Hillary's "Shared Prosperity" scam

Excerpt from Tibor Machan

When I was about 12 years old, I was taking a class in my Hungarian elementary school on Marxist economics. One day we were being told about Marx's famous goal for the communist paradise he envisioned for us all: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." As with most kids back in Budapest, I didn't pay much attention to these lessons since they were nothing but pure propaganda for the ruling communists who ran the country. But I did happen to be listening to this particular presentation and once the "teacher" was done, I didn't have the good sense to resist raising my hand to ask a question: "What if my pal here next to me and I both start the week with a fixed amount of money but he purchases some wood and builds a nice table while I buy some wine and drink myself under a table? Will he have to share with me whatever he can earn when he sells his product?" As I recall, I was severely rebuked for my counter-revolutionary remark...

One of the most prominent presidential hopefuls has penned an article for The Wall Street Journal, titled, "My Plan for Shared Prosperity." Its author, Mrs. Hillary Clinton, makes no secret of her plan for massive wealth redistribution should she get the chance to implement her ideas. As she puts it, "My measure of economic success will never be a single, dry statistic. Rather, success means an economy that allows those at the bottom to work their way into the middle class, without pushing anyone out. It means leaving people better off when I finish than when I start. In short, success means an economy that shares its prosperity with all." ...

Of course, Mrs. Clinton isn't much interested in freedom, only in regimentation for the country to meet her standards of economic success. This is revealed in how she talks of "an economy that shares its prosperity." She doesn't appear to grasp that it is not economies that are prosperous, nor engage in sharing anything with anyone. That is what people are and do. And for Mrs. Clinton to get her way, she will have to order the level of prosperity that people will be allowed to attain and force people to share their resources with others, like it or not.

More here

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Obama a socialist ignoramus: "Obama told the newspaper the top priority of the next president should be the creation of a more lasting and equitable prosperity than achieved under Presidents Bush and Clinton. Obama apparently missed the class that teaches government doesn't create prosperity; people do. During last Thursday's debate with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama said he would pay for his proposed new programs, including health insurance, by imposing higher taxes on "the wealthy" and raising the tax on Social Security wages. He added, "What we have had right now is a situation where we've cut taxes for people who don't need them." Should government determine how much money people "need"? This is Marxism: "from each according to his ability; to each according to his need."

Iranian tantrum over India's launch of Israeli satellite: "Iran said Tuesday it had lodged an official complaint with New Delhi over India's commercial launch of an Israeli spy satellite last month. The satellite, blasted into orbit from southern India on January 21, is reported by the Israeli press to have the ability to see through clouds, carry out day and night all-weather imaging and will be used to spy on Iran's suspect nuclear programme. "The Indian government says the issue is a technical and commercial one, but we hope that the matter can be considered from the point of view of protocol," Iran's ambassador to New Delhi, Sayed Mahdi Nabizadeh, told reporters. "We hope that an independent and wise country like India will not give their space technology to launch any instruments of espionage. Our officials have expressed our point of view," he added. The launch was carried out under a commercial contract between Israel Aerospace Industries and Antrix, the marketing arm of India's space agency, and is seen by India as another boost for its bid to win more international satellite launch business".

Comeback for Major Coughlin: "Rep. Myrick confirms that Major Coughlin will now be retained by the DOD, and [be] "associated with another office program within the Office of the Secretary of Defense where he will continue to spread his message." The Congresswoman, one of the handful of stalwart individuals on jihadism in either the House or Senate, also highlights in her statement, the seriousness of what she terms, ".the nature of the radical Islamist enemy that we face today and how they are seeking to infiltrate all elements of our society." Rep. Myrick further lavishes deserving praise upon Major Coughlin's thesis, "Major Coughlin's thesis must be read by everyone responsible for ensuring the safety of America," for which we now learn he has been retained, and arguably even promoted, within the DOD. "

Cheapskate Brits run out of machinesguns, ammo: "The Army has run out of machine guns. The crisis is unlikely to be solved before JUNE, a leaked report reveals. British troops “desperately” need 400 of the jumbo 0.5in calibre heavy machine guns – the weapon most acutely missed. The Army has also run out of the 7.62mm GPMG and Minimis. Supply has collapsed partly because of a dispute with the manufacturers, Manroy – which also provides weapons to Saudi Arabia. The leaked report – prepared for the Army’s command centre in Wilton, Wilts – reveals that generals have urged the Ministry of Defence “to prevent Manroy delivering Saudi weapons ahead of our requirement”. Generals asked the US to help but were snubbed by the Pentagon – who have dubbed British colleagues “The Borrowers”.

The politically correct liberals behind the credit debacle : "Perhaps the greatest scandal of the mortgage crisis is that it is a direct result of an intentional loosening of underwriting standards - done in the name of ending discrimination, despite warnings that it could lead to wide-scale defaults. At the crisis' core are loans that were made with virtually nonexistent underwriting standards - no verification of income or assets; little consideration of the applicant's ability to make payments; no down payment. Most people instinctively understand that such loans are likely to be unsound. But how did the heavily-regulated banking industry end up able to engage in such foolishness? From the current hand-wringing, you'd think that the banks came up with the idea of looser underwriting standards on their own, with regulators just asleep on the job. In fact, it was the regulators who relaxed these standards - at the behest of community groups and "progressive" political forces."

Saudi sex cops throw woman in jail for having coffee at Starbucks: "A Saudi mother of three, who works as a business partner and financial consultant for a reputable company in Jeddah, didn't expect that a trip to the capital to open the company's new branch office would have her thrown behind bars by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Yara, a petite 40-year-old woman, was in tears yesterday after she narrated to Arab News her encounter with a commission member that ended in high drama. Yara, who has been married for 27 years, said she spent several hours in the women's section of Riyadh's Malaz Prison, was strip-searched, ordered to sign a confession that she was in a state of "khulwa" (a state of seclusion with an unrelated man) and for hours prevented from contacting her husband in Jeddah. Her crime? Having a cup of coffee with a colleague in a Starbucks."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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Mark Steyn on the candidates

Excerpt

President McCain? Or Queen Hillary? Henry Kissinger said about the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s that it's a shame they both can't lose. Conservatives have a slightly different problem: it's a shame that neither of them will lose; that, regardless of who takes the oath come next January, the harmonious McCain-Clinton consensus policies on illegal immigration and big government solutions to global warming will prevail. Where's Neither-of-the-Above when you need him?

Democracies get the political leaders they deserve, and that's particularly true in the US, where the primary system allows rank-and-file citizens to choose not merely which party to vote for (as in Britain, Australia and Europe) but also which individuals will be the candidates of those parties. True, it helps to be wealthy. Up to a point.

But it wasn't enough for John Edwards, the curiously unconvincing "angry populist" muttering darkly that "they" would never stop him telling the truth about nine-year-old girls shivering without a winter coat because daddy had been laid off at the mill. "They" didn't need to stop him. The champion of America's mythical coatless girl laid himself off last week. High on a hill, the lonely coatherd suddenly realised he was yodelling to himself....

Michael Ledeen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, suggests that the rise of McCain through New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida indicates that for many voters the war is still the issue, because, after all, what else has the senator got going for him? Surely it's not his global-warming hysteria or illegal-immigration amnesty or demonisation of capitalism. It's because he's Mr Surge.

Well, maybe. The senator is an eloquent defender of the US armed forces. A president McCain will not permit a military defeat in Iraq. But it's not clear to me he has much of a strategic vision for the ideological struggle, for the real long-term battlefield in the mosques and madrassas of Pakistan and Indonesia and western Europe. McCain's lead is no evidence of popular commitment to the long war and, absent any surprising developments, this will not be a war election.

The Clintons are nothing if not lucky, and Hillary must occasionally be enjoying a luxury-length cackle at the thought of being pitted against a 71-year-old "maverick" whose record seems designed to antagonise just enough of the base into staying home on election day.

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There is a fairly convincing refutation here of Jack Wheeler's allegations about McCain in Vietnam. I said when I noted Wheeler's story that it could be old Soviet disinformation and that now seems the most probable origin of the story.

A backhanded endorsement? "California first lady Maria Shriver said she arose Sunday feeling inspired by an Eleanor Roosevelt quote: "Do something every day that scares you." "Eleanor Roosevelt," Shriver said, "This is my one thing for today." With that, Shriver, who wasn't even on the program, made a surprise appearance at the close of a raucous UCLA rally for Barack Obama and endorsed the Illinois senator for president in Tuesday's presidential primary."

Fraudulent Franklin Foer recommends McCain: "I think that McCain has certain political virtues that other Republicans don't, which is that he actually has kind of a record of being, of being conciliatory - that there's actually - I mean, I don't what it means for the electoral future of the Democratic Party, but there are the possibilities for doing some interesting things with McCain as a leader, and I'm mostly thinking about global warming - where McCain has the best track record on energy and environment on the Republican side in the Senate," Foer concluded. "So, I think you have some really good possibility for a Nixon-to-China type solution to climate change if he decides that that's going to be the thing he is going to use to build a bridge."

McCain would be good for SCOTUS: "We believe that the nomination of John McCain is the best option to preserve the ongoing restoration of constitutional government. He is by far the most electable Republican candidate remaining in the race, and based on his record is as likely to appoint judges committed to constitutionalism as Mitt Romney, a candidate for whom we also have great respect.... On Jan. 20, 2009, six of the nine Supreme Court justices will be over 70. Most of them could be replaced by the next president, particularly if he or she is re-elected. Given the prospect of accelerating gains in modern medical technology, some of the new justices may serve for half a century. Even if a more perfect candidate were somehow elected in 2012, he would not be able to undo the damage, especially to the Supreme Court... In fact, there is no reason to believe that Mr. McCain will not make excellent appointments to the court. On judicial nominations, he has voted soundly in the past from Robert Bork in 1987 to Samuel Alito in 2006. His pro-life record also provides a surety that he will not appoint judicial activists."

Iraqis supporting Americans now, not Jihadis: "The dramatic decline in US casualties in Iraq has been one the great untold story of recent months. With thirty-nine lost in January, twenty-three in December, thirty-seven in November and thirty-eight in November, a young American male would have been safer in Iraq than in some of America's inner cities... This may come as a shock to some, but our low casualty rate clearly shows that the Iraqi people have taken the side of America and that on a mass scale. The perception that the Iraqis detest our soldiers as oppressive occupiers has been falsely created by American liberals and their collaborators in the Democrat Party and the mainstream media. It was them who fabricated the notion that our military is a cesspool of wanton torturers, lust-filled rapists and unscrupulous thugs preying on the people of Iraq. Because American liberals loathe our military, they want to make every one else loathe it as well. Eager to drum up hatred, they have been spreading their slander either by direct accusation or by insinuation. Liberals have shown their true nature by choosing the side of evil in the great struggle of our time."

U.N. can't kick the antisemitic habit: "Last week the U.N. Human Rights Council held an emergency session, organized by Arab and Muslim nations, to condemn Israel for its military actions in the Gaza strip. That the council is capable of swift and decisive action is a welcome surprise; that Israel remains the only nation to provoke such action is not. In the 17 months since its inception, the body has passed 13 condemnations, 12 of them against Israel. The council replaced what was widely viewed as a cancer on the United Nations -- an ineffectual "Commission on Human Rights" that also had a single-minded focus on Israel. According to former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, "the selectivity and politicizing of its activities [were] in danger of bringing the entire U.N. system into disrepute." The removal of the diseased commission two years ago was heralded by U.N. officials as "the dawn of a new era." Its replacement was designed to have stricter standards for membership, and rules to prevent politicized voting. But such safeguards were neutered by the time the new Human Rights Council was approved, and the results are that the council is no better than its predecessor."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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More on Obama as the heir to Fascism

Message to Leftists: Bush=Hitler is reasonable but Obama=Hitler is not?

Let's look at some evidence bearing on the above question. I won't spend any time on the first equation above because I think that by any objective assessment Bush is simply a fairly conventional center Rightist who has acted well in accordance with the policies ("compassionate conservatism") that he proclaimed before gaining office. I actually see GWB as more a Christian gentleman than a real conservative.

The Left-dominated educational system has ensured that it is now known only to historical specialists but Hitler, by contrast, gained power on promises that were to a large extent the direct opposite of what he eventually did when he gained office. He actually campaigned on an ANTIWAR platform! See two of his 1930s election posters below. The first one reads: "Mit Hitler gegen den Ruestungswahnsinn der Welt" ("With Hitler against the armaments madness of the world") and the second reads: "Mit Adolf Hitler "Ja" fuer Gleichberechtigung und Frieden" ("With Adolf Hitler "Yes" for equal rights and peace").



There is a fuller picture from which both the above images were taken here. Hitler's British counterpart, Sir Oswald Mosley, of the British Union of Fascists, campaigned on a very similar platform. See below:



Obama eat your heart out!

I am perfectly confident that Obama will never gain the unrestricted power that Hitler did or that he will do as much damage as Hitler did but to place him in an accurate historical context should nonetheless help to predict the directions in which he will move if he gains office as POTUS -- something that is otherwise difficult because of the high generality of what he says in his speeches and his very limited voting record as a political office-holder.

I have previously pointed out how Obama's constant calls for unity above all are very much like what Hegel, Hitler and Mussolini preached. As I said on that occasion:

In fact, with his constant inspirational calls for national unity, Obama is eerily reminiscent of the Fascists. If he spoke German he might well be inclined to adopt as his slogan Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer -- as Hitler did ("One nation, one government, one leader")....



Put very briefly, the Fascists were (following Hegel) the "one big happy family" Left while the Communists were the deeply embittered "class war" Left. Hitler only hated the Jews. Marx, Trotksy, Lenin and Stalin hated just about everybody -- Marx particularly so. You can readily see why the two types of Leftist despised one-another.

And presenting oneself as the man of the "middle way" -- which Obama does -- is also of course classic Fascism. It was a major theme of Mussolini's. So there are good reasons to compare Obama to the prewar Fascists. And it is therefore also no surprise that this sounds VERY much like a common reaction to Hitler's speeches among pre-war Germans:

Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair.

The other great leaders I've heard guide us toward a better politics, but Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves, to the place where America exists as a glittering ideal and where we, its honored inhabitants, seem capable of achieving it, and thus of sharing in its meaning and transcendence.

Hitler's speeches had a similar effect. As Elie Wiesel noted:

"The fact is that Hitler was beloved by his people — not the military, at least not in the beginning, but by the average Germans who pledged to him an affection, a tenderness and a fidelity that bordered on the irrational. It was idolatry on a national scale. One had to see the crowds who acclaimed him. And the women who were attracted to him. And the young who in his presence went into ecstasy.

So, once again we see that Fascism is not dead. It is now called "Progressive" -- as indeed it always was.

But Obama is a warm and kindly figure, you might say -- not a madman like Hitler. To say that is to ignore history, however. A warm and kindly figure is exactly how most prewar Germans saw Hitler. See here for instance. It's just snake-oil skillfully sold by someone who is very good at it.

So what do I predict if Obama gains office? I predict a maximum attempt to extend the reach of government into all aspects of American life. So the only hope that remains for what is left of America's freedoms (and it is a hope with reasonable prospects) is that the Senate will thwart him. SCOTUS could also be of some help but nobody would want to rely on it.

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Pentagon Seeking $20 Billion to Increase Size of Army, Marine Corps: "The Pentagon is seeking more than $20 billion in its 2009 budget to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps as the military struggles to fight wars on two fronts, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The proposed budget, which will be unveiled Monday, will call for $15.5 billion to boost the size of the Army by 7,000 soldiers, to a total of 532,400. And it will propose spending $5 billion to add 5,000 Marines to the Corps, for a total of 194,000. Separately, the budget will call for nearly $11 billion to cover the costs of training, recruiting and retention. Both services have been strained by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, prompting Pentagon leaders to seek money to increase recruiting and bonuses in a broad effort to add soldiers and Marines.... Plans are to increase the number of the active duty Army, Army National Guard and Army Reserve by 74,000 overall, with the active duty force growing by 65,000 to a total of 547,000. Army leaders plan to complete the increase by 2010, and about half of the 65,000 has already been achieved".

The Leftist influence on history has understandably caused it to be seen as just propaganda: "Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real.The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth. And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist."

Suicide bomb suspects held at British airport: "Scotland Yard is braced for a fresh wave of possible terrorist attacks against public transport after a group of suspected Islamist suicide bombers were arrested in a secret security operation at Gatwick airport. Six Pakistani men were held under anti-terrorism laws 10 days ago after they flew in from Barcelona. The arrests were prompted by a tip-off from the Spanish intelligence services after the discovery of a suspected Al-Qaeda terror cell in the city. The cell is alleged to have planned to detonate suicide bombs on the Barcelona Metro. The Spanish warned a similar attack was being planned here. The six Pakistanis were taken to Paddington Green police station in west London and were questioned by detectives from the Yard's counter-terrorism unit. After being held overnight they were driven under police escort back to the airport and escorted onto a flight back to Pakistan. Soon after the arrests MI5's Centre for the Protection of National Infra-structure warned of a possible terrorist attack on bridges, tunnels and the Channel tunnel."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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McCain unmasked?

If this report is true, McCain's war heroism is about as fake as the war heroism of John Murtha and John Kerry. It may finish him as GOP candidate and hand the nomination to "flip-flop" Romney. I must say that I have always felt that McCain's account of his wartime experiences was not very credible. The stories always sounded exaggerated, as lies often do.

The author, Jack Wheeler, is highly respected and credible but it could still all be Soviet disinformation, of course. The key paragraphs:

John McCain, flying his A-4 Skyhawk, was shot down over Hanoi on October 26, 1967. Badly injured from the ejection, he was beaten and abused by his captors. In July, 1968, his father, US Navy Admiral J. S. McCain, was made CINCPAC, Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command, commander of all US military forces in the Vietnam theatre. Upon learning this, the Vietnamese offered - according to McCain - to release him.

McCain claims he refused, because he demanded all American POWs captured before him be released as well. He thus remained a prisoner when he could have gone home, and was subjected to constant brutal beatings and torture for years: that is the source of the "war-hero" saga making McCain a greater war-hero than any other American POW.

Yet the offer of release would had to have been approved by the GRU [Soviet military intelligence] overseers of the North Vietnamese - and T does not recall any such offer being made. T admits, however, that this took place before McCain was transferred to Hoa Loa prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton" by the POWs. T had only direct knowledge of what happened at Hoa Loa, and not the other prisons, where T's father was in charge.

McCain was kept at the Hanoi Hilton from December 1969 until his release, along with all the remaining POWs, in March of 1973. During this time, T translated all the Vietnamese interrogators' notes and reports regarding John McCain.

According to T, they reveal that McCain had made an "accommodation" with his captors, and in exchange, T's father saw that he was provided with an apartment in Hanoi and the services of two prostitutes. Upon returning to his prison cell, he would say he had been held in solitary confinement. That may be why so many of his fellow prisoners said later they saw so little of him at Hoa Loa.

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I have just put up a new post on my Marx blog, which points out what a comprehensive hater Karl was. I have also recently put up a few new entries on my personal blog -- for what interest that might have. See here or here

Another little-known point about Marx: Das Kapital is one of the most influential books ever written but Marx himself lost faith in what he was saying there. He wrote only the first part of it himself (Vol. 1). He made notes towards the second and third volume but when he saw that history was not going in the direction he predicted, he ceased efforts to complete those volumes. Volumes 2 and 3 were actually written by Friedrich Engels with the assistance of Marx's notes and did not appear until after Marx's death!

An interesting endorsement: "The LA Times has endorsed John McCain in the GOP primary, and at least two of its reasons for doing so should give conservatives pause: the liberal paper likes McCain because he's weak on border fences and strong on global warming."

"Diversity" Money - Well Spent?: "In 2007 the University of Iowa increased its budget for the "administrative costs for affirmative action, diversity and multicultural programs" by 25%. "UI expects to spend $738,718 in FY 2007 compared to $589,018 in FY 2006." And what did all those "affirmative action, diversity and multicultural programs" achieve? "Non-minority students graduated at a 67 percent rate compared with a 57 percent rate for minority students, according to six-year-graduation rates from 2001 to 2007". But let's not harp on the half of the glass that's empty. I'm sure that the 43% who left school without graduating took great pride and satisfaction, while they were still at Iowa, in providing "diversity" to the white and Asian students."

A Muslim crook in the Pentagon: "Hesham Islam is responsible, according to earlier reports, for the firing of Stephen Coughlin, the Pentagon's only expert on Islamic law. But now the questions about Islam himself, and what his intentions really are, are increasing... Miss Rosett tried - and failed - to get straight answers from Mr. Wensing about why Mr. Islam claimed that when he was 7 his family was bombed by Israeli jets at his home in Cairo, when there is no evidence the Israelis bombed the Egyptian capital during the 1967 war. Also, Mr. Wensing could not explain why Mr. Islam said in his biography that he was on a freighter sunk by an Iranian torpedo in the Persian Gulf when there is no record of the ship being sunk. According to his 1992 master's thesis at the Naval Postgraduate School, Mr. Islam is highly critical of Israel and the influence of American Jews on U.S. politics, noting that U.S. ties to Israel have harmed relations to other states in the Middle East. [More on this matter here]

An important book on jihad: "Bostom, an associate professor of medicine at Rhode Island Hospital, has compiled a large collection of documents concerning jihad in his voluminous The Legacy of Jihad. Bostom's book amply documents the systematic and destructive character of Islamic jihad, refuting the much-repeated argument that jihad is a "rich" concept that has many meanings and that jihad first of all signifies "inner struggle." Jihad is first of all war, bloodshed, subjugation, and expansion of the faith by violence. The book implicitly devastates the fashionable but uninformed opinion that all religions are elaborations of the Golden Rule. Jihad is everything the Golden Rule is not"

Britain to get a conservative Catholic primate? "A monk in a remote Scottish abbey has emerged as a surprise contender to replace Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor as leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. Hugh Gilbert, 55, the abbot of Pluscarden Abbey in Elgin, Moray, has become a serious candidate to replace Murphy-O'Connor when he retires later this year. The ultimate decision will rest with the Pope, but senior church figures are said to have been impressed with Gilbert's orthodox views and leadership skills. For some time Rome has felt that the liberal drift of the bishops has failed to halt declining church attendance. Gilbert would represent a change in style because he is known as a traditionalist with dynamic qualities of leadership. He has presided over an expansion of his abbey and the founding of two offshoots in Africa and America. He is part of a very successful monastic community which is bursting at the seams. He is a quiet, scholarly monk who would probably accept the appointment out of obedience to the church. Vatican officials visited Pluscarden and are said to have been impressed with Gilbert's powers of delegation and the high esteem in which he is held within and outside the monastery."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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Again a lot to catch up with today so short excerpts only. The picture below is from the recent "State of the Union" address but has been slightly "interpreted"



This year's primary season does seem to be getting a little strange. Despite my ill opinion of both of them, I have twice recently defended things the Clintons have said (here and here) and now Iain Murray has done similarly -- also to his surprise.

Poverty American-style: "It's apparently okay to buy unnecessary and expensive electronics at a discount - even if you've lost your job and money is "tight. After all, the Super Bowl is Sunday. CNN's January 30 "American Morning" mentioned retailers were cutting prices to get customers to purchase more, but no one during the broadcast had a problem with one unemployed woman buying one of those fancy televisions. "Veronica McNeil has two kids," said Cho. "She recently lost her job. Her husband's an ironworker and the family is feeling the pinch." "If I'm here to buy baby stuff and I see a TV at a good sale price, I'll grab it," McNeil said. Cho pointed toward "rising gas and home heating oil prices and Americans losing their homes" for money being "tight." Personal responsibility and wise financial decisions were lost on Cho."

For sheer bureaucratic stupidity, the winner is ... : "Hate is a pretty strong word. But not strong enough to express how I feel about the TSA -- the Transportation Security Administration or Thousands Standing Around, depending on your point of view -- which runs those security checkpoints at American airports. I may fear the IRS, and I may dread the DMV -- but for sheer bureaucratic stupidity and its affront to personal liberties, the TSA has earned a special place of loathing in my heart. And apparently I'm not alone."

A McCain adviser's view of McCain: "The sad failures of government-centered economic development have proven that private markets are the only true hope for sustained prosperity. Republicans believe that government should do only those things we cannot do individually, should tax no more than is necessary, and should spend only on genuine national priorities. Mr. McCain will preserve these principles, and thus also preserve and enhance Americans' economic freedom. Entrepreneurs lie at the heart of innovation, growth and advancing prosperity. Hard work, ingenuity and entrepreneurialism are a proven route to meeting one's goals and providing for children and family. Mr. McCain is committed to preserving their freedom, ensuring that they are not shackled by excessive regulation, starved of risk capital, or taxed into submission. Over the past year, Mr. McCain has outlined a vision for steps toward a U.S. tax code that is simpler, fair and flatter. He will begin by keeping taxes low -- making permanent the current income and investment tax rates, and defending those rates against Democrats' partisan goal of taxing our economy into collapse. He has proposed that it should require a three-fifths majority vote in Congress to raise taxes."

Buried WMD Scoop: "Journalists are taught never to "bury the lead." Yet it looks as if that's precisely what CBS's "60 Minutes" did in reporter Scott Pelley's fascinating interview Sunday with George Piro, the FBI agent who debriefed Saddam Hussein following his capture in December 2003. The Lebanese-born Mr. Piro, one of only a handful of agents at the bureau who speaks Arabic, was able to wheedle information from Saddam over a matter of months through a combination of flattery and ego-deflation that worked wonders with the former despot. But as Bruce Chapman of the Discovery Institute first noticed, the most important news in the segment comes when Mr. Piro describes his conversations with Saddam about weapons of mass destruction. The FBI interrogator says that, while Saddam said he no longer had active WMD programs in 2003, the dictator admitted that he intended to resume those programs as soon as he possibly could."

French morale hits a new low: "French morale is at its lowest ebb in two decades, according to new research. Quality of life in France is envied the world over but government figures show the "morale of French households" is at its gloomiest - minus 34 points - since the study began in 1987. French people's belief that their living standards will improve has declined steadily since President Nicolas Sarkozy took office last June, and has been exacerbated by rising fuel and food prices".

The emptiness of Obama's "change" rhetoric: "Obama, despite his rhetoric, has not really thought through what should change in the future. In South Carolina, one of his most well-received lines was: `It's about the past versus the future.' Okay, we got the reference to the Clintons representing the past. But what about the future part? What great policy ideas do we have to look forward to? That all politicians will learn to play nicely together? Even if he could manage to control others' behaviors, that would hardly qualify as a `higher purpose' or as truly `transformative'.... I don't expect Obama to create a true mass movement. But why is he so reluctant to engage the public in debate on policy specifics that can take us forward? I agree that change in American politics is sorely needed. And even Obama's rhetoric isn't necessarily problematic. For instance, in today's times of anti-consumerist miserabilism, I'm all in favour of upholding aspirations like the American Dream. But you're not going to go far if you line up behind someone who can't spell out what that Dream should mean today."

A crime against all Africans: "The catastrophe that has befallen Kenya since the rigged election of Dec. 27 -- killings and displacements, curtailed freedoms, a promising economy on the verge of being wrecked -- confirms for the umpteenth time that local politicians, not the remnants of imperialism or ancestral customs, are the major culprits of sub-Saharan Africa's misery."

Katrina lawsuit dismissed: "Saying his hands were tied by law, a federal judge dismissed a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over levee breaches after Hurricane Katrina, but rebuked the agency for failing to protect the city. U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval ruled Wednesday that the Corps should be held immune over failures in drainage canals that caused much of the flooding of New Orleans in August 2005. He cited the Flood Control Act of 1928, which protects the federal government from lawsuits when flood control projects like levees break. The lawsuit led to about 489,000 claims by businesses, government entities and residents, seeking trillions of dollars in damages against the Corps. The fate of many of those claims was pinned to the suit and a similar one filed over flooding from a navigation channel in St. Bernard Parish"

More Leftist ad hominem abuse. Comment by Tibor Machan: "Among the first lessons one learns in an elementary logic course is that there are various informal fallacies that too many people commit as they go about thinking things through. For example, the fallacy of begging the question or ad hominem or the genetic fallacy. One would not expect anyone in the discipline to commit any of these and similar fallacies. Yet Dr. Kurtz manages to do just that when he claims that I hold my views on taxation and the free market 'as a result' of my having 'escaped communist Hungary.' It is where I come from, what happened to me, the circumstances of my early life that produced in me my views, not my careful reasoning, study, analysis, and such, all those methods that secular humanist advise we use when considering, for example, such issues as evolution, abortion, the existence of God, intelligent design and so forth. No. Dr. Kurtz chooses, instead, to treat my views as some kind of affliction that comes to people who escape from communist Hungary or similar tyrannies."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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Gottfried on Goldberg

Paul Gottfried is a very grumpy conservative who spends most of his time attacking other conservatives. His own stance seems to be somewhere between paleoconservatism and libertarianism but no doubt he would be grumpy about that characterization too.

So it is no surprise that his short review of Jonah Goldberg's book is grumpy too -- apparently accentuated in this case by the fact that Gottfried has himself written to similar effect but has has not got nearly as much publicity as Goldberg. So amid the gloom, one reads a few quite good comments:

"Italian Fascism, until Mussolini unwisely threw in his lot with Hitler in 1936, enjoyed immense support among socialists in the U.S. and Western Europe. For many foreign partisans of Mussolini's corporatist experiment, fascism looked very much like socialism. And since fascists talked about "national revolutions" and condemned market capitalism, they seemed to the editors of The New Republic, and many others, much like those standing on the left side of History.

Well into FDR's first term, he and his Brain Trusters looked to the Italian model as a usable blue print for "mobilizing" the American people in the face of the Depression. Massive subsidies to reactivate the work force and to carry out public works programs of all kinds were aspects of the New Deal that had already been tried out by the Italian Fascist state. And unlike the Nazi regime, which came to power in 1933 just before FDR's inauguration, Mussolini did not oppress Jews or impose anything resembling Nazi race laws until after his shift into Hitler's orbit. As late as 1935, he was the most outspoken and vigorous enemy of Hitler on the European continent."

Gottfried probably has picked up a few minor errors in Jonah's book -- such as just where Carl Schmitt fitted into the Nazi regime -- but there are also major points on which he is plain wrong. He says:

"Fascism was a movement of the anti-libertarian Right. What made it a force of the Right, to repeat my point one last time, was its emphatic rejection of the principle of equality and its search for social models in antiquity-as opposed to the Left's vision of an ideal future that might be extended to the entire human race

The claim there -- that the Left differ from Fascists in that the Fascists to a degree looked backwards for inspiration -- entirely ignores the love-affair between the Greens and the Left that we see today. The current Left generally do their best to facilitate the Greenie push to return us to a romanticized and idealized past. Think of Al Gore! Modern-day Leftists are just as reactionary as Hitler and Musso were -- maybe even more so. Hitler and Mussolini were in fact clear precursors of the Greenies. See here and here.

Secondly, Gottfried's claim about "rejection of the principle of equality" also ignores Hitler's central slogan: Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer. Hitler wanted all Germans to be one. The slogan means "One people, one government, one leader". Hitler DID want all Germans to be equal -- though of course he wanted himself and his henchmen to be the wise leaders who would guide the masses (The Fuehrerprinzip). But how is THAT different from the Leftist spokesmen of today? In Orwell's memorable phrase, both the Fascists of yesteryear and the Left of today believe that "all pigs are equal but some are more equal than others". That the modern-day Left are more circumspect about saying as much is the only difference. Both believe in their own superior wisdom and try to impose their tyrannies however they can

Gottfried also seems to be quite out of touch when he says this as evidence of the difference between Fascism and Leftism:

"Fascist government did nothing of significance to change productive forces or to redistribute wealth. It made owners, managers, and workers into contributors to an overarching Fascist order; and it required industrial leaders to consult with Fascist mediators before "releasing workers from their duties." Workers were then given unemployment compensation"

Sorry but that seems like a pretty good description of (say) the British Labour Party government of today -- with its unfair dismissal laws and its abject failure to close Britain's notorious social class gaps. And the red-tape with which British industry has been burdened does seem to me to have "made owners, managers, and workers into contributors to an overarching Fascist order". Their degree of autonomy shrinks year by year.

Gottfried thinks he is so much wiser than Jonah but he shows precious little evidence of it.

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ELSEWHERE

Lawless U.S. Congress: "Let us pause to salute the US Congress, whose members have once again shown themselves capable of surmounting partisan friction and institutional gridlock when it comes to serving a group of Americans they care about deeply: themselves. When the 110th Congress returned from its holiday recess two weeks ago, the mountain of unfinished business it had left behind in 2007 was still waiting -- everything from judicial nominations to bilateral trade agreements to the terrorist surveillance program to the farm bill. But the gentlemen and gentlewomen of the House and Senate made sure that nothing would impede what has become almost an annual tradition: the hike in their own salaries. When the sun rose on Jan. 1, so did congressional pay, from $165,200 to $169,300 -- a tidy little jump of $4,100... It is also unconstitutional. Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution authorizes Congress to pay itself with public funds, but the 27th Amendment circumscribes that authority. It provides: "No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect until an election of Representatives shall have intervened." The amendment limits the power of Congress to change its salary by preventing any pay raise from taking effect until the voters have had their say."

Hillary's Smear Campaign: "Beginning with the South Carolina debate, and continuing as an applause line in many stump speeches thereafter, Hillary Clinton has accused Barack Obama of representing an inner-city slum lord while practicing law in Chicago. Of all people, Sen. Clinton should know better. During the Whitewater investigation, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr investigated the legal work performed by Mrs. Clinton, then a partner in the Rose law firm, on behalf of Jim McDougal and his bank, Madison Guaranty. Mr. Starr believed that Mrs. Clinton helped orchestrate the fraudulent land deal known as Castle Grande. He subpoenaed her billing records, hauled her before a grand jury, and relentlessly pursued her..... Mrs. Clinton's willingness to ignore the truth for short-term political advantage is exactly what breeds the partisanship that's paralyzed Washington for too many years, and the cynicism felt by so many Americans, especially the young. Getting ahead by any means possible is the strategy."

What McCain's Got: "In a time of Republican confusion, Sen. John McCain, reviled as an unreliable maverick, has won three GOP primaries. Florida showed why he's winning.... When Mr. McCain took the stage in Sun City, the applause was polite. When he finished, he got a standing ovation. He has been at this game a long time, and his ability to sense and ride the emotional flow of an audience is astonishing. It discomfits some, including me, that Mr. McCain seems like a live, capped volcano. But in front of an audience like this, and before a younger group two days later at the Tampa Convention Center, he stood with that tight, little upper body of coiled electricity and plugged his message of honor, commitment and threat straight into the guts of his listeners. Rudy Giuliani's antiterror message has been strong and credible, but it was almost an abstraction compared to the meat and potatoes of the McCain presentation.... Mr. McCain is hapless on economics. The answer to why he nonetheless beat Mr. Romney by eight points with economic voters is in large part his effective denunciations of the Bush-GOP spending surge in the first veto-less term. There's nothing "maverick" about that. That spending is the main thing that drove the GOP base into its famous funk."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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THE ABSURD "STIMULUS"

Just a few comments of many below:



Economic stimulus package clears House, faces Senate hurdle: "The House approved a $146 billion economic stimulus package Tuesday afternoon by a wide, bipartisan margin, but the package had an uncertain future in the Senate. The vote was 385-35, with one representative voting present. The bill needed two-thirds of the voting members to pass. The bill calls for one-time tax rebates to go primarily to individuals making less than $75,000 and to married couples making less than $150,000. It would also provide temporary tax breaks that would let businesses deduct more of their investments in plants and equipment more quickly, and it contains two measures aimed at helping homeowners get or refinance mortgages"

Mainstream Media Gleefully Celebrate Nonexistent "Recession": "In a poorly-concealed effort to facilitate electoral change, irresponsible mainstream media voices cannot contain themselves in prematurely celebrating a non-existent recession. In the first two weeks of 2008 alone, the broadcast media referenced an economic recession some 54 times, according to the Business and Media Institute. There's only one problem: we are not in a recession, and it's far from certain that we will be anytime soon. In the third quarter of 2007, the most recent quarter for which Commerce Department GDP estimates are available, the American economy expanded at a remarkable 4.9% clip. Even more remarkably, this estimate constituted an upward revision from the Department's initial 3.9% estimate. More remarkable still, this 4.9% GDP expansion was the fastest pace in some four years. Indeed, the American economy hasn't even seen a decline in GDP since the third quarter of 2001. In other words, it is absurd to assert that we are somehow in a recession, given the fact that America has enjoyed six years of uninterrupted GDP growth. Beyond straightforward GDP numbers, however, other benchmark measures also reveal a fundamentally strong economy, contrary to the hysterical media chorus."

An Unstimulating Idea: "It's like taking a bucket of water from the deep end of a pool and dumping it into the shallow end. Funny thing -- the water in the shallow end doesn't get any deeper." That's how George Mason University economist Russell Roberts describes the logic -- rather, illogic -- of the economic "stimulus" proposals that everyone and his uncle are proposing. If we needed further demonstration of the folly that is the American political-economic system, there it is. The leaders of the interventionist state and the candidates who aspire to command it will continue to produce this inanity until people see it for the balderdash it is and resoundingly reject it. The problem is that most people don't see it for what it is. When told economic activity is slowing down, they demand that their "leaders" and candidates assure them there is a Plan to keep them safe. The politicians are more than happy to oblige. Details don't matter much."

What the Economy Really Needs: "The American economy is staggering under the weight of taxes, regulations, rising interest rates and lack of funds to borrow for growth. American entrepreneurs, the people who spy out the opportunities before others do, need capitalists, who can provide the funding, whether saved or borrowed. But they cannot implement their job-creating new projects. They cannot put their new products and services on the market. We need to get government off the backs of business, off everyone's backs. We need to get government out of the monetary system, out of the economy. We need separation of the economy and state just as much as separation of church and state. Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged - on the last page - was right in suggesting this constitutional amendment: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade."

A Leftist comment on the "stimulus": "Barbara Ehrenreich memorably called the talk about the stimulus "clitoral economics." And that was before we got screwed. The stimulus deal just announced is being praised more for its existence than its content. Much lamented partisan bickering was overcome; bipartisan cooperation that got it done. With Wall Street bankers in panic, better something than nothing. So the parties came together and split the difference and created an agreement (which still has to survive the minefield called the U.S. Senate)."

A silver lining? ""We're so used to Democrats pushing tax hikes as the answer to all of America's problems that we were taken aback to find the following words buried in Pelosi's release on the stimulus deal: `Economists estimate that each dollar of broad tax cuts leads to $1.26 in economic growth.' Gee, that sort of sounds familiar. It's almost, though not quite, like what the much-reviled supply-side economists have been saying for, oh, 30 years or so. Pelosi, and other Democrats now suddenly touting tax cuts, may be on to something. We might demur on the notion that all tax cuts must be `broad' to be effective. Evidence really lies more strongly with giving tax cuts to those who would start new businesses or expand old ones. But it's refreshing to hear a Democrat admit the obvious-that tax cuts work. It's no secret that high tax rates act as a deadweight on the economy by creating absolute losses from which no one gains. Martin Feldstein, head of the National Bureau of Economic Research, estimates that a $1 tax hike costs the economy 76 cents in output. That explains why the economy jumps each time there's a tax cut."

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Brookes News Update

US booms and busts and a little monetary history: The extent to which media commentators are ignorant of economic history, let alone basic economics, is genuinely staggering. What's even worse, their so-called economic reporting is frequently littered with partisan comments aimed at Republicans
Why is Bernanke attempting to counter-act the stock market bear?: If the present aggressive interest rate stance by the Fed fails to prevent the economy falling into a recession, what will Bernanke do? Some of his writings suggest that under such circumstances he would ramp up the money supply. Such a policy could prove disastrous for the US economy
Will this year be crunch time for the Australian economy?: It's quite clear that the Rudd Government is completely clueless on what is happening to the economy. Changes in the Reserve Bank's balance sheet indicate that as severe monetary crunch could be in the making. In the mean time, the government can keep on attacking 'profiteers' while thinking up new ways to raid Australians' pension funds
Setting the record straight about Labor's record on unemployment: By putting a floor under real wage movements, Labor's Accord with the unions ensured that widespread unemployment would be a permanent feature of the Australian economy for some time to come. The economic rationale for this agreement cam straight from Keynes
The stories behind the pictures that defined the Vietnam War: History for the left is just a means to libel their enemies, and that's why the left do not hesitate to mix fact with fiction and fiction with fantasy. They lied about Vietnam and they are lying about Iraq
Bill Gates's 'Kind' capitalism is a misnomer: Bill Gates is another wealth capitalism who knows nothing about capitalism and who is equally ignorant of economic history. Those parts of the world, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, over which Gates anguishes are the ones where capitalism has not been allowed to emerge

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For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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Lucky me! Within the last couple of days, I have been attacked by TWO Leftist bloggers! And note that they attacked ME, not any of the facts and arguments that I have put forward. What they have written is, in short, a confession of complete intellectual failure. They hate the truths that I have highlighted but they were so unable to refute those truths that all they could manage was an attempt to shoot the messenger. Their arguments were what logicians call ad hominem arguments -- arguments of no scholarly repute whatever. There are a few variations of ad hominem argumentation but a typical one would be of the following form: Hitler liked dogs Hitler was evil Therefore liking dogs is wrong You don't have to be a logician to see immediately that such an argument is invalid yet it is form of argument that is routinely resorted to by the Left and the Greens. Why do they do it? Simple. It is all they have left once the full facts of the matter are presented. Even an invalid argument seems to comfort them when they are faced with having to give up beliefs that their egos are heavily invested in. And in politics character assassination can be very useful. A candidate for political office is only partly evaluated on the strength of his arguments. Most of the time he is evaluated as a person. And he NEEDS to be evaluated that way because the voter has to predict what the candidate might do in the future. The candidate's claims about past and present reality are a relatively secondary part of what the voter has to evaluate. So ad hominem attacks can serve the Leftist quite well in politics. I am not a politician, however. I am sure I would be a very bad one, in fact. I am an academic. And what I try to do is to represent the facts as accurately as possible. And the fact that I have had 200+ articles published in the academic journals shows that I am rather good at that. And most of those articles were in fact in the field of political psychology. I may in fact have had more papers published on political psychology than anyone else, ever. I obviously know the field of political psychology very well and yet I can think of no-one else who has had as many papers published in that field. So I am by normal academic criteria a leading expert on the subject and my constant focus on the psychology of the Left is entirely within the realm of my academic expertise. And those 200+ publications were in fact rather hard-won. The editors and referees who evaluated the papers concerned and accepted them for publication were rarely sympathetic to my conclusions. Academics in the social sciences are overwhelmingly Leftist and my conclusions almost always tended to undermine Leftist beliefs. So my writing had to be "waterproof" to be passed for publication. There had to be no obvious faults in it that would justify rejection. I had to write at a much higher academic standard than someone who presented conclusions congenial to the Left. But in academic writing, ad hominem considerations have no part so my careful presentation of the facts eventually won the day nine times out of 10. So you might see why I don't take attacks on me personally very seriously. The accuracy and relevance of what I say depends on the facts, not on who I am. But I am so far from being ashamed of what I am that I have put an unusual amount of personal information about myself on the net. I have nothing to hide. I am in fact frank about myself to the point that many might consider unwise. And it is therefore MOST amusing that one of my recent Leftist critics had obviously trawled at great length through my autobiographical data looking for "dirt" and was able to come up with? Can you guess? Can you guess what he found to criticize? He criticized my POETRY!! What a good laugh I had about that! I doubt that any of my readers here would have been aware that in my long-lost teens I did write a bit of poetry. I put the poetry concerned online with the note that "I don't think much of it now" so criticisms of it leave me supremely unmoved. The critic concerned also dug out a photo of me in my long-lost youthful slimness and posted it on his blog. So I feel rather kindly towards him about that! Even in doing that, however, my critic managed to generate a laugh. Before posting the picture he cropped it so that it no longer showed me with an arm around my cute little red-headed girfriend of the time. Must not show that conservatives have girlfriends! So I had another good laugh about that! You can see the uncropped picture here. My poetry-loving critic also linked to another, older, post about me with the recommendation that it was a terrific read. Guess what was the first thing that this high-powered critique of me said? It said that I was "of paedophilic appearance". How desperate can you get? And shortly after that he went on to coin a new word" "indiscrete". Does he mean "indiscreet" or "not discrete"? Who knows? Definitely a low-wattage intellect. He then goes on to talk about my "hilariously unpublishable articles"! Wow! So how come over 200 of them did get published in mainstream academic journals? He is however not short of mental "agility". He then goes on to QUOTE from some of my published academic journal articles! Once again, much to amuse there. I have previously commented on the poor soul's meanderings here And then, of course, there is Neiwert -- whose attack on me is also of course an ad hominem argument. In a supreme feat of illogic, he endeavours to portray me as a racist in the apparent belief that doing so will enable him to avoid confronting what I have pointed out about the Leftist nature of Nazism and Fascism! But surely if I really were a racist I would be particularly knowledgeable about Nazism and Fascism and therefore could speak with some authority on the political nature of those movements! So rather than disqualifying me to comment by his aspersions, Neiwert would seem in fact to be qualifying me. So his critique could be seen as another example of his talent for shooting himself in the foot. You can read about another example of that talent here. I commented briefly on his silly attack yesterday and I should perhaps repeat here that a document that both he and my other critic mentioned immediately above have used in an attempt to prove the "racist" charge against me has already been comprehensively answered by me long ago. So that old answer should be read to form a part of my answer here. But I also think that I should here add some important background considerations to all of the attacks on me: Leftists have so poisoned discussion of race and racism by decades of hysterical shrieks about it that any mention of race or racism is now seen as highly suspect -- unless of course you are praising some minority or asserting how justly they are aggrieved. And I DO quite happily make statements about race and racism that are of a kind that would have been regarded as perfectly normal thoughout all of human history -- but which have just in the last few decades become furiously excoriated. The only reasonable definition of racism that I can see is something along the lines of "harming a person solely because of his race" but to a modern-day Leftist, just discussing race is "racism". To a Leftist, our entire human ancestry consisted of "racists". I suppose that suits a Leftist's inflated view of his own wonderful wisdom and virtue but it is extremely presumptuous. So Neiwert's quotations from my various published comments on race and racism were an easy hit. His quotations decisively PROVE that I am a racist -- according to current Leftist criteria. That I am not a racist in any real sense, you might gather from this recent post. And in the simple-minded theology of the Left, a racist would definitely have to be an antisemite so how to explain my unwavering support for Israel? Most of my blogs actually display an Israeli flag -- yet I am not Jewish. What is going on is that I refuse to subscribe to an addled definition of racism that rules out most discussion of it a priori. If the facts show that the races differ on average in some respect, I will say so -- and I often do say so. And in that I now have a lot of the medical literature on my side. Differences between the races, most of them apparently of genetic origin, are now frequently reported in the medical literature. See here, for instance. So Leftist obscurantism about race now puts them squarely within the camp of the old Leftist Lysenkoists who once denied genetic inheritance entirely -- insisting quite amazingly that characteristics acquired in one's lifetime would be passed on to one's offspring. The Leftist view of racism is now clearly as unscientific as anything Trofim Lysenko ever said. And the topic within political psychology that I took most interest in during my academic career was in fact racism. So around 15 years ago, I went to the library at my local university and looked up their PsycLIT CD-ROM. The CD was published by the American Psychological Association and indexes what has been published in all the world's academic psychology journals. I entered the search terms "racism" and "ethnocentrism" and looked at the authorship of the stream of articles that came out. There was one author who had published far more than any other -- accounting for about a fifth of the articles listed. So, by normal academic conventions, that author would clearly be the world's leading authority on the psychology of racism. I am that author. So regardless of the abuse that Neiwert and his ilk hurl at my writings on race and racism, those writings are perfectly respectable intellectually. You can access the publications concerned via this link. That does also of course make it rather amusing that my critics have a habit of referring to me as a "pseudo" academic. If I am a pseudo-academic, I would like to meet a real one! Leftists cannot even get their abuse right a lot of the time. If they have to lie to make themselves feel good, then lie they will. And, speaking of lies, I note that Neiwert does not appear to have responded to my exposure of his lie about the antisemitic Father Coughlin being a "Rightist". I suppose Leftists HAVE to use lies. The facts are so inconvenient to them. And the one HUGELY inconvenient fact to them is that the two great tyrannies of the 20th century -- Fascism and Communism -- were both examples of what happens when Leftism escapes all restraints. Nothing that I have said above should be construed as a claim that there is anybody anywhere in academe who agrees with all my views on race and racism. Given the generally Leftist leanings of psychologists, I would be most surprised if there were. All that my publication record shows is that the arguments I have put forward on race and racism have very often been accepted by experts in the field as arguments that are well-made and well-supported. They are a good contribution to a discussion that the Left in general are determied to prevent us from having. I have put up here a summary of where I do stand on the questions involved. I argue that my stance is in fact a middle way between extremes. And I might add finally that I myself do not depend on ad hominem argumentation in my writings -- though I can rarely resist a tu quoque. For instance, I have an exceedingly dim view of Bill Clinton yet I felt obliged to defend one of his statements recently because I felt that he had been unreasonably criticized over it. See here. So, whether you agree with my defence of Clinton or not, you can see that I, at least, am able to separate the truth of a statement from the person who made it. I rather enjoyed writing the above. I am tempted to go on and fisk my critics in more detail but I am under no illusions about my ability to clean out the Augean stables. The Augean stables were so full of shit that you could shovel all your life and not get rid of it all. ************************* ELSEWHERE Can you beat this for media deception? The "Briton" was a Pakistani fanatic! "Briton admits plot to behead Muslim soldier. A man has pleaded guilty to a plot to kidnap and kill a Muslim soldier in the British army by cutting off his head "like a pig", a court was told on Tuesday. Parviz Khan, 37, pleaded guilty this month to a series of charges including the beheading plot, which was foiled by police and the MI5 security service a year ago. A British and Pakistani passport holder, Khan was "a man who has the most violent and extreme Islamist views" and who wanted to get physically involved in acts of terrorism, prosecutor Nigel Rumfitt said. He said Khan was "enraged" by the fact there were Muslims in the British army, which Islamist militants portray as fighting Islam in Afghanistan and Iraq, and formed a plan to kidnap a Muslim soldier in the central city of Birmingham." The psychopath again: "That picture of the seething, red-faced former president of the United States shaking his finger at members of the press who dare to question his wife's slimy campaign tactics, is all too familiar to those who have worked closely with him in the past. Like Janus, the two-faced Roman god, there are always been two distinct personalities in Bill Clinton. That charming, smiling gentleman seen in public is too often eclipsed in private by his negative twin evidenced in the eruption of a furious, unexpected, and uncontrollable rage, often accompanied by loud cursing and occasionally, even physical violence. It's not a pretty picture. I've been at the other end of that anger too many times and I was always amazed at the suddenness and intensity of his fury". Even Carter sees the need for voter ID: "Former President Carter stated on March 22, 2006, "Within the next three or four years, all 50 states will move to some kind of voter ID." Carter, along with former Secretary of State James Baker, recently led the Commission on Federal Election Reform. Among the commission's recommendations was the requirement of photographic identification at the polls to curb voter fraud." For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and TELSTRA/BIGPOND. List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here **************************** "Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here. The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party". ****************************