The German Stereotype
There were lots of stories that left a lot unsaid. The Germany/EU debt imbroglio was one of them. The more Germany’s 80 million people were looked upon to bail out the 120 million of Mediterranean Europe—if not still more in France and Eastern Europe—the more in our politically-correct age we never quite were told how this could be possible.
German Octopuses?
Did Germans not sleep? Did they each have eight arms? Was Germany itself sitting on secret oil reserves? Did it have tons of stolen war gold horded in its vaults (as some Greeks alleged)? Had it harnessed a new type of energy? How strange to be told that Germany was the new heart of Europe but never to be to told how and why?
So how, in fact, did a humiliated Germany of 1919, a Germany after the ashes of 1945, and a Germany stung by a $2 trillion bite in absorbing a ruined East Germany in 1989, find itself—as Margaret Thatcher and Francois Mitterrand once feared in 1989—once more adjudicating the history of Europe? Were we terrified of stereotypes that were cruel to Germany (goose-stepping automatons were back again?) or that were cruel to southern Europeans (the Danes and Dutch were likewise solvent in comparison to the siesta-napping, and perennially shouting sunny Mediterraneans)?
Is there such a thing as national character or habit—both having nothing to do with race—in our postmodern age? In the 21st century, can we still say that Germans go to bed when Athenians go to dinner, or that they more likely consider tax cheating theft rather than ingenuity, or that they make things to work well rather than just make things to sell? Is it that when you go into a German bank you are served, and when you go into a Greek counterpart you witness an unending coffee break? Do tiny habits like your bus driver going down the aisle to collect trash versus throwing it out the window add up? When I see two Greek drivers scream and gesticulate at each other in Omonia Square over a tiny fender bender—as four lanes are shut down for their fifteen minutes of machismo — and, in contrast, watch two German drivers on Neuhauser straße in Munich exchange information, shake hands, and help push their dented cars off the road, does all that 1000 times a day also make a difference?
Is there a reason, aside from weather, why one would rather relax for a week in the Aegean than in Berlin, or retire on the Costa del Sol rather than in Bremen? For all the angry op-eds about the unraveling of the EU, no one quite walked us through exactly what Germans do each day that makes them different from other Europeans—although most who have visited Athens and Munich, or walked through Rome and Copenhagen, or sat in a café in Madrid and Frankfurt might be able to offer journalists some help. Of course, throughout 2011, I did read clever essays advising readers about how not to walk into this trap of believing in archaic and stereotyped notions like national character when some esoteric and almost unfathomable “real” cause (Thucydides’s aitia) far better explained the differences.
Iran: If Only …
Iran was another incomplete story this year. As the year ended, the Iranians were once again, in North Korean style, sounding off about their great navy closing the strait of Hormuz, attacking “foreigners” and all the other 1% probability nutcakery that responsible powers must nevertheless prepare for.
Oh, the efforts we go through to explain Iranian hatred of America, as we search endlessly for the “moderates” and remain puzzled over how in the world anyone could not like Barack Obama. Ad nauseam, we hear of 1953, Mossadeq, and the Shah—never that we originally found ourselves involved in Persia not for oil (cf. the British), but in World War II to supply communist Russia against the Germans, and then afterwards to ensure the Russians did not do to Iran what they had done to most of Eastern Europe. From 2007-2009, we heard from Obama about reset and dialogue with Iran, and “face-to-face” negotiations. And we got all that and much more.
That last paragraph has the hair on the back of my neck standing up. It’s exactly the tone I have read on some financial pages. Let’s hope our central bankers and our representatives have a little better sense; debt is a terrible burden, and we need to rein it in.
BTW, what’s up with “hording”? I keep running across that particular error of horde, hoard and all the forms.
Hoarding? No such thing. As long as it doesn’t create a real health hazard for others.
My Grandmother and her sister went through the great depression as young women. Till the day they died, they put up food, staples and hard goods. Always had a years worth or more of the basics.
Just like rich men save money, poor men save food.
Diana,
I read the definitions of “hord” and “hoard” in the dictionary. It appears to me that VDH intended to use “hord” in this case, since the context was about the Germans continuing to hold a “hord” (a large group,number, etc.) of war gold, as opposed to them actively “hoarding” gold. (a supply or accumulation that is hidden or carefully guarded for preservation, future use, etc.)
Regards,
Robert
Obama: Debt Man Walking
My Grandpa told my Dad back in the 1950s that the future was in plastic. And sure enough it was!
He was correct, but little did we know that someday it would be used to fabricate a President of the United States.
Here’s another no news story of the year, courtesy of Watts Up With That: http://tinyurl.com/7o2fw53
“Billions could die!” Or not…
I got a hearty chuckle out of that story!
It’s all about the storyline.
Our new prospective masters write the play, and it isn’t related to reality in any way. Pravda edits the script. They even deny reality exists to make sure nobody gets to too attached to inconvenient details like facts and truth.
But somebody has to buy tickets to the play. Nobody here is buying it. Millions of others are becoming more and more sceptical.
The story of our future is whether enough will become sceptical by November 2012 to head off what obama and the cabal see as the final act of the story.
I think the main act in 2012 isn’t going to be the campaigns, it is going to be the redefinition of reality. The new poverty statistic, the close combat defense of the marxist’s “employment” statistics, the fanciful hues of “America in recovery”, the pitch that Obama has brought us back from the abyss, the simple gosh-darn-it optimism for the future that Pravda feels in its bones and trumpets in its broadcasts.
So this is the year to invest in the stock market. 30% miminum gain. But you might consider selling in September. And then, of course, the astonishing turn-around in employment. It will be in the 7′s as millions more are forced out of the workforce. They probably have it calculated to the third decimal place. And wait till you see consumer confidence (it’s a poll you know…it can be anything they want it to be). Oh yes, the future will be rosy by October.
And then, as a reminder, there will be the crisis. Will it be an assassination attempt (failed of course)? A castrophe in Europe that shakes up world markets? Will dear leader have to finally bomb Iran? Will his patience be finally exhausted to the point where the carriers are sent to the China Sea? Will he have to step in to save California from financial obvivion? or will it be something that nobody can foresee. Or will there be multiple crises. It all depends, no doubt, on what the reliable polls will be telling the White House insiders. For external consumption, the light worker will have an insurmountable lead every step of the way.
Whatever happens in the upcoming election Obama’s problem will be that it is no longer 2007. He will no longer be the blank canvas that so many were fooled into believing they could paint their hopes for change on. Obama has a record he can’t hide from. Obama has been found wanting by the USA.
Obama has alienated much of the electorate as it has become obvious he is not a cultural American. He has denigrated every race, creed and demographic possible. His marxist policies have extended the recession and caused grief and despair for a huge population of unemployed, all while taking lavish vacations and practicing in Chicago style political corruption on a global scale.
I might be wrong, but I don’t think Soros is going to be able to buy the presidency for Obama again.
It’s still 10 months away and they have already managed to knock out all of the Republicans except the one they want to run against…the NE moderate who has changed positions on virtually every issue, who invented obamacare and belongs to a church that many natural Republican voters consider a cult, and who plans to rerun McCain’s campaign.
It looks like the price will be lower this time.
I agree that the MSM has cut the RINO from the herd that they want to run as the default GOP worthy of being defeated by Obama. The trick is not to let the leftist MSM pick the GOP candidate by default. The MSM picked McCain as the default candidate by ignoring the existence of the other candidates for the most part. That strategy won’t work as well this time, in my opinion, because the MSM has made itself into a joke.
You’d almost think that it wasn’t up to republicans to make that decision.
The MSM certainly didn’t ignore huckabee, romney OR giuliani. I seem to recall that ron paul was also regarded with the same vague amusement that he attracts this time around. Mccain won 5 times as many delegates as huckabee did, the next contender. He was an incredibly strong candidate, at least as far as the primary vote was concerned.
I think you’re misremembering things just a bit. Just for a refresher, go back and watch the final debates again. McCain crashed and burned. He was tired, was occasionally rude and made mistakes. His running mate obviously avoided and ignored questions (and even SAID she was doing it – very smart). That can’t have appealed to the undecideds.
The MSM picked McCain as the default candidate [in 2008] by ignoring the existence of the other candidates for the most part.-Will Hunt
I disagree.
The Establishment Media gave candidates attention in about the proportion that they were raising serious money, mobilizing a grassroots campaign, gaining influential endorsements, and – once the caucuses and primaries were underway – gaining delegates. If your claim was true, nobody would have heard of Mike Huckabee. But we did, during his Iowa flash-in-the-pan phase. And, if your claim was true, the McCain campaign wouldn’t have been nearly written off by the Establishment Media talking heads when McCain was low on cash and letting staff go in the summer of ’07. (Kind’a like what happened with Speaker Gingrich this past summer, by the way.)
I might be wrong, but I don’t think Soros is going to be able to buy the presidency for Obama again.
I think you have a big part of the picture. However, so does proreason in both posts. Take them together, with yours. If the fix is not in, if things cannot be manipulated, and if somehow the most hapless “Republican” candidate that the Vichy Institutional Republican party can force down our throats looks like he will win because of disgust with Obama; what is to prevent there not being elections at all?
It is not as if the concept has not been raised by elected and appointed Democrats since September of 2011 in print and in public statements. Two of those calling for “reducing the amount of democracy” to end “gridlock” were direct presidential appointees, and one was a Democrat governor who openly [and it was caught on video] called for cancelling the 2012 elections.
Three Hound of the Baskervilles moments followed.
1) In a normal American administration, which planned to obey the Constitution, any member of the administration’s own party who made such a call would be in political Coventry, and would be denounced immediately. Instead, silence.
2) In normal times, with a Press that was not a wholly owned subsidiary of the party in the White House; they would be screaming like ruptured Bann Sidh at the vocal ones. Instead, silence.
3) If we had a purported opposition party that was not more aligned as part of the Political Class against its own base instead of trying to fix the country; those who said those things would be in front of Congress constantly, and feel like they were living on a Teppan Yaki grill. Instead, silence.
If some “emergency” were to arise as an excuse for cancelling or postponing the elections, can anyone look at the Institutional Republican party and honestly say that they would resist? Especially if there were some financial scraps thrown their way? I am in mind of the Scots Parliament in 1707 that voted an independent Scotland out of existence and turned the country over to the English in return for English gold and titles; ever after referred to as the “Parcel of Rogues”.
The Institutionals have managed to overlook the administration violating laws, ignoring court orders requiring compliance with those laws, ignoring refusals to fund administrative actions, and are strangely silent about the fact that we are going into our third year of operating without the Constitutionally mandated budget, solely because the Democrats refuse to allow a vote on one.
It is the Democrats who have brought the subject up, and the supposed defenders of the Constitution have proved in this and every other encounter with the administration that they will do nothing.
So why should they not cancel the elections?
Subotai Bahadur
great post
Indeed, you don’t hear the topic mentioned, do you? A giant tree falling in a forest when nobody was there to listen. So no sound was recorded.
Well, although the guy currently in the White House obviously despises the Constitution and skirts it whenever possible, there is no way he can outright cancel or delay the election. That is the stuff of revolutions, right there.
Obama will do anything he can to hang onto the presidency, including voter fraud, voter intimidation, and financial malfeasance, but he can’t just cancel the election. Elections for POTUS every 4 years are a Constitutional mandate.
The MSM acting as the propaganda arm of the democrat party is the real issue of concern. Most of the electorate doesn’t debate on sites like this and are for the most part poorly informed. Just ask anyone you know who isn’t political what the corruption of Solyndra means and you will get a blank look.
Most people don’t know or care. They vote for whoever promises them the biggest handout. The electorate is pathetically ignorant as to what this “president” has been doing. If they don’t have a job they will vote their pocketbook and Obama will be history. If the unemployment rate drops below 7% Obama may get a second term.
If Obama gets a second term he will be even more radical in implementing policies to carry out the Cloward-Piven strategy. Obama will be able to appoint at least one more radical justice to SCOTUS to sit there for decades chipping away at the Constitution. This election will be very important, indeed. Obama must go for the good of the USA.
Well, although the guy currently in the White House obviously despises the Constitution and skirts it whenever possible, there is no way he can outright cancel or delay the election. That is the stuff of revolutions, right there.
Obama will do anything he can to hang onto the presidency, including voter fraud, voter intimidation, and financial malfeasance, but he can’t just cancel the election.
The stuff of revolutions, indeed. But who will start and carry this revolution to the end? Looking at our body politic, and the collection of fools, miscreants, maladroits, and unindicted co-conspirators that makes up the Political Class [of both parties]; the number of “leaders” who would stand up and fight back is dismally small. And in any suspension or postponement; they would be ….. at best …. sequestered. If you will remember, just recently Buraq Hussein signed the legislation that allows Americans to be arrested without formal charge and detained indefinitely without trial.
I have no confidence in our Political Class. The one institution that I have confidence in to support the Constitution is the military; and their resistance will be delayed while they sort out whether the orders they receive conflict with the Oath. And long ago when the world was new and I was an undergraduate; I began a study of the means and mechanisms of coups d’etat [from the 1950's to the mid-1970's about half of the changes in government worldwide were one form of a coup or another]. If the administration is semi-competent, they have a very good chance of pulling it off [delaying the military response long enough to establish themselves].
The other alternative is a popular uprising, against the forces of the State. Not easy, not quick, and far from without cost. As you say:
Most people don’t know or care. They vote for whoever promises them the biggest handout. The electorate is pathetically ignorant as to what this “president” has been doing.
Tell me again what there is to deter the cancellation of elections?
Subotai Bahadur
“So why should they not cancel the elections?”
Get a grip. This is FEMA death-camp thinking. To take this more seriously than it deserves: For one thing, the whole lot of them would be impeached by a congress that was either furious beyond measure, or terrified of the blowback. And the states would probably just go ahead and run their own elections anyway, and the supreme court would swear in whoever won. Obama would very quickly lose his legal position and be turned out of the whitehouse, probably by US marshals.
Now, for extra points, who can figure out which president recently actually DID investigate delaying the elections? For security reasons, naturally. In case of a terrorist attack.
Obama & co know that they cannot cancel the 2012 elections…but they hope to steal them.
I’m surprised VDH didn’t mention the latest memo emanating from the Obama administration/DNC/progressive think tank/media complex: the purported non-existence of voter fraud and the alleged vote-suppression intent of voter ID laws. This is a perennial topic of the Brennan Center for Justice and they are being cited a lot recently, e.g. http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/category/allegations_of_voter_fraud . And of course, Eric Holder is all over the topic.
The idea being, to prevent Republican efforts to restrict voting to living citizens of the USA by crying racism. Aside from various efforts at ballot-stuffing, the current DNC sees illegal aliens as unregistered Democrats.
Please don’t be paranoid. Proggs were keening that Bush was going to cancel the elections, too. Heck, even Australian liberals were amazed that our conservative ally PM relinquished power when he lost.
Please don’t be paranoid. Proggs were keening that Bush was going to cancel the elections, too. Heck, even Australian liberals were amazed that our conservative ally PM relinquished power when he lost.
Even paranoids can have real enemies.
1) Can you point out where either elected or appointed Republicans during the Bush administration, or any member of John Howard’s Liberal-National Coalition government called for the cancellation of elections or the reduction of the amount of democracy in the government, turning over functions performed by elected representatives to “non-political” appointees?
2) Did either the Bush administration or the Howard administration acquire the explicit power to arrest and secretly detain any American or Australian citizen without charge, trial, or warrant? Obama signed that into law New Year’s Eve as part of HR 1540.
3) Right now, with the support of the leadership of both parties [which speaks to the priorities the Political Class as a whole] the Stop Online Piracy Act is about to be passed. It gives the Executive Branch explicit and total authority to shut down anything it wants to on the internet without warrant, formal complaint, or showing of any actual involvement in any copyright piracy. Of course, they say that they will only use their powers for good.
Combine this with their ongoing blatant disregard of the law, courts, and subpoenas from Congress; I would say that this is somewhat more substantial than paranoia.
Subotai Bahadur
“… amazed that our conservative ally PM relinquished power when he lost.”
Oh, come on. He lost by a landslide, and if he’d stayed he’d have had to wear the result of the GFC. Nah – I reckon he was thrilled to be leaving when he did.
Not to mention that he wasn’t actually a sitting member of parliament any more. He’d have been prevented from even entering the house of reps.
In any case, nobody was saying anything of the sort anyway.
Now …
…called for the cancellation of elections or the reduction of the amount of democracy in the government,
Howard was pretty keen on finding ways to stop selected groups from voting. He was very keen on disenfranchising prisoners, and wanted to close electoral rolls the moment an election was called, knowing that was the period when most new voters (who tend to support labor) would be signed up by the AEC. Beasley correctly observed that never before had a prime minister been so keen to find ways to prevent people from voting.
Did either the Bush administration or the Howard administration acquire the explicit power to arrest and secretly detain any American or Australian citizen without charge, trial, or warrant?
Yes. Howard introduced some pretty dubious new powers to compel people to answer questions, to be held without charge, to be prevented from discussing their detention with anybody on threat of criminal prosecution – to the point of not being allowed to even tell anyone that you HAD been arrested. It all culminated in the haneef affair, which was only eclipsed by the hicks case for its appalling abuse of process, politicization of a criminal prosecution, lack of regard for justice and just general embarrassment to all involved. It undoubtedly contributed to howard’s exit (that, and rising interest rates).
You are right. Why should they not? It is a frighteningly real prospect.
“The one institution that I have confidence in to support the Constitution is the military; and their resistance will be delayed while they sort out whether the orders they receive conflict with the Oath.”
Such a coup as you fear may happen is extremely unlikely. This is no 3rd world dungheap of uneducated serfs, not yet, anyway. There are too many of us who took the Oath who still take it seriously to sit by and watch some baby doc wannabe try to set himself up as “president”-for-life. Not a chance.
Micha & Techno, MSM coverage of the other candidates was minimal and unfavorable. In short order they ceased to exist in the minds of most voters. John McCain got about one article written about him for every eight articles written about Obama. Most were unfavorable. There was a made for TV movie about McCain as a POW in Vietnam. He was most definitely cut from the herd by the MSM and promoted as the GOP most worthy of being allowed to run against and lose to Obama. He was the default RINO pushed to the front by the MSM. The MSM is trying to do the same with Romney who can’t get above 30% approval in the GOP. The MSM isn’t pushing Romney because they like him. They are pushing him because they know Obama can beat a RINO, but not a true conservative.
Can we say?
Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin?
On New Year’s Eve, Obama signed a law permitting “indefinite incarceration” (a la GITMO). There is some waffle language involved which you can clarify by Googling, but the point here is that the first time I heard about this was on Fox TV last night. To my knowledge this has not been mentioned in the New York Times, for example. Obviously Mr. Obama’s base will go nuts when they finally find out about this. Which is exactly why the MSM is keeping mum…
Hmmmm. When I open my book of the future every gosh-darned page is a blank. I just can’t foretell what will happen in 2012. Rats! I can
guessmake predictions though. At the end of 2010 my book of the future had a blank page for 2011. In 2011 some things I expected to happen did; some didn’t and a whole bunch of surprises came out of left field.My point is that we aren’t wise to convince ourselves that we can see the future when all we can actually do is guess the future. I think it’s healthier to see a blank page in one’s book of the future rather than hallucinations of a detailed script.
To Proreason:
I’ve copied your predictions with a note to read at the end of 2012 or just before elections. Should be interesting.
Now the military can detain 0bama without charge or trial- this thing now cuts both ways, and not in a way that serves 0bama and company’s pretenses and ambitions to power. In fact it will serve to come back and bite them all in the ass. 0bama admin is painted itself in to a corner. People like this never think these things through, and they end up trapped in their own web of deceits.
The first section about Germany is one of the few times I have seen anyone write about value systems by suggesting the clues as to failure are really right there in front of you. This is why I find the fact that 90% of new immigrants (not counting illegals) in the last 10 years have been from the Third World. Aside from the obvious failures of Third World nations themselves, the culture of the proverbial “Chinese Fire Brigage” is on full display for all to see who have traveled the world and so everyone is aware of it.
The problem is that Leftist political correctness has not allowed the obvious to take the form of an opinion and therefore an answer to why the new immigrants are not the same as the old and why a factory of excuse-making and charges of racism is their greatest friend when it comes to explaining away endemic failure.
When I give a small bag of garbage to my hotel owner’s 14 year old son and he simply drops it out a window into the high rise window well from 8 floors up I ask “Why?” and his answer word-for-word is “Anything is possible in Egypt.”
When I am in Varanasi, India (possibly the filthiest place I’ve ever been) and constantly ask what to do with my garbage by way of a wrapper or paper the answer 100% of the time is “Throw it in the river.”
When I see building construction crews I go by every day in Rio de Janeiro sitting around on their asses I am amazed – the first 5 times.
I could go on forever but this why I am against all modern immigration.
Yep – and those dirty Irish and lazy Poles and Eye-talians should have been kicked out, too! Catholics don’t believe in work, don’t you know! (This was a nonsense argument every single time it showed up, and it’s going to go right on being nonsense.)
It’s nice to see that nothing ever really changes.
If they’ve the energy to leave the 3rd world, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt about their ability to adapt. Heaven knows, my ancestors were not precisely the cream of the crop, from the current view of who should be let in – shanty Irish and Italians from who-knows-where with no education and just enough money to pay their passage – but somehow or other, they became and raised solid citizens.
John Lwu is correct and so is Mr. Hanson. Mr. Hanson is consistently the author of the most insightful and best articulated articles in print.
The difference between the immigrant groups that you mention and the ones currently flooding into the country is the cultural similarity of those groups. Catholics and various european groups had similar cultures to ours. Those of the third world mostly dont. I fear Lwu is generally correct.
You do have a good point in that those with the gumption to leave the third world and find their way here probably stand a better chance of assimilating and in the process adding something positive to our culture. Unfortunately I believe that the balance of things will not be in our favor this time as it has been in the past.
I don’t think it’s entirely the culture of the immigrant groups. I see and meet lots of hispanics, russians, africans and others who are willing to work and apprciative of the benefits of living here.
The problem is the culture of entitlement that has been developed by the liberals and marxists in much of the country. VDH talks a lot about the erosion of the California countryside, but that isn’t happening in the major cities in Texas, even though the populations are heavily Hispanic.
If an immigrant comes to the US to make a better living, and the better living is handed to him or her, why should they work? In the mass migrations of the late 19th and 20th century, the immigrants had no choice. It was work or death. And if there was not work, they had to invent a way to make something that other people wanted. There was no choice.
Perhaps you are correct and the biggest problem is the culture here in the US. I too know immigrants who are a credit to this nation, but many who are not. I can say the same for people born and raised here.
As to Lwu’s point I can offer an anecdote. Someone I know was diagnosed some time back with an incurable illness by an indian doctor. He was told point blank, very matter-of-factly ” You will be in a wheelchair in five years, and in ten you will be dead. There is nothing we can do.” Unsatisfied, he saw the other two specialists in town, who were also indian, and got an identical prognosis.
He went out of town and found an american specialist and when asked by that doc why he was unsatisfied with the previous three said; ” They come from a culture that has a very fatalistic philosophy. I want a doctor who believes that there is no such thing as a problem without a solution. Are you my guy?”
The doc took him on as a patient. It is 13 years later and he still hunts and fishes and chops wood. He is not in a wheelchair or a coffin. I personally know someone else with the same condition who is a patient of one of those first three docs; three years into his treatment he is in a wheelchair, missing both legs from the knee down, and several fingers.
My point is that many third world cultures have outlooks, ideas, and philosophies that are completely antithetical to ours. Call me a bigot.
I agree. Culture definitely matters. So does attitude. And some cultures foster better attitudes as well.
Maybe the biggest problem with marxism (actually, any kind of statism) is that they encourage dependency.
Of course, the murdering of hundreds of millions of people is also a big problem.
What I see from the immigrants around me is an incredible lawlessness and contempt for us. We have mostly Russian/Eastern Europeans and Asians with a smattering of Hispanics. They’ve all figured out that you have to send the cops an engraved invitation to get arrested and if you know the right people, you’ll never really get arrested.
I went to a New Year’s Event at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage. The Cook is the Anchorage Landmark, built by one of the foremost figures in Alaska’s business and political history, the late US Secretary of the Interior and two time Governor of Alaska, Walter Hickel, as his way to say to Alaska’s business community that he had faith in the State after the disasterous ’64 earthquake.
When I was still working the Cook was my home away from home and I knew most everybody who worked there and they me. At cocktail hour after work, everybody at the bars knew each other even if we lived all over the State. So, my wife and I are relativey newly back in ANC and both of us looked at the Cook as “our kind of place” to go on New Year’s Eve.
What I found was a lot of wannabe mafiosi Russians and Eastern Europeans, their whores, and a smattering of the Black muscle that associates with them I’ll give the Blacks credit; most of them had women who could pass for being their wife with them. The Russians either are very fond of their daughers and their friends and their young, pretty neices, or they brought their whores. My money’s on whores.
I lived here back when Alaska had its own underbelly of homegrown mafiosi and the flotsam and jetsom of the rest of America. Read “Johnny’s Girl” sometime about Alaska just before the Pipeline Boom. But back then, even the baddest of bad boys, the guys who ran after hours joints, strings of whores, financed the drug dealers, and all that stuff would not have DARED to come out in a prominent public place with a string of whores on their arms and expect to rub elbows with the “decent” people of the town. They’d have come out alright, but they’d have come with their wives and children and done their very best to look respectable. It is bad enough that they have poured in here, mostly illegally or fraudulently under “family reunification,” but it is outright offensive that they have so little respect for us, and, sadly, maybe that we warrant so little respect.
Dianna,
You are a breath of fresh air. Although I always enjoy professor Hanson’s article, but this focus on European ethnic stereotypes is getting passe. It may be relevant in Europe, but not here.
I am an engineer who spent much of my career doing fundamental research and development. The innovators and problem solvers come from a wide range of backgrounds, there are Americans of all backgrounds and increasingly they are Chinese, Indian, Russian, Israeli, Korean, Vietnamese…
If you don’t believe me, then visit the laboratories of your nearest major university and do a survey of the names of the graduate students posted on the laboratory and office doors.
The common thread is their dogged determination to get through the challenging coursework and thesis needed to receive an advanced science or mathematics degrees and then go on to do work that is more intellectually challenging and usually less financially rewarding than the financial, management or legal professions. While the cultural habits in European societies may have some residual relevance over there, it has lost most of its relevance over here.
“The common thread is …” their desire to leave their crappy countries of origin.
For that they will come here on a student visa, promising to go home at the end of their graduate education, and then stay on with some other kind of work visa until they get permanent residency. Until they get that, they are treated like indentured servants, first by their professors and then by their employers. No US-born student, entitled to work in the country of his/her birth, wants to go do the same job as the indentured servant.
I was an engineering professer at a large state land grant for 14 years and have been in private industry as an engineer for about the same amount of time. I know whereof I speak.
Dianna,
Perhaps you should actually live alongside the Senegalese “refugees” before you go off on a predictable liberal knee-jerk antiracist tirade, when if fact your sole contact comes through TV, or maybe some vicarious contact at your community outreach.
Perhaps you should work along side them to understand that they have absolutely no concept of employment as it is practiced in America. And top this off, knowing that millions of dollars are going to help these people re-root in America, while native-born Americans struggle to get by.
Do us a favor and adopt an African refugee family. Put them right in your guest room and pay for all their needs instead of forcing “charity” upon others. As usual for your type, you think it’s great to help these unfortunates as long as they don’t actually live next door. And I know they DON’T live next to you, because you’d be singing a different tune if they did.
Yep – and those dirty Irish and lazy Poles and Eye-talians should have been kicked out, too! Catholics don’t believe in work, don’t you know!-Diana
Proddies only say such things because they’re too lazy to learn enough Latin to understand the motto “Ora et Labora.” Ha ha.
You’re leaping onto all-inclusive conclusions. Try to look only at what Mr Lwu said, not towards extensions of his line of thought. When nagging comments such as yours are appended to thoughtful, but limited areas, they appear to be seeking petty argument.
Mr Lwu’s comment does indeed have value; and is able to stand alone without extended limbs.
I’ve travelled to many of the same places he mentions, and his obserbvations are indeed correct.
A very well-written and thought-out piece, but I had a problem with “the German Octopuses” section. I’m not really worried about “cruel” stereotypes when it comes to Germany.
Germany rose from the ashes of 1945 because the United States of America picked them up. There was a huge transfer of American wealth given directly to the nation that turned Europe into a slaughterhouse. After the war, a handful of war criminals were rightly hung, but then everybody else got an amazing opportunity to reinvent their lives.
And Germans were only able to absorb a ruined eastern Germany because the United States spent tremendous amounts of money protecting them from the Soviets.
In fact, Germany is a huge American welfare state, a massive exercise in American state-building. The same is true of post-war Japan, another “magically” successful nation. I suggest if we dropped the same amounts of money – and military bases and industry – on Greece or Mexico, you would have a very similar result.
The Germans and Japanese had very little choice about whether or not to accept the presence of American military bases or the aid to rebuild their industry (as if they would refuse the latter), and let’s not forget the changes we made to their basic forms of government.
But, Greece and Mexico both have at times made it quite clear that they wished to have nothing to do with Americans (“Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States”), and would most likely refuse any such assistance if it meant having US there; or as the Brits said initially in WW-2: “There are three things wrong with you Yanks: You’re over-paid, over-sexed, and over here!”
I beg to differ. Expending the same effort and money in mexico or greece would not have the same result. No doubt there would be some improvement, but nothing like germany or japan. Expending the same in other countries like zaire, afghanistan, burma, bolivia etc. would have almost no effect at all.
Am in complete agreement.
That’s why I object strenuously to our dumping bales upon bales of our cash onto the Iraqis, Afghanis, and Egyptians. They’ve got totally differet thought processes and values. Nothing…nothing…. we Western-oriented (..sorry..) Americans can do will ever change those genetically ingrained and nurtured thought processes over uncounted centuries.
But…hope springs eternal among all of the “do-gooders”.
What a futile waste of OUR resources.
From the top: Germans are not supermen. They are not smarter or thriftier or harder working than “eastern European people” or “Mediterranean people” or American people.
The Germans are rich because the United States MADE THEM RICH. We gave them EVERYTHING. We took American jobs from the Industrial midwest and sent them to post-war Germany and Japan. We provided security and food and money and infrastructure and gave them everything they needed to kick our asses economically.
Americans never got “European-style social programs” because Americans were PAYING FOR EUROPEAN SOCIAL PROGRAMS. Doctor Hanson has written about these subsidies many times.
We didn’t do these state-building projects for “eastern European people,” we didn’t do it for “the Mediterranean people.” We didn’t even do that for the American people, especially those in the industrial midwest, who were cheated by this obscene deal.
Now your comments add insult to injury by pretending the Germans are the supermen they once claimed to be. Shameful.
Alles klar? Germany is the most successful country in Europe because WE MADE THEM THE MOST SUCCESSFUL COUNTRY IN EUROPE. The Greeks didn’t get that sweet deal. Maybe they should have invaded Poland and opened death camps, then Greece would be the most successful country in Europe.
Interesting piece in the WSJ NY Metro section today about New York City food stamp recipients. Apparently the number of food stamp “clients ” (great word, no?)has increased to the extent that the lines outside the building have become a big problem. The best bit in the article said that because of the long waits and the hassle/run-around factor in getting food stamps, many would-be “clients” have given up trying to get them. It’s just too much trouble to get free food. Call me “heartless” but from where I sit, this speaks volumes. If only we had listened to that great Democrat, Pat Moynihan, who pointed out in the ’60s that culture matters.
The Germans were one of the largest groups of immigrants to the US. States such as Pennsylvania had sections that were almost exclusively populated by people of German descent. They looked Anglo and thought Anglo, and during the Wars many of them anglicized their names. Because they blended into the Anglo culture, we don’t appreciate the German cultural contribution to the hard-work ethic of the United States.
CBS, NPR, NYT ?
Why should a gentleman have anything to do with the rotten left-overs of the marxist folly ?
Their hands are stained with the blood of the tens of millions of victims of marxism worlwide. It’s still today’s truth, in the jails and in the lagers of China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela…
And they do not repent.
They are like the Odessa.
Okay, you want my German story? It’s a girl thing, so I don’t know that you would know this. But you are a farmer, so you would respect it.
Aenne Burda was given a blueprint factory after World War 2, in Germany, by her ruined industrialist husband. She looked around and realized that they didn’t need blueprints for munitions. No, women in Germany were impoverished, and needed inexpensive clothes. So she started a simple magazine with blueprints for clothes- patterns. One could trace out a blouse or a skirt, but not cut up the blueprint, so that one could use it again and again. This became a very successful business. She branched out- knitting patterns and craft patterns, jewelry instructions, photos of outfits from designer catwalks. This magazine comes out each month. It costs around $8. It has, now, usually about 40 patterns. So, twelve issues per year, $8 per issue, 40 something patterns. Every last one of them, every last single time, is drafted perfectly. It’s unbelievable how precise the drafting is.
For contrast, American patterns are one- offs- you cut out flimsy architectural rendering paper- think- slightly heavier tissue paper. They are designed for a single use, in a single size. There are websites, now, for people to flag the drafting errors. There are books about working around construction errors. One can take college level classes, mostly designed to teach one how to navigate around the errors in the patterns. These patterns: they usually cost $10 each. There are singles- $3, there are designer patterns $30. And, again, drafting errors, imprecise directions.
For Burda to enter the American market, they had to revamp, and make single use patterns, and then put in step by step, partially illustrated directions- and at American prices. One has to go online, or to a specialty fabric store, to get the brilliantly done magazine that is the everyday, so average to a German housewife, pattern magazine.
A second one- the basic how-to-knit book in Germany, has techniques that are not taught in America. How the sweater starts ( casting on) and casting off- the basic German techniques are considered couture, department-store professional level skills. They aren’t covered in American “how-to-knit” books. My father bought a German knitting book for me- so I could learn how to do some of these things.
I don’t know about office anything, or engineering, but I know for domestic skills- they are unimaginably light-years ahead of us in precision and perfectionism.
Great background info, thanks for sharing. (am also a knitter)
The book is by Katerina Buss, or something Buss. It’s translated, now, on the shelf at Barnes and Noble. I have an Italian magazine from the eighties that has a cast-on that I’ve never seen in America. It’s called “the german method.”
So: you knit. Okay, in a waste yarn cast on 1/2 the number of stitches you need plus one. I usually crochet on, in coarse cotton yarn- sugar and cream, since I keep it around for dishcloths. Okay, now with your real yarn, K1, yarn over, k1, yo, ending K1, so that you have enough stitches for your project. Now,turn the work, put yarn in front, slip one ( that was a K stitch) then knit the next stitch. So slip purlwise, then knit, to the end of the row. You can do just two rows, or four. The yarn weaves around itself. When you’re done, snip out the waste yarn- and it looks like the bottom of any Nautica sweater. I think it’s also called tubular cast-on, but it always looks different than the diagrams I have. It is, most emphatically, not taught to most American knitters.
And for ribbings, like on polo collars, or shawl collars? Go look at the book. It looks obvious, but it’s kind of crazy- using two different sized needles, to enclose the raw edge, rather than knitting, then stitching down. I made a sweater for my dad, with a collar like that. It’s gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous, when finished. No ripples, no tugging, no nothing odd or handmade.
When I went to Europe, once, it was crazy- I’d see the most beautiful work, done in shoddy acrylic yarns, in former Soviet satellites. It drove my companion nuts, that I could pick out home-made sweaters when I couldn’t read a word of the language. I could see starting hems- that beaded line of a typical cast-on, and I could see “rowing out” where the knit rows had a different gauge than the purl rows. But I couldn’t see either of these in Germany. at all. And I know they had to be wearing handmade sweaters, b/c every country- there were handmade sweaters. They really do use the stuff they teach. It’s amazing. I know there were handmade clothes, and they didn’t look homemade. They had to tell me if it was done by themselves.
I had a hand-knit suit that I’d done the German hem thing with, and lined, and reinforced the button-line with petersham, and I passed muster at the George 3?6? in Paris as wearing a couture suit, so I am a big, huge fan of finishing details. Drove my companion absolutely bug-snot- I was a poor, mono-lingual hick with bourgeous habits ( knitting) getting more respect than he was, with his international career and five languages.
London, too, same suit, same reaction.
and, sigh, then I poured nail-polish on it.
It was dishcloth cotton, too, so it cost, maybe $25, with all the details thrown in. The shoes to match cost double, and a hat. It would have looked like I was parading around in dishrags, too, if I hadn’t followed the German book. I know my sweaters before that were pretty obviously hand-done, even with really expensive name yarn.
Thanks. I was about to ask. = )
I saved the link to your comment to my ‘links’ folder. Also, I’m stealing the ‘bug-snot’ phrase.
I don’t knit but I sew so thank you very much for the new info on German patterns. I don’t know where you are from or where you are now but something you might like to know – there is a HUGE movement to survival skills, including the ‘domestic arts’ here in the US.
And for anyone else here re: cultural ‘tells’. I’ve been out of the country 3 times – twice to Canada, once to Spain. EVERY time, I’ve been recognized as an American – yes, even in Canada – by my carriage/gait/walk/posture. Before I opened my mouth. When it kept happening in Spain, I decided to see if I could pick out Americans on the street. I stood outside the Prado in Madrid and sure enough – we stand out like sore thumbs. Even our facial expressions are different. We smile. Our stride is wide and fluid. I asked every person I thought was American if indeed they were American. I got 14 out of 15 right. The 15th was Aussie.
And he wanted to buy me a drink.
As for
Burda Style Sewing Handbook
http://www.burdastyle.com/blog/departments/the-burdastyle-sewing-handbook
was he handsome? I hope so. sort of like matching a good show to a good soundtrack.
Again, many thanks. When not joining in the drunkblogging during political debates, I knit. Hope you find time to make another suit, I am sure it was beautiful.
What do you knit? what are you working on right now? can you manage drinking and knitting? I can’t. But then, I can’t really manage drinking and anything else, anyway. How do you manage to drink and follow debates? I’d get the worst headache.
burda website has a history section. It’s pretty terrific. Raisa Gorbachev, herself, invited Burda into Russia- same reason- poor women wanting stylish clothes.
The magazine is Burda World of Fashion. You can order it from Amazon, I think. I’ve only purchased a few, but they’ve paid for themselves over and over. Architectural rendering paper is good for tracing, and I think some people use clear plastic drop-cloth and sharpies. That’s too much fumes for me. You have to add seams, but most measuring tapes are 5/8 inch. I think some people just trace, and then sew on the tracing, although I’m not sure how they make sure both layers of fabric are correctly placed.
Two times a year it has a plus-size mag, but all the magazines have some plus-size fashions. They run true. I made a size 22 dress for my neighbor ( traded for a couch) and it needed one half inch snipped in at the neckline- literally a five-stitch modification.
The Burda magazine kids clothes fit like off the rack clothes. I’ve handed off my daughter’s clothes, and they fit the next kid along, too, perfectly. I’ve had to re-cut American patterns every time I’ve used them, the last few years.
For women- the larger sizes- I’m not sure when it starts- Burda grades up for C-cups, which is brilliant, b/c American pattern companies do not do that at all. The pants are cut different than American pants, and I’m not comfortable in them. YMMV.
If you end up liking the blueprint method- you can look up Jalie patterns, which are Canadian, and Ottobre, which are Finnish. Ottobre is more expensive magazine than Burda, with fewer designs, but they are classic, tasteful kids clothes. They have a few women’s clothes pattern magazines. Jalie sells a single pattern, but it’s from size 2child up to 2x adult. They fit great,usually. The paper is heavy-duty, and so you can make lots of tracings, easily, without ripping the paper.
oh- have a sewing book like the Reader’s Digest complete guide to sewing- b/c it just has printed instructions, not illustrated instructions. It took me three days the first time I sewed something, b/c I had to walk away and figure out what they were saying, each step. They are written for competent, confident seamstresses, so I’m guessing Home Ec is required for everyone, or something.
Hanson: “Why the silence? Are the numbers simply too staggering to get a handle on? Is the reality too depressing?”
No. The liberals just don’t think it’s as serious a problem as you are claiming it is.
For the debt problem, Paul Krugman has a ready answer: Devalue the dollar to the point that the inflation-adjusted real debt is small enough to pay off. We can then pay off our Chinese creditors with depreciated dollars.
Krugman has no real problem with how Greece has run itself; he insists the only problem Greece has is that they’re tied to the euro, having given up their own currency which they could now devalue.
What he’s coy about is how devaluing the dollar that much will wipe out the nest eggs of everyone living on fixed incomes, and make all of us who buy imported goods (cars, fuel, fresh produce from Latin America) poorer as the dollar price of those goods soars.
So the Federal Government runs up a huge debt, and to pay it off they impoverish the American people. I guess that’s what passes for liberal compassion these days.
Yep. The Chinese have benefited from the Euro crisis in the sense that their dollars (gazillions of them in the form of US Treasuries) have become worth more…
2011 Sucked, 2012 Could Be Even Worse
On a personal, family level, 2011 was one of the worst years of our lives, but that’s our problem.
On national and world levels, 2011 sucked just as much with the added downer that, unlike us, 2012 holds the prospect of being even worse for the United States and the planet.
Of course, good things happened last year; they always do.
Navy Team 6 dispatching Usama bin laden was the highlight, an economy showing meager signs of improvement was less noteworthy but nevertheless a good thing, GOP candidates having the nerve to debate incessantly and make their opinions known to the electorate was a refreshing novelty, the stock market did fairly well, the Iraq War temporarily ended, and the number of abortions declined.
As is too often the case, the bad outweighed the good both at home and throughout the world in 2011.
Domestically, MSNBC and Bill Maher are still regurgitating, the economy is still wallowing in the doldrums, poverty is increasing as planned by the administration, our borders are farcical, and the nation suffered through a series of unprecedented natural catastrophes as well as social upheaval with 1960′s precedents in the persons of the Occupiers.
However, although Mother Natures’s onslaughts are inevitable and unavoidable, we are free to pull the plug on MSNBC and Maher, the economy will recover, the poor really aren’t really all that bad off, various states are attempting to perform the federal job of stemming illegal immigration, and the Occupiers are more and more recognized for the anarchists they are.
As opposed to those 2011 negatives with silver linings, above all else in the negative category is the fact Barack Hussein Obama still reigns as America’s Chief Executive.
Overseas, cataclysmic natural, economic, and political events were far worse than our own. . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=11968.)
2012 will be much better, probably the best year in decades, at least if you can believe the newspapers and major television channels.
Good truespeak! I read it on the latest press release from the Ministry of Plenty. ;-)
interesting blog Gene
cheers
Hanson’s comparison of two countries’ cultures is also evident within one country, Switzerland. Switzerland has four languages spoken within its borders. German, French, Italian, and Romansch.
Several years ago, our family took a trip to German-speaking Switzerland. As we drove along through the beautiful countryside we noticed the houses and yards were so beautifully kept. Then, we somehow crossed an invisible line because we suddenly noticed the houses and yards were not so well manicured. We asked our German-speaking Swiss friend, “What happened? Why are things so different looking than just a few kilometers back?” His answer was simple, “We just passed into the French-speaking part of Switzerland.
Culture matters.
Heck, I noticed the very same thing when I traveled across Europe to Spain, from an assignment in Greece. I crossed the border between Germany and France after gassing up at the American base at Bitburg. I knew absolutely when I had crossed over the border, not from any signs, but from the way the houses and gardens looked.
Same thing for Austria. I took a train from Budapest to Vienna. I knew immediately when I had crossed the border into Austria. White picket fences. Window flowerboxes. Trimmed hedges.
Both good examples of VDH’s emphasis on culture. Another glaring example is the difference between the actions and ethics of the clean and law abiding TeaParty folks and the unaccountable Occupy movement, the latter among which there have now been 9 murders reported, along with the countless rapes, drugs and filth, while many local authorities ignore all municipal and public health violations and criminal activities, thereby encouraging their immoral behavior.
“So the Federal Government runs up a huge debt, and to pay it off they impoverish the American people. I guess that’s what passes for liberal compassion these days”.
This is where the rubber hits the road, and its not liberal or conservative. Executives and officials in banking and government environments decide how to continue transferring massive and increasing debt to US taxpayers.
Does anyone here truly believe they will not be paying a part of the European Debt ? If not in direct cash transfers as was done in 2007 and 2008, it will be in agricultural trade credit, Military weapons purchases with loans provided by US govt, technology loans, etc…it will be disguised in various forms and take circuitous path, but ultimately will be used to pay back European Debt.
Then we have 300 Trillion sitting on American Bank ledgers, derivatives shifted from securities divisions to bank divisions of Wells Fargo, bank of America, JP Morgan, etc. They shifted these derivatives because securities division would be forced to pay losses, the bank division can request Federal Assistance (AKA Taxpayer bailout), and has already done so.
History is a great teacher, and Dr. Hanson is obviously ( over) qualified to discuss these matters with authority. The only weak link is when finance and banking are discussed or explained in political terms or solution / problem is presented in a political context. Then the wheels on the cart come flying off;
Bankers do not care for politics, They care for one item only; more money. If it comes from the W. Bush Administrations, fantastic. if it comes from the Obama Administration, super. If it will be coming from the Romney Administration, excellent. There are no politics in Central banking, it is moving numbers from taxpayer column to (their) bank column. Until voters understand this we will continue to throw ourselves on the grindstone with no effect.
In fact the situation continues to worsen because it is presented politically and the solution is never going to be found by voting your guy in.
it’s the joooooos (i.e., the bankers)
Alex – FYI, the Marshall Plan was approximately 1/4 of 1 percent of US GDP in each of 4 years. If you count the aid that we were giving from the end of the war until the beginning of the Marshall Plan, you must count GDP in those years as well, and the percentage comes out about the same. In today’s terms the whole thing would be about $35 billion per year for 6 or 7 years.
Alex – Whoops, I thought you had made a comparison to post-WWII aid to Europe. (Maybe somebody else did?) Well, it’s good FYI, anyway.
the overspendng by Congress relates to being able to buy votes and then retiring before the excrement hits the fan. I suggest each member of congress be fitted with electronic ankle bracelets so we can find them after the economic collapse happens.
We need sharper focus in our foreign policy.
For example, Syria and Lebanon are tiny economies and are trivial to fundamental American interests.
The only concern in Syria is humanitarian regarding the Christian population–Syria also gave safe haven to 800,000 Christian refugees from Iraq.
Fortunately this issue is now being dealt with by the Vatican and the UN SC.
Only American fools would bother reporting on Syria and Lebanon in 2012
They are trivial
Lamestream journos are the dumbest of the dumb, truly uninformed people, not just the American ones as you would expect, but the British ones too. Short-sighted, always afraid to be non-PC, missing the major stories, ignorant of the historical background, they are wasting our time. For a better view on things check out e.g. atimesdotcom (Asian Times), and other non-western sources.
The West is dying in its own self-imposed ignorance and it’s just not worth reading the stuff.
Yanni,
It’s not a mental defect, but a moral defect, that makes journalists suppress the truth. They have bought into a world view that suppresses truth about, let’s see, God, sexual morality, honesty, responsibility, and lots more. When a person, or groups of people, turn away from the things they know are true, they lose the ability to distinguish truth about everything else.
The end result is that the smarter journalists conspire to tell lies to gain themselves and their allies power (what they value) and the dumber ones merely parrot what the smarter ones tell them to receive approval (what they value).
The Iranians don’t make excuses for hating us…the leftists do it for them.
Similarly, Obama doesn’t have to make up excuses, alibis, distortions…his pocket media does it for him.
Chris Matthews, NPR, the MYTImes are the mother’s milk of distortion.
When a country “goes full leftist”, it no longer has to take any responsibility for itself. Same with an American politician going full leftist. All the excuses, alibis, “root causes”, blameshifting, distortion is part of the “pact”.
The lack of accountability, shirking of responsibility, is what makes leftists in power “feel a laziness” to their existence. If you have no accountability…being a slacker, a backslider, a freeloader, is the “reward”.
It’s always somebody else’s fault, it’s “their” greed, it’s their “taking” of what you ought to be handed on a silver platter. And they all better “bust a hump” to carry you…because leftists can be a real load…of something.
Proreason,
i would hope Anti Semitism would not be tolerated on this Site…I would expect your post removed by the moderator(s).
I think you have detected sarcasm from proreason. He was anticipating what alex would say next in his diatribe against the bankers.
I think you need some education in literary devices and the use of language to convey emotions and ideas.
Obama’s grand plan is a redefinition of not only America, but of all things. He redefined the very meaning of leadership by leading from behind. Rising unemployment is now jobs “saved or created.” Warfare is an “overseas contingency operation” and the ability to attack and retreat at the same time. Obama has redefined political oratory with the aggressive use of “I,” “me,” and “my.” Terrorism is now “man-caused disasters,” while diplomacy is apologizing and bowing to world leaders for the sins of those lesser men who came before. A trillion dollars has become an affordable sum. Bipartisanship is giving the opposition the opportunity to do as they are told, and dignified debate is the demonization of anyone who disagrees. Fair play is victory by any means. Truth is whatever Obama says it is. Rules are whatever he says they are. Merit is deserving awards for what he might do. Humility is saying:
I think I’m a better speech writer than my speech writers, I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m … a better political director than my political director. I’m LeBron, baby. I can play at this level. I got game.
And in describing the sagacity of his nomination for the Presidency:
I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal[.]
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/obama_the_dream.html#ixzz1iGQMCCzW
“When I see two Greek drivers scream and gesticulate at each other in Omonia Square over a tiny fender bender—as four lanes are shut down for their fifteen minutes of machismo — and, in contrast, watch two German drivers on Neuhauser straße in Munich exchange information, shake hands, and help push their dented cars off the road, does all that 1000 times a day also make a difference?”
I’m saving that to my favourite quotes.
Driving through Ecuador and its typical third world squalor, every now and then one will see a beautiful, immaculate wooden villa set on the shores of a mountain a lake. Germans.
The difference in the US and other successful countries is that the locals were inspired by the German immigrant culture to up their game. In the third world all they think of is to expropriate the results.
Dear Professor Hanson: When you write:
“We are now into our twenty-third year of our long struggle with Iran—or around 1972 in Cold War chronology with the Soviets. ”
do you really mean “thirty third” and “1982″ ?
Sincerely yours,
Gregory Koster
Mark Steyn wrote a great piece that most Americans seem oblivious about: the steep decline in Europe’s birth rate. While on surface that’s just a curiosity, it actually explains completely Europe’s decline that VDH writes often about. Dr. Hanson does a marvelous job helping Americans feel and taste Europe’s problems, as usual, and I read anything Dr. Hanson writes. Steyn hit ultimately the problem of Europe on the head- liberalism = total selfishness, thus the me-attitude, excuse-me attitude, entitle-me attitude, the worship-me attitude (I could go on) is too important for “burden” of children and families, thus ultimately, there is no one left to feed the selfishness in any form, i.e. socially, financially, militarily, culturally, governmentally, etc. Europe is draining down the toilet. Just like Dr. Hanson describes California, draining down the toilet. Just like any other liberal state. Just like any other liberal/fascist/communist country- draining down the toilet. Heaven help us.
VDH “Does a Chris Matthews understand just how much contempt Obama has for someone so sycophantic as himself?”
Does the MSM and Obama understand just how much contempt we have for them all?
Apparently, any perceived contempt detected by the Obama “administration” and/or lapdog media, can be reduced to simple racism or another socially unacceptable term. Enough to get you publicly ostracized.
They don’t want to discuss it. You’ve been found guilty. Fall in line, fool.
Matthews and his ilk remind me of stereotypical “battered women syndrome”. The press gets blatantly treated like children by this administration, lied to and abused. What is their reaction? “We need to love him more so he’ll treat us better.” It’s really sad to watch these so-called journalists climb over each other to try to prove to Obama that they are the most sincere. My only hope is that the clueless public that still watch these boobs (a diminishing number by the ratings I’ve heard) are continuing to become embarrassed by this display of pitifulness.
“he will not release the transcripts because he does not have to”
Pretty much. Academic records are just targets. They’re either used to attack or quietly ignored, depending on the preferred agenda. I actually suspect they’re not as bad as you suggest – the guy clearly is quite intelligent (call it “cunning” or “deviousness” if that makes it easier to swallow), and what IS known about his record suggests that he took his academic career seriously (at one point, it WAS his career – which is unusual for a president). After the embarrassment of the birth certificate (and the really quite astonishing attempts to spin it as either a fake, or an incompetent attempt to make it look like a fake by leaving the OCR switched on – come on, you have to agree that was deranged), I’m not sure anyone really wants to make a fuss about the grades in case he does actually release them. After all – only his supporters actually know what is in them. They can’t lose.
As for iran, I’d love to see some links to back up some of those claims. Nobody in the mainstream left is trying to legitimize the iranian regime (sheesh, just look at their human rights record – who on the left is going to cheer for a government that hangs gay people?), and if they did want to do that, they’d hardly have to point to operation AJAX – as you point out, there are 30 years of sanctions and sabre-rattling as well (not to mention the odd downed airliner). I don’t recall obama mentioning the mossadeq business in relation to the protests either – he DID mention it during his 2009 cairo speech, though. Maybe you’re conflating the two? Got a link?
And I think he did exactly the right thing during the protests. The domestic power of the iranian regime is built on anti-americanism. It’s their raison detre. Nothing would have let the mad mullahs legitimize the killing of protesters as effectively as the US president making grand statements of support. Instantly, the entire uprising would have been declared (with proof!) as a US plot, freeing the iranian hand to do what it liked. The US president also doesn’t have any political clout in iran – he can say what he likes, they just don’t care. There’s no diplomatic or trade relationship to leverage, either. So demanding big symbolic gestures might play well in the US, but in iran it would have only got kids killed. That might be ok by some, but apparently obama thought otherwise. I think he did the right thing.
As for europe, who knows. I think history is more significant than some hypothetical national character. The north of italy is quite different to the south, economically and culturally. Not all of france is lazy and coddled – its successful industrial and agricultural exports point to that. Merkel got some egg-face after lecturing spain about putting in a day’s work, only to discover that the spanish actually work longer hours than germans do. Some of the baltic states are industrious and successful … but not all. Most of the mediterranean countries problems are, IMHO, more to do with corruption than culture. If greece actually enforced its taxation laws, it would be a very different sort of place. If italy did something about its own political corruption it would also necessarily have to pull up its socks. We can hardly accuse the british of laziness, but look at their unemployment problems, and the difficulty in maintaining any sort of manufacturing base (if they stopped kowtowing to The City, that might change). The difference between northern ireland and the republic? A few degrees latitude, and an economic light-year.
As for “assume that the news is prepped in such a way as to suggest the opposite of what really happened”, there’s a lot of it going around.
Techno, would you accept that the reason we won’t see those grades is because he got average Cs in Black Studies? Let’s be honest, he was an Affirmative Action entry into Harvard Law (as he himself has admitted). It’s entirely possible that his grades OR his course of study are an embarrassment to him. Actually, both seem very plausible.
Do you have some references to verify that, or is it just assumption? We do know that he graduated in the top 10% as a Doctor of Law. And whatever the “affirmative action” aspects of presidency of the HLR … he WAS the first african american to hold the position. Did this affirmative action campaign extend only to him personally or something? Because those are two things that aren’t easily explained away.
Would Obama’s own words be considered “proof”? For most people, the answer would undoubtedly be yes. But since Obama rarely speaks without lying, it’s in question for the marxist.
“…I must say, however, that as someone who has undoubtedly benefited from affirmative action programs during my academic career, and as someone who may have benefited from the Law Review’s affirmative action policy when I was selected to join the Review last year…”
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2011/08/29/full-transcript-of-obama-law-review-letter-to-the-editor/
This is from a letter he wrote to the Harvard Law Review in defense of Affirmative Action. Note carefully that the grammar is at the approximate level of a poorly educated undergraduate freshman, despite the fact that Obama was a 3rd year law student and an elected editor of the Law Review (as opposed to an editor who earned the title by merit of scholarship) when the letter was written. Apparently, he not only didn’t edit anybody else’s work, he wasn’t capable of editing his own.
The first sentence is an example:
“Since the merits of the Law Review’s selection policy has been the subject of commentary for the last three issues, I’d like to take the time to clarify exactly how our selection process works.”
The correct grammar is “merits…have”. Not “merits…has”. It’s not a complicated point. MS Word easily catches the error, as can any moderately literate high school student. Like many stupid people, Obama, the third year law student writing officially as an editor of the Law Review, was easily confused about which verbs go with which nouns, something most people master in high school. There are at least three other grammatical errors in the piece. It’s a bit strange to find a glaring error in the very first sentence of one of the very few documents that can be proven to have been written by Obama. It’s evidence of something, probably that his “magna cum laude”, an honor for which there is no proof, was a gift from Harvard.
The full transcript appeared for a while on a Harvard website, but of course, it has now been removed.
There is one other quick point to make about this, in case you want to pretend that ungrammatical writing isn’t an important insight into Obama’s intelligence. He was a lawyer, and words are one of the three primary tools of lawyers, the other two being knowledge of the law, and logic. Writing ability is the most basic of the three tools. You will never meet a lawyer who isn’t an accomplished, or at least a careful writer. Obama making a glaring grammatical error in the first sentence of a public letter is comparable to a carpenter who is about to graduate from the most prestigious carpentry school in the world but who is unable to hammer a nail into a board. It’s simply astonishing and is probably the most important piece of evidence of how profoundly incompetent the man is.
And from your post: “We do know that he graduated in the top 10% as a Doctor of Law”. Please cite your proof for that statement, other than the claim endlessly repeated on the internet and never backed up that he graduated from Harvard Magna Cum Laude. Since you said that “We do know”, and since you are the self appointed arbiter of “proof”, you must certainly have access to a document that demonstrates the assertion without question.
Link to your proof or tacitly admit that you are a liar.
Based upon this evidence we are asked to believe that 0bama authored two books entirely on his own. At least one of these books is alleged to be well written, or so I’m told. I have read neither.
Obama on affirmative action.
http://www.hlrecord.org/2.4475/record-retrospective-obama-on-affirmative-action-1.577511
There’s no conspiracy.
Where is the evidence that Obama graduated in the top 10% of his class Techno?
If “we know” it, there must be some evidence of it.
Frankly, I don’t have any issue with people asserting stuff, until that same person begins demanding the evidence for other people’s assertions.
So produce your evidence. I’m dying to see it.
I say the guy hasn’t achieved anything in his life that wasn’t given to him because of affirmative action or to create a false resume and unearned credentials, and I can supply reams of evidence for that claim, including the letter cited above. The missing records are the overwhelming trail of evidence, but there is plenty more than that. But I’m open-minded and if I see something like a transcipt that proves he took hard courses and made good grades, I’ll reconsider.
So I’m just dying to see the evidence you have that proves he graduated at the top of his class.
I have had a post in moderation now for several hours. I’m not sure why it’s been singled out, but here’s the link to it for when it does appear:
http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/comment/166477/
That contains three links to harvard web pages pointing out that he graduated MCL and what that means. Nobody has ever denied it, or cast reasonable doubt upon it. It’s been reported by numerous credible news sources, including mr murdoch’s wall street journal (and that was in an article that was CRITICAL of him). Even the people who truly hate the guy don’t try to claim it’s bogus – they tend to try to undermine what MCL means instead. I would suggest that it’s hardly a controversial detail.
And my mother says i’m a greater genius than einstein.
http:\proreasonsmotherwritesasonnettohisbrilliance\verse1
There.
I’ve proved it.
How big of a fool can a person be? That’s the real question.
Not to get too technical, but someone who graduates with a JD, does NOT graduate as a “Doctor of Law”.
One can go on to get a masters degree in Law and then a PhD. If one did so, they would have achieved the status of Dr. of law. Not before then, however.
Obama had absolutely NO achievements that would have put any other person in the position he was in as the “something or other” of the Harvard Law Review.
He did NOTHING in High School, NOTHING in college, NOTHING on his test scores to have even been sitting there. Nothing.
You see…he didn’t even have LOW honors in college or high school. That means, he could NOT have gotten into Columbia or Harvard on merit. He didn’t meet basic minimum requirements for acceptance.
He never wrote a single article or even edited one at Harvard. Having not done this as an underclassman, he had NO ability to be an “editor” based upon minimal qualifications.
He was handed everything he achieved. He was NOT a “professor” of law. He was a lecturer. He wrote nothing, he produced nothing, he achieved nothing.
He was handed everything.
Where are YOUR links techno.
Is this what people mean by hypocrisy?
I’ll argue with several of your points, Techno.
First, your claim that academic records are ‘just targets’ is logically empty; records are evidence of intellectual accomplishment and records are not ‘just targets’ for others but function as descriptors of an individual, in this case, Obama. And, these descriptions of Obama are missing.
You say that he is ‘clearly intelligent’. I’ve seen no evidence of this but plenty of evidence that he is unintelligent. This includes the policies he supports as well as his behavior to foreign nations and their leaders.
You say that he took his academic career seriously. Heh – are YOU serious? Obama didn’t write any articles, edit any journals, write any books (and his autobiographies, whether by him or another, are not relevant). Writing academic articles – publish or perish – is a key descriptor of a serious academic and doesn’t apply to Obama.
You say that his supporters know his grades? Really? Contact one and tell us.
No, the domestic powers of the Iranian regime are not built on such a weak tactic as anti-Americanism but on a much stronger strangehold on the Iranian people; namely, the lack of individual freedom. No freedom to set up private businesses; no freedom to publicly dissent or argue from a different political standpoint; no freedom for women; no freedom of speech, debate, thought. The Iranian demonstrators weren’t asking to align themselves with America; they were asking for freedom and human rights. It was outrageous, disgraceful, that Obama ignored them and refused to support their basic human rights to such freedoms.
Eat ‘im up, man!
Were bush’s low grades his “descriptors”? Was a C average the measure of his intellectual accomplishment? No, seriously – I want to see you spin your way out of that statement.
For the purposes of current political debate, they really are just targets. It doesn’t matter WHAT obama does, somebody will find some way to use it as “conclusive proof” of his ineptitude. Take the example of the letter to the editor – folks just ignore the (probably) good grades, the years as a senior lecturer in law and the civil rights work as a practicing lawyer and declare that a couple of errors in a published letter are all anyone needs to know – he’s obviously an idiot. Never mind that you don’t actually know if the letter was published verbatim anyway.
So yes, they really are just targets. If they demonstrate an almost complete shining record of straight A’s, somebody will find the one subject he flunked and make that the entire story. Or, they’ll just change the subject and start demanding his high school report cards, followed by any boy scout merit badges, and swimming accomplishment certificates and so on. It’s not an inquiry – it’s just fishing for targets. Just as people went looking for targets to use against bush.
The obama-derangement-sufferers are desperate for ammunition. Anything will do, and it doesn’t even need to be real. Cast an eye over this thread and you’ll see no shortage of people willing to just suppose whatever suits their agenda. Without credible evidence, and usually without regard for common sense. It really doesn’t matter what’s in those transcripts, we all know how it’ll be spun.
Personally I think it would be funny if he did release his grades. For one thing, it’ll change the subject. We’ll get to hear about the next conspiracy theory. But I understand why he doesn’t do it, for the reason mentioned in the previous paragraph. I think he’d rather talk about policy.
As for you claiming that he’s unintelligent because you disagree with his policies … and then you go on to advocate a policy that would have had no effect whatsoever, apart from getting more iranian protesters killed and strengthening the hand of the iranian regime. I don’t think you’re in a position to judge. Obama’s response to the iranian protests was right on the money, and it’s good to see a president who puts the best interests of the people in harm’s way ahead of cheap domestic political points.
Somebody who takes a job as a senior lecturer while pursuing advocacy work on the side, rather than just going and grabbing the money, clearly takes his academic career seriously. Maybe he wasn’t any GOOD at it, but he took it seriously. Nobody puts up with that many years of academic life for the money or the entertainment value.
Nope – grades are descriptors; they describe your mastery of the subject. They are not ‘targets’ for other people to use to denigrate or elevate the individual. The reason why professors and teachers give grades is because they DESCRIBE how well the individual has mastered the subject. Professors and teachers do not give grades to provide ‘targets’ for others.
Your claim that Obama will not release his grades because he doesn’t want them used as targets against him lacks evidence; it’s simply your speculation. After all, he considers himself brilliant and akin to Lincoln, FDR, Reagan etc, and therefore, his grades would be just another piece of evidence. If they are low, then, this might show that Obama’s self-description (note: self-description) is more similar to that of Narcissus than Odysseus.
I repeat; I have seen no evidence of Obama’s intelligence; that is, ‘his’ policies and programs are not written by him; he just sells them, and does so in a manner filled with misinformation and manipulation.
For example, no intelligent person would make the statement that IF you do not pass this Stimulus, THEN, the economy will move into a depression. Such a linear prediction is impossible to make in economics, such a link (stimulus/depression) is impossible to connect.
Equally, no intelligent person would make a direct link between that stimulus and an unemployment rate below 8.5%.
As well, no intelligent person and indeed, no ethical person, would allow such a stimulus and such a trillion dollar debt load on the people. The stimulus was primarily to pay off unionized public service workers, and, not to enable ‘shovel ready projects’ – which is what he told the public. Obama later on laughed about this lack of such projects. It’s no laughing matter.
No intelligent person would set up a health care bill, with such a massive aspect of the GDP, without it being thoroughly vetted and examined by not only Congress but also the States. Instead, Obama insisted they pass it ‘without reading it’.
No intelligent person would insult the leaders of allied nations. No intelligent person would support the Honduran dictator’s attempt to violate the Honduran constitution.
No intelligent person would state that ATM’s have contributed to unemployment – for heaven’s sake, workers have to BUILD those ATMs and service them..apart from the fact that they’ve been around for decades.
No intelligent person would blame the US economy on the Japanese tsunami.
No intelligent person, especially one functioning as president, would cut-and-splice the population into adversarial groups: racial, ethnic, political – telling one group to ‘go out and get their enemies’; telling people that if they don’t like his policies it means that they are ‘ignorant’.
His refusal to support, ideologically, the freedom seekers of Iran was a cowardly and despicable act. You declare that it ‘saved’ the Iranian people. Heh. Prove it. Prove that ‘doing nothing’ saved the Iranian people. I love proving negatives.
Equally, he took weeks to react to Egypt – for Obama always has to be on what he feels is ‘the winning side’ (not the morally right side; the winning side). He was shamed by France and the UK into Libya. He refused to go to Congress for this act, redefining the act of war to mean: ‘boots on the ground’. That is, for Obama, dropping bombs from planes is not an act of war and does not require going to Congress. Heh.
As for his being an academic – I disagree. No evidence. When he was ‘editor’ of the Harvard Law Review, he did no editing and wrote no articles. Same thing when he was a Law Lecturer. No articles. Not one. That is a clear sign of a non-academic.
Your statement that IF you give your lectures AND ‘pursue advocacy work on the side’ THEN, this means that you take your academic work seriously is sheer nonsense. How, intellectually and empirically, can you say that doing advocacy work on the side – shows that you are a serious academic? The two are unrelated.
I know lots of serious academics, who do ‘on the side’ activities, whether it be advocacy, or organizing conferences, or monitoring grad students, or heading up science labs. AND – they are academics; i.e., they do research and publish. Obama has done NO RESEARCH and PUBLISHED NOTHING. Got that? So, he was not and is not, a serious academic and most certainly, has provided no evidence that he is capable of research and analysis. Of anything.
You are obviously an uncritical devotee of Obama. That’s your choice. What is sad is your lack of analysis and critique of your own devotion.
re: Marshall Plan. Was in large part grants and loans made to (and constrained to the) purchase of American goods and services (granted, there was no one else to buy from – though arguably the U.S. suppressed the return of local competitors for half a decade or more). We flooded post war Europe with American salesmen and construction companies – local merchants called it the real occupation. Bottom line for the U.S. economy was not a lot different than what the Chinese expect of their current practice of investing or loaning their U.S. receipts back to the U.S.
A better plan would have been just to give dollars to the countries’ citizens directly and have them spend it as they see fit – rather than dictating what was to be bought from whom – similar to the problems the U.S. causes when it grants food aid – (we send food rather than dollars) – which amounts to subsidies for U.S. farmers who otherwise might not be competitive on the merits – dollars would re-establish regional supply (of what’s needed by the families rather than what’s given) if competitive, rather than driving whatever remains even further out-of-business. Note the money has to be given to the citizens, not their government if it’s to help seed a return of local markets.
That’s how foreign aid has always worked, and still works today. Very few countries donate cash, at least in significant quantities. You’ll hear dollar figures, but it’s usually in the form of goods and services. That’s part of the reason that foreign aid can be so damaging to local industries – ship thousands of tonnes of free food into a country and see what happens to local producers. It’s a problem, because sooner or later the aid agencies will pull out, and leave behind a damaged local economy.
Links please, techno.
Cite your sources for “this is how foreign” policy has always worked.
Just trying to keep the playing field level here.
Are you actually interested, or are you just trying to blow smoke?
Go pick the aid agency of the government of your choice and take a look at what they contribute. Apart from funding of NGOs like the red cross or the UN, you’ll find that most contributions are in the form of goods and services. Partly it’s self-interest (it’s a lot easier to win political support for foreign aid if the money flows to suppliers back home) and partly it’s pragmatic – take the indian ocean boxing day tsunami a few years back, for example. Australia pledged a billion dollars (again, for example) to indonesia to help rebuild aceh. But you can’t eat money, and you can’t build houses from it. So it was inevitably used to buy/rent equipment and materials back home, and to hire australian and indonesian staff to deploy it. If a country is economically trashed, there’s not much point in just giving them money. They’re going to have spend that money on something, probably internationally, so you might was well just give them credits and let them spend the money in your own country. But it’s not without problems.
This really isn’t controversial. Giving money to a battered europe (and japan) wasn’t all that useful – they needed food, fuel, clothes, medical supplies and building materials. And all of the world’s biggest surviving producers just happened to be the victorious allies.
I have to admit I’m at a bit of a disadvantage – I have friends who actually do this stuff for a living.
Although he hasn’t released his transcripts (he should, and I suspect that they will show some underachievement at undergrad level), Harvard Law apparently did confirm in 2008 that he graduated magna cum laude (top 10%).
He did graduate Magna, but back when he did, I’m not sure that the distinction only went to the top 10%, as it does now. I think they made that fix later due to the grade inflation issue–if Magna is everybody with a 3.75 GPA, but nobody ever gets less than a B+, about half the class will graduate “with honors.” Same with the Law Review business. We look at the HLR and recognize that once upon a time, only the top students got in. Then we impute that characteristic to Obama, not realizing that by the time he was there, the fix was in (in order to get more diversity). That’s not to claim he did not have the grades–only that the changed rules make it impossible to say. Such is the double-edged sword of affirmative action.
Got some references to back that up, or do you prefer to just speculate wildly?
First ever african-american president of the HLR. That’s odd, if affirmative action was stacking the deck. Did affirmative action only apply to him personally or something?
Js makes an excellent point, though. The interest in the transcripts is precisely to find a weak point – however far back it’s necessary to go – and focus on it to the exclusion of all else. He could have a nobel prize (ok, ANOTHER nobel prize) and the whole story will still be on some random subject he just squeaked through in first year and why that’s critical to judging his presidency today. That’s why there’s just no mileage in playing along. It should be possible to judge his record without knowing how many books he returned overdue in high school or how many speeding tickets he received or whether he always hung his coat on the right hook in kindergarten. The obsession with dredging that stuff up just shows how stupid political debate has become. It was dumb (albeit funny) when democrats did it to bush, and it’s dumb now. He might have been a complete stoner, but he still got a health care bill through congress.
You don’t have to be a star pupil to become president. You just have to win an election. He did that, as did GWB. That’s all that counts. It would have been nice if bush had been a better judge of people, but they don’t teach that at college anyway.
In any case, after the birth certificate fiasco you’d think people wouldn’t be so keen to set themselves up for another egging. All of the available evidence points to the same sort of outcome, so why do it?
The notion that Obama is somehow a towering intellectual who is articulate in all matters quickly becomes absurd when one observes how fast Obama degenerates into a stuttering gaff machine the moment his teleprompter fails. Obama’s ability to make cogent off-the-cuff remarks is virtually non-existent. Obama may be able to regurgitate material fed to him by his handlers very well, but his inability to stand on his own and intelligently show a grasp of history and how it applies to events in our time is more than obvious. The image of Obama sold to the electorate by the fawning MSM in 2007 and the actual Obama we observe in action today are clearly two different people.
Go watch the bill o’reilly interviews. Then compare them with palin’s “gotcha” efforts.
Make enough speeches in a day, and you will trip up and make gaffes. Every recent president (and candidate) has used teleprompters – including sarah palin and john mccain. It’s simply not possible to keep up the sort of schedule demanded for a modern presidential campaign while making up every speech on the fly. Nobody even tries. Winston churchill himself wouldn’t be able to do the number of public addresses that obama was making during the campaign without prepared speeches.
But there’s also no shortage of evidence of obama making off-the-cuff remarks. Want one example? Sure – just go watch the o’reilly interviews. The claims about obama not being able to express a thought without a teleprompter are just silly. You can try to claim the moon is made of cheese, but that doesn’t make it true.
Affirmative action or not, an idiot simply isn’t going to (a) get into harvard law school, (b) graduate with good grades, (c) be taken on as an editor and then president of the harvard law review and (d) work as a law lecturer for 10 years while keeping up a private practice advocating for civil rights. Those are all things that we do know happened, however much you guys might want to pretend otherwise. The guy clearly is not an idiot. No amount of wild speculation and made-up assertion-based evidence can really challenge that most obvious conclusion. Really. Give it up. Ditch the “he’s stupid” and go back to “he’s a muslim” or “he’s the antichrist” or something.
And he wiped the floor with mccain in the debates. No teleprompters there.
Obama’s websites and sychophants frequently make the claim that he was the first African American editor of the Law Review, but of course it’s a lie.
The first African American EDITOR was Charles Hamilton Houston in 1919, who earned the prestigous role.
Obama was the first African American PRESIDENT of the Law Review, an elected role that wasn’t based on merit. Obama never even bothered to edit anything, which is understandable, since he wasn’t competant to do so.
But hey, it’s just one word of difference, isn’t it? Well, two words…”first” and “editor”. He wasn’t first and he wasn’t an editor.
But some of us are just picky people. The important thing is that he is a genius, and if his school records were ever published, as Dubya’s were, and Kerry’s and McCain’s, and as Romney’s and Gingrich’s will be, then Obama’s records would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that his IQ is through the roof. After all, the msm and many objective people from Harvard and other Ivy League schools have declared it to be so many times.
Why, obama is so smart that he probaly doesn’t even need the teleprompter, even for his speeches to grade school students. After all, he has told us that he is probably the greatest president ever, and knows more about foreign policy than his foreign policy advisors, and more about campaigning than his campaign manager, and he writes better speeches than his professional speech writers. He just doesn’t feel like doing that stuff. When you are busy making the oceans recede, there isn’t enough time in a day for the petty stuff.
Yes. That’s what I wrote. President.
Are you familiar with the “straw man” fallacy?
where are your links?
you are always demanding links from others while you spout your upsupported opinions.
where are your links?
And why are you responding to this comment? I said you are a liar if you can’t provide backup for “We do know that he graduated in the top 10% as a Doctor of Law”. cfbleachers, a lawyer, has pointed out that obama is not a Doctor of Law, but I’m more interested in the proof that he graduated in the top 10% of his Harvard class, or any class, for that matter. Why aren’t you, the calm proof-demanding defender of your president, responding to that?
I’ve already responded. Twice, now. The first post remains in moderation. I have no idea why. I don’t see the point in posting it again if it’s just going to go into moderation again. But just google “obama magnum cum laude” on the harvard.edu domain and you can find your own harvard-published news articles verifying that he graduated thus. And if you check out the harvard law school’s FAQ, you’ll find an explanation of what the term means. You might be right about one thing, though – the combination of magna cum laude and summa cum laude is apparently (at least currently) awarded (between them) to the top 20% of students. The law school, on the other hand, says that it’s awarded to students with a 3.75 GPA. Take your pick.
Here’s my second response. I don’t know if you can see the first. Have a look at let me know.
http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/comment/166668/
Don’t blame me if the moderator doesn’t approve a post. Nothing I can do about it.
I can’t believe you would actually post this nonsense.
These aren’t his transcripts.
Anything can be posted on the internet.
How big of a fool is it possible to be?
Isn’t summa cum laude the top 10% and magna cum laude the top 20%? Or can you earn magna by honors in any one course? Any Harvard Law grads on line today?
Sir,
I think that the transcripts of the President’s school days will end up being misleading, whatever they show. I was a university professor for nearly two decades; every effort was made to encourage minority students, often by padding their performance under pressure from administration deans (much to the ultimate disadvantage, needless to say, of the genuinely gifted among them, who learned that they were not being held to the highest standard, and hence, often fell short of their potential — a perverse outcome, surely). So very likely the President’s transcript is stellar, but not truly indicative. More to the point would be to know these two things: 1. what courses did he take, and which did he avoid? and 2. what were his standardized scores, particularly his LSAT? The typical Harvard LSAT score is extraordinary, well above being “bright.” Finally, how did he do on his Bar Exam, on the first pass? Hillary Clinton, as I recall, famously failed her Washington, DC bar exam the first time; probably reflecting how she spent her Yale Law School hours. At any rate, those performances would be, to me, much more indicative not of raw intelligence, per se, which the President clearly possesses, but rather, of application, and an educated mind.
How many lawyers voluntarilly surrender their law licenses? Most lawyers would say that their license is the most important professional asset that they have. Clinton fought tooth and nail to retain his license.
Barack and Michelle both gave up their licenses voluntarilly.
This article has some information about the question, stating that in Illinois, during a six year period, 1 in 97 attorneys lost their licenses.
http://hiddenviolations.com/stories/?prcss=display&id=358596%3E%20&id=358596
It doesn’t split out voluntary from involuntary. If the data is correct, it means the chances of TWO related attorneys giving up their licenses voluntarilly is in the neighborhood of 10,000 to 1, probably even greater.
But we shouldn’t be surprised. It’s one of dozens of one-in-a-million coincidences in Obama’s life. The ordinary rules of life simply don’t apply to the light worker.
Debunked.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/lawlicenses.asp
Snopes is a website that is often used to “debunk” stories about Obama. Somehow it doesn’t seem to discover anything at all strange about the man who has sealed all the documentation about his life tighter than Fort Knox. For example, Snopes just can’t find anything to be concerned about in the Bill Ayers releationship. It “confirms” Obama’s famous quote that Bill was just a guy in the neighborhood.
The story about Michelle’s law license is quite a bit more complex than the snopes article asserts. Here is one of many articles about it that contains a lot more information than the cherry picked data snopes chooses to reveal.
http://findalismonkeyinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2009/08/michelle-obamas-law-license-that-isnt.html
Of course, you won’t be able to find out anything at all about the topic in any of the major fantasy news outlets.
In the case of Barack’s law license, it appears he kept it current until 2008, when he put it into inactive status. That is readily explainable. The more mysterious aspect of Barack’s law career is why he only practiced for about a year, and apparently never was allowed to argue a case in front of a judge or jury. No records about any of that, of course. He is said to have participated in a few cases with the law firm that hired him after Harvard, and to have been an advisor to Acorn regarding its activities. Acorn has since been disbanded because of its long history of illegalities. Then Barack became a law lecturer at the U of Chicago. Little is known about that since only one puff piece love letter has been published in the Slimes about those days.
For both of the america haters, the interesting question about their law degrees remains why neither chose to work for more than a few years in the profession they devoted so much of their life to entering. Particularly since Michelle has informed us so many times how they had to struggle just like ordinary folks to get by. Ordinary folks, that is, except for their law degrees from the most prestiguous law school in the world, which most people would view as a ticket to nirvana.
Just another sweet mystery about the two ever enigmatic geniuses.
Plenty of lawyers never argue a case in court. A lot of coutries still distinguish between barristers and solicitors. Solicitors practice law, prepare briefs, represent clients, do the paperwork – barristers stand up in court. There are far more of the former than the latter. That’s really not unusual at all.
As for how long he practiced law – he was a lecturer pretty much from graduation until he ran for the US senate. He was an associate at a law firm for much of that time. He clearly had two parallel careers – one academic and one private, supporting civil rights groups. All of that is easy enough to find, so why try to make out there’s something sinister going on?
Nobody should care what his grades were, he passed…and therefore, he was able to make his way through college and law school.
If he was fraudulently passed, that’s an interesting fact. If he was granted admission based upon connections and not grades/test scores, that’s an interesting fact.
If there was quite a bit more to the story…then, it becomes important to know.
Obama has attempted to wipe the entire trail clean and the yellow dog journalism that viciously attacks Republican candidates and covers up even murders/manslaughters committed by Democrats…one ought to begin to suspect that something is missing from the picture presented.
Obama clearly did not have the grades/test scores to get into Columbia. It is likely that his grades/test scores were below the median for Occidental.
He clearly did not have the grades/test scores to get into Harvard Law.
Obama did not have a single thing upon which to be voted …well…anything…onto the Harvard Law Review. He wrote nothing, he edited nothing, there were a hundred students with better writing, research. legal analytical and editing skills.
Obama had no qualifications for the US Presidency.
Obama has produced no standard documentation related to his “resumme”, or a life history. There is a suggestion that he has a social security card listed in a state in which he has never resided. Completely uninvestigated.
There is a suggestion he traveled to restricted countries, in which no American passport would allow him to have gone. Story buried.
Frankly, I don’t join the chorus with those who bash the “truthers” on the birth certificate issue. It was the yellow journalism media that chose THAT particular dead elephant trail to trumpet. For me, it was just one of a thousand coverups to investigate. There was absolutely NOTHING wrong with asking the questions, doing the vetting…that the propaganda machine systematically distorted, lied about, covered up…as did Obama.
Do John Kerry’s and Al Gore’s horrible grades and test scores matter? They begin to matter when the propaganda narrative is that THEY are “smart” and the Republican is “dumb”. They matter if the contrast “narrative” is a fraud. They matter because the propaganda machine deceit matters.
The hit job done on Eric Cantor by Sixty Minions matters. It was the most disgusting piece of yellow journalism, truly vile. It should have been titled, “The JOOOOOO Who Wasn’t and Didn’t Compromise and Obama Hates Him So You Should, Because He Is Only For Millionaires and REALLY Isn’t Jewish Because He Sang Christmas Carols in High School and Has a Plush Office That Proves He’s a Rich Jooooo, Who Really Isn’t, He’s a Southerner.
Leslie Stahl’s recent facial work won’t hide the Goebbels behind her mask on this one. Sixty Minions strapped on the kneepads and did Obama’s dirty work, just like the good propaganda dogs they are.
So, does it “matter” what the truth is about Obama? You’re damn right it does. Every last bit of vetting they didn’t do, every last bit of false narrative, every last bit of coverup. The yellow dogs and their candidates need to learn they can only crap on the carpet for so long.
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What matters the most is that when documentation IS available, it alway denies the narrative. See my response above about his claim to be the first African American Law Review Editor, and the earlier response to techno about the letter he wrote defending affirmative action that was filled with grammatical errors.
You are probably aware of Jack Cashill’s thorough proof that Bill Ayers wrote the parts of “Dreams of My Father” that are the basis of the myth that Obama is a literary genius.
This recent piece by Cashill is his latest, and has some information that doesn’t appear in the excellent book Jack wrote about the matter:
http://www.cashill.com/intellect_fraud/another_look_at_ayers.htm
The authorship of the self-important autobiography is really the most important topic of all, because Obama’s career is based on him being the politician who wrote the “best book ever written by a politician”, which includes Winston Churchill, btw. If he did not write it, and the evidence that he did not is overwhelming, then everything else about him is a monument built on quicksand.
BTW, I don’t doubt that obama provided most of the raw material for his first autobiography, the family stories and the events in his life. But it’s beyond question that the “literary genius” was added by Ayers and not the boy king. Obama can’t write a 500 word letter without making at least four embarrasing mistakes, and that doesn’t even get into the question of whether the letter makes any sense or not.
Sixty Minions…har! So true – stopped watching that drivel years ago.
Holiday Peculiarities on CNN and in the Church of England
We’re in the midst of what some call the silly season which is often less silly than it is peculiar, unsettling, and scary. When former NBAer Dennis Rodman announces he’s assembling a topless women’s basketball team, it can be considered just another Rodman oddity.
Other oddities are much more bothersome.
When a Northeastern University Muslim chaplain, Abdullah Faaruuq, who advocates using “the gun and the sword” to advance Islam in America, is subsidized with American taxpayer dollars, it’s outrageous, not silly.
When Bill Maher can get away with tweeting, “Wow, Jesus just f*cked TimTebow bad! And on Xmas Eve!” it’s obscenely offensive.
When the Rose Bowl Committee chucks time-honored tradition and permits OWS crazies to render farcical the Rose Bowl Parade, it’s a sign people have lost their minds.
Still, the holidays also have lighter moments: Home celebrations and office holiday parties sometimes deteriorate into odd events where Uncle Harold dons a lampshade and the 70 year old boss hits on the 22 year old intern. They are somewhat excusable due the effects of over-indulging in holiday cheer–and booze.
However, Uncle Harold’s excessive celebration and the boss’s befuddlement don’t hold a candle or a bottle to ostensibly sober instances of asinine behavior in the television world and, of all places, in the Church of England.
New Year’s festivities on that bulwark of propriety, CNN, capped off this season’s excursions into the bizarre.
Hosted Saturday night by an exceptionally odd couple–staid, light in the loafers newsperson, Anderson Cooper, and foul-mouthed comedienne, Kathy Griffin–the cablecast featured a Griffin performance which she began by tickling her co-host and asking about his “nether regions.”
It got better.
As revelers reveled in Times Square, the exhibitionist Griffin didn’t drop an F-bomb as she did last year and instead dropped her clothes, stripping down to her Victoria Secret bests and prancing about for the crowd just minutes before the ball dropped and Cooper’s jaw pretended to drop.
Cooper quickly flashed a “NO NUDITY” sign–evidence that the act was staged–and complimented her “hot body.” That observation must be qualified by Cooper’s unfamiliarity with female bodies, hot or not, and by the fact Griffin’s body can be described as “hot” only by Griffin or by the visually-challenged.
David Rodham-Gergen called in and Griffin suggestively invited the RINO–and his wife–to call her before, mercifully, putting her clothes back on.
Classy journalism, CNN, even for New Year’s Eve!
I missed it because I was trying to get Uncle Harold to wear a hat in lieu of the lampshade but readers can view CNN’s odd couple in action on my blogsite.
Neither Kathy Griffin nor Anderson Cooper are very entertaining but, in their defense, they try, however lamely. The Church of England’s current Archbishop of Canterbury, doesn’t try at all to entertain yet, in a sick sense, is wildly hilarious. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=11980.)
Thank you for another thought-provoking essay. Though I hadn’t ever thought about it before it appears that you’ve just described the half-life of communism. Now, I’m wondering if there’s a similar description for liberalism and if can also be empirically-determined.
On Germans and success. These observations were from a sibling who traveled to Europe on business. Although random, they may shed some light on Germany’s economic success. 1) Being on time to a meeting, means being early. 2) She was invited to the home of a director of a company and later told me how surprised she was how modest it was. (Frugality). 3) An American employee of the company she worked, slightly damaged the bumper of another car getting out of a parking place. He left his name and contact info and drove off, figuring the other motorist would get a hold of him. The police contacted him at his hotel and arrested him.
This last one may seem like a stretch, relating this to economic success, but if there is an expectation on the part of the authorities that rules will be followed, then you don’t wind up with a Greece, where people don’t pay taxes.
I currently live in Germany and this is my second time living here. What VDH says is spot on. I believe that Charlemagne left quite an impact on Germany with his “no notice inspections” regarding the Rules. For the Germans, it’s all about the Rules. Everyone knows them, everyone follows them and you are shamed or confronted when you don’t follow the Rules. This is good and bad – if you know the Rules, it is easy to get around as everything is predictable. Even the Germans joke about themselves not being ‘flexible’ They are very organized – *everyone* pays their taxes – I’ve had a myriad of different inspectors show up at my house (I live on the economy) flashing badges and coming to inspect my TV (are you paying your taxes?), my oil (use oil to heat water to heat house), my electricity, my internet connection, etc. When you go to a store, you pay a VAT – by the way, the price already includes the VAT – you get to see how much VAT you paid *after* you get the receipt.
You see the Rules especially when driving – unlike in the US, it costs a lot of money to get a driver’s license (let alone drive a car with ~$8/gal gas). To get a driver’s license, one must go to a FahrSchule – it costs upwards of $3k-$5K. However, most of the drivers know all the Rules and follow them and they let you know if you do not by either flashing you (which has been outlawed but is still done) or getting in front of you and using their wiper fluid dispenser to ‘spray you.’
The Germans work hard, but play hard, too. They are very industrious – and have a level of expectation regarding frugality and cleanliness that is high compared to most I’ve seen around the world. I asked a German HausFrau where I could find someone to clean my house – she looked at me in horror and told me know self-respecting German woman would allow anyone to clean her house outside of herself as they would not clean it well enough.
Because they are taught and follow the Rules all of their life, there is an expectation that everyone knows them and follows them. It’s akin to the French Gallic shrug—they look at you when you don’t follow them in horror (or confront you to tell you you are wrong) and when you ask why, they say because that’s just the way it is. Try going into a restaurant and asking for something ‘your way.’ Even in the fast food restaurants, one doesn’t do that.
The above might seem negative, however, it is not intended that way. I’ve lived in Europe close to 8 years and worked with many different European nationalities – they all have their ‘quirks’ as we Americans do. I actually find Germany an easy place to live and very predictable – I tend to get the universal single finger salute in the USA whenever I go back and start driving on the roads initially – it’s culture shock to me to go back to my home country.
All true.
Driving the German autobahn is a pleasure, because 98% know how to drive and follow the “rules”.
The other 2% have the other 98% giving them abuse, until they get a ticket.
Speaking of Ohio State, I have to say, my favorite non-major class was Warfare in the Ancient world, which used one of your books. And your book was by far the best resource in the class for actually learning about ancient warfare.
Agree on the vastly different attitudes on obeying the law, and thrift and hard work, between Germans, and Southern Europeans, especially Italians and Greeks. I suspect American attitudes are closer to the Germans. The Germans do favor a much larger gov role than Americans do though, but unlike their Southern European counterparts, they are also willing to pay the taxes to support that larger gov, and to actually obey the numerous laws they pass. With Southern Europeans, they officially have big gov, but since they routinely ignore all the laws and taxes that big gov passes, they are actually closer to a form of small gov anarchy.
There should be some food for thought here, if one wants to think, abut why “statist” Germany does well, when a lot of the jabber around here is how statism kills. Maybe the problem is half-assed statism. Americans are simply (for better and for worse) not precise enough to administer almost anything efficiently. Too many people would howl about “liberty” if you actually did create a government which clamped down effectively on a lot of corrupt and inefficient stuff.
Our motto should be, “land of the half-assed, but at least we have never produced a Hitler.”
Producing a hitler is one thing. I suspect there have been plenty of those. The trick is not to let them grab power.
Too late.
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