News and Comments

Playing Chicken in Kiev

It doesn't take much reading between the lines to understand the current controversy in Ukraine. One side wants to align itself more closely with the EU – i.e. with the “West”, i.e. with us... and the other side wants to move, at least partly, back under the wing of Mother Russia. Now, there is nothing new about this issue; it's quite ancient, in fact. You can find the issue of “Europhilia” vs. “Slavophilia” -- i.e., do we want to be Europeans or not? -- coming up in 19th-Century Russian novels, and it goes back at least as far as Peter the Great. That's Russia, of course, but Ukraine has its own version of the very same dilemma, and when it looks around at the other former Soviet republics, it can see a full range of solutions, from the enthusiastic embrace of the EU by the Baltic states (which were never Slavic anyway) to a deeper commitment to Islam among the Central Asian “stans”.

To our conventional way of thinking, it seems obvious. After all, Ukraine was horrendously mistreated by the Soviets back in the 1930s, and once pacified became just another one of the gray, nameless, faceless Soviet republics. And now they are free! So why turn around and re-align with their former rulers and persecutors? I mean, OK, because of its size, economy, and culture, Ukraine might wind up as a most favored trading partner of Russia (assuming it's not already), but wouldn't the whole thing be just a bit intimidating – a marriage of non-equals?

On the other hand, is this really the best time for Ukrainian leaders to propose a closer alliance with the West? Maybe it's better to be a second-class citizen within the Russian sphere of influence than a third- or fourth-class citizen with regard to the EU. Plus, what's the EU's trajectory these days? It's basically morphing into the next German Empire. Does Ukraine really want to go the way of Greece and the other insolvent places that were forced to sell themselves down the river to the more sober power north of the Alps? Because, like it or not, this is the sort of thing that's likely to happen when a place that is politically chaotic gets into an economic “arrangement” with a place that's not. We've already seen it any number of times.

And that's just about the EU. An alliance with the EU is also, inevitably, an alliance with the U.S., and one look at our political system these days, where the inmates have clearly taken over the asylum, should be enough to sober anybody up. And besides, the EU or its surrogates have assumed a dominant, if not totally controlling, role over the U.S. banking system and thus its economy. If it can happen to us, it can certainly happen to Ukraine in much less time.

Add to this the unlikely fact that Russia has actually started to assume moral leadership on the world stage, as in the case of Syria. Clearly, the Russian Empire is starting to come back to life and regroup, whereas ours is fragmenting and falling into chaos. Which team is starting to look like the winning team? Where does the future lie? Ukraine is going to have to cast its lot in one direction or another, and I don't envy them their choice.

Can They Hear Me Now?

The award for the funniest news item in ages has to go to the story about the fake “signing” guy at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela. Standing an arm's length from President Obama (and any number of other, ahem, dignitaries) this guy pulled off a coup that would put Sacha Baron Cohen to shame. Apparently he managed to penetrate security and sneak up on stage and start “signing” with absolutely no problem – and those in charge didn't know anything was amiss until it was pointed out, later on, that the guy hadn't been saying, er, signing anything whatsoever but just “moving his hands around”.

But what a beautiful metaphor for Obama and his administration! You can't make this stuff up. Placed on high for no discernible reason – check. Much gesticulating and waving of arms, but totally content-free – check. A total fraud and a hoax – check. Only detected after the fact, once it was too late – check. “An absolute circus” -- check.

Ah yes – this is life in South Africa, where hope and change rule... where an oppressed people finally got their piece of the pie and said “it's our turn”. And hey, there are bound to be missteps now and then – after all, haven't any number of impostors manged to crash White House parties and have their pictures taken with The Anointed One?

And, oh yes, the guy was not taken into custody – at least not right away. And, it turns out, this is not the first time he's played this trick. Yeah... always give someone another chance, that's the American way.

At any rate, it's too funny. Just the thing to liven up the holiday season.

Snakes on a Plane

There's another story that came out of the Mandela pilgrimage, but one that requires a bit of reading between the lines. It seems that the plane that transported Obama & the missus to South Africa was also graced by the presence of George W. Bush (a fellow member of the Regime), Mrs. Bush, and Hillary Clinton (a former political rival of The Anointed One). Conspicuous by their absence from the First Plane were Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, the reason given being “logistical issues”.

Logistical issues, my a**. My guess is that Obama didn't want to be seen spending that much time with Carter; it might have invited unfortunate comparisons. And as to Bill – well, I suppose the prospect of him and Hillary spending an entire flight to South Africa on the same cramped, stuffy airplane didn't appeal to either one of them. It would have been the longest time they spent together since leaving the White House!

Ending With a Whimper

The Pittsburgh Steelers retain an infinitesimal mathematical possibility of making the NFL playoffs – provided a few other teams all come down with herpes or shingles in the meantime. Otherwise, fuhgeddaboutit. On the plus side, it means we can finally relax and just enjoy the game instead of having our intestines tied in knots on every play. After all, somebody has to lose – right? But I guess when most people are “educated” in the public schools, where everyone is a winner each and every day, it's hard to accept that fact of life.

Up the Vigilante

Turns out that George Zimmerman is a badass with a temper after all. Ah well, it's too late now. Maybe Neighborhood Watch can hire more Mister Rogers clones in the future.

The Carterization of Obama Redux

Herewith, a "reprint" of a post from way back in June 2008. Obama at that point -- months before the election -- was already showing signs of being another sheep ready for the shearing, in the Carter tradition -- but a black sheep this time, not the cotton-hued variety represented by "Jimmeh". Now, at long last, many other voices besides mine have joined the chorus, warning (or promising, as the case may be) that Obama is on an unmistakable trajectory towards Carterdom. The evidence is all too clear, and it makes my post... well, with all due modesty... prescient. So read, and be afraid. Or maybe not. After all, a failed liberal presidency should be good news for conservatives, as Rush Limbaugh unsuccessfully tried to point out. It's just that in their failures, liberals tend to drag a lot of people who make an honest living down with them, the way a harpooned whale would. And yet, if one believes in liberty, or even karma, or both, the ongoing descent into chaos, as inconvenient as it may be at times, at least serves as a kind of vindication.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

The Carterization of Obama

He was elected primarily as a reaction to a previous regime that was considered hopelessly corrupt, if not actually criminal. His level of experience and his aptitude for the job were widely questioned. But he was an honest man... a good man... a man of principal. He was intelligent. He was not a political "insider". He had "values", he was sincere, he stood for change. But when he became president, he brought in, like ships spreading the plague, an army of low-grade political hacks, frauds, and schemers, and as a result his presidency became a total disaster area on all fronts. In addition, his idealism tended to get in the way of clear, level-headed, realistic thinking when it came to domestic and foreign policy questions.

This is the conventional wisdom -- or one version of it -- regarding Jimmy Carter. Now, why am I starting to get the exact same "vibe" from Obama and his campaign, and his many hangers-on... and the new hangers-on he will undoubtedly accumulate between now and election day, all of whom will follow him to Washington (in the event he wins), each with his or her own agenda which has very little to do with the welfare of the country?

The problem with idealists down through history is that they are too easily exploited. Their idealism tends to blind them to the perfidy all around them, and the closer it is the more blinded they are. Unlike the cold, realistic cynic who knows how the game is played because they are masters at it themselves -- a person like Hillary Clinton, for example -- these people have way too much faith in humanity, particularly in other politicians. They are easily duped, easily flattered (because they know how good and pure they are, after all), and easily kept in the dark about what is really going on. This is not the same thing as the Bush II model, in which a dull-witted, clueless blockhead is set on high to be used as a whipping boy and scapegoat for all sorts of treacherous and treasonous activities. No, this is about a person who might really have merit... who might "deserve" the level of power the presidency entails, but who -- because no one can do the job alone -- inevitably has to call on friends and acquaintances, most of whom are totally uninterested in ideals or ideas, for help. The outcome in cases like this is usually farcical and depressing, and creates a "never again" movement while enshrining the president in question as "the worst ever" -- at least until the next one comes along.

I have a definite impression that the Carter model is already being reworked and prepared for implementation in January. Do I claim that it is any worse -- in operation or in outcome -- than the Neocon model that John McCain represents (except with the president really in charge this time)? Not at all. Just that no one should be surprised when it kicks in and we are once more treated to four years of Carterism.

The Sorriest President Ever

Christmastide is here, and what better way to celebrate, if you're a spectacularly-failed American president, than by apologizing to the Jews, and asking forgiveness? Now, to be fair, this is only a more personalized version of a ritual that has become a semi-annual requirement for the “mainstream media” -- namely, just like clockwork, sometime during what the faithful call “Lent” and “Advent”, media mavens like Time and Newsweek issue their mea culpa on behalf of the few remaining Christians in America – and especially on behalf of the few remaining practicing Catholics, who should have stepped up and apologized themselves, but you know how powerful “ignorance and superstition” are, so Time and Newsweek have to do it for them. What they are apologizing for is, of course, the Holocaust... but also for all mistreatment of the Jews down through history, going back at least as far as the Babylonian Captivity, if not to Pharaoh himself. And again – in lieu of the real thing – they are offering, as Exhibit A, the quivering remnant of practicing Catholics as the Guilty Parties. And yes, it's regrettable that this fancy called “freedom of religion” is enshrined in the founding documents, since life would be so much simpler, and much more pleasant, if these people and their crazy and hateful beliefs and world view could just be gotten out of the way. But one must be patient... and who knows, one day it might be possible. But in the meantime we can at least perform the apology ritual, in order to appease the gods of secular humanism, who might otherwise decide to strike us all dead with bolts of hyperinflation lightning.

But the essence of this cyclic apology (you know, the kind that merits what is called a “standing headline” -- one that is used so often that it is never melted down) goes even deeper than the politics of our day; it also has theological implications. They are that, essentially, Christianity did not add one jot or tittle to the merits of Old Testament Judaism, and that, therefore, the whole thing was a mistake, if not an actual hoax. (For an elaboration of the “hoax” aspect, see any of the countless Time or Newsweek articles on “the search for the real Jesus” -- which, most typically, conclude that he was a totally made-up character.) In other words, Old Testament Judaism was just fine, thank you, and it did not need the addition of any trouble-making “messiah” or any “gospel” -- to say nothing of the Epistles, the Church Fathers, the Magisterium, the Apostolate, the Vatican, the Pope, or any of the other accretions that have been proven – proven! By the secular humanists! -- to be totally unnecessary, not to mention “judgmental”, “dogmatic”, “paternalistic”, “hateful”, “anti-woman”, “anti-gay”, “pedophiliac”... well, you get the idea. The point they are trying to make – albeit unconsciously – is that the Protestants were quite correct in their return to Old Testament spirituality... i.e. they were quite correct in rejecting the Church and becoming, for all intents and purposes, Jews again. And this is in spite of the fact that the mainstream media will not come out in favor of Old Testament morality either, and will applaud every time a monument including the Ten Commandments is removed from public property. The argument they are making, in other words, is of what I call the ABC type -- Anything But Christianity. But media hypocrisy notwithstanding, what their argument implies is that it's only natural for a good, believing Protestant to awaken to his true spiritual roots... realize his culpability... regret his ignorance... and voice expressions of solidarity with the Jewish community, which, of course, means – first and foremost – with Israel. And that is precisely what Jimmy Carter has done, according to a recent news article.

What Carter has said, essentially, is that he was wrong in accusing Israel of setting up a system like the apartheid of South Africa in order to control and oppress the Palestinians. The accusation was supposedly made in his 2006 book entitled “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” -- and, of course, said book caused no end of consternation and indignation among Israelis, Israel-supporters, and Zionists in general, first and foremost of whom is the ever-reliable and never-sleeping Abe Foxman of the ADL. Now Carter has issued his own mea culpa, which in essence – in true liberal style – says that he never said those horrible, hateful things, and that even if he did, he didn't mean them, because... well, because he didn't know what certain words mean in English (“apartheid” is a Dutch word, after all), and besides, he didn't realize, at the time, what a benign regime Israel has – even if you're a Palestinian living on Israeli soil. And just in case there's any doubt as to Carter's intentions, he is offering an Al Het, or prayer for forgiveness. In other words, he's making reparations to the Jews by becoming a Jew! (If they were smart they'd return his application marked “Rejected”.) And he is not just apologizing for “words” (i.e., the book) but also for “deeds” -- like the time he traveled to Gaza to hobnob with Hamas. (Talk about "eyeless in Gaza"! But Carter is no Samson either.)

But despite this public display of sackcloth and ashes (not literal, but it would have been much more amusing if it had been), I still find myself wondering, if he had known how much trouble his book would cause, why did he write it in the first place? Or, alternatively, if he knew but didn't care, why apologize at this late date? What's he got to lose, given that he's already one of the most despised and useless people on the planet? But – yes, I know – this would be to assume that logic has something to do with it, and as we all know – or recall, with a frisson of retroactive dread – logic was the one thing in shortest supply during the Carter administration, and the ill logic went “right to the top”, as they say – it was not just a characteristic of low-level operatives – you know, those clowns who would have been on welfare or running moonshine if they hadn't gotten lucrative posts in the administration. Yes, in the Pantheon of Really Bad Presidents, LBJ may have been more of a tyrant... Bush II stupider... Clinton a psychopath... but it took a Jimmy Carter to exhibit the most profound cluelessness. And the pity of it is, he's still around, and still under the delusion that he has ideas worth voicing and writing down. And frankly, I'm not sure I understand how valuable an apology from someone of this caliber is to the Zionist establishment; don't they realize that he's an idiot? They would be better off if Carter were neutral or indifferent to the Zionist cause, because that way they could say, “Look at the sort of person who doesn't care about Israel. You don't want to be a person like that, do you?” That would surely wipe out every last trace of skepticism. It would be like a wily marketing manager getting O.J. to endorse a rival's product. “Unconvicted murderers prefer Luckies” -- or some such. Brilliant! But you know, foreigners (and Abe Foxman surely qualifies as a foreigner) have always been a bit dense when it comes to American politics – they expect far too much logic, reason, and consistency. Mainly, they think that when a president – or ex-president – speaks, he is speaking for the American people, whereas nothing could be further from the truth. What he is speaking for is, first and foremost, the Regime – call it the established power structure – and, even then, only for the Regime at any given time, for example the period during which he was president. The Regime can change its priorities, its strategy, its tactics, its “public face”, as conditions require – and someone who might have been a good mouthpiece back in, say, the late 1970s looks like a fool today if he expresses the same opinions. And we know that when the Regime decides to throw a politician onto the “dust heap of history”, that politician stays thrown (and dusty).

Plus – and here's the best part! -- after all of this breast-beating on Carter's part, what does Abe Foxman say? “This is a good start.” A good start!?!? What does Carter have to do, pour gasoline on his head and light a match, in the time-honored fashion of the Buddhist monks in Vietnam? (And I suppose his Secret Service detail would keep him from even doing that.) But Foxman is reserving judgment: “To what extent this is an epiphany [note the pirating of a Christian word here], only time will tell.” Which is another way of spitting in Carter's elaborately-lined, sagging, and careworn face. And yes – time will tell whether Carter really “means it”, but who gets to say when? Foxman and the ADL, of course. So Carter will be on probation until that day, which may be long in coming, if ever. And I suppose that this lukewarm response will be another of those many things that take “Jimmeh” by surprise; I'm sure he expected to be welcomed back into the fold with open arms.

So, basically, Carter has been hung out to dry, with the help of Foxman and Co., and it's a fitting end for a career that will – as the saying goes – live in infamy.

Israel Outed by Peanut; Pictures at Eleven

In a startling and -- some would say -- ironic turn of events, former president Jimmy Carter has been indicted by an Israeli court for high treason, and the process of deportation is already under way. Mr. Carter can expect to get a fair trial in Israel, officials say -- or at least one as fair as the one Saddam Hussein got in Baghdad -- after which time he will be incarcerated in a penitentiary set aside for "the unrighteous among the Gentiles". His alleged crime? -- revealing that, as of around 1980 when he was last privy to this sort of information, Israel had "150 or more" nuclear weapons. (He made this revelation at a literary festival in Wales, by the way. His next stop will be a nuclear disarmament conference in Switzerland where he is expected to hold forth on the works of Harold Pinter.)

Well, OK, The Peanut isn't really being indicted for treason by Israel -- but I'll bet they'd like to, if they thought they could get away with it. Apparently hard data on the actual nuclear holdings of Israel have been virtually impossible to come by for the last... well, for however many years Israel has had nukes, which is itself top secret. According to the news item in question, "While the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons is widely assumed, Israeli officials have never admitted their existence, and U.S. officials have stuck to that line in public for years." Now, the question that always occurs to me is why Israel, out of all the nuclear powers, is so coy and secretive about revealing the size of their nuclear arsenal? Every other country in the nuclear club brags from the rooftops, providing detailed -- if possibly inflated -- figures as to their capability for inflicting grievous damage on unfriendly neighbors. But Israel holds its nuclear cards close to its chest. Why? If the idea is to intimidate, and deter any hostile neighbors from starting a serious conflict, wouldn't you think they would want the facts widely known? Surely they aren't ashamed of having "only" 150 nukes -- I mean, that's 75 times the number we used on Japan and it ended the entire Pacific War! Think what 150 nukes could do for the Arab world -- create so many martyrs that all of Islam would be lifted up in one great wave, leaving the Near East -- finally! -- as a "land without a people". So again I say, what is the problem? It surely can't be the fact that the only hostile use of nukes to date served to end the war with Japan, since they were allies of Germany, and Israel certainly has no torch to carry in that department. Could it be, possibly, the obvious question, if they have 150 nukes, where did they get them? I.e., did they build them all by themselves or did they have some small amount of assitance from us? And if the latter, would the fact inflame feelings among the militant Islamists any more than they are already inflamed? Highly doubtful. Is it possible that they see the American use of the atomic bombs on Japan as having had a distinctly racist element? Could be, except for the awkward fact that most of the prominent atomic scientists who developed the bomb were themselves Jewish. Or maybe that's the rub; maybe they have been having second thoughts all along, the way Oppenheimer did -- not to mention Einstein. Perhaps the Atomic Genie with the Jewish parentage has turned out to be a kind of embarrassment. Well, it's true that the Jews have always taken pride in being the moral standard-bearers for the world; this began way back in Moses' time, and the advent of Christianity did nothing to alter this basic element of their self image. Israel, then, presents itself as the moral standard bearer for the Near East (since you certainly couldn't trust those filthy Arabs to have any sound moral ideas) -- and by extension the rest of Asia, and Africa, and Europe, and on occasion the Western Hemisphere as well. Not to mention which -- and I know I'm getting close to a nerve here -- the sufferings of the Jews under the Nazis and their allies more or less placed them in a uniquely morally superior position, which cannot be questioned, for... well forever, basically. (This was stated explicitly by Golda Meir, by the way.) So I guess after being set in the judgment seat over the rest of humanity, it's a bit awkward to also have to admit to having 150 or whatever number (let's assume a lot _more_ now than in 1980) of those nasty, indiscriminate, cruel, and at least semi-racist "nukes". It's like... oh... it's like finding a nun wearing a diaphragm; it just adds a sour note to the whole thing, and might even, if one were so inclined, call into question the authenticity of Israel's claim to be _the_ morally untouchable nation on earth.

So what am I saying here? That Israel's sensitivity to revelations -- at this ridiculously late date -- about its nuclear arsenal is because those revelations reveal some sort of strategic threat? No, not at all. The threat has always been there, and the Arabs have known it. Then is it about what one former Israeli official claimed, that "there are those who can use these statements when it comes to discussing the international effort to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons"? This is another way of saying that the argument would be, "The Israelis have nukes, why can't we?" Well, this argument could have been made any time in the last... however many years. Just having a number attached to the idea doesn't make it any more compelling.

The argument, by the way, is not a bad one, but if logically extended we would wind up with Israel's 150 versus a few thousand held by a couple dozen hostile neighbors. And that could be seen as having tilted the playing field a bit. As it is, it's Israel's nukes versus the Arab world's human wave tactics -- and we know how effective those have been in all the wars Israel has fought _without_ the use of nukes. In other words, if they can kick Arab ass all over the map without them, why do they need them? Well, to prevent the other guys from getting them, basically. As strategies go it isn't half bad. The last thing anyone wants is for the Arabs to get hold of a bunch of "equalizers", to compensate for their blatant military incompetence.

But having said this, and dismissed it as the reason for Israel's hypersensitivity on this issue, and having also dismissed the political arguments, it seems to me that only the moral argument -- i.e. the moral ambiguity -- is left. And I suppose we should be thankful for at least this much. If Israel is so squirrelly about _talking_ about its nukes, it has to be even more ambivalent about actually using them. This, of course, is one reason they send George Bush out there at high noon to call the baddies out of the saloon -- clearly, the U.S. has far fewer inhibitions about using nukes, since we've already used them. And aren't the Arabs (or the Iranians, or anyone else over there with a decent tan) just as nasty as the Japs? You can be sure that they will be pictured that way if push ever comes to shove. Ah yes... when you have moral superiority, life is good. But the "etiquette burden" is a bitch.

The Carterization of Obama

He was elected primarily as a reaction to a previous regime that was considered hopelessly corrupt, if not actually criminal. His level of experience and his aptitude for the job were widely questioned. But he was an honest man... a good man... a man of principal. He was intelligent. He was not a political "insider". He had "values", he was sincere, he stood for change. But when he became president, he brought in, like ships spreading the plague, an army of low-grade political hacks, frauds, and schemers, and as a result his presidency became a total disaster area on all fronts. In addition, his idealism tended to get in the way of clear, level-headed, realistic thinking when it came to domestic and foreign policy questions.

This is the conventional wisdom -- or one version of it -- regarding Jimmy Carter. Now, why am I starting to get the exact same "vibe" from Obama and his campaign, and his many hangers-on... and the new hangers-on he will undoubtedly accumulate between now and election day, all of whom will follow him to Washington (in the event he wins), each with his or her own agenda which has very little to do with the welfare of the country?

The problem with idealists down through history is that they are too easily exploited. Their idealism tends to blind them to the perfidy all around them, and the closer it is the more blinded they are. Unlike the cold, realistic cynic who knows how the game is played because they are masters at it themselves -- a person like Hillary Clinton, for example -- these people have way too much faith in humanity, particularly in other politicians. They are easily duped, easily flattered (because they know how good and pure they are, after all), and easily kept in the dark about what is really going on. This is not the same thing as the Bush II model, in which a dull-witted, clueless blockhead is set on high to be used as a whipping boy and scapegoat for all sorts of treacherous and treasonous activities. No, this is about a person who might really have merit... who might "deserve" the level of power the presidency entails, but who -- because no one can do the job alone -- inevitably has to call on friends and acquaintances, most of whom are totally uninterested in ideals or ideas, for help. The outcome in cases like this is usually farcical and depressing, and creates a "never again" movement while enshrining the president in question as "the worst ever" -- at least until the next one comes along.

I have a definite impression that the Carter model is already being reworked and prepared for implementation in January. Do I claim that it is any worse -- in operation or in outcome -- than the Neocon model that John McCain represents (except with the president really in charge this time)? Not at all. Just that no one should be surprised when it kicks in and we are once more treated to four years of Carterism.