One of the books that I'm currently reading is "1776" by David McCullough. If one depended on "the odds" for America to happen, it wouldn't have. In those days, they believed in "providence" and "the hand of God", and for some reason, both seemed to often come to the rescue of the US. The US declared Independence in 1776, the Constitution was ratified in 1789, and we fought a REAL civil war in 1860. Can Iraq get everything done in 3-4 years? It seems that with the modern media and a good half the population, it is never too early to declare failure. "Cut and run", the motto of much of current America.
Speaking of running, the French continue to show the wages of socialist give-away governments. Maturity, taking responsibility, delaying gratification, entering the arena to compete and being willing to try, fail, and try again, and valuing striving for personal independence no matter the outcome. Those are characteristics that have to be worked at every day. never come easy, and can always slip away. Learning to believe that one is entitled ... to a job, a home, a lifestyle, that others are responsible, that we are victims, that things are "unfair". Those lessons are easily learned and take no effort, and are VERY hard to unlearn. The French appear to have learned them well.
I heard a bit of old Kevin Phillips blathering about the evils of the current Republican party on NPR at noon today. He is an old "country club Republican" ... the sort that can't believe that the party is now full of a bunch of middle and lower-middle class "evangelicals". The way he says "evangelical" reminds one of how you might say "child molester". The problems of the world are pretty much all caused by people that say they believe in God according to Kevin. Of course, none really do believe, some are just playing at it to lead others, and many are just too foolish to realize that they are being taken. In the old country club days, rich Republicans were willing to sit down and be the lapdogs of the Democrats, and only occasionally complain about a deficit or something. It was so much more civilized, and nobody got crazy about religion. Oh, for the good old days.
What is wrong with the world today? Pretty much all the same things that have always been wrong ... and right. Technology lets us see a little farther and have a lot more, but life is still pretty short, and most of it is spent doing "less than the best". Like a lot of things, "wrong" depends on expectations. A view that life is a gift, grace is a gift, and we have the freedom to make our own success, that is one outlook. That everything is going to pot, today is worse than yesterday, and tomorrow is worse yet, and especially, that somebody, somewhere is taking advantage in an unfair way, that is another perspective.
Which kind of people created America in 1776? What kind are in Iraq? What kind are in France? and in the US, is it still 50/50, or are the polls right and we are headed toward acting like the French? BTW, I don't know about the Iraqis ... they may not succeed, but I don't really expect them to be WAY better than our founding fathers.
A lot of the future is very hard to predict, but there are a lot of signs that it will be a competitive future, and that competition will be impossible to hide from and maintain anything like the level of lifestyle that Americans have become accustomed to. "Entitlement" isn't a word that the global economy seems to care about much.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Sunday, April 02, 2006
5 Months of Lower Casualties
If the MSM is reporting this at all, it is very hard to find. I wonder why that is? Does anyone suppose that if US casualties had been INCREASING for the past five months they would have reported that? Only as the top story everywhere every month! Most anyone understands that lowered casualites for US troops in Iraq is good news for the prospects that the Iraqi's can take over the battle and form their own stable government. Why are Iraqi casualites up? Because they are taking over more of the work.
Good news for the US, good news for Iraq, but bad news for the MSM and Democrats.
Last Helicopter
The WSJ last Wednesday had an article called The Last Helicopter that puts the Mideast view of the US in a bit more context. Essentially they see Bush as an abberition that is willing to work hard for progress in the Mideast, and they are going to wait him out. The authors have an opinion of the country that is shared by Hugh Hewitt that post 9-11, the people of the US aren't going to throw in the towel on Iraq. I hope the authors and Hugh are right, but in any case, the track record presented by US behaviour in the Mideast from Carter forward are interesting.
Painting the Map Red
Picked up Hugh Hewitt's new book up in the twin cities Thursday and finished it up in pretty short order. It was a must read for anyone that considers themselves anything less than a far lefty. It would bee good for them to read it as well, but folks on the far left can't possibly read anything that disagrees with them, or there is no way they would stay there.
He kicks off with; "It's break the glass and pull the alarm time" for the republican party. Bush isn't ever going to be more than a 50/50 President no matter how good he does, and it is time for Republicans to realize that they need overarching goals. A 60 seat majority in the Senate is the big goal what Hugh says needs to be focused on. He believes that Republicans can easily stay the majority party and potentially even do in the Democrat party so they needed to form a new party. Indeed, he would say that Republicans BETTER figure out how to do this for the future of western civilization.
The Global War on Terror (GWOT) isn't going to go away anytime soon, and if it isn't well fought (and maybe even if it is), there is going to be a 9-11 with WMD at some point that is going to radically change life going forward. The best way to keep that from happening is to keep Republicans in control, but that isn't going to be easy ... Because of the standard reasons; MSM, the rich guys like Soros and the Hollywood types, but maybe mostly because the nature of Republicans. Pretty easily disenchanted and perfectionistic ideologues that love nothing better than leaving the tent on "principal" even if the tent collapses because of it. I was there with Bush Sr and his breaking of "No New Taxes" ... so I did my part to usher in Bill Clinton, Monica, Internet bubbles, and the security conditions that created 9-11.
For Republicans to be a majority party, they have to be a very big tent, but it has to be tent ... he argues that Olympia Snow, John McCain, and Arlen Specter all make it in that tent ... Lincoln Chafee does not and needs to be defeated, even at the cost of Republicans voting for a Democrat. The seasoned political logic of the hows and whys of that alone are worth the price of admission. Hugh is a solid pragmatist, something that can never have to much exposure to Republicans.
He is convinced that the Democrat Presidential ticket in '08 is going to be Hillary/ Obama, and it is going to be VERY hard to beat. He doesn't think the Democrats have a great chance of taking either house this year, but it could come very close unless Republicans have a solid national goal, which he argues ought to be a 60 seat Senate. His main messages are all on the "going negative on the Democrats", arguing they are certainly doing, have and will be doing that with the help of the MSM, and they have given the Republicans better negatives to go after them with:
1). The Democrat left and the MSM have declared ware on the military
2). The Democrat left has declared war on religion
3). The Democrats have declared war on the Judiciary
4). The Democrats want to radically re-define marriage on the way to radically redefining the culture.
5). The Democrats are addicted to venom, and that venom is destroying the political process ... and people would like to see it stopped, which mostly means stopping Democrats.
He makes and interesting argument that the technology of the internet has made it impossible for the MSM to continue to put lipstick on the pig of the hard lefts screaming, bile, and "chip on the shoulder" attitude, where it has allowed thousands of generally reasonable, Christian, family oriented right-center blogs to spring up and be read. While the left blogs are loaded with "Hitler", the F word, and rambling rants against everything from Christians to the military to America itself, the right-center blogs that predominate tend to be just the opposite. Just like "guns don't kill people, people do", the internet is just a tool, it allows more direct contact with fewer filters. In general, for the center-right that has provided a picture that is much more flattering than the one usually painted by the MSM, where the left has exposed itself in all it's screeching, anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-family and generally "anti" picture, and that picture has been far from flattering.
He kicks off with; "It's break the glass and pull the alarm time" for the republican party. Bush isn't ever going to be more than a 50/50 President no matter how good he does, and it is time for Republicans to realize that they need overarching goals. A 60 seat majority in the Senate is the big goal what Hugh says needs to be focused on. He believes that Republicans can easily stay the majority party and potentially even do in the Democrat party so they needed to form a new party. Indeed, he would say that Republicans BETTER figure out how to do this for the future of western civilization.
The Global War on Terror (GWOT) isn't going to go away anytime soon, and if it isn't well fought (and maybe even if it is), there is going to be a 9-11 with WMD at some point that is going to radically change life going forward. The best way to keep that from happening is to keep Republicans in control, but that isn't going to be easy ... Because of the standard reasons; MSM, the rich guys like Soros and the Hollywood types, but maybe mostly because the nature of Republicans. Pretty easily disenchanted and perfectionistic ideologues that love nothing better than leaving the tent on "principal" even if the tent collapses because of it. I was there with Bush Sr and his breaking of "No New Taxes" ... so I did my part to usher in Bill Clinton, Monica, Internet bubbles, and the security conditions that created 9-11.
For Republicans to be a majority party, they have to be a very big tent, but it has to be tent ... he argues that Olympia Snow, John McCain, and Arlen Specter all make it in that tent ... Lincoln Chafee does not and needs to be defeated, even at the cost of Republicans voting for a Democrat. The seasoned political logic of the hows and whys of that alone are worth the price of admission. Hugh is a solid pragmatist, something that can never have to much exposure to Republicans.
He is convinced that the Democrat Presidential ticket in '08 is going to be Hillary/ Obama, and it is going to be VERY hard to beat. He doesn't think the Democrats have a great chance of taking either house this year, but it could come very close unless Republicans have a solid national goal, which he argues ought to be a 60 seat Senate. His main messages are all on the "going negative on the Democrats", arguing they are certainly doing, have and will be doing that with the help of the MSM, and they have given the Republicans better negatives to go after them with:
1). The Democrat left and the MSM have declared ware on the military
2). The Democrat left has declared war on religion
3). The Democrats have declared war on the Judiciary
4). The Democrats want to radically re-define marriage on the way to radically redefining the culture.
5). The Democrats are addicted to venom, and that venom is destroying the political process ... and people would like to see it stopped, which mostly means stopping Democrats.
He makes and interesting argument that the technology of the internet has made it impossible for the MSM to continue to put lipstick on the pig of the hard lefts screaming, bile, and "chip on the shoulder" attitude, where it has allowed thousands of generally reasonable, Christian, family oriented right-center blogs to spring up and be read. While the left blogs are loaded with "Hitler", the F word, and rambling rants against everything from Christians to the military to America itself, the right-center blogs that predominate tend to be just the opposite. Just like "guns don't kill people, people do", the internet is just a tool, it allows more direct contact with fewer filters. In general, for the center-right that has provided a picture that is much more flattering than the one usually painted by the MSM, where the left has exposed itself in all it's screeching, anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-family and generally "anti" picture, and that picture has been far from flattering.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Representation and Polling
Powerline has a great discussion on polls and why Democrats are often surprised at the election results when they thought they were ahead in the polls. The media really enjoys polls that show bad things for Republicans. The actual representation of Democrats and Republicans in the population has become very close to even over the past 20 years, but the media polls tend to oversample Democrats by 10 points or more. Worse yet for the "surprise factor" (from a Democrat POV) is the Republicans tend to turn out better in elections.
The Democrats found a lot of the "evil" of the "Republican machine" on this. They claim that the "polls looked fine", but then they lost the election. The answer must mean that "Republican dirty tricks", or "election day shenanigans" somehow "stole" an election that they were all set to win.
The Democrats found a lot of the "evil" of the "Republican machine" on this. They claim that the "polls looked fine", but then they lost the election. The answer must mean that "Republican dirty tricks", or "election day shenanigans" somehow "stole" an election that they were all set to win.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Strategery
I finished up the Bill Sammon book "Srategery" a week ago or so. It has been awhile since I've read anything pro-Bush, and it is pretty amazing to hear the viewpoint these days. The biggest thing that hit me as reading it (although Sammon never mentioned this) is the contrast of the Clinton apologists with the treatment of the Bush people like Karl Rove.
Remember James Carville, Paul Begala and George Stephanopoulas? I suppose many don't, but they were the big paid Clinton hit men of the '90s, and they are all still around. George now has his own "news" show on ABC, "This Week with lefty Clinton Apologists". Well, maybe not exactly that title, but name one Reagan or Bush 1 guy that has his own mainline media show, or even "other" show where they are called anything other than "conservative commentator". Why is that different when they are the left? Carville and Begala have a book out that I saw being fawned over on a show recently. "Take It Back", or something like that.
There seems to be a bit of a difference between the MSM view of Republican operatives and Democrats that do the same thing. Chris Matthews, "Hardball" worked for 4 Democrats, Tip O'Neil being the one he talks of most. Tim Russert of "Meet the Press" worked for Mario Cuomo and then Daniel Moynihan. These are the guys that the MSM puts out front and center to give us "straight news" ... Oh, but Fox is biased, because Al Franken tells us that Bill O'Reily may have registered as a Republican at one time in the distant past. I suppose we ought to expect the standard for FOX to be different. BTW, Britt Hume, no such political background as the MSM guys previously mentioned. Huh, FOX is the most biased, apparently "biased" means "employs others besides certified Democrat operatives".
The Sammon book talks of the Bush people as actually decent, talented people trying to do what they see as the right thing for the country. Interestingly, Clinton people that talked of "Dragging a $50 bill through a trailer park ...", attacked any Clinton opponent by any means possible, including dredging up marital affairs that were 30 years old are STILL talked about as not only "decent", they are GREAT, and even given jobs by the MSM. The contrast between the treatment of those people and say "Karl Rove" is not very subtle.
Sammon is unabashedly pro-Bush and has inside access to the WH. The book chronicles 2004 and 2005 ... The election, Abu Grab, the convention strategies, the Swift Boat guys, Rathergate, the exit polls, social security, Katrina, Meyers, and up to Alito from the inside. Most stories have far more than two sides, reading a book like this makes one question how the MSM could be quite as incurious as they are. Maybe they have an agenda rather than an interest in reporting what is happening?
One thing is pretty certain, Billy C was WAY short of being the "comeback Kid" that George Bush has been, don't expect the MSM to be saying that a President that has beaten the odds over and over is in any way deserving. What was a point to be celebrated for Clinton is a terrible accident with dark overtones in the case of Bush.
Remember James Carville, Paul Begala and George Stephanopoulas? I suppose many don't, but they were the big paid Clinton hit men of the '90s, and they are all still around. George now has his own "news" show on ABC, "This Week with lefty Clinton Apologists". Well, maybe not exactly that title, but name one Reagan or Bush 1 guy that has his own mainline media show, or even "other" show where they are called anything other than "conservative commentator". Why is that different when they are the left? Carville and Begala have a book out that I saw being fawned over on a show recently. "Take It Back", or something like that.
There seems to be a bit of a difference between the MSM view of Republican operatives and Democrats that do the same thing. Chris Matthews, "Hardball" worked for 4 Democrats, Tip O'Neil being the one he talks of most. Tim Russert of "Meet the Press" worked for Mario Cuomo and then Daniel Moynihan. These are the guys that the MSM puts out front and center to give us "straight news" ... Oh, but Fox is biased, because Al Franken tells us that Bill O'Reily may have registered as a Republican at one time in the distant past. I suppose we ought to expect the standard for FOX to be different. BTW, Britt Hume, no such political background as the MSM guys previously mentioned. Huh, FOX is the most biased, apparently "biased" means "employs others besides certified Democrat operatives".
The Sammon book talks of the Bush people as actually decent, talented people trying to do what they see as the right thing for the country. Interestingly, Clinton people that talked of "Dragging a $50 bill through a trailer park ...", attacked any Clinton opponent by any means possible, including dredging up marital affairs that were 30 years old are STILL talked about as not only "decent", they are GREAT, and even given jobs by the MSM. The contrast between the treatment of those people and say "Karl Rove" is not very subtle.
Sammon is unabashedly pro-Bush and has inside access to the WH. The book chronicles 2004 and 2005 ... The election, Abu Grab, the convention strategies, the Swift Boat guys, Rathergate, the exit polls, social security, Katrina, Meyers, and up to Alito from the inside. Most stories have far more than two sides, reading a book like this makes one question how the MSM could be quite as incurious as they are. Maybe they have an agenda rather than an interest in reporting what is happening?
One thing is pretty certain, Billy C was WAY short of being the "comeback Kid" that George Bush has been, don't expect the MSM to be saying that a President that has beaten the odds over and over is in any way deserving. What was a point to be celebrated for Clinton is a terrible accident with dark overtones in the case of Bush.
Personal Notes
I was thinking that I was getting close to a full year of blogging, like most other things, I was late. The first entry was the 15th of March last year. For a busy person, blogging is one more thing to be late at. Is it worth it? Maybe mostly for friends and family that don't really care what I think politically, they can ignore the blog, and don't have to ignore quite as many conversations or e-mail notes as otherwise.
Mostly people care very little of what others think of most anything, they have their views, they like their views, and they are going to keep them. If something is "wrong", the problem pretty much has to be with someone else. The set of people that look at positions from both sides of the spectrum is tiny, and the set of people that actually enjoy a political discussion with someone that knows enough to make some challenging points is even smaller. As the media becomes more and more polarized, people are more and more able to hear only what they want, and in general, it seems that is the course that the vast majority on both sides are following. They are gravitating to the news sources that provide only the views that they feel comfortable listening to, and their blood pressure just goes up too high if they get exposed to the other side.
Thinking of a year ago also reminded me of heading out on the 7 day cruise over spring break. No spring break cruise this year, will be a couple of days up in the Twin Cities of family fun at the end of the week, but otherwise work as normal. Having a senior in HS that is doing part time college credit and part time HS credit means that he gets no real spring break, so we are staying around home. There will be a summer cruise to Alaska, so the deprivation isn't too severe.
It looks like we may break 60 on Thursday this week, so that should really get us into spring fever mode in MN.
Mostly people care very little of what others think of most anything, they have their views, they like their views, and they are going to keep them. If something is "wrong", the problem pretty much has to be with someone else. The set of people that look at positions from both sides of the spectrum is tiny, and the set of people that actually enjoy a political discussion with someone that knows enough to make some challenging points is even smaller. As the media becomes more and more polarized, people are more and more able to hear only what they want, and in general, it seems that is the course that the vast majority on both sides are following. They are gravitating to the news sources that provide only the views that they feel comfortable listening to, and their blood pressure just goes up too high if they get exposed to the other side.
Thinking of a year ago also reminded me of heading out on the 7 day cruise over spring break. No spring break cruise this year, will be a couple of days up in the Twin Cities of family fun at the end of the week, but otherwise work as normal. Having a senior in HS that is doing part time college credit and part time HS credit means that he gets no real spring break, so we are staying around home. There will be a summer cruise to Alaska, so the deprivation isn't too severe.
It looks like we may break 60 on Thursday this week, so that should really get us into spring fever mode in MN.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
City Hall Evicts Easter Bunny
Nice little article in the Pioneer Press about how tolerant our great state of MN is of "spring decorations". I hesitate to even consider an easter bunny and plastic eggs "religious" in any form, but they are too far out for the city of St Paul. Here are some quotes from that article:
Why does the nation become more polarized? Christians are expected to tolerate anything from crosses in urine, constant swearing in the workplace, gay marriage and all other manner of direct attack on their faith in the public square, while a secular easter display is too large a burden to even contemplate a non-christian having to view. "Tolerance"? Don't expect to see any of that from the left.
A toy rabbit decorating the entrance of the St. Paul City Council offices went hop-hop-hoppin' on down the bunny trail Wednesday after the city's human rights director said non-Christians might be offended by it.
The decorations — including the stuffed rabbit, Easter eggs and a handcrafted sign saying "Happy Easter," but nothing depicting the biblical account of Christ's death and resurrection — were put up this week in the office of the City Council by a council secretary.
"I sent an e-mail that Easter is viewed as a Christian holiday and advised that it be taken down," said Tyrone Terrill, the city's human rights director. "It wasn't a big deal."
Why does the nation become more polarized? Christians are expected to tolerate anything from crosses in urine, constant swearing in the workplace, gay marriage and all other manner of direct attack on their faith in the public square, while a secular easter display is too large a burden to even contemplate a non-christian having to view. "Tolerance"? Don't expect to see any of that from the left.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Pour It On
The following is a great post from the WSJ that is worth a read. For those of us who have ever seen W live, we understand completely. During the Clinton years, the press always spent a lot of sympathetic time on "how difficult it was for poor Bill". All decent Democrats ought to be getting regular oral sex in the workplace I guess and that evil Republicans would seek to restrict a guy with as tough a job as Slick who felt everyone's pain, was just too much to contemplate. The MSM "support for Bush" ... or even any notice if he does anything positive is quite evident.
I've blogged enough in the past on some very solid attempts by Bush and Cheney to get the real story about Iraq out. There have also been ads run in MN at least by private groups that make a good attempt. The reason that Bush was re-elected is that when 100's of millions are spent actually getting the other side of the story out, and people are faced with having to vote for an actual Democrat, the numbers get quite different. Yes, there is "Fox News", and while it isn't over in the left ditch like the MSM, it isn't exactly the "Bush support system" that the MSM and Democrats make it out to be either. It was the network that broke the Bush DWI story just prior to the first election for example. What makes Fox noteworthy is that it is PRO-AMERICAN ... that is what is unique about it comparted to the MSM. Yes, Conservatives tend to be more pro-American, so in that way it is more "conservative", but it is a long way from "Republican".
The whole MSM, the Democrats, and a goodly number on farther right want to see this President break. This article makes a point that I suspect to be true ... bring it on, it ain't going to happen.
Pour It On
Whatever Laura's feeding George, it's working.
BY DANIEL HENNINGER
Friday, March 24, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
For those of us who've complained for more than two years that this White House was ill-serving the troops in Iraq by not making the public case for Iraq, that changed this week in Wheeling, W.Va.
Whatever George Bush had for breakfast Wednesday morning, Laura should see that the White House larder is packed with it. By noontime, Mr. Bush was in Wheeling delivering the third in a series of public speeches to defend the Iraq war. For a president whose public persona--West Texas accent, smirk, swagger and errant word choice--has become the biggest butt of presidential comedy since Richard Nixon, it was an astounding, bravura performance. In fact, I'll pay him the highest possible compliment: It was Clintonesque.
Ronald Reagan, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill reside in the Valhalla of great communicators, but Bill Clinton and Harry Truman thrived as mere mortals, not only connecting with the mythic "common man" but somehow bonding to them. George Bush joined that class in Wheeling on Wednesday.
It wasn't the sort of set speech that presidents normally read, bobblehead bouncing between two teleprompters. Holding a hand microphone, Mr. Bush walked around a stage before a few thousand people giving a largely extemporaneous talk on Iraq and his presidency. It was mesmerizing. One kept expecting Mr. Bush, whose deepest supporters despair at his inarticulateness, to stumble into the underbrush of confused facts or argument to nowhere. Never happened. Not once. For over an hour, it was nothing but net.
OK, it wasn't Demosthenes, but it was George W. Bush at his Everyman best. The same George Bush who, when televised in front of the White House news corps comes across as a smart aleck, poured off the cable-news screens from Wheeling as a relaxed, buoyant, passionate evangelist for his presidency's most deeply held ideas--political freedom, military pre-emption and playing not to the polls but for the verdict of history.
Two obvious questions: Where's this guy been? And, to quote a long-ago factory boss, Is it a day late and a dollar short?
First answer: He was last sighted on the campaign trail. This is the man, liberal mockery and amazement notwithstanding, who won two hard-fought presidential elections, not as spin has it, only by Rovian genius but by connecting with audiences. But why what worked for a campaign was abandoned in time of war is something that will have to await an answer from the Bush White House memoirists.
The second question--does it come too late for his presidency or the war--is a tougher nut. Eerily, the Ides of March, the 15th of the month, just passed over the Bush presidency at perhaps its lowest ebb. His rating with the pollster's mob is an unseemly 37%. His version of the Roman Senate, the Republican Party, is in virtual political anarchy and content to let Mr. Bush bleed alone. Various Beltway solons have declared the president's war on Mesopotamia's Islamic fanatics a failure; Iraq is described by the press as on the edge of civil war. And almost daily one's close friends, strong supporters of Mr. Bush, say, "It's over."
But not until it's over.
When in our time people think of collapsed presidencies they often have in mind Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson. For different reasons, both men broke. What Bill Clinton proved above all else is that no matter what the press, law and politics throw at you, the protective powers of the presidency are almost limitless--if you don't break. Mr. Bush's opponents, such as Democrats waving censure motions or blood-soaked front pages, had better get a grip: He isn't going to break. The Wheeling performance makes that clear.
Wheeling, however, also suggests both the promise and near-term peril for the Bush presidency. It was a signal event, but the print press largely ignored it. The Washington Post Thursday had no story; the New York Times and L.A. Times had minor accounts inside. The talk in fact broke no news in the traditional sense. But as in a presidential election, events that strike the print press as "nothing new" matter hugely in terms of public sentiment, that is, whose ideas win.
At the same time, the status of Iraq's government should be news. In last Thursday's Washington Post, columnist David Ignatius, writing from Baghdad, described in detail "unmistakable signs here this week that Iraq's political leaders are taking the first tentative steps toward forming a broad government of national unity that could reverse the country's downward slide." The column described intense negotiations following the February Samarra mosque bombing to form a national security commission acceptable to all political parties. A search of the Dow Jones-Reuters Factiva database for other accounts of these negotiations turned up only one story, a good one days later by Edward Wong of the New York Times, albeit on the bottom of page A10.
The tendentious editorial decision to paint the high-traffic front pages red with blood and demote the hard slog of political progress in Iraq to the unread inside has an effect. Any normal person would be depressed by constant face-time with stories of barbaric slaughter. If what amounts to a kind of contemporary brain-washing of both the American public and Washington elites causes them to falter and Iraq to "fail," no future president of either party is again likely to deploy U.S. military resources in any sustained, significant way. You can't imagine what "lose" will mean then.
The public's pessimism is at least understandable. Less defensible is that of Washington's exit-seeking elites. A bracing reality check for these folks has just been written by Frederick W. Kagan, a military specialist with the American Enterprise Institute. Hardly a flack for the White House, Mr. Kagan argues persuasively in "Myths of the Current War" (find under the Scholars listing at aei.org) that all the woulda, coulda, shoulda about going into Iraq and now getting out fast is simply irrelevant. "It does not matter now why we went into Iraq," Mr. Kagan writes, "only what will happen if we do not succeed there."
The White House has paid a price for not engaging these issues. Wheeling was a start. Keep pouring the Wheaties, Laura.
I've blogged enough in the past on some very solid attempts by Bush and Cheney to get the real story about Iraq out. There have also been ads run in MN at least by private groups that make a good attempt. The reason that Bush was re-elected is that when 100's of millions are spent actually getting the other side of the story out, and people are faced with having to vote for an actual Democrat, the numbers get quite different. Yes, there is "Fox News", and while it isn't over in the left ditch like the MSM, it isn't exactly the "Bush support system" that the MSM and Democrats make it out to be either. It was the network that broke the Bush DWI story just prior to the first election for example. What makes Fox noteworthy is that it is PRO-AMERICAN ... that is what is unique about it comparted to the MSM. Yes, Conservatives tend to be more pro-American, so in that way it is more "conservative", but it is a long way from "Republican".
The whole MSM, the Democrats, and a goodly number on farther right want to see this President break. This article makes a point that I suspect to be true ... bring it on, it ain't going to happen.
Pour It On
Whatever Laura's feeding George, it's working.
BY DANIEL HENNINGER
Friday, March 24, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
For those of us who've complained for more than two years that this White House was ill-serving the troops in Iraq by not making the public case for Iraq, that changed this week in Wheeling, W.Va.
Whatever George Bush had for breakfast Wednesday morning, Laura should see that the White House larder is packed with it. By noontime, Mr. Bush was in Wheeling delivering the third in a series of public speeches to defend the Iraq war. For a president whose public persona--West Texas accent, smirk, swagger and errant word choice--has become the biggest butt of presidential comedy since Richard Nixon, it was an astounding, bravura performance. In fact, I'll pay him the highest possible compliment: It was Clintonesque.
Ronald Reagan, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill reside in the Valhalla of great communicators, but Bill Clinton and Harry Truman thrived as mere mortals, not only connecting with the mythic "common man" but somehow bonding to them. George Bush joined that class in Wheeling on Wednesday.
It wasn't the sort of set speech that presidents normally read, bobblehead bouncing between two teleprompters. Holding a hand microphone, Mr. Bush walked around a stage before a few thousand people giving a largely extemporaneous talk on Iraq and his presidency. It was mesmerizing. One kept expecting Mr. Bush, whose deepest supporters despair at his inarticulateness, to stumble into the underbrush of confused facts or argument to nowhere. Never happened. Not once. For over an hour, it was nothing but net.
OK, it wasn't Demosthenes, but it was George W. Bush at his Everyman best. The same George Bush who, when televised in front of the White House news corps comes across as a smart aleck, poured off the cable-news screens from Wheeling as a relaxed, buoyant, passionate evangelist for his presidency's most deeply held ideas--political freedom, military pre-emption and playing not to the polls but for the verdict of history.
Two obvious questions: Where's this guy been? And, to quote a long-ago factory boss, Is it a day late and a dollar short?
First answer: He was last sighted on the campaign trail. This is the man, liberal mockery and amazement notwithstanding, who won two hard-fought presidential elections, not as spin has it, only by Rovian genius but by connecting with audiences. But why what worked for a campaign was abandoned in time of war is something that will have to await an answer from the Bush White House memoirists.
The second question--does it come too late for his presidency or the war--is a tougher nut. Eerily, the Ides of March, the 15th of the month, just passed over the Bush presidency at perhaps its lowest ebb. His rating with the pollster's mob is an unseemly 37%. His version of the Roman Senate, the Republican Party, is in virtual political anarchy and content to let Mr. Bush bleed alone. Various Beltway solons have declared the president's war on Mesopotamia's Islamic fanatics a failure; Iraq is described by the press as on the edge of civil war. And almost daily one's close friends, strong supporters of Mr. Bush, say, "It's over."
But not until it's over.
When in our time people think of collapsed presidencies they often have in mind Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson. For different reasons, both men broke. What Bill Clinton proved above all else is that no matter what the press, law and politics throw at you, the protective powers of the presidency are almost limitless--if you don't break. Mr. Bush's opponents, such as Democrats waving censure motions or blood-soaked front pages, had better get a grip: He isn't going to break. The Wheeling performance makes that clear.
Wheeling, however, also suggests both the promise and near-term peril for the Bush presidency. It was a signal event, but the print press largely ignored it. The Washington Post Thursday had no story; the New York Times and L.A. Times had minor accounts inside. The talk in fact broke no news in the traditional sense. But as in a presidential election, events that strike the print press as "nothing new" matter hugely in terms of public sentiment, that is, whose ideas win.
At the same time, the status of Iraq's government should be news. In last Thursday's Washington Post, columnist David Ignatius, writing from Baghdad, described in detail "unmistakable signs here this week that Iraq's political leaders are taking the first tentative steps toward forming a broad government of national unity that could reverse the country's downward slide." The column described intense negotiations following the February Samarra mosque bombing to form a national security commission acceptable to all political parties. A search of the Dow Jones-Reuters Factiva database for other accounts of these negotiations turned up only one story, a good one days later by Edward Wong of the New York Times, albeit on the bottom of page A10.
The tendentious editorial decision to paint the high-traffic front pages red with blood and demote the hard slog of political progress in Iraq to the unread inside has an effect. Any normal person would be depressed by constant face-time with stories of barbaric slaughter. If what amounts to a kind of contemporary brain-washing of both the American public and Washington elites causes them to falter and Iraq to "fail," no future president of either party is again likely to deploy U.S. military resources in any sustained, significant way. You can't imagine what "lose" will mean then.
The public's pessimism is at least understandable. Less defensible is that of Washington's exit-seeking elites. A bracing reality check for these folks has just been written by Frederick W. Kagan, a military specialist with the American Enterprise Institute. Hardly a flack for the White House, Mr. Kagan argues persuasively in "Myths of the Current War" (find under the Scholars listing at aei.org) that all the woulda, coulda, shoulda about going into Iraq and now getting out fast is simply irrelevant. "It does not matter now why we went into Iraq," Mr. Kagan writes, "only what will happen if we do not succeed there."
The White House has paid a price for not engaging these issues. Wheeling was a start. Keep pouring the Wheaties, Laura.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Sanding Off the Truth
MN Democrats have discovered a new way to talk about truth. While everyone in the world was on record as saying that Saddam had WMD, Bush apparently knew there would be none and his lie would be exposed, so he "lied" and went into Iraq anyway. At least that is what a "lie" used to be, you had to KNOW the truth but say something else.
Of course, things are far different if there is a "D" next to your name. For Bill Clinton, you just change the definition of "sex", "is", "perjury", and a few other things and "no lies". With MN Senator Majority Weasel Dean Johnson, it is "emebellishment" or "sanding off the truth". This is from a MINISTER, who other ministers have to tape record when he is lying to them, because they know he is a weasel. For non-weasels, you know they will continue to to stand by their words even if it is unpopular and costs them ... like Bush with WMD or Ports deal, but unlike Johnson.
'But Johnson said he did not 'lie' about the matter. To lie requires 'intent to deceive,' he said, while 'embellishment is sanding off of the truth.'" (Bill Salisbury, "Tearful Senate Leader Sorry For Supreme Court Gay Marriage Flap," Pioneer Press, March 17, 2006) No doubt the media will have a hard time staying on this story, but this web site should help
The man tells a group of ministers that he has talked to multiple MN Supreme Court justices and they have assured him there is no reason for a Gay Marriage amendment, there is no way they will overturn the law that MN has. Small problem, that would be a grave breech of judicial ethics were they to tell him that, but no problem it turns out they never even discussed it with him at all. So, he "sanded the truth".
The MN papers are being very careful to not call it a "lie", even on editorial pages, and they are mostly indicating that any attempts to keep this going are "politically motivated". A real rareity in politics. I'm sure we would see a similar viewpoint were there anything like this for anyone that had an "R" next to their name? Yea, sure, and if you believe that, be sure you aren't buying any discount watches on the street, I hate to tell you that they might not be quite "genuine".
Man, Democrats just hate tapes, stains, and oxegen starved wet secretaries bodies in their cars. They have this "sanding" down with complete media compliance even when there ARE physical facts, but those things are "inconvienient". The media is even willing to call any Republican prediction about the future that doesn't turn out to be perfect a "lie" (no matter how many Ds said exactly the same thing). It seems like the physical universe of fact ought to just be outlawed if one has a "D" next to their name and whatever they say is "truth". It seems only fair.
Of course, things are far different if there is a "D" next to your name. For Bill Clinton, you just change the definition of "sex", "is", "perjury", and a few other things and "no lies". With MN Senator Majority Weasel Dean Johnson, it is "emebellishment" or "sanding off the truth". This is from a MINISTER, who other ministers have to tape record when he is lying to them, because they know he is a weasel. For non-weasels, you know they will continue to to stand by their words even if it is unpopular and costs them ... like Bush with WMD or Ports deal, but unlike Johnson.
'But Johnson said he did not 'lie' about the matter. To lie requires 'intent to deceive,' he said, while 'embellishment is sanding off of the truth.'" (Bill Salisbury, "Tearful Senate Leader Sorry For Supreme Court Gay Marriage Flap," Pioneer Press, March 17, 2006) No doubt the media will have a hard time staying on this story, but this web site should help
The man tells a group of ministers that he has talked to multiple MN Supreme Court justices and they have assured him there is no reason for a Gay Marriage amendment, there is no way they will overturn the law that MN has. Small problem, that would be a grave breech of judicial ethics were they to tell him that, but no problem it turns out they never even discussed it with him at all. So, he "sanded the truth".
The MN papers are being very careful to not call it a "lie", even on editorial pages, and they are mostly indicating that any attempts to keep this going are "politically motivated". A real rareity in politics. I'm sure we would see a similar viewpoint were there anything like this for anyone that had an "R" next to their name? Yea, sure, and if you believe that, be sure you aren't buying any discount watches on the street, I hate to tell you that they might not be quite "genuine".
Man, Democrats just hate tapes, stains, and oxegen starved wet secretaries bodies in their cars. They have this "sanding" down with complete media compliance even when there ARE physical facts, but those things are "inconvienient". The media is even willing to call any Republican prediction about the future that doesn't turn out to be perfect a "lie" (no matter how many Ds said exactly the same thing). It seems like the physical universe of fact ought to just be outlawed if one has a "D" next to their name and whatever they say is "truth". It seems only fair.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Feeling Lucky, Keweenaw Sledding
As a computer programmer I like to think that I understand reason and logic as well as the next guy and more than most, but I would never claim that those elements are the only, or even the major drives in my life. Case in point, I have been slowed and challenged by recovery of my broken elbow sustained on January 5th, with surgery on the 9th. I've been spending hours per day in various sorts of stretching activity trying to get motion back, lots of trips to the Doctor and bad nights of sleep trying to deal with a brace that keeps pressure on the arm to straighten or bend it.
A couple of weeks ago, I was first able to have enough motion to get my contacts back in, so I decided I was ready to snowmobile again. Anyone that buys a $7K machine that they may not get to use at all in a winter doesn't get top marks for reason, but I suppose taking off riding after surgery, rehab, and lots of lost hours when the arm still is far from 100% could be considered grounds for insanity, BUT, the trails were great, the sled was great, nothing bad happened at all, and it was WAY worth it! There are few things as much fun as doing something "insane" and coming out just fine.
Sometimes we like to think that it would be great if we humans felt the most motivated by what was logical and reasonable and showed the greatest odds of bettering our lives or the world around us all the time. In fact, a scientist thinking of "adaptive behavior" might assume that millions of years of adaptive evolution would produce exactly that outcome ... a very rational and adaptive human. They would of course be wrong.
We feel the best when we feel "lucky", when some sort of risk has paid off and things went well. We are forever cheering the underdog. Vegas and the lottery draw their billions, and like Lake Woebegone, we like to think all our kids are "above aveage".
Riding a snowmobile on groomed trails in the daytime without having any alcohol and staying generally at less than 60MPH isn't really completely "death defying" ... but relative to sitting behind a desk punching keys, it is pretty wild. The Keweenaw picked up 30" on top of the 15-20" that they had on the ground and we had some of the best trails ever, and very low traffic. managed to get the sled up from 160mi to 500mi, so got it broke in a bit for it's first year. It may not have been the most sane way to spend a couple days of vacation, but at least for me, it would have been hard to beat on the fun scale.
A couple of weeks ago, I was first able to have enough motion to get my contacts back in, so I decided I was ready to snowmobile again. Anyone that buys a $7K machine that they may not get to use at all in a winter doesn't get top marks for reason, but I suppose taking off riding after surgery, rehab, and lots of lost hours when the arm still is far from 100% could be considered grounds for insanity, BUT, the trails were great, the sled was great, nothing bad happened at all, and it was WAY worth it! There are few things as much fun as doing something "insane" and coming out just fine.
Sometimes we like to think that it would be great if we humans felt the most motivated by what was logical and reasonable and showed the greatest odds of bettering our lives or the world around us all the time. In fact, a scientist thinking of "adaptive behavior" might assume that millions of years of adaptive evolution would produce exactly that outcome ... a very rational and adaptive human. They would of course be wrong.
We feel the best when we feel "lucky", when some sort of risk has paid off and things went well. We are forever cheering the underdog. Vegas and the lottery draw their billions, and like Lake Woebegone, we like to think all our kids are "above aveage".
Riding a snowmobile on groomed trails in the daytime without having any alcohol and staying generally at less than 60MPH isn't really completely "death defying" ... but relative to sitting behind a desk punching keys, it is pretty wild. The Keweenaw picked up 30" on top of the 15-20" that they had on the ground and we had some of the best trails ever, and very low traffic. managed to get the sled up from 160mi to 500mi, so got it broke in a bit for it's first year. It may not have been the most sane way to spend a couple days of vacation, but at least for me, it would have been hard to beat on the fun scale.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
The Capitalist Manifesto
I was encouraged to read the Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein, and although I think it is a fine book and would encourage many to read it, for me it was a bit too much "preaching to the choir". I've already been over a lot of this ground with Hayek, Freidman, and like Bernstein, Ayn Rand. I'd like to find an author from the left that came close to being as fun to read and had as much an effect on readers as Ayn. My personal opinion over the years is that isn't possible, since economic freedom, rule of law and allowing individuals to choose what to do with the fruits of their labors is as necessary to economic success of a country as oxygen is to most life on this planet. The collectivist ideas flat out don't work, and all manner of attempts have failed to change that result, so writing something like this from the left would be like writing about a flat earth.
Bernstein goes over the good comparisons ... Hong Kong, East and West Germany, North and South Korea, Cuba and the USSR vs the USA. These have been well covered in many other books, and the results are completely clear. He also does a good job of questioning the idea that the Scandinavian countries are the exception, that socialism actually works there. It appears that we may have a case there of "killing the goose that laid the golden egg". Relatively pure capitalism was used in the past to create the wealth, and today that wealth is being squandered and the future borrowed against. One could argue that much the same thing is going on in the US with the entitlement programs like Social Security.
Where he does a little better job is in pointing out the fallacies of "the glorious pre-technology, pre-capitalist" past. Hobbes pretty much defined it, life was "nasty, brutish, and short". The VAST majority, like 90%+ lived in filth, disease, chaos, starvation, and pain for mercifully short lives. The myth of the "primitive secular Eden" is more widely held these days than the account of Eden in Genesis which those of us who are Christian hold to be true. Bernstein tars religion with the same brush as other partakers in the feudal system and given the history of the Catholic church there is merit there. Whatever the fault, when the masses are chattel that are not educated and allowed to improve themselves and their state, their lot is horrific. Church, King, or modern state, without the power of access to knowledge and the ability to profit from their labors, the material existence of the mass of humanity is not to be envied.
It is unleashing the power of the mind and the willingness to leverage it that makes capitalism great. By allowing "creative destruction", capitalism stays vibrant and in it's purest forms prevents the winners from one age from locking in their wins by stopping advancement and keeping things the way they like them, since the last round turned out in their favor. In general I agree with him, but it is at this point that I have trouble with the "pure approach". I understand why Bernstein takes it, like Rand he wants to leverage the obvious success of the capitalist system into a philosophy of life that "explains everything" in a tidy way. "The good is what provides the most/best life" ... the cynic in me says "he who dies with the most toys wins". Simple yes, but sadly lacking any real meaning.
This is where I part ways with the manifesto. If we are here by randomness and there is nothing beyond this, then other than maximization of pleasure, what would all this be for? The old supposed deep philosophy is "what will it all matter in 100 years"? Which of course is a way of saying "nothing", but in fact if it doesn't matter then, it doesn't matter now either. Dying with the most toys, dollars, friends, pets, or even books is still dying, and as in all things human, that is the final, not optional reality.
He also does nice defenses of attempted arguments against capitalism as causing war, being responsible for slavery, taking advantage of 3rd world poor people, and even defends the much maligned "robber barons". It is a solid work in defending the utility of the tool of capitalism, his only weakness is that he (like Rand) wants to decide that an economic model can be expanded to explain life, the universe and everything. Standard human idolatry, to convert "A good" into THE GOOD, and the ALL. We have a built-in desire to want more than meaninglessness, and also a built in compass that allows us to allow that answer to find us. Many decide that answer is not for them and go off and invent one. In the end, Bernstein looks at the universe and sees it as a nail to the capitalist hammer.
Bernstein goes over the good comparisons ... Hong Kong, East and West Germany, North and South Korea, Cuba and the USSR vs the USA. These have been well covered in many other books, and the results are completely clear. He also does a good job of questioning the idea that the Scandinavian countries are the exception, that socialism actually works there. It appears that we may have a case there of "killing the goose that laid the golden egg". Relatively pure capitalism was used in the past to create the wealth, and today that wealth is being squandered and the future borrowed against. One could argue that much the same thing is going on in the US with the entitlement programs like Social Security.
Where he does a little better job is in pointing out the fallacies of "the glorious pre-technology, pre-capitalist" past. Hobbes pretty much defined it, life was "nasty, brutish, and short". The VAST majority, like 90%+ lived in filth, disease, chaos, starvation, and pain for mercifully short lives. The myth of the "primitive secular Eden" is more widely held these days than the account of Eden in Genesis which those of us who are Christian hold to be true. Bernstein tars religion with the same brush as other partakers in the feudal system and given the history of the Catholic church there is merit there. Whatever the fault, when the masses are chattel that are not educated and allowed to improve themselves and their state, their lot is horrific. Church, King, or modern state, without the power of access to knowledge and the ability to profit from their labors, the material existence of the mass of humanity is not to be envied.
It is unleashing the power of the mind and the willingness to leverage it that makes capitalism great. By allowing "creative destruction", capitalism stays vibrant and in it's purest forms prevents the winners from one age from locking in their wins by stopping advancement and keeping things the way they like them, since the last round turned out in their favor. In general I agree with him, but it is at this point that I have trouble with the "pure approach". I understand why Bernstein takes it, like Rand he wants to leverage the obvious success of the capitalist system into a philosophy of life that "explains everything" in a tidy way. "The good is what provides the most/best life" ... the cynic in me says "he who dies with the most toys wins". Simple yes, but sadly lacking any real meaning.
This is where I part ways with the manifesto. If we are here by randomness and there is nothing beyond this, then other than maximization of pleasure, what would all this be for? The old supposed deep philosophy is "what will it all matter in 100 years"? Which of course is a way of saying "nothing", but in fact if it doesn't matter then, it doesn't matter now either. Dying with the most toys, dollars, friends, pets, or even books is still dying, and as in all things human, that is the final, not optional reality.
He also does nice defenses of attempted arguments against capitalism as causing war, being responsible for slavery, taking advantage of 3rd world poor people, and even defends the much maligned "robber barons". It is a solid work in defending the utility of the tool of capitalism, his only weakness is that he (like Rand) wants to decide that an economic model can be expanded to explain life, the universe and everything. Standard human idolatry, to convert "A good" into THE GOOD, and the ALL. We have a built-in desire to want more than meaninglessness, and also a built in compass that allows us to allow that answer to find us. Many decide that answer is not for them and go off and invent one. In the end, Bernstein looks at the universe and sees it as a nail to the capitalist hammer.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Democrat Outlook
As I saw the UAE ports deal go down by huge inside the beltway margins, I decided that all the parties inside the beltway except for Bush had found something they could agree on, stupidity. All the folks in Congress, Republican or Democrat are politicians at heart, which is very often just a slightly more complimentary way of saying “weasels”. Reagan is the only guy of my lifetime that managed to get to a leadership position that seemed to have far more principle than politics. Bush shows some good tendencies to that direction from time to time, and on this one his weasel quotient was exemplary.
We have established that a huge percentage of Americans, maybe 75% or more are anti-Arab company “ownership” of US ports. Very few of them likely know what they are really against here, but the media usage of “Arab", “foreign ownership” and “threat to security” was enough to stampede even more than the usual sheep. I’m reminded that 75% of the sheep were once in favor of the Iraq war as well, so the sheep are fickle.
When I allow the negative Democrat side of my brain to run wild I can see a dark vision in which the protectionists of right and left get together, pass some protectionist legislation that kills the current round of globalization. The Democrats win both houses of Congress in the fall and start impeachment for Bush, they pull out of Iraq, the markets crash world wide and the world plunges into the great depression II along with global terrorism. The MSM and the Democrats are insufferable in smug happiness as they settle in to blame it all on Bush as they blamed the first depression on Hoover and we face a new 50 dark years of Democrat hegemony.
Actually, just a negative dream, but March being the cruelest month in MN, it is tempting to think like a Democrat sometimes. As I look at the current Bush travails, I’m reminded that the media does a 50% good job of reporting with both parties; they report success well for Democrats, and failure well for Republicans, but there is always an issue of “hope”. Bill Clinton was always “the comeback kid”. Whenever he faced problems due to the evil Republicans or nasty stains, the media expectantly licked their chops and looked for another sign of a “comeback” … a good speech, a slight uptick in the polls, some stock going up, a woman with big hair within his reach, ANYTHING was a sign of a new fantastic “comeback”. They loved him.
Bush was “certified dead on arrival” after the 2K election … not really elected, “appointed president”. He was double dead when the great hero Jim Jeffords defected to the Dems and gave them a Senate majority. He was guaranteed to lose seats in the 2002 elections, presidents usually do, and he was guaranteed to. Afghanistan was a “quagmire” in 2 weeks. Iraq was a giant mistake from the beginning, and the list just goes on and on … “Mission Accomplished”, Abu Grab, 1K soldiers dead, the economy, jobs, this poll, that poll, Katrina, Meyers, now the ports. The MSM has declared Bush “dead and over” so many times they can’t be listed. So far he has recovered and come back from every one of them to date bigtime. He isn’t any “comeback kid” though … when the MSM sees Bush recover, their attitude is the opposite.
The Republicans in Congress have done themselves no favors on this one. Today the sheep think it is a great idea to diss the Arabs and Bush on the ports deal, tomorrow they will have changed their minds. When you tie yourself to polls and politics vs principles, tomorrow is even more volatile than the normal events of life and the world make it. We will pay for the ports deal over time. We need friends in the mid-east, the UAE have been solid friends, yet we have shown that racism, protectionism, and playing politics are worth more to us.
We have established that a huge percentage of Americans, maybe 75% or more are anti-Arab company “ownership” of US ports. Very few of them likely know what they are really against here, but the media usage of “Arab", “foreign ownership” and “threat to security” was enough to stampede even more than the usual sheep. I’m reminded that 75% of the sheep were once in favor of the Iraq war as well, so the sheep are fickle.
When I allow the negative Democrat side of my brain to run wild I can see a dark vision in which the protectionists of right and left get together, pass some protectionist legislation that kills the current round of globalization. The Democrats win both houses of Congress in the fall and start impeachment for Bush, they pull out of Iraq, the markets crash world wide and the world plunges into the great depression II along with global terrorism. The MSM and the Democrats are insufferable in smug happiness as they settle in to blame it all on Bush as they blamed the first depression on Hoover and we face a new 50 dark years of Democrat hegemony.
Actually, just a negative dream, but March being the cruelest month in MN, it is tempting to think like a Democrat sometimes. As I look at the current Bush travails, I’m reminded that the media does a 50% good job of reporting with both parties; they report success well for Democrats, and failure well for Republicans, but there is always an issue of “hope”. Bill Clinton was always “the comeback kid”. Whenever he faced problems due to the evil Republicans or nasty stains, the media expectantly licked their chops and looked for another sign of a “comeback” … a good speech, a slight uptick in the polls, some stock going up, a woman with big hair within his reach, ANYTHING was a sign of a new fantastic “comeback”. They loved him.
Bush was “certified dead on arrival” after the 2K election … not really elected, “appointed president”. He was double dead when the great hero Jim Jeffords defected to the Dems and gave them a Senate majority. He was guaranteed to lose seats in the 2002 elections, presidents usually do, and he was guaranteed to. Afghanistan was a “quagmire” in 2 weeks. Iraq was a giant mistake from the beginning, and the list just goes on and on … “Mission Accomplished”, Abu Grab, 1K soldiers dead, the economy, jobs, this poll, that poll, Katrina, Meyers, now the ports. The MSM has declared Bush “dead and over” so many times they can’t be listed. So far he has recovered and come back from every one of them to date bigtime. He isn’t any “comeback kid” though … when the MSM sees Bush recover, their attitude is the opposite.
The Republicans in Congress have done themselves no favors on this one. Today the sheep think it is a great idea to diss the Arabs and Bush on the ports deal, tomorrow they will have changed their minds. When you tie yourself to polls and politics vs principles, tomorrow is even more volatile than the normal events of life and the world make it. We will pay for the ports deal over time. We need friends in the mid-east, the UAE have been solid friends, yet we have shown that racism, protectionism, and playing politics are worth more to us.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Ports Stolen from Barnett
The following is from the author of "Pentagon's New Map" and "Blueprint for Action", a strategic thinker that I think generally has his head on pretty straight. Fairly comprehensive and direct on the port issue, worth reading.
America has been the single biggest kingpin in outward-bound foreign direct investment since the Second World War, meaning our cumulative total of investment in other countries is bigger than anybody else on the planet. Sure, when you bundle up Europe’s numbers, they are huge (2X ours), but that’s including all the intra-European investment, which is like counting Florida investing in Michigan. Strip away all the self investment, and America is more than equal to Europe’s overseas investment total.
Have we benefited from all that overseas investing? Sure. We’re sought out cheaper resources and labor over the decades, pushing American firms to become ever more efficient and to move up the production value chain to new heights of technology and productivity. Have such investments forced our economy and society to leave behind industries that once defined our labor pool? Sure, but that’s progress, unless you think it’s better defined by every child performing the same job as their parents once did, and their parents once did, and their parents once did, and so on.
All that investment has built up this magnificent global economy, which is bigger now than it has ever been, and features less violence and danger than it has ever had to withstand before. That’s right. You go back in history and you will find an ever increasing percentage of humanity either actively involved in or preparing for mass violence. Today, that percentage is lower than it has ever been, because the numbers and cumulative size of conflicts around the world are lower than they’ve ever been.
The spread of the global economy is responsible for that, and our immense role in exporting investments around this world has been preeminent in creating that future worth living.
And yet we are so fearful of the mutually-assured dependence we’ve created with all this investment, especially when it comes back at us in the form of other countries investing in the U.S., something that’s been a hallmark of our development for decades and decades stretching back to our infancy. I know, I know, America was a perfect democracy from the start and we built this entire economy on our own, with no help from anybody except the immigrants who showed up. This is the American mythos, and we love it. But the truth is we've had huge inflows of foreign direct investment throughout our history (Number 1? The Dutch.), as lotsa foreigners “exploited our cheap labor” and our natural resources. And we benefited hugely from this.
Truth be told: no country develops without access to foreign money in this global economy. So FDI must flow. In reality, it’s the Dune-like “spice” that drives our global economy—more than oil does.
So we are rightly criticized as hypocrites when our lawmakers object to the UAE ports deal. Not just because it’s anti-trade, but because it flies in the face of current reality: the countries that run the world’s ports, including ours, are those that most heavily depend on trade (Hong Kong, Dubai, Singapore, Denmark, China, Germany, Taiwan and that city-state called Seattle). Seafaring centers rule that trade (can I get a “duh”!).
This is our game, the one we created after WW II to keep great power peace, and it’s worked like a dream. Now, great powers and wannabe regional ones all play by our rules. So when one of them does unto us what we’ve been doing unto them for decades, it’s pretty strange for us to cry foul, and even worse to cry national security.
Did DP World have an advantage in bidding for the British company that currently runs a number of our ports? Sure. And we should we wary of letting states-masquerading-as-companies pretend they are playing on a level field? All things being equal? Yes. But all things are rarely equal. And if we’re seeing connectivity result that otherwise would not be there, then I say we choose investment over fear. Do I want Dubai to become a Hong Kong/Singapore of the Middle East? Sure. Because I want the Middle East to connect up to the world. In fact, that’s the whole purpose behind our Big Bang strategy of toppling Saddam: connecting the Middle East up to the global economy faster than the jihadists can disconnect it.
The Al Qaedaists of the Middle East know damn well what they’re doing: they want to sabotage the regions’ economies, disconnecting them from the world, and reap the whirlwind of social distress. Thus we should expect more attacks on port and energy facilities like the one that targeted the Abqaiq facility recently.
I know that some op-ed strategists want to play that game as well, arguing we should cut the global economy off from the Middle East by denying ourselves its oil as quickly as possible, but I argue for just the opposite approach. I want shared economic and strategic interests, not some rapid-fire economic divorce.
That’s the essential nature of the military-market nexus that we ourselves have forged in this era of globalization. I know we are called a debtor nation, but in reality we are a security exporter, one that overspends our public funds in order to pay for the world’s security, which only our power-projecting military is capable of providing. For that service, the world pays us by buying our debt. But that process can only go so far, as we’ve seen with Japan years ago and China today. After a while, our trade partners can accumulate only so much of our money in reserves. When saturation is reached (beyond the fear of currency speculation), then these countries naturally want to diversify their holdings; they want to own us as much as we own them.
This is natural and good and a furthering of the mutually-assured dependence that defines the Functioning Core of globalization. In fact, to move from the Non-Integrating Gap to the Core, such interdependency must be an avowed goal of the migrating nation (in this case, Dubai). We either welcome that mutual dependence or we renounce the very system of growing global peace that we engineered.
We are too far down this road to change course. Invest in a “U.S.” mutual fund today and you’ll find that much of its money sits abroad, seeking greater opportunity--as it should. Some can call such activity akin to being "economic traitors," a charge so foolishly wrongheaded as to deserve complete condemnation. Instead, such investments do more to secure our national security than all the efforts of our defense establishment.
And yet it is so sad to see American leaders, right at the moment of our emerging historical triumph, becoming so amazingly full of self-doubt and fear. What do we need to continue to succeed in the world we’ve created? A highly educated and ambitious labor pool of entrepreneurs. How hard is that to achieve? You tell me.
Other countries are responding to this challenge of Friedman’s “Flat World,” and they’re doing so with less fear. China lets our banks buy into their banks. Vietnam lets Intel come in and build a big chip factory that, a few years back, would have gone to China. Everyone is striving mightily to move up the production chain and all America does is fret over industries we’ve let go abroad instead of focusing on what we really need to do next: invent the next wave of industries that will define our future.
But I am being too harsh here: those industries are appearing across the dial in America. We just need to revamp a lifelong educational system to make American labor confident enough that we can collectively migrate our skills and labor to what comes next, instead of vainly trying to hold onto what came before.
Yes, yes, easier said than done. But what do these “far-sighted” protectionists offer us instead? Look closely, because upon further examination it comes off as a sort of economic back-to-the-future escapism that comes uncomfortably close to Osama’s arguments for civilizational apartheid: “Don’t deal with this challenging future; instead retreat into a more homogenous imaginary past.”
We need confidence now more than ever because we are closer—now more than ever--to the global future we’ve been crafting for decades and decades. I feel a huge debt to the Greatest Generation, one that requires I keep pushing the pile throughout my career. I have never felt more connected to both past and future as I do today, and it fills me with a sense of great optimism.
But optimism requires confidence. You have to see the world you’ve created. You need to feel a pride of ownership and a sense of parental satisfaction.
And at some time you have to let go of your fears. You have to accept countries for what they’re becoming, not what they’ve been. You need to seize the opportunities to turn enemies into partners and partners into close friends.
We are at that moment in history.
We need that confidence and that optimism that’s defined America’s past and will shape this world’s future even more.
We all live in a world of our making. Some deride that self-awareness as naïve or delusional.
I call it real power and tell all the fear-mongers to f--k off.
Time for America to grow up about the global connectivity of foreign direct investment:
ARTICLE: “U.S. Lawmakers Receive Global Criticism for Objections to Ports Deal,” by Aaron O. Patrick, Wall Street Journal, 25-26 February 2006, p. A4.
ARTICLE: “A Ship Already Sailed: America Ceded Its Seaport Terminals to Foreigners Years Ago,” by Simon Romero and Heather Timmons, New York Times, 24 February 2006, p. C1.
OP-ED: “Ports in a Storm: Do we believe in free trade, or don’t we?” by Zachary Karabell, Wall Street Journal, 23 February 2006, p. A16.
EDITORIAL: “Ports of Gall: The new protectionists use national security as their cover,” Wall Street Journal, 25-26 February 2006, p. A10.
ARTICLE: “Thwarted Attack At Saudi Facility Stirs Energy Fears: Officials Worry Terrorists Are Targeting Oil System; Crude Futures Jump 4%,” by Bhushan Bahree and Chip Cummins, Wall Street Journal, 25-26 February 2006, p. A1.
ARTICLE: “In Ports Furor, a Clash Over Dubai: Debate Exposes Conflicts Between Security Needs And Foreign Investment; PetroChina Hangs On in Sudan,” by Bernard Wysocki Jr. and Michael M. Phillips, Wall Street Journal, 23 February 2006, p. A1.
ARTICLE: “How Foreign Banks Scaled the Chinese Wall: Titans Acquire Minority Stakes With Little Control of Their Own; Will the Strategy Prove Wise?” by Kate Linebaugh, Wall Street Journal, 23 February 2006, p. C1.
ARTICLE: “Intel to Build Vietnam Chip Plant, Raising Nation’s High-Tech Profile,” by James Hookway and Nguyen Pram Muoi, Wall Street Journal, 24 February 2006, p. A4.
ARTICLE: “U.S. Funds Take On Global Flavor: Foreign Companies’ Equities Increasingly Populate Portfolios As Returns Pick Up Overseas,” by Tom Lauricella, Wall Street Journal, 24 February 2006, p. C1.
America has been the single biggest kingpin in outward-bound foreign direct investment since the Second World War, meaning our cumulative total of investment in other countries is bigger than anybody else on the planet. Sure, when you bundle up Europe’s numbers, they are huge (2X ours), but that’s including all the intra-European investment, which is like counting Florida investing in Michigan. Strip away all the self investment, and America is more than equal to Europe’s overseas investment total.
Have we benefited from all that overseas investing? Sure. We’re sought out cheaper resources and labor over the decades, pushing American firms to become ever more efficient and to move up the production value chain to new heights of technology and productivity. Have such investments forced our economy and society to leave behind industries that once defined our labor pool? Sure, but that’s progress, unless you think it’s better defined by every child performing the same job as their parents once did, and their parents once did, and their parents once did, and so on.
All that investment has built up this magnificent global economy, which is bigger now than it has ever been, and features less violence and danger than it has ever had to withstand before. That’s right. You go back in history and you will find an ever increasing percentage of humanity either actively involved in or preparing for mass violence. Today, that percentage is lower than it has ever been, because the numbers and cumulative size of conflicts around the world are lower than they’ve ever been.
The spread of the global economy is responsible for that, and our immense role in exporting investments around this world has been preeminent in creating that future worth living.
And yet we are so fearful of the mutually-assured dependence we’ve created with all this investment, especially when it comes back at us in the form of other countries investing in the U.S., something that’s been a hallmark of our development for decades and decades stretching back to our infancy. I know, I know, America was a perfect democracy from the start and we built this entire economy on our own, with no help from anybody except the immigrants who showed up. This is the American mythos, and we love it. But the truth is we've had huge inflows of foreign direct investment throughout our history (Number 1? The Dutch.), as lotsa foreigners “exploited our cheap labor” and our natural resources. And we benefited hugely from this.
Truth be told: no country develops without access to foreign money in this global economy. So FDI must flow. In reality, it’s the Dune-like “spice” that drives our global economy—more than oil does.
So we are rightly criticized as hypocrites when our lawmakers object to the UAE ports deal. Not just because it’s anti-trade, but because it flies in the face of current reality: the countries that run the world’s ports, including ours, are those that most heavily depend on trade (Hong Kong, Dubai, Singapore, Denmark, China, Germany, Taiwan and that city-state called Seattle). Seafaring centers rule that trade (can I get a “duh”!).
This is our game, the one we created after WW II to keep great power peace, and it’s worked like a dream. Now, great powers and wannabe regional ones all play by our rules. So when one of them does unto us what we’ve been doing unto them for decades, it’s pretty strange for us to cry foul, and even worse to cry national security.
Did DP World have an advantage in bidding for the British company that currently runs a number of our ports? Sure. And we should we wary of letting states-masquerading-as-companies pretend they are playing on a level field? All things being equal? Yes. But all things are rarely equal. And if we’re seeing connectivity result that otherwise would not be there, then I say we choose investment over fear. Do I want Dubai to become a Hong Kong/Singapore of the Middle East? Sure. Because I want the Middle East to connect up to the world. In fact, that’s the whole purpose behind our Big Bang strategy of toppling Saddam: connecting the Middle East up to the global economy faster than the jihadists can disconnect it.
The Al Qaedaists of the Middle East know damn well what they’re doing: they want to sabotage the regions’ economies, disconnecting them from the world, and reap the whirlwind of social distress. Thus we should expect more attacks on port and energy facilities like the one that targeted the Abqaiq facility recently.
I know that some op-ed strategists want to play that game as well, arguing we should cut the global economy off from the Middle East by denying ourselves its oil as quickly as possible, but I argue for just the opposite approach. I want shared economic and strategic interests, not some rapid-fire economic divorce.
That’s the essential nature of the military-market nexus that we ourselves have forged in this era of globalization. I know we are called a debtor nation, but in reality we are a security exporter, one that overspends our public funds in order to pay for the world’s security, which only our power-projecting military is capable of providing. For that service, the world pays us by buying our debt. But that process can only go so far, as we’ve seen with Japan years ago and China today. After a while, our trade partners can accumulate only so much of our money in reserves. When saturation is reached (beyond the fear of currency speculation), then these countries naturally want to diversify their holdings; they want to own us as much as we own them.
This is natural and good and a furthering of the mutually-assured dependence that defines the Functioning Core of globalization. In fact, to move from the Non-Integrating Gap to the Core, such interdependency must be an avowed goal of the migrating nation (in this case, Dubai). We either welcome that mutual dependence or we renounce the very system of growing global peace that we engineered.
We are too far down this road to change course. Invest in a “U.S.” mutual fund today and you’ll find that much of its money sits abroad, seeking greater opportunity--as it should. Some can call such activity akin to being "economic traitors," a charge so foolishly wrongheaded as to deserve complete condemnation. Instead, such investments do more to secure our national security than all the efforts of our defense establishment.
And yet it is so sad to see American leaders, right at the moment of our emerging historical triumph, becoming so amazingly full of self-doubt and fear. What do we need to continue to succeed in the world we’ve created? A highly educated and ambitious labor pool of entrepreneurs. How hard is that to achieve? You tell me.
Other countries are responding to this challenge of Friedman’s “Flat World,” and they’re doing so with less fear. China lets our banks buy into their banks. Vietnam lets Intel come in and build a big chip factory that, a few years back, would have gone to China. Everyone is striving mightily to move up the production chain and all America does is fret over industries we’ve let go abroad instead of focusing on what we really need to do next: invent the next wave of industries that will define our future.
But I am being too harsh here: those industries are appearing across the dial in America. We just need to revamp a lifelong educational system to make American labor confident enough that we can collectively migrate our skills and labor to what comes next, instead of vainly trying to hold onto what came before.
Yes, yes, easier said than done. But what do these “far-sighted” protectionists offer us instead? Look closely, because upon further examination it comes off as a sort of economic back-to-the-future escapism that comes uncomfortably close to Osama’s arguments for civilizational apartheid: “Don’t deal with this challenging future; instead retreat into a more homogenous imaginary past.”
We need confidence now more than ever because we are closer—now more than ever--to the global future we’ve been crafting for decades and decades. I feel a huge debt to the Greatest Generation, one that requires I keep pushing the pile throughout my career. I have never felt more connected to both past and future as I do today, and it fills me with a sense of great optimism.
But optimism requires confidence. You have to see the world you’ve created. You need to feel a pride of ownership and a sense of parental satisfaction.
And at some time you have to let go of your fears. You have to accept countries for what they’re becoming, not what they’ve been. You need to seize the opportunities to turn enemies into partners and partners into close friends.
We are at that moment in history.
We need that confidence and that optimism that’s defined America’s past and will shape this world’s future even more.
We all live in a world of our making. Some deride that self-awareness as naïve or delusional.
I call it real power and tell all the fear-mongers to f--k off.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Disaster Party
It has been fun to listen to the MSM and especially NPR deal with the fact that Mardi gras is under way in New Orleans. Six months ago, this was the "lost 3rd world city of Bush incompetence". Tonight, the floats with the beads and black-tie revelers were rolling into the convention center that was so central to the "scandal" 6 months ago.
They keep working as hard as they can to have it both ways, it reminds me of an old Saturday Night Live skit where something is BOTH a floorwax and a dessert topping. New Orleans is BOTH a terrible example of federal ineptitude, AND, miraculously, it is a city ready for tourism and a huge party 6 months after a horrible natural disaster.
"Oh how terrible" ... "Come on down and PARTY!".
They keep working as hard as they can to have it both ways, it reminds me of an old Saturday Night Live skit where something is BOTH a floorwax and a dessert topping. New Orleans is BOTH a terrible example of federal ineptitude, AND, miraculously, it is a city ready for tourism and a huge party 6 months after a horrible natural disaster.
"Oh how terrible" ... "Come on down and PARTY!".
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