascism/neoconservatism (all the same, right?) while wearing your best Che tee shirt.....NOBODY pays any attention to you.
Not even your mom, except when she's telling you it's time to get off the couch in the basement and have some Papa John's.
Why, even George Bush's totalitarian secret police have NO IDEA who the f#ck you are.
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