American movies have always carried our culture around the globe, with Westerns being our archetypal representation. When U.S. forces occupied Germany and Japan after WWII, they screened Westerns for the locals. Through these films, the civilians came to understand and to an extent absorb American Values. Look at Kurosawa’s post-war films for that cultural influence.

I’ve always thought we should broadcast a channel in Iraq – or even Afghanistan – that shows only Westerns dubbed into Arabic and Pashto. Middle Eastern people would identify with the harsh, lawless environment and the efforts to “civilize” it. Most classic American Westerns are fairly modest and less likely to offend Muslim values. They may realize we’re not so different from them, after all.

People who’ve lived under Saddam or The Taliban would understand and appreciate “The Magnificent Seven” more than I ever could.

What is so hard about this?! The stock market is not at all sure that investment capital will be any good.–anywhere and anytime soon.

Under the “enlightened” left wing Dem. congress, a Chicago thug president elect and a less than pathetic lame duck RINO president without a hint of conservative values or backbone, all investors who have literally made this country by investing in what should have been profitable companies (looking at cooked books) are now taking the fall.

This menagerie of idiots includes members of the Republican party who don’t seem to have any knowledge about what options like Chapter 11 workouts mean and firing the losers who have got us in this mess. This includes the “businessmen” Dems who are politically connected getting a smoke screen shield from Congress. Keeping their bonuses and not going to jail.

If you bleed from a cut on the hand you apply a tourniquet on the hand. You don’t hook the body up to a blood bank that comes from everyone one else and let the hand bleed. You fix it.

Who Loses?–By the time everyone of the old boy net work Ivy league idiots who have run these companies into the ground while they have shown only the political connections needed and knowledge needed to cook the books to calculate their bonuses—get done, Who has lost? Investors!! Who has lost—America. What will we lose? America!.

Who loses in all of these bailouts or the take over of the American (Detroit) based auto industry?– Investors. They have lost twice.

Investors have lost the value of their stocks, invested capital, and they will pay more in federal tax give away to those who have made the value of their investments disappear. This assumes the investors can still make money and were not retired and living on those investments.

If you were training your dog not to crap on the floor you would not give him a treat every time he did it.

That shows you–I would not let Congress even try to train my dog much less take over these companies.

The stockholders will continue to lose. Why now for gods sake invest hard earned money in the engine of capitalism such as the stock market. It is being dismantled right before our eyes and we don’t seem to recognize it.

In the name of political correctness we are stabbing ourselves in the back. That is hard to do but it is happening.

The Auto companies as the current example (others coming) will be owned by the union pension funds–with Government oversight. Under the existing rules of the pension benefit guaranty acts that were put in place over 30 years ago the pension funds come in front of even the owners (stockholders) and bondholders.

We will now be faced with Congress rewriting bills, including the Constitution to create smoke screens to protect the union takeovers of a dead carcase industry. A new welfare program of high wages created by the greed and corruption of the democratic party paying off the unions for their contributions–and being accomplished with the noodle brained republicans looking on and even participating. Courtesy of our hard earned tax dollars. I have got a bulletin for them. Most parasites are smart enough not to kill the hosts. Our current political leaders seeking government control in the name of “good deeds” are not.

One wonders what they will be paying Acorn? For stuffing ballet boxes.

What would be their next target of their stupidity and greed. The non union American Auto industry in the South. They cannot afford to let it be profitable to act as an example that shows their stupidity. Or and any large non union large employer that is profitable and can operate under their own cash flow.(blood)

What now?! Every man for himself? Or pick up a shovel and join Obama’s public works projects. He wants to be FDR. The idiot MSM thinks he is FDR come back to life.

Know what you mean re generalizations about south american prejudices, had the same reaction with generalizations about Los Yankis.

Yup, those were very disturbing times: armed guards for our front door, my classmate’s fathers getting kidnapped for ransom, Argentine friends becomming ‘Desaparesidos’, Peron & Isabella moving in two blocks away in Vicente Lopez, anti-aircraft gun & armed mounted police right outside my bedroom window….

However, I also loved being in Argentina & love the Argentines. What great people! And the fooooood, on my what I wouldn’t give for a decent Asado, Bife de lomo, Empanada Criolla, Matambre, Milanesa, Choripan….
Bottom line questions: is El Palacio de las Papas Fritas still in business after all these years & can one still get Alfajores Jorjito?

I love the states. i am studying here for a graduate degree, and i love the fact that it is an immigrant country and an open society. I feel at home here, and I hope you keep it that way. (i lived in the UK, where class structures seem to be set in stone).
the one thing that makes me sad are the racial issues, and i hate to see generalizations about south american prejudices when I know things regading race relations are much more peaceful in argentina, brazil and uruguay than here.

again, argentina has tons of problems (in the 60s and 70s, political intolerance. now, poverty of around 25% of the population) but racial issues -luckily- are not one of them.

my father traveled to the states in the early 60s for work. In Manhattan, he got on a bus and walked towards the back of the bus. a white lady told him to go to the front of the bus (he had no idea. there were no rules about buses, water fountains or bathrooms in argentina. there had never been)

we don’t check our census boxes for race -i was surprised when i had to do this the first time i applied for a visa for the states (i traveled to disney world at 12). there is no racial group more or less likely to be in jail than other racial groups. we receive immigrants from peru, paraguay and bolivia, and also from asia and former soviet provinces, every day, no questions asked.

Not sure if this will even get to you, or whether you will even be able to read it among your umpteen e-mails, correspondence etc. Been reading most of your articles with interest, as selections in the Daily Report from the Hoover Institution. Was fortunate to make the acquaintance of George Marotta, a former senior fellow at Hoover, who put me on their daily e-mail list. I met him quite by chance about 12 years ago, and we have been friends ever since.
There is no question that you are a writer of great ability…your volumes and volumes of books, articles, etc. speak for themselves. Also your perspective spans almost 60 years (just like me..turned 60 on Dec.6) which is greater than most people today. I see you are also a native Californian like me, so you remember a much nicer place once upon a time.
The problem I see with you is similar to the problem I have with the founding fathers..you are all white supremacists so convinced of your might, your right, your mission to “free the world”, that you don’t notice certain errors in judgement. I have always been intrigued with the obvious conflict between their ideals of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”…and the fact that they were slave owners ! It’s easy to explain by the fact that their ego and confidence was so strong, they simply felt that they had the right to do whatever they wanted.
Interesting to see the Daily Report now putting articles in that give the opposite view of the Iraq war, and maybe starting to admit it was a mistake. I kidded George Marotta about this several months ago and said it sounded like people were now starting to get off a “sinking ship”.
I am one the new breed of multi-cultural people that look at things from a different perspective. My mother was Spanish from El Salvador in Central America, my father was Scottish on his father’s side, Norwegian on his mother’s side. We spent 3 years living in El Salvador when I was a child, with the result that I speak fluent spanish. Our new president is also multi-cultural, something that is becoming more and more common
I see that you and some other right wing types are already taking the newly elected president to task, even though he still has about 6 weeks to go. My advice is to back off and give him every chance, this country is in big, big trouble. For the last 70 years or so, our federal government has been trying to “legislate happiness” by doing a lot of wrong things, and the day of judgement has arrived. This might be the last chance before things get ugly,…a lot of people are close to the brink. You might think that “it can’t happen here”….but if things get really bad…anything can happen. Might have more..

Sincerely,

Richard Gregg

When white families had ten kids or more and an Indian woman was considered prolific if she had three, it’s obvious the numbers game was going in only one direction.

Excuse me but you re entirely wrong

First problem: Because it was not a demographic battle ground between Indinasn and the local whites but ebetween them and the caucasians both in the east and in Europe (many of them flocking to the United States) and the total number of Indians was only a hundredth from the number of caucasians. That lead us to ask ourselves why tehre were so few Indcians in a territory who was as large as Europe? See point three

Second problem/ Because Indian women had as many or more children as the caucasian ones. The problem was that they didn’t survive. In XVIIIth century Europe it was not uncommon for a woman to have over ten children and only two surviving. But feeding, hosuing hygiene and medicine drastically improved between XVIIth and XIXth century so the number of surviving children between caucasians increased dramatically despite slighly decling decundity rates. In the meantime new born Indian babies lived or more exactly died in teepees even when it was minus 20 outside.

Third problem: There is a very limited number of people who can be sustained through hunting. Had the Indian babies survived at the same rate than caucasian ones, it would have only been to starve later. In order for Indian population being in the same ballpark than west the number of caucasians flocking to the west they would have had to adopt agriculture; That is not woman planting a few seeds whose yield wouldn’t be harvested due to tribe moving away following buffalmo herds but sedentaraizing, man (who are far more productive) working in the fields, use of metal tools and, if at all possible, use of domestic anmals to plow the plough. Demographic growth for Indians depended on agriculture becoming central to their subsistance and way of life with hunting playing only a marginal role. Since they didn’t do it they were doomed to remain numerically inferior to the caucasians and be overwelmed by them.

Perhaps things have changed in the last 35 yrs, but a pretty rigid class-structure was in place back in my day, with those of European-descent at the top & middle classes, Mestizos and those of Amerindian ancestry as the bottom – ie: maids, gardeners, laborers etc. Hardly treated as equals by those that used their services, as I recall. The few Asians to be seen (of whatever ethnic ancestry) were simply lumped together as ‘Los Chinos’.

Funny how ‘Ethnic relations’ go quite smoothly if everyone knows ‘their place’ & stays there not making a fuss.