In the middle of last year, presidential candidate Barack Obama gave a speech in Germany which caused a controversy among its pundits. The International Herald Tribune reported that his choice of site was less than inspired. Indeed, Obama had chosen to speak at the base of a monument associated with the Nazis.
BERLIN: The decision by Senator Barack Obama to speak at a landmark monument in Berlin this Thursday has opened up yet another controversy, with conservative and opposition politicians saying the site recalls Germany’s Nazi past and Prussia’s militaristic tradition.
Obama is planning to address what organizers expect will be huge crowds at the Siegessäule, or Victory Column, which is located in the center of a long and busy intersection that straddles the lush, public Tiergarten gardens and stretches up to the Brandenburg Gate.
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The monument in question is the Victory Column in Berlin. You can see a picture of the column by following the link and a larger one from Wikipedia is after the “Read More”. At the summit of the column is the statue of Viktoria. Wikipedia has an article describing the history of the column and Obama’s speech before it.
Of course, the statue and the column are inanimate objects and have a complex history of associations. As Wikipedia explains the cultural connections of the monument include movies, rock groups, Obama and the SS.
The column is featured in Wim Wenders’ film Wings of Desire as being a place where angels congregate. The golden statue atop the column was featured in the music video to U2′s “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)” and inspired Paul van Dyk’s 1998 trance music hit, “For an Angel”; the column was also featured in his music video during the Love Parade in 1998. “El Ángel” in Mexico City bears a more than passing resemblance to the Berlin victory column, while both echo the earlier examples of the victory column crowned by an angel, notably the Alexander Column in Saint Petersburg. (A full description and history in the terms of true European history that is not necessarily limited to angels is given on the http://www.monument-tales.de )
The Victory Column served as the location for Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin during his visit to Germany on July 24, 2008. The choice of site was somewhat controversial in Germany as it symbolises German war victories in the past and is still seen as a Nazi symbol. Obama talked about cooperation between the United States and Europe in the speech and ended his speech with these lines: “With an eye toward the future, with resolve in our hearts, let us remember this history, and answer our destiny, and remake the world once again.”
The unfortunate statue of Viktoria was the subject of the SS marching song, Seig Heil, Viktoria, one of the more catchy Nazi marches, represented in video below. Notice how happy the crowds were. Another Wikipedia entry notes the the Sieg Heil expression and its association with Viktoria:
The expression itself is older than Nazism as it is a salute to Lady Victory, or Victoria, atop the Berlin Victory Column. A popular marching song of the Nazi period was “Sieg Heil Viktoria”, attributed to the SS. It has been said that Joseph Goebbels used “Sieg Heil” in a meeting and all supported the phrase (however an early associate of Hitler, Ernst Hanfstängl, claimed to have devised its use for the Nazi Party). Since Nazism argued that war was a way to determine the superior race and that Germans were that superior race, hailing war was to hail the struggle that would eliminate all others and establish, in a social Darwinist manner, the “New Order.”
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When we take the place of our elders and tread in their footsteps, we somehow think ourselves above the mistakes of past. Take the Depression. For sixty years the memory of the Great Depression was implicitly accompanied by the assumption that we would never be so foolish as to find ourselves in it again. That was what grainy people in old news reels had to suffer through. But humanity’s basest passions change but little and consequently we often reprise the mistakes of the past. The Nazi era is reminder of the mass manias that can grip an educated people — the most educated people in Europe — in the aftermath of despair, when every father of that nation sought a safe harbor and thought he found it in Hitler, only to find the horrors of a World War. Sieg Heil Viktoria. That’s a long way from God Bless America, but not so very far from God Damn America.
Obtuse (see previous thread) and tone deaf. Symptoms of advanced narcissism in our feckless leader. At least Clinton, that narcissist of the first degree, was not only charming, but would deal with whatever problem the polls told him concerned the electorate at that time.
Stratfor recently characterized the positions of countries who will “hit the wall” far sooner than the United States. While we’re mesmerized by the declines in the stock market, the possible bankruptcy of financial institutions and the jobless numbers, it may be worthwhile to think about what happens when the lower-lying parts of the global ship go under.
I think the problems can still be managed if we don’t exacerbate them. But if we get to the point where we use up our entire design margin, then if the troubles cascade, the watertight bulkheads will go down like dominoes. That’s why I think that even liberals should recognize it is in their interest to be very circumspect in the coming months. They can pursue their dreams, but they should exercise all necessary prudence. Personally, I don’t think President Obama is exercising the requisite amount of prudence at all. He’s operating without feedback. He’s placing these big, almost monstrous bets whose results he’ll be able to assess in 20 years. But the expenditure is today. That’s dangerous in these times. That’s not prudent.
The power of history is the power to see ourselves as we might be, if we make the same mistakes. It’s not too late to learn from the past, which although it never repeats itself, nevertheless instructs us as the lives of our fathers instruct those who follow them.
The performance of Gordon Brown, who promises to save the world by creating hundreds of thousands of “Green Jobs” has convinced me that in the long view of history, any comparison between Neville Chamberlain and Brown will be flattering to Chamberlain. This is the culmination of decades of dumbing down, intellectual dishonesty, faddist thinking and numbing political correctness. Are these our leaders? This is madness! No. This is Sparta! When I say I would rather be governed by Gerard Butler than the our class of political airheads, I literally mean it.
Wretchard, the train is derailing, there is no superman (Men of founding father character) to right the train and straighten the tracks, We have our delusional leader(s) and the military to boot! There are no “Good Men” of Action, they are all immobilized by the PC culture and the warm water that the frog slips into before the boil (to comfortable to give up what they have for the ungrateful in this country)! Good night America our darkest days form as we watch and speak amongst ourselves, there is nothing you can do the lemmings are off and running, the cliff is close at hand… Faith is all that stands between the good and the end. Gods love be with you.
There are no “Good Men” of Action, they are all immobilized by the PC culture
There’s still us and while we can’t do much, we can do a little. We can begin by keeping our heads and our vision clear. No panic, no wild conspiracy theories. Just plain common sense. And that can’t be discounted. I have a little story. In the late 1980s I was in a building when a major earthquake struck. There were about 70 people in an open plan office. About three or four of the people in the office went into a total panic. Fell to the floor, started kicking in their air in hysteria. About 63 or 64 people stood rooted, immobile to the ground, wondering what to do next. About three people remained standing and you could see they were absolutely cool. They led everyone to safety and had the hysterical people carried bodily out of danger. Why? It was nature. I figure this is a universal distribution, and that in any crisis about 10% of the people will go nuts. Ten percent will know what to do. Eighty percent will stand paralyzed but will act when they get reasonable leadership.
So keep your cool, which I know you will. Don’t worry too much. Sanity is a great virtue. If things go bad you’ll see a lot of weird stuff of all kinds. Crazy stuff. If you keep cool, the majority have someone to follow. If not to safety, then at least not over the cliff. And that’s no small thing.
I didn’t verify this at the time with my own jaded eyes, but I heard that at the time Of Obama’s speech the New York Times ran a photo from behind Obama during the speech, showing the “massive” crowd spread out before him. The photo shows Obama addressing the crowd, his left hand extended in what, were it his right hand, would resemble the Nazi salute. But, in the photo, all of the writing on the signs held by the crowd were backwards….
..which, besides the obvious, does show the media is at least aware of history.
I don’t think we’ll ever see a Hitler again, not in the sense of a guy with a postage stamp mustache and abrupt gestures bleating out speeches. But I think the same passions which inflamed the 40s inflame men of every generation, simply because they are people too. During a time of discontinuity, there are always those who see their chance. And we would be ill-advised, I think, to assume it will this or that person beforehand. However as a general proposition, periods of crisis are times when things can go either way.
In a crisis, the opportunity aspect of the moment is often ignored, or as in the case of Rahm Emmanuel, misunderstood. He thinks it’s a chance to implement a pre-existing agenda. No. Opportunities in a crisis are windows in which we can recognize the new. Not the old. It’s the time when we see the future sail into view as a Black Swan. Rahm Emmanuel, if I understand him aright, thinks it a chance to do what he always secretly wanted but never had a chance to do. What a small man.
The real chance of greatness in crisis is to be open to the right opening doors and to ignore the wrong ones. You can’t approach the future aiming to control it. Only to say ‘yes’ to the right things. So I am consoled by the idea that we are, despite all the troubles, on the verge of a better world. But not just yet.
Another thing to watch in this complex stew of history and ideas. Barack Obama, according to the Telegraph, may be considering subjecting US military personnel to the jurisdiction of the ICC.
But would it include, in principle, Obama himself?
6. lc
Yea, 0 just couldn’t help it, his narcissist nature calling, he had to try.
The man is more dangerous than I thought… or rather hoped, the signs are there to see. He just started and yes he can.
Nothing good will come of this. Although some people are starting to leave Jonestown, there is a vast crowd of koolaid drinkers out there.
No!
Not that!
ANYTHING but that!
(ICC)
Doug, I understand how you feel… but it will be irrelevant, in few years.
@12 twobyfour
“Irrelevant”
Because of a collapse of the general order? Please ‘splain…
Indeed, Triton!
We wait with bait on the breath, two by!
I understand that at at least one of his strange rallies in Germany Obama the warm up band for him was a group noted for playing the anthem of the USSR. Not even the Federal Republic of Russia, mind you, but The Evil Empire itself.
As Wretchard said over a year ago, the ghille suits have dropped off. The Nazis and Commies stand unmasked, in full goose stepping regalia.
Jonah Goldberg says that we will never have brown shirts here in the US because we are as a people just too nice. I think we won’t have them here long because we are a people are just too well-armed.
2×4 – I think you hit it with the narcissism. O seems to be smart and have an idea of what he is about (gulp)…he is heavy into symbolism and the grand imaging, but does he really get what is in alot of that symbolism?
or what really matters, what is behind that symbolism….here comes the okey-dokey.
“Jonah Goldberg says that we will never have brown shirts here in the US because we are as a people just too nice. I think we won’t have them here long because we are a people are just too well-armed.”
—
Dennis Miller talked about the disconnect in people’s minds, imagining fascism to arrive via some old fogey on the right, certainly it would not be ushered in by a cool young black cat.
Did you see that Osprey link of mine a few threads back RWE?
Pretty devastating, wondered what you thot about it.
13. Triton’sPolarTiger:
Because of a collapse of the general order? Please ’splain…
Yes. And it’s self-explanatory.
but does he really get what is in alot of that symbolism?
In this particular case, how about 100%? That was no accident. As I said, he had to try.
And you know what? There are many things he did not try yet. For instance to see Rome burn. It does not have to be Rome, just something with Rome legacy, cuz he does not play violin either (Nero played lyre, BTW). I think he has pretty good start on that, don’t you think?
Obama is a thug. On stage, in public and on camera, he gave the finger to both Clinton and McCain–literally, not figuratively. For over 20 years he listened to Wright’s vile, anti-semitic hate speech, the worst heard since Hitler and Himmler. He and his wife actually believe this fith. His goal is to establish a racist, anti-semitic socialist police state, complete with brown shirt gangs roaming the streets and beating people up and concentration camps in the desert. Pray for the Jews. Pray for us all.
“He and his wife actually believe this filth.”
—
Not to the degree that his young girls would have,
had he not been outed in his run for POTUS.
(how could anyone do that to young children?)
Pray for us all, indeed.
How many of the folks in the house and Senate would be willing to have the man impeached and removed from office? How long before the vast majority of people have their bank accounts and savings drained and place out of reach? As a constitutional matter would it be defending and protecting the constitution for a US citizen to refuse to comply with ICC orders? Would the members of the US military be abrogating that oath if they did not refuse to obey that unlawful order? Would other federal officers also be in breach of their oaths to protect and defend the constitution?
I think the way a person answers those questions says much about how far President Obama can get with his cultural revolution.
A dude in 2000 gave a timeline in some online forums. Claimed to be from the future. I thought at the time he’s short few marbles of a full set.
So, let’s take a look.
2006
A root of the following event takes place. The nation is dividing into opposing camps–represented by a county electoral map of 2000 elections (same as 2004 and almost the same as 2008). There are two events that fir the bill, Donks majority and Ogabe’s announcement to run for presidency.
2008
A major political shift.
2009
Start of the civil war. At this stage, civil disobedience may be a better description, but first shots of the war are fired.
2010-2011
Civil war is heating up, and the armed conflict is kick-started by a shameless administration’s policy regarding Israel. World War follows.
2012-2013
Civil war on full steam. Russia supplying arms to rebel side. (2×4 Note: this may not be Putin’s Russia at this point)
2014-2015
Administration pissed about Russia involvement and retaliates by taking out some Russian targets. Russia responds by taking out key administration’s cities. Civil war ends, rebels win. The WW simmers in different parts of the world until 2019. Several waves of pandemic outbreaks contribute to overall reduction of populations worldwide.
———
The thing that made me think this scenario is insane was the “shameless policy towards Israel”. I simply couldn’t imagine such a thing.
How times change!
RWE mentions Jonah Goldberg. When I read Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism last summer, I couldn’t help but draw parallels between Goldberg’s description of fascist tactics and those of the Obama campaign. Could be that I’m letting my emotions cloud my reasoning, but the grand schemes, the cult of personality, the symbols and icons, the identification of “enemies”, etc. of the 1920s/30s and now don’t seem that dissimilar. Obama’s goal of establishing a domestic security force equal to our military strengthens my view that this crowd is up to no good for our own good.
Wretchard, your story proves my point! the lonely three are out voted by the sixty four that are immobilized and unsure of what to do, paralyzed with fear to do what the cool heads want to do and frozen by what they see happening, there you go, you have today’s political, financial, economical situation and to boot we have a “One World” socialist managing the building, who has the opportunity to throw the Capitalist Engine of the world in its grave once and for all!
So what do we do about it. 60% of the American people think he’s on the right track.
The Right, as wretchard pointed out, has been too busy producing to follow what has been happening to our country. I know countless upper middle class Americans who are working so hard they don’t have time to watch the news, much less listen to Rush or read PJM or Hot Air. Many are living in blissful ignorance, for the time being..until they lose their jobs.
Obama’s objective is to wipe out our wealth, the producers, and make us beholden to the state. Then, anything is possible for his agenda.
His cronies have taken over the schools, the media, entertainment and bureaucracy. In order to reverse the tide, we need to do the same. But all the money is now on his side. Can’t win elections without the great mass of humanity that has been brainwashed.
Bob@20
And upon these realizations, then?
The reason we WILL have “brown shirts” is because we are a gracious, peace-loving population, who find ourselves in the minority. Nearly half the population is already dependent on the gov’t for their living, so they are not necessarily allies.
Soon, standing for your rights will make you an insurgent, a revolutionary. The “state” press will make up lots of derogatory labels. Oh wait…they’re doing that already.
Seriously one wonders, if we ever do regain our country, then what should be the penalty for those who are enacting this outright subversion? Shouldn’t they be warned, loudly, publicly to stop and reverse course?
If we let them just retire, we’ll surely be about saving the country again and again, forever. When does this behavior warrant hanging?
This is not about political rivalry, as most US citizens would like it to be understood.
The longer it takes for a “majority” to realize that this is the greatest threat the republic has ever faced, the less chance we have to recover. Ever.
It’s not about Democrat vs. Republican. That positioning disguises the threat. It’s all too clearly freedom vs. slavery, and every day, every hour freedom loses ground.
And, most conservatives are sitting around talking about winning elections in 2010-2012.
Not that I’m worried about 0‘s promised National Security Force, or subordinating our military to the ICC, or eliminating our nuclear arsenal, or, or…
Gracious, at some point, one would think it’s actually a conspiracy.
I think his narcissism is a key to what he does. That’s a personality style that relies upon denial (it didn’t happening/isn’t happening), rationalization (the Devil made ma do it), and externalization (it happened for this or that reason unrelated to me). Implicit is the nurturance of a false, inflated self and the need to defend against awareness of anything that implies inadequacy, imperfection, or failure.
He hates his mother and longs for the love of the father he never had. That’s why he hates white people. It’s also why he married a black man.
But the big deal is that he knows none of this consciously. He is externalizing and acting out his issues using us and the world, which Hitler, abused as a child, also did, according to Alice Miller.
We (white Westerners) need to be punished, and his rage seems to know no bounds. That’s why he gave Hillary and McCain the finger on camera, why he couldn’t abide having the Churchill bust anywhere in the White House, and why he snubbed Brown.
Also, again like Hitler, he gained power by virtue of the narcissism of the American idol culture — we wanted to be famous for electing the first black president, for one thing.
Narcissists have a strong self-destructive element, since all of this is predicated on the denial of underlying self-hatred. Everyone who knows him must now understand that he’s crazy. Maybe some will help with his demise. But the “best” thing seems to be that the deterioration all around him will likely prevent him from doing enough of what he wants that (here’s hoping) he will finally have the effect of ushering in the birth of something better.
But birth is a messy process at best.
“The performance of Gordon Brown, who promises to save the world by creating hundreds of thousands of “Green Jobs” has convinced me that in the long view of history, any comparison between Neville Chamberlain and Brown will be flattering to Chamberlain.”
Green jobs – Isn’t this Obamas answer to our problems.
Wretcharh: @5 Battle is like that too.
“It’s not about Democrat vs. Republican. That positioning disguises the threat. It’s all too clearly freedom vs. slavery, and every day, every hour freedom loses ground.
And, most conservatives are sitting around talking about winning elections in 2010-2012. geoffgo”
Exactly. We should be winning this psychological war. I can’t believe all these smart, rich people failed to see this or to counteract the strategy.
We have Fox News and the internet. We’ve ceded everything else to the enemy. Just watch, the internet will be gone soon.
There is a long article on our dear leader narcissist at the Global Politician. http://www.globalpolitician.com/25109-barack-obama-elections. It lays the many,many symptoms and reasons of why Barack is a dangerous narcissist.
Wretchard is right; it’s the monkeywrenching below the radar that’s most dangerous. The trillions in subprime maneuvers at Fannie and Freddie were below the radar of even the Fed for a long time.
As for the ICC issue, I’m sure that Obama not only intends to drastically reduce the military, he intends to destroy the military, and all the good men and women serving within it. Only if the Supreme Court ultimately steps up, which is an open question, will the military be saved. In all probability, in just a few months in the near future, the US will be unable to project effective military power around the globe anymore. Then the real fun will be begin.
Doug:
Here is a lik to a criticism of g2mil apropos the V-22.
It is an older one, but the point I am trying to make is that they have their own hobbyhorses over there, and are loathe to get off of them.
Their hearts are in the right places, but I would take what you read with a (large) grain of salt.
http://www.noahshachtman.com/archives/001848.html
I just did quick google for this and found it in under a minute, and just did it as a demonstration, not to rebut a particular case. You might take the time to google around and see what the industry thinks about these folks.
They hardly have the inside track on anything, and tend to reach conclusions that are not warranted by the facts. For example, there are very good reason why the V-22 was deployed the way it was to the ME and that have noting to do with it “failing” MEU deployment. It was designed for MEU deployments, for heavens sake.
There are some people that think that the V22′s mission profile was to be larger than it. It was not design that much as a primary air assault platform, but as a support work horse in standard USMC “breaching” operations. They are rebuild hueys and cobras for that sort of role, and have always planned to get some sort of replacement for the standard heavy lift rotors too.
The Same with FCS and the M1 too, the FCS (Future Cobat Systems) was not intended to replace main battle tanks but augment them. This site tended to get this wrong too.
Most of the real unclassified ideas going into industry procurement are available on various service sites, the sites of various commands of those service and various industry orgs. The industry and the services do not do avery good jobs of communicating all of this to the rest of us, you have to dig around a bit to get at the truth. Patriots that were in a service branch years ago of course want the best for us, and have many wonder things to say to us all, but sometimes they can also acquire their own blind spots, biases and hobbyhorses.
I will note, that the USMC have a pretty successful procurement history, much more so than the Army. They are not fools.
Of course, this does not mean that it is not a part of Obama’s plan to wreck the military, and one of the ways he will do that is to scuttle next gen procurement and development so that we lose our competitive edge.
Unsk: Another thing that no one is talking about is commercial real estate. If that topples it will make the retail housing sector crisis look puny. If businesses really start failing we will see this area really pop. A part of me thinks that they are qite aware of this, that is why they look so nervous.
That is one of the major reasons that the admnistration should e dealing with capital markets.
The fact that they are not, to me says that they want it to tumble.
Doug: No, I did not see that link. What’s it about?
Also, relative to Dennis Miller’s remarks, the essence of Liberal Fascism – which I have not read yet – is that there is no such thing as a “right wing” dictator – even though Jonah uses that term himself in some cases. The “far right” represents utter, unfettered libertarianism, every man for himself, limited by personal morals and no government. You can’t have a right wing dictator then. The Left represents control, control, control, with the ultimate result an ant colony. Hitler was Right of Stalin but both were Left of FDR. Pres Wilson might have been a tiny bit to the Right of Hitler. JFK was Right of FDR and even to the Right of Nixon. LBJ was Left of FDR. And so on.
B’ham No. 24: I have heard people who grew disgusted with such organizations as militant gays and left say that the groups studied the writings and tactics of Hitler and other Fascists to decide how to advance their causes.
As far as the “Obama qualification to be President” business, I have placed it in the lunatic fringe from the beginning. But the legal opposition to disproving the claim is rather odd at the least. And a letter Sen. Mel Martinez sent in response to a concern voiced by one of his constituent is equally troubling. The Senator said that the people choose Obama so the Constitution and related legal issues do not matter. The only reason I can came up with for this official approach to the issue is another lunatic fringe concept. If Obama was discredited in terms of his qualifications, I doubt he would be impeached – even by the Republicans – but there is no doubt that he would be to some extent discredited to the only people who take their oath of office seriously – the U.S. Military. I doubt very much indeed that even then that would produce a military coup but it certainly would affect the individuals in the military willingness to put down an uprising.
Circa 1946 a remarkable thing happened in a small town in Tennessee. A group of WWII veterans got disgusted with the “Boss Hog” approach to government in that area, broke into the Nat Guard armory, armed themselves with the weapons they had fought with, and put the local Good Ol’ Boy Crooks in jail – sheriff, judges, mayor, etc. This focused national and state attention on the problem. We have a lot of vets around today with that same attitude.
Wretchard: good posts today.
…Now I know where the ten percent that Wretchard said fell to the floor kicking their feet in the air went to. They came here. Never seen so many pantswetters in one place. Yes, Obama is a cull socialist, but what he pushes doesn’t work. He’s making more conservatives than Buckley ever did. Let the process work itself out as it will and have faith in our system. No, the sky isn’t falling, just the usual chunks that fall any time a Socialist gets his hands on the treasury. He’ll run out of credit ( we’re already out of money ) and when it all goes to hell, it’s the adults who the nation will turn to. Now go clean yourselves up and act your age.
Mongoose 34: “Of course, this does not mean that it is not a part of Obama’s plan to wreck the military, and one of the ways he will do that is to scuttle next gen procurement and development so that we lose our competitive edge.”
Did you hear that Obama just directed new regulations relative to contracting? Now, I spent much of my career in acquisition and I am a graduate of the Program Manager’s Course at the Defense Systems Management College. And I have see ‘em come and seen ‘em go. I have not seen the details of the latest new directives but on the surface they sound a lot like what Jimmy Carter did. For example, such idiots do not know what a Cost Plus Contract is and think it sounds horrible. So they push toward Fixed Price, which in many cases amount to a way for a contractor to get rich without producing anything. Reagan killed the Fixed Price mania that came from Carter – and years later I recall reading a piece in the LA Times about how Reagan’s Fixed Price policies had wasted money and damaged companies.
RWE: Imagine my surprise.
To me te question is, is this a ruse, or is this just ignrance and stupidity.
You may know better than I do that we are at a crucial junction as far as replacing older platform. I expect the absolute worse here as regards to Obama.
BTW, I was not making any particular jibe at the procurement for the other services, so do not take it personally if i have put you on the short end of that stick. I happen to think that due to small budgets, mission and culture that the USMC does a great job in this area. Nothing personal.
I have been n the other side of that and used CMMI methodologies (including the procurement modules) and similar approaches both as a vendor and a buyer, and have deal with the government, so I know the drill to an extent.
I am sure that you know much more about it than I do, and welcome you insights.
Mongoose: No offense taken – even if it was meant. I have had no personal experience with USMC procurement practices, but I could well believe that the Corps tends to focus on getting stuff that works and not BS.
I suspect the V-22 has been a victim of too many requirements added in, ala F-111 and Space Shuttle. Two programs we studied in DSMC, MRLS (rocket launcher) and CUCV (Chevy Blazer) impressed me by not falling into that trap.
When the airborne said that their CUCV had to be air droppable the SPO told them to go buy HUMV’s, and they did. The reverse was true for bidders as well. When Chrysler said that they would not bolt but would continue to weld the frames to the bodies of their CUCV equivalent the SPO just wrote them off. When Ford said they did not want to produce a diesel version of the Explorer, the SPO wrote them off, too.
For the MLRS they decided to upscale the rocket substantially over the original concept and then stuck to basics, not producing different versions for different customers until the basic system was in production.
In contrast, the O-5 who was going to become the SPO chief for the USMC LAV became a friend of mine and was worried about the opposite happening with his program. The commanding general started having them add neat stuff on. Unguided hypervelocity rockets for the air defense version so you could shoot at an enemy chopper on the other side of a hill. Tank treads you could add to a trailer like the Germans had in WWII. I suspect he managed to jettison that stuff.
I live in Berlin right now and the locals call the statue “chick on a stick.”
Symolism. Intentions. Social models. Obama.
Ever since Obama unveiled his cabinet and policy-proposals in early 2009, the early ’90′s documentary Baraka has haunted me. I saw it when it first came out in 1992, and its crafty documentation of miscellaneous human regimentation (or human “campusing”) sticks with me today.
But, forget the film’s creative review of anthropological orders. What haunts me instead is the shocking vignette detailing the involuntary, automated sorting of eggs and newly hatched chicks: this impact-ful, awful segment seems edited purposefully into the film in a way that sharply punctuates its otherwise-fascinating human cultural collage. It’s a vignette that’s purposely hard to miss.
What with Obama’s yen for a regimented “Youth Corps,” and his support for enforcing thought crimes, gun-control and punitive taxation, I wonder if our president doesn’t view Americans as just so many chicks in need of having our beaks coldly clipped by strangers, before settling into “housing” where we receive “health care” and lay eggs ’till death.
Riding shotgun with Baraka‘s documentary content is a jarring, cautionary shock. See if it doesn’t affect you similarly.
If nothing else, it may put you off eggs for a while.
Mongoose @ 35
You are right about the commercial real estate market. I have spent the last 36 years in this business. Currently, I am thinking of making my company’s new tag line: “I don’t know!”
What I do know is that there is an enormous amount of cash on the side-lines waiting for the right time to come in. When will be the right time, I don’t know. Even now, I have people come to me who have sold their business or exited the securities markets wanting to invest in real estate. Unless they have a compelling reason (an exchange or something) I am suggesting that they wait. (As you might guess, this does NOT help my cash flow.) I do not want to face them in a year after the price of their new investment has fallen another 20% – 30% or more.
I guess that was a pretty long-winded way of saying that I think you are right.
great. A compulsive narcissist.
Dave D,
The antithisis of “Chicken Little.” And, certainly unhelpful, even disinforming when the sky is falling.
Symbolism.
Gulp!
Dave D is in full Sgt. Stryker mode!
Wheee…Obama speacks in Ohio…
Dow 6,506.99 -87.45 (-1.33%)
S&P 500 670.31 -12.24 (-1.79%)
Nasdaq 1,272.59 -27.00 (-2.08%)
10y bond 2.81% -0.04 (-1.40%
Green jobs are like mist in the wind. Slick promises without substance. Like the $40,000 solar panel arrray that saves the homeowner $200 per month in utilities (but dont look at physical depreciation and mantenence costs). Keep your eye on the shell while they pick your pocket. Our industrial capacity is being destroyed in front of us. Our energy reserves are being restricted. Are we really doing this to ourselves? Who are we?
Sieg Heil Viktoria. That’s a long way from God Bless America, but not so very far from God Damn America.
The thing most bothersome to me about the whole Rev. Wright episode was not the fixation on the racial dimension but the glossing over of the spiritual dimension.
I don’t know how anyone who calls him/herself a Christian could listen to that kind of spiritual poison without picking up on the destructiveness of it.
Regardless of what one believes about the history of race relations in America, asking God to “damn” this country (a) is a direct violation of Jesus’ command to pray for your enemies, (b) takes the scorched-earth route by wishing, not for corrective chastening (which is about purifying and refining) but for damnation (which is about complete destruction), and (c) would first and foremost hurt the very people — the poor and the powerless — whom the reverend claims to champion, because (to use the analogy from another thread) the folks in steerage, not the ones in first class, are always the ones to drown the firstest and the mostest when the ship sinks.
Anger is one thing. Vitriolic hatred, the kind so white-hot and corrosive that it calls down destruction on its own head as well as on the object of hate, is quite another.
Talk about destroying the village in order to save it.
BTW, for all of Hitler’s initial flattery of the German people, telling them they had a great destiny etc. etc., he proved quite contemptuous of them in the end, calling them weak and unworthy (specifically, unworthy of HIM).
IOW, it really had been about Adolf all along, not about Germany. It was never about Germany, not for him.
I really would prefer not to have an entire country get caught up in yet another dear leader’s personal psychodrama. Those things have a way of turning out quite badly.
Barack Obama, according to the Telegraph, may be considering subjecting US military personnel to the jurisdiction of the ICC.
…
But would it include, in principle, Obama himself?
Why not? Revolutions usually eat their own.
If Obama would just shut up for one day, the markets might rise.
I think it can be shown and properly argued that our Founders demanded that the Commander in Chief have a citizen father and a citizen mother. Therefore he’s a usurper, but our courts for whatever reason have let us down. It’s not where he was born, but that his father, he says, was a Kenyan.
The wisdom of the Founders is being lived out now.
Wheee…Dow breaks thrugh 6500!
Dow 6,491.86 -102.58 (-1.56%)
S&P 500 669.28 -13.27 (-1.94%)
Nasdaq 1,272.39 -27.20 (-2.09%)
10y bond 2.83% -0.02 (-0.70%)
Great time to buy, check out those profit and earning ratios.
Now remember, Obama is just getting his sea legs at this point.
wretchard said:
“I think the problems can still be managed if we don’t exacerbate them. But if we get to the point where we use up our entire design margin, then if the troubles cascade, the watertight bulkheads will go down like dominoes. That’s why I think that even liberals should recognize it is in their interest to be very circumspect in the coming months. They can pursue their dreams, but they should exercise all necessary prudence.”
I believe that violates their programming. The voices in their heads supercedes reality and personal survival. This is one of the reasons why liberals should be kept away from the levers of political power.
Wretchard also said:
“I don’t think we’ll ever see a Hitler again, not in the sense of a guy with a postage stamp mustache and abrupt gestures bleating out speeches. But I think the same passions which inflamed the 40s inflame men of every generation, simply because they are people too.”
This is one of the rare times where I must disagree with Wretchard. I fear that a “Hitler” can logically follow our current circumstances (avoiding this outcome will be difficult). This new Hitler won’t look like Charlie Chaplin. He’ll be an intelligent, handsome young man and a better public speaker than Obama. He’ll probably be well educated (maybe like Obama, having a doctor’s degree from a major university). This “prodigy” will almost certainly have a distinguished military record after having served in combat as an officer.
In essence, he’ll be the sort of guy that you dreamed your son would grow up to be.
After achieving power, this leader will be the guy who puts Obama in handcuffs, slaughters the Islamic fascists and sends the worst of the moonbats to prison or the gallows. In essence, he’ll solve all of our immediate problems but in the process creates a far worse long term situation (look up: Lucius Cornelius Sulla).
The Constitution will become a meaningless relic and our democracy a sham. We’ll think we were saved but in actuality we’ll be damned.
Obama will not face immediate consequences in turning over US soldiers, Marines, Airmen, and sailors to the ICC.
But he will face a Military determined to use, as Wretchard points out, opportunities to remove him.
Suppose a massive terror strike, nuclear in nature, hits the US. Or anything else with a body count in the tens of thousands?
In this case, Obama would flounder around, narcissistic, deeply hating the West and White Men, and appealing to his natural constituency: Blacks, Hispanics, Richy White Yuppies, and women. All of whom opposed immediately on 9/11 and thereafter any retaliation or action of any kind, and wanted “sympathy” from “the World.”
Well, given his lack of retaliation, that would be an opportunity for the Military to simply remove him, which would be broadly supported by the mostly White Middle and Working Class, and particularly men.
Obama and Brown are symptomatic not of PC and Multiculturalism, which are themselves symptoms not unstoppable forces, but rather deep divides in the West between the “winners” of the Post War prosperity, i.e. rich White yuppies, women, and non-Whites, and the losers who are the mostly White male working/middle class.
If you don’t like the response, look at the demographic decline of the middle class and nuclear family (Mark Steyn) and the deep gender divides (me).
RWE
Here is that V-22 – Osprey Story –
I’d really like your opinion on it.
(Mongoose: Not that I don’t respect your opinion, I’ve just always been prejudiced against this program. [or right about it, time will tell!])
Michael Ledeen on Tocqueville on Us [Andy McCarthy]
At his Pajamas blog, Faster Please!, Michael has written the best diagnosis of our current straits that you will find anyplace.
It is from a couple of weeks ago, and I’m remiss in not drawing attention to it earlier. But in some ways that’s better, because a lot has happened in a couple of weeks and yet the post is just as incisive now as it was when he wrote it — as I suspect it will be for many tomorrows. A sample (though it’s all priceless):
The tyranny [Tocqueville] foresees for us does not have much in common with the vicious dictatorships of the last century, or with contemporary North Korea, Iran, or Saudi Arabia.
He apologizes for lacking the proper words with which to define it. He hesitates to call it either tyranny or despotism, because it does not rule by terror or oppression. There are no secret police, no concentration camps, and no torture.
“The nature of despotic power in democratic ages is not to be fierce or cruel, but minute and meddling.”
The vision and even the language anticipate Orwell’s 1984, or Huxley’s Brave New World. Tocqueville describes the new tyranny as “an immense and tutelary power,” and its task is to watch over us all, and regulate every aspect of our lives.
It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd.
We will not be bludgeoned into submission; we will be seduced. He foresees the collapse of American democracy as the end result of two parallel developments that ultimately render us meekly subservient to an enlarged bureaucratic power: the corruption of our character, and the emergence of a vast welfare state that manages all the details of our lives….
The Mortgage/Financial Crisis – A Visual Reminder Of How We Got Here
Doug:
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?268272eb1f.png
Wrichard writes: “I don’t think we’ll ever see a Hitler again, not in the sense of a guy with a postage stamp mustache and abrupt gestures bleating out speeches.”
Bogie Wheel writes: ” . . . asking God to “damn” this country (a) is a direct violation of Jesus’ command to pray for your enemies . . . .”
Chavez doesn’t have a mustache, but he does have a parrot, kerchief, and red beret. His type will adjust to the style of the age.
What we see consistently from Obama and friends is a probing of opponents’ defences, forays to discover who the public (or a sufficient percentage thereof) is willing to despise, hate, and blame.
Slowly, the Obama gaze internationally falls upon Israel. Yes, there’s a convenient scapegoat upon whom the rivalrous opponents—US, Europe, Iran, Islamia, China—can settle upon as a sacrifice whose demise might yield a temporary peace.
Domestically, the long finger (not always the middle) of Obama points to Bush, Limbaugh, “unhelpful” elements of the opposition party. Has a president ever sought to identify opponents for blame so early in the game? So many sparks flying, and when a spark ignites the critical pile of combustibles, then the uncontrolable reflex could begin.
The US is an inherently decent country, mainly I would say, as would Bogie, because it is a Christian country. But in many senses the American culture is post-Christian, and the marrow of the main-line Christians has been infected with post-modern disease long ago. Another large number of Christian churches is eating of the apple of Gaia and of the knowledge of global warming and found them tasty.
Some time ago I mentioned that I would read and report on Rene Girard’s “I See Satan Fall Like Lightning.” One can never be the same, I suspect, after reading the book. The take away from this distinguished scholar (Stanford) of literature, anthropology, and religion: Christianity is unique in exposing the violent contagion of scapegoating that is fundamental to the species. The principle of mimetic violence that thrives on contagious violence despises this exposure and will seek to create new scapegoating crises to replicate itself, over and over, century after century. Christianity is a unique religion, offering an understanding of and even an eventual justification beyond the contagion, and its adoption by a people has resulted in a reign of principalities and powers, to use the Biblical language, that understands, to some extent, its limitations. (Rev. Wright, as you can imagine, exemplifies the stoking of contagion via employment and exploitation of the all-too-human scapegoat mechanism.)
For those readers who believe, suspect, intuit, or hope that Christianity is unique and true in divine and anthropological senses, Girard will confirm your intuition and faith. For those Christians who seek to cast off the old faith for a new one, the consequences are predictable and evident in Nazi Germany, Rwanda, and indeed in any setting, large or small, and the consequences will be evident again, inevitably.
Demography is history, for sure. But after reading Girard, I’m willing to say, even more, that anthropology is hisotry, and that Christianity is a very special gift.
I look at that like a tracking poll, Mongoose!
…if you get caught in the day to day ups and downs, you lose sight of the BIG PICTURE.
Some of these Price/Profit Ratios tm are looking really attractive these days!
BUY NOW AND HOLD!
We’re gonna party like it’s 1999!
(every Wednesday, w/$100/lb Beef, ON THE HOUSE!)
I haven’t had time to read this whole thread but I hope you won’t mind if I draw your attention to this analysis of where all the money has gone, why, and how to get it back. (Massive spending vs massive failure.)
“The Bezzle” refers to embezzlement.
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/841-The-Challenge-Before-America.html
Mark: You might find this interesting: http://americanchestertonsociety.blogspot.com/2009/03/pagan-gods-in-your-kitchen-and-christs.html
Nietzsche said in effect that Christianity was a response to cruety (not that I am a bug Nietzsche fan, mind you).
I do not understand the references to anthropology. Christianity as an anthropological phenomena? Seems a stretch to me.
wretchard,
I know that this is, in a sense, besides the point. Yet it is absolutely essential and is foundational to both the mess and the avoidance of it. Solid, factual science. Specifically, we need brave and loud leadership from what remains of the science community vis-a-vis the controversy about AGW. AGW is a hoax, as anyone who has done serious investigation of realizes. It’s actually a fraudulent scientific hypothesis, since is has long passed from the realm of faddish thinking and now networks a powerful coterie of interests driving this engine of cap and trade. Yet, the key to it all, the whole shebang, is the science. Right now economic policy is going to be anchored to energy policy, which in turn is going to be anchored to faulty science.
And the proposed “solutions” pretend that there are no laws of physics or economics that realistically settle this matter. Yes, most certainly there are problems here that, again, are victim to the pride and sloth of the policy makers. But the key to it all is the science.
RE Mongoose’s Dow updates:
Wheeeee! Spiraling down, down, down into oblivion.
I find, once you get over the terror of the ride, the dizziness sets in and it’s kinda fun!
Keep the numbers coming Mongoose. Wheeeee! Kaleidoscopic spirals. Look at the pretty colors!
Down. Down. Down. Burp! {Oops! I just burped up a little in my mouth.)
This thing’s going too fast. Let me off this dangnabbit ride!
cruelty^
SGI@63
Thanks for the link to Denniger’s forecast – says: in order to right our ship we’d need to ELIMINATE all SocSec, Medicare & Medicaid payments, reduce the militiary by 75% and cut all other gov’t spending by 50%, or we’re doomed to a national bankruptcy, soon.
Rolling up our sleeves will do what?
Wretchard wrote:
“I figure this is a universal distribution, and that in any crisis about 10% of the people will go nuts. Ten percent will know what to do. Eighty percent will stand paralyzed but will act when they get reasonable leadership.”
People who are good at dealing with disasters recommend one thing for most ordinary people: rehearsal of realistic yet horrible scenarios and the responses to them. This could start with solitary mental rehearsals and go on to rehearsing with a group of people. I’m not talking about practicing your combat rifleman merit badges either. More like tabletop wargames.
Can anybidy give me a notion of Denniger’s credibility.
I don’t think we’ll ever see a Hitler again, not in the sense of a guy with a postage stamp mustache and abrupt gestures bleating out speeches.
I think I would instead say, when Hitler comes again, he won’t be in the guise of a little man with a funny mustache chewing the scenery during his speeches. But he will come calling again, we know that if we know human history. And whatever disguise he comes wearing, we can still recognize him by the past he drags behind him. Associations with shady people, a cynical manipulation of the system to worm his way into power, thuggish behavior towards political opponents within his own party as a prelude to the same behavior on a larger scale later, and appeals to people’s baser fears that he brazenly claims are really appeals to their better natures.
I’m sure we’ll recognize him when he comes. Too hard to miss.
OMG, look at this.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/05/AR2009030503762.html
Beyond belief.
So corrupt.
Does anybody know what causes those last minute up spikes in Dow?
72. JMH:
Yeah, I wonder how long we’ll have to wait for that guy to show up?
What if he’s married, what should we look for there?
no, but i wonder if there is a lost of small interval shorting going on.
Mongoose@72
Beyond belief? Nah.
Obama’s “Friends & Family” investment program
for <distressed assets.
lost=lot
LJM #69:
In addition to planning, preparing and practicing for an earthquake, tornado, tsunami, hurricane, volcanic eruption, or whatever local disaster one may have to deal with, which is always a good idea, I think practicing some basic rifleman skills and stocking up on basic rifleman supplies is a very timely idea. A lot of Americans agree evidently, since sales of semi-automatic firearms and ammunition for them have been through the roof since November of last year. I wonder why….?
Travel Industry Slams Obama, Congress Proposals in New Ads
– Michael Boskin Says Barack Obama Is Moving Us Toward a European-Style Social Welfare State and Long-Run Economic Stagnation –
these little end of day rallies from a technical pov relate to the SP being lately unprecedentedly (today 35%) below the 200 day moving average. Technicians play on these sorts of unbalances. One can hope they’ll get magnetic and pull some people beyond their coterie. Denninger’s 75% military cut means a soviet planet, unless we get busy on those (cough) renewable energy projects.
Smith & Wesson’s stock is up 250% since the election. Sturm-Ruger not far behind. Ay yi yi, my head hurts.
The reason Denniger’s straight line may not take us to disaster might be found here, in “interfluidity” (snip):
The distinction between debt and equity is much murkier than many people like to believe. Arguably, debt whose timely repayment cannot be enforced should be viewed as equity. (Financial statement analysts perform this sort of reclassification all the time in order to try to tease the true condition of firms out of accounting statements.) If you think, as I do, that the Fed would not force repayment as long as doing so would create hardship for important borrowers, then perhaps these “term loans” are best viewed not as debt, but as very cheap preferred equity.
“soviet planet”
—
What’ll we call it after Steyn’s Russian-Muslim Demographic takes over?
Heard some interesing data today on the Glenn beck radio show.
Of the 15 peopel on Obama’s Economic advisory team, 11 were – surprise – big contributors to his campaign.
And they are interesting people. One is a union guy who took the 5th Amendment 3 times when being investigated for union money going to the Democratic party. One is a senior official at UBS bank, which has refused to give information on Americans who have accounts there. One is an official at a bank that paid a multi-hundred million dollar fine for engaging in money laundering.
Compare this with the furor over VP Cheny’s “secret” talks with energy companies and the poersecution of Scooter ibbey, and the ongoing Congressional attempts to find a way to prosecute someone over the firing of 7 US Attorneys.
Yep, this is “change” all right.
Charles Krauthammer – Obama’s Radical Agenda –
The Great Non Sequitur
The Sleight of Hand Behind Obama’s Agenda
By Charles Krauthammer
“Forget the pork. Forget the waste. Forget the 8,570 earmarks in a bill supported by a president who poses as the scourge of earmarks. Forget the “2 trillion dollars in savings” that “we have already identified,” $1.6 trillion of which President Obama’s budget director later admits is the “savings” of not continuing the surge in Iraq until 2019 — 11 years after George Bush ended it, and eight years after even Bush would have had us out of Iraq completely.
Forget all of this. This is run-of-the-mill budget trickery. True, Obama’s tricks come festooned with strings of zeros tacked onto the end. But that’s a matter of scale, not principle.
All presidents do that. But few undertake the kind of brazen deception at the heart of Obama’s radically transformative economic plan, a rhetorical sleight of hand so smoothly offered that few noticed.
Four months after winning the election, six weeks after his swearing-in, Obama has yet to unveil a plan to deal with the banking crisis.
What’s going on? “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” said chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. “This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before.”
Clever politics, but intellectually dishonest to the core.
Health, education and energy — worthy and weighty as they may be — are not the cause of our financial collapse. And they are not the cure. The fraudulent claim that they are both cause and cure is the rhetorical device by which an ambitious president intends to enact the most radical agenda of social transformation seen in our lifetime.
Obama is in Trouble
Charles,
Limbaugh has a soundbyte of Whoopi Goldberg sounding off, “Network”-like on TAXES.
…on top of taxes, on top of taxes. Phone, Carbon, Mortgage Deduction, SSI, State, Local…
A perfect storm of new and larger taxes coming from all directions.
During a time of record rises in unemployment, wealth liquidation, contraction…
The Fear, Panic, and Anger that result are either going to work for him, as planned, or…
(too much, too fast to ignore, even through the MSM Smokescreen?)
John Piper is as profound a pastor as they get in the evangelical movement. He posted this back in January
How Barack Obama Will Make Christ a Minister of Condemnation
For zeitgist see opening this week end is the movie called Watchmen. The guy who directs it is the same one who did 300 a couple years ago.
Hmmm I watched the trailer. The sound track is from a tune I was thinking about today called Koyaanisqatsi (life out of balance)by Philip Glass’
Charles: That is the DC Examiner. I will believe it when I see it in a liberal rag?
Buddt: Should we be takening denninger seriously?
OBama chose this place as a symbol for his “future victory” in the war against the Americans. Through my readings on american sites, I perceive that he uses lots of historical symbols
Bloomberg had an interesting article on the Victory clumn and Obama’s hopes
The Victory Column is about the opposite: offensive war, even defining yourself as a nation through war. Otto von Bismarck and Wilhelm of Prussia led German bayonets into France. Their 1871 victory was so resounding that the Prussian leaders marched to the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles and proclaimed the new German empire — there, and not at home.
The purpose of the Victory Column, erected soon after in Berlin, was to glorify the new Reich and to humiliate the rest of Europe. The angel is a vengeful angel. Closure is what Obama seeks in Iraq. As he puts it, “when I am Commander-in-Chief, I will set a new goal on day one: I will end this war.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=awZ8YTBD0KDU&refer=columnist_shlaes
Certainly The Messiah and his Misses wouldn’t want to HUMILIATE anyone would they?
Just because some will have had their wealth spread back among it’s rightful owners,
there’s no need for these newly impoverished and enslaved to feel HUMILIATED about it!
I dunno, mongoose. i could type out some babble –oftimes the rigor of the write forces the taut of the thought –but somehow the muse ain’t with me. Muse reads news; stews.
» Animal Farm The Remake
Anyway, back to “Animal Farm.” What happened was, a white pig named Snowball wants the animals of Manor Farm to rise up against their human masters and create a Utopian society. Now, don’t you go thinking I’m comparing the Secretary of State to Snowball, because Snowball was a male. I don’t recall whether or not he wore a pantsuit; it’s probably irrelevant.
So then along comes this pig named Napoleon who has a taste for power and is known for getting his way. He gets his dogs to chase Snowball off the farm, and then he goes about setting up a corrupt totalitarian regime.
Now look, I know what you’re thinking. Don’t you dare think that pig sounds like President Obama, because in the book, Napoleon isn’t much of a talker. Get it? So what if Obama is a fan of Saul Alinsky; maybe he just likes to read.
Wrapping up “Animal Farm,” the animals figure they’ve done something very cool, and they get to talking to some humans again about their new wealth. They’re feeling like they can do anything they want. And since the pigs are so very smart, they get to live in the big house and make plans for the future.
All the other animals keep working hard, but they don’t get more food like they wanted. In fact, they might even get less. Still, they’ve made the flag of the farm solid green, and they think they’re doing the right thing. But they get a little bummed when they learn that the pigs have changed the rules. The pigs’ new motto is:
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
A loyal work horse named Clover figures out how awry things have gone. She looks in the dining room window and sees Pilkington, human owner of nearby overgrown with weeds Foxwood Farm, in a fight with Napoleon over playing the Ace of Spades. Clover and other animals, watching this from the outside, unable to do anything, realize that the utopia they had in mind is further from reality than ever.
In other words, it was all a bunch of talk. Darn.
If you’ve not seen the movie of Animal Farm made in 1999, you might want to watch the the trailer, or even see the film.
from the wall Street Journal
On the growth effects of a large expansion of government, the European social welfare states present a window on our potential future: standards of living permanently 30% lower than ours. Rounding off perceived rough edges of our economic system may well be called for, but a major, perhaps irreversible, step toward a European-style social welfare state with its concomitant long-run economic stagnation is not.
Umm, I think that this journalist likes to stirr the ol remnent motos(not only the Dems, I see), I didn’t see that our standards were so poor, in the contrary, until last summer the Europeans (especially the French, in that case, he was thinking to us), were those who had wasted lot of money on travels, uh, to America.
MC…
The poorest state in the Union, Mississippi, stands above Sweden in per capita wealth.
Most modern European states uncoupled from the economic locomotive a generation ago.
Hence, the chronic low growth in jobs within the EU.
The spread between USA and most Europeans is more towards 50%… ie they have half as much real wealth.
The big standout is Luxembourg. She ranks higher than the USA. I guess never spending on a military has its advantages.
Whoopi Goldberg sounding off, “Network”-like on TAXES.
…on top of taxes, on top of taxes. Phone, Carbon, Mortgage Deduction, SSI, State, Local…
A perfect storm of new and larger taxes coming from all directions.
During a time of record rises in unemployment, wealth liquidation, contraction…
And, gee, Whoop, imagine how that feels to people who *aren’t* multi-millionaire celebrities?
Snark aside. She said she wouldn’t mind paying a little more in taxes but that she doesn’t want to get it “coming and going.”
Subconsciously she appears to be realizing that (1) the govt (at multiple levels) is an insatiable beast, and (2) wanting to have more of a say in how much of your money you keep, or voluntarily choose to give or spend, as opposed to getting ripped coming and going by bureaucrats, does not make you the poster child of Evil Greedydom.
Now, if we could only get her to acknowledge: (3) the symbiosis between “government largesse” and “large-ass government” and (4) the superiority and efficiency of a system in which hundreds of millions of individual citizens freely choose how to earn, spend, invest, and donate their money, as opposed to a committee of zealous central planners believing that their Ivy League craniums can produce a better outcome, and micromanage the money of taxpaying citizens, better than those citizens themselves … we just might be getting somewhere.
But I’m not holding my breath.
Jane Fonda supposedly spent about 3 days as a Christian but that didn’t stick either.
The thing I’ve learned about the in-front-of-the-camera types in entertainment is that it’s all about their emotions. Their truth is just the du jour variety, depending on their happy-sad outlook. Like, you know, Liz Taylor has really, REALLY, honest-to-gosh been forever-in-this-is-IT-love with all eight of those chaps she has married. (Is it eight? I seem to have lost count.)
Expecting intellectual consistency from one of them is like expecting a fartless cow.
Sorry, Whoop. Nothing personal. It’s just the water you swim in. But I would love to be surprised one of these days.
It won’t be in the US that a ‘Hitler’ will arise. Obama is just another slimy politician among a few hundred that collect in Washington. He is going to hit the wall this year some time when interest on government debt starts rising.
A prediction anyone? When will the first budget item of the US gov’t be $1 trillion dollars interest?
His ideas don’t work. People are sitting on their hands, and the prospect of being unceremoniously put out with the garbage will focus enough minds on Capitol Hill.
It is elsewhere that real problems will arise. China is hitting their first recession since attempting semi-capitalistic reforms. Will the country survive? Will someone arise to lead them? Could they? The middle east won’t be an issue, since they haven’t shown themselves capable of much of anything. Fully populated with wanna-be Hitlers, but can’t tie their shoes.
I would look again to Europe for such a leader. Intractable problems, a keen desire for someone to solve them. What would unite the Europeans more than someone else to blame for their problems. But can they tie their own shoes? Not sure.
Actually I think this is all barking up the wrong tree. We aren’t going to see any organized strong movement. We are going to see the collapse of any and all authority. Something like Albania. The Balkans were almost in the middle of Europe, a few hundred miles. How many windmills you have will become what children ask in a few generations from now; you mean they thought that was important? How could they not see?
Derek
the symbiosis between “government largesse” and “large-ass government”
arf arf arf
Blert,
“I guess never spending on a military has its advantages.”
it’s the tiniest country of EU, their richnesses come from Banks, most of the “global” enterprises have their accounts there, and people who manage to escape from Fisc. It also is there that the taxes are less numerous.
My elder son and his wife work there, salaries are higher than in the rest of EU, though they live on the french part of the border. Buying a house is still cheaper in France.
Also, I don’t think that GDP rates are that much of an indice for the every day-life of an inhabitant in our countries, that have more free services than in the US. I think it is more a concern of political statisticians, even the G7 isn’t representative of the world richnesses, China and India should be in, but you can’t compare the life of an inhabitant in these countries with ours though. Only an elite of new richs can measure our standings, even, they are above our standings, our palaces become their hotel staying.
@61 Mark,
Judaism gets it also as far as scapegoating goes. God rejected two sacrifices Cain’s (insincere) and Abraham’s offer to kill Isaac. For the first case Cain was repudiated because his brother’s blood cried out from the ground. Cain could not offset his sin by the sacrifice of his pride. If God used the logic that Islam ascribes to Allah then Cain could have elided his guilt. The substitution for Isaac was essential because it revolutionized the relationship of Man and God. The ram was not a scapegoat to carry Sin away, the Islamic perversion, but a proof of sincerity and reminder, similar to the Eucharist, of the totality of Abraham’s offering and the totality of God’s love in declining it.
“What would unite the Europeans more than someone else to blame for their problems.”
LMAO, since I can read your kind of blogs, I never seen so many people whinning after the others, um er Dems, as I don’t go on the latter’s, then I can suppose it’s the same
Here too, the socialists vs Sarkozy, is de rigueur, Sarkozy suffices himself to be the topic for the EU whinners
LOTM: @100. Just so.
91. Mongoose:
I believed it when I saw Jim Cramer call Obama a lenninist. Heck Cramer looks like Lennin. He does a good job of showing what center left New York City sentiment looks like. By his own admission he was a heavy giver to the obama campaign.
81. buddy larsen:
I think the renewables biz will happen. But five or ten years from now is getting to look like its further and further away and less and less important relative to the damage this administration is prepared to do to this country.
Cramer changes like the wind.
they will buy off the Wall St liberal crowd. Waht they want to destroy is main st.
LOTM -
Minor point, but I thought that Cain’s sacrifice was rejected *before* he killed Abel. (And was in fact the motivation for the murder.) Genesis is somewhat mysterious as to why Cain’s offering was not accepted. My theory has always been that he was stingy & did not offer his best, while Abel brought “fat portions” (NIV).
You seem to act like he was performing at the Nuremberg Stadium during the Olympics. Give me a break, this is a real stretch, any part of old Berlin, what is left, has some sort of Nazi association. Maybe we should check his dry cleaners and see if he dropped off any of his SS uniforms for cleaning?
@bogie wheel,
You are correct, my apologies if I was unclear or strained in my argument. Cain’s offering was insincere and God rejected it, Cain then slew Abel, who could be viewed as a Scapegoat and God rejected the human sacrifice when he charged Cain that the blood called out to him (but he was not pleased.) Also God did not allow a post facto justification of the crime to absolve Cain, as Muhammad claimed Allah would do for his crimes.
To stir the pot more I have always preferred the Jewish formulation on the expiation of Sin. The Catholic cycle is an eternal cycle of Sin, repentance and Grace, mediated by Clergy, leading to absolution until Sin recurs. In Judaism there is a distinction between Sins against God and Sins against Man. God makes all laws but some are his personal concern, such as not using his name or following a dietary rule. It is made very clear to every Jew during High Holy Day service that the ancient Kol Nidre prayer only states that God forgives and absolves for injuries done to God, the false oath or the lapse of faith, but that God does not forgive and absolve for an injury done to another human being. If a Jew injures you then they can not go to God, or a Priest, and by assuring that they are really sorry, or by making a payment, obtain grace. If the Jew hurts you then they have to go to you to make amends.
Obama spoke before the Temple of Hercules in Greece. At the Elysee Palace in France. At the Murdoch home in Britain. In Germany Obama’s first choice of venue was the Brandenberg Gate, because he wanted to be like Kennedy, but officials objected, saying “The Brandenburg Gate is the most famous and history-rich site in Germany,” the Chancellery source said. In the past, the location has only been used on very special occasions for political speeches by world leaders. And it has been reserved for use only by elected American presidents, not candidates.” Obama was nothing if alive to the historical association of places. And rightfully so. Places have historical associations. If he had given a speech at the Yasakuni shrine in Tokyo it would mean something.
When Obama chose the Victory Column, several German politicians objected. It was not just a question of some Nazi association, but of the earlier Prussian association. “Andreas Schockenhoff, deputy leader of the conservative bloc in Parliament, said Sunday that the choice of the Victory Column, also known as the Golden Angel, was an “unhappy symbol” since it represented so much of Germany’s militaristic past. Rainer Brüderle, deputy leader of the opposition Free Democrats, said Obama’s advisers had little idea of the historical significance of the Victory Column. “It was the symbol of German superiority over Denmark, Austria and France,” Brüderle told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
Spiegel warned: “some German politicians have now criticized his choice as being one full of Nazi-related symbolism.” But Obama needed a big venue to accomodate the expected crowds. Eventually, some of the press releases began to describe the speech as being “near the Siegessäule”.
I think BHO of all people would have been more than aware of the historical association of the venue at which he chose to speak. And there is no doubt in my mind that if Dick Cheny or George Bush had decided to speak underneath the statue of Viktoria, there would be no shortage of pundits asking to see whether he had dropped off any of his SS uniforms for cleaning.
The symbolism of the venue aside the thing that struck me as interesting about the Berlin speech was this. It was “reported” in the MSM that it ‘had the air of a rock concert’ when it fact it WAS! The most popular band in Germany performed to free beer to draw the crowd, then Obama spoke as the crowd was mostly draining slowly away, so to say.
It was the perfect event for an empty symbol (0bummer) and the symbology was not reported straightly.
106. Mongoose:
Well yes Cramer is telling you which way the wind is blowing.
Obama is not just after small towns he’s also gunning for evangelical churchs. Alas, that includes the one I attend. Prayers would be appreciated for me and the church which I attend. The senior pastor has had mild heart problems and his family is all sick. They’re all under pressure. John Piper is serious as a heart attack in the article posted at 89. when he talks about. How Barack Obama Will Make Christ a Minister of Condemnation.
Mongoose, I don’t know how credible Denninger is. It was his take on the big picture that caught my attention. He also contributes to his large and active forum and the commentary there is interesting and somewhat like the BC. More emotion there though. Shock more accurately.
I’ve only looked at the one post of Denninger, but his key insight is that the capital markets won’t operate without two things: a) private capital and b) predictable rules. Otherwise, money will run to the mattresses. Government can’t provide all the capital, which at any rate comes from private persons anyway, what there is of it that is “real”.
This is the problem with Obama’s strategy: it doesn’t provide enough information to allow private capital to answer the two questions given above. Instead, it gives the appearance of being “rigged” in some fashion. Given enough time, it may destroy confidence rather than rebuild it. You can only say ‘trust me’ for so long. Sooner or later, you have to say “I will show you” or better yet, “watch”. That means you must indicate the feedback loop, show the telemetry. He recently said, “we need patience” and ignore the “stock market gyrations”. Those gyrations are what the market thinks of the available information. He can’t throw this information away as being semantically empty.
I did not aay that he changes with the wind, I said he chages like the wind.
“Gyrations”?
As someone in a movie once said, “That word … I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Unless the president was using “gyrations” as a more polite term for “death spiral” or “circling the drain,” which I don’t think he was, then there is no sense in which the market is “gyrating” according to the actual definition of the word.
As I’ve come to expect from these types (Ivy League educated lawyers cum politicians), he uses a fancy weasel word when a plainer one would more accurately describe what we’re seeing on every chart:
dive
plunge
fall
Once again, Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” is instructive. Why use a fancy, inaccurate word when a plain and accurate one would do? There is only one reason a politician does this: to distract, or cover up. “Like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”
Charts that we can all see plainly with our own eyes — charts that we have been looking at for months — charts that have been and are moving primarily in one direction: down — the president attempts to explain away with rhetorical cuttlefish ink.
Thanks, O. I know what “falling” looks like. And I know what “spinning” looks like, too. Not the same thing.
Fred @65: “But the key to it all is science.”
Yes, if only the AGW hoax could be finally put to rest by scientists – real scientists – whose only aim is getting at the truth. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? I mean, in our post-modern post-Christian world, an impartial, disinterested pursuit of the truth is no longer the main thing. It also wasn’t the main thing in the run-up to the election last fall, was it? The MSM could have simply done their job, but no, they clung to their ideology instead. Ideology, not truth, is what matters these days. Obama’s choice of the Victory Column with its Nazi associations for his speech last summer was a natural for him, since he is a thorough-going ideologue himself.
Theodore Dalrymple has an interesting article in the current City Journal titled, “The Persistence of Ideology.” (Sorry but, for some reason, I couldn’t get the link to work.) He notes “the increasing tendency of intellectuals to pursue lines of thought not for the sake of truth, or for guiding humanity sub specie aeternitatis, but for the sake of attaining power by adopting, justifying, and manipulating the current political passions of sections of humanity, whether national, racial, religious, or economic.”
Mongoose keeps saying that for Obama and his kind it’s all about power – amassing power, consolidating power, wielding power OVER US, and I couldn’t agree more. Dissenting voices are confined to internet and talk radio ghettos, and we may not have much longer to enjoy even that much space before we come in for our share of the cramdown.
Now if around 47% of us are still awake and unenchanted and still alive to truth, and if some segment of Obama’s support is beginning to peel away under the pressure and stress of this economic meltdown, well, then maybe there are some grounds for optimism. But to be perfectly frank, I’m more inclined along the lines of what Mark said above @61: “For those Christians who seek to cast off the old faith for a new one, the consequences are predictable and evident in Nazi Germany, Rwanda, and indeed in any setting, large or small, and the consequences will be evident again, inevitably.”
Theodore Dalrymple observed that it must be a wonderful feeling for ideologues to believe they “have a key to all the miseries, both personal and societal, and to know personal happiness through the single-minded pursuit of an end for the whole of humanity!” Wonderful, as long as they can avoid asking themselves the question that occurred to John Stuart Mill:
Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you? And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, “No!”
“This is the question,” Dalrymple says, “that all ideologists fear, and it explains why reform, far from delighting them, only increases their anxiety and rage. It also explains why traditional religious belief is not an ideology in the sense in which I am using the term, for unlike ideology, it explicitly recognizes the limitations of earthly existence, what we can expect of it, and what we can do by our own unaided efforts.”
I am convinced that the waning, weakening, receding and fading Faith in what has been the underpinning foundation of our civilization has provided the room for all of this ideology-over-truth. And it has contaminated every aspect of public life. The more that the Judeo-Christian is marginalized, the more it’s mocked, twisted, shunted aside, excluded from the public square and public consciousness, the more the beast takes over. It really IS a spiritual problem. It goes way beyond just needing to figure out what needs to be done to right our course, because we already have plenty of people who are competent and capable of fixing things, or at least avoiding disaster. But their voices are weak when power has the upper hand, as it does now, over truth. Loosening that grip on power is going to be a very hard thing to do (especially without God on our side) and, as many here have said, it’s likely to get very ugly.
Karen: I could not agree with you or Dalrymple more.
That is not to say that we should not pursue progress, of course we should, and it is indeed a duty. We just should not make an idol out of it.
Agree totally, Mongoose. We cannot and should not stop pursuing progress or examining all the questions before us. I don’t mean to imply that at all. I think though that reason depends on faith, in a way. The politicization of science is all for the AGWer’s puposes and they try to make the questioning of it akin to being a flat-earther. Oddly enough, it is they whose insistence on the fixed idea is irrational.
But Al Gore said the science is settled, and the debate is over.
As if he ever was to begin with interested in either honest inquiry or debate.