If ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise
Bookworm on Nov 04 2008 at 8:24 pm | Filed under: Barack Obama, Media matters
Knowing as I do that the media is going to puff every tentative step forward by Obama, whether confirmed or not, I’ve simply ignored the news all day. I’m feeling stressed, but want to wait until tomorrow for a definitive answer, rather than to suffer through the roller coaster of breathless and, usually, ill-informed information. That’s why I have nothing to say about what’s happening with today’s election.
However, I’ve decided on optimism. If the McCain/Palin team wins, I’ll be happy, because that’s what I want and because I believe they’ll be a good team.
If the Obama/Biden team wins, however, there will also be some silver linings:
- My husband will be happy and will stop holding me personally responsible for everything he hates about the Bush administration.
- Bush Derangement Syndrome will go away and, perhaps, absent the severe negative mental stimulation that BDS created, garden variety Democrats will become less heated in their politics and retreat to a more moderate position.
- Israel, freed from the restraining hand of an administration it sort of trusted, and exposed to all the risks of an administration that will almost certainly be hostile to it, will begin to act aggressively, and might take out Iran’s nukes.
- Two years of all-Democrat, all-the-time, should take the bloom off the rose for a lot of Americans.
- Because being in the American media means never having to admit you were wrong or say you’re sorry, nothing will stop the MSM from turning against Obama. In other words, because the past will be forgotten, if Obama doesn’t live up to the expectations of various media representatives, they will cheerfully turn on him with unparalleled viciousness.
- There is a possibility (albeit a small one, I think), that Obama will prove to be a very good President or, at least, a competent one. And since my first love is my country, rather than a politician or a party, I hope to be gracious in acknowledging his virtues, assuming there are any.
In other words, the world will not end tomorrow. And if it’s an Obama victory, we still bear the responsibility as citizens to work for the best possible America, both socially and politically, both at home and abroad.
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[...] has chosen to be an optimist. Well, all I can say is if PA stands, then I’m exceedingly disappointed that the press did [...]
It looks like it’s going to be a landslide. I agree wth most of your conclusions, above, if not your justifications of them, except for number 3. I don’t think Israel is likely to do anything similar to what they’ve been getting away with for the last eight years, unless, of course, they try it in the early days of the presidency. Not in the reign of this Hussein, ma’am.
“Not in the reign of this Hussein,”- Ravana
That’s a peculiar statement. What do you mean by that?
Also, I really have to say that America’s position of respected leadership in the world will be almost immediately be restored. If a black man named Hussein can become president, it adds credence to the case that America is truly as great as it says it is. Obama winning supports the claim that America is truly the land of freedom and democracy, where anybody could hope to be anything.
If skin color was all that mattered, I don’t know why we bothered with this whole election cycle to begin with. We should have just picked a black person and installed him/her in the White House. It would have saved a lot of money and heart ache. Focusing on Obama’s race as the sole reason to praise putting into the White House an unprincipled, unprepared, unqualified nobody is just about the most racist thing I’ve ever heard — and I’ve heard it from just about everybody around me.
“I don’t think Israel is likely to do anything similar to what they’ve been getting away with for the last eight years, unless, of course, they try it in the early days of the presidency. Not in the reign of this Hussein, ma’am.”- Ravana
Ravana, I can read all sorts of things into this statement. Please explain what you mean, since I don’t want to take it the wrong way.
Also, you never answered my question about the turmoil in your country.
What did I mean by “not in the reign of this Hussein”? I was referring to Obama, obviously, and to the probability that he will be a more Muslim-friendly president than we’ve seen before. This is partly because his curiosity about his own roots would have made him, I think, less paranoid about Muslims than most Americans. Also, he grew up in Indonesia, and probably has fond memories of that Muslim country. He has a much more realistic hands-on view and understanding of Islamic culture than most American presidents do. On the spectrum of positions on the Israel-Palestine conflict, he will, therefore, be less sympathetic to Israel than many previous American presidents, whose positions, I think, have been grounded more by populism among Jewish and Evangelical voters than by objectivity.
>> I don’t think Israel is likely to do anything similar to what they’ve been getting away with for the last eight years >>
Time will tell. It’s impossible to read between Ravana’s lines to determine *why* she (?) believes Israel will not “do anything similar” to what they have been doing for eight years. I don’t understand why she sets the time frame of this amorphous activity to precisely eight years.
One might assume that she believes that Israel is controlling Bush like a cheap puppet? Or might it be the other way around? One wonders what Ravana means – but one must make no assumptions.
I certainly don’t believe Israel have been “getting away with” anything for eight years. I applaud with great enthusiasm what Ariel Sharon was about, and his stroke, allowing the ascension of Ehud Olmert and Tippi Livni, was a complete disaster for Israel. At least their ascension to power exposed a great deal of weakness in Israel’s political leadership and military preparedness.
May God Help Us, that the corresponding ascension of Barack Obama does not expose America in a similar manner.
Bookworm,
“If skin color was all that mattered…”
Of course, it isn’t. You’re responding to a vew that is not my own. I think Obama is the better candidate, and the fact that America managed to see that, despite his colour, says a lot of good things about America.
I hope you’re right, Ravana. Considering Obama’s gross lack of experience, profound political ignorance, ugly friends, and utterly amoral approach to the truth, I find it hard to appreciate his apparent virtues.
I will pray you are wrong.
Wow, that didn’t take long.
Everyone over here in “the rest of the world” is very excited. My German friend, Christine, responded to my election party invitation, saying,
Christine: How exciting!!! I’m so happy! There is hope for this world after all..
Sent at 9:44 AM on Wednesday
me: Yay!
Christine: HAPPY!!!!!
We’ve organised a special pub quiz in Barack’s honour, and judging by the response the turnout is going to be huge. There is a genuine feeling that the world will be a much better place with Obama in charge.
http://ravana.wordpress.com/2008/11/04/arrack-for-barack/
If I thought the rest of the world actually liked America enough to want what’s best for her, I might be happy to. Considering that the rest of the world dislikes America intensely, this is like taking advice from the hangman about how to wear a necklace.
I have to laugh at Ravana, both for his thinly disguised hatred for Israel and his rather preposterous assertion that he knows what the other 6 billion people on this planet are thinking.
As for his German friend, I still think the Germans should take a 500-year vacation from pretending they’re members of the human race that the rest of us are interested in hearing from.
With regard to Israel: This moves up the Israeli attack on Iran. Israel will try to get — and I pray it will receive — as much help from Bush as it can before Obama, who is surrounded by Jew haters, takes office.
Also, Ravana, what you know about “Islamic culture” is most likely diddly squat. It is not a peaceful culture and its own holy book is not kindly disposed toward Jews — or homosexuals, or Christians, or women, or democracy, or blacks (the preponderence of Arab slaves through the ages have been blacks).
The next four years are yours. Good luck with that.
I’m happy to know that Muslims will no longer want to kill us.
Right now, I think we have truly entered an alternate reality.
I’m listening to a talking head (Juan Williams) talk about how Obama is going to govern toward the center since he is basically an opportunist.
The rest of the world (Ravana) sees a Muslim-friendly president.
All I can say is WOW.
It would be interesting to see a thread devoted to:
Make a prediction about what the world will look like one year from now.
I myself will have to wait perhaps a week for equilibrium to set back in, after the terribly disappointing results this evening, before attempting a serious balanced comment.
Right now I can’t get my head around the fact that Obama received a solid electoral college mandate, and perhaps even partly a popular vote one. I never expected that.
Mike, it looks as though Obama won by about 3 million votes — the same edge Bush had in 2004.
We were sternly warned then by the left that we were not to take that edge as a mandate.
Therefore, bowing to the wisdom of my leftist friends, I forbid you to use that word.
As I’ve pointed out, the rest of the world does not hate America, Bookworm. They hate Bush and a certain part of hs base. Before Bush, dislike of Americans in most parts of the world was limited to mild annoyance at American tourists. Now, the world is Democrat. If I was in the Republican party, I’d try and figure out a way to stop those campaign contributions from trickling in, and if I can’t do that, I might try and make my policies slightly more world-friendly.
If you want to talk about the security of the US, I firmly believe that the last eight years have weakened, not strengthened, America. From a budget surplus, America has gotten into so much debt funding the Iraq war (which it should not have executed in the first place), that 45% of the deficit was being financed by foreign entities. (Now, it’s probably more). Many of these are Chinese, and are controlled by their government. Quite apart from the fact that spending on the Iraq War is a root cause of the economic crisis, I think that economic mismanagement and the huge debt that America now faces with its bailout plan, and its alienation from the rest of the world, has made the US weaker.
America can’t go it alone, but this level of dependence on foreign money to support your wars is not the best way to secure your country. If China invaded Taiwan tomorrow, what could the United States do? Jack shit, probably, except talk. You just don’t have the money, and borrowing more, will mean worsening the long-term impact of the crisis further.
Just being from the military doesn’t mean that John McCain is the best person to keep America secure. You need a man who understands the deeper issues that make a country secure.
“Before Bush, dislike of Americans in most parts of the world was limited to mild annoyance at American tourists.”
Utterly false. I remember nasty anti-American rhetoric in the 90′s and it was especially vicious during the Reagan presidency. The partisan dishonesty was grossly unfair and the double-standard by which America was judged as opposed to America’s enemies was contemptible.
Having lived abroad during the Reagan presidency, I can attest to the truth of pst314′s statement. Perhaps because America has so often been called upon in the last 80 years to pull Europe’s irons out of the fire, Europe, rather than being gracious and grateful, is spiteful and vicious.
God, it’s amazing how the greater the ignorance, the chunkier and more fragrant the BS.
China lacks the capability to invade Taiwan “tomorrow.” If it tried, its forces would be repelled by the U.S. Navy.
There, took care of that for you, Ravana.
The Iraqi war was not the “root cause” of our economic problems. The cost of that war comes nowhere near to explaining the amount of debt the government has incurred. Spending in Iraq did not cause the U.S. housing bubble to burst.
Again, you’re welcome for my helping you with your truthiness, Ravana.
The man whom you think “understands the deeper issues that make a country secure” is getting ready to up the taxes on a struggling economy, slash defense spending, run away from Islamo-fascists and talk pretty to all of those civilized “Islamic culturalists” that charm you so.
Remind me, which of those actions addresses the “deeper issues?”
PS: What is your citizenship? You remind me of a Brit I met in Bangkok a few years back who’d never been to the States but still knew everything that was wrong with them.
Charles,
I too have read that Israel has a two month window to set back Iran’s nuclear program. It will take multiple strikes, and my son thinks they could occupy a base in northern Iran and strike from there.
The arab street will look the other way, since they aren’t suicidal themselves. My son thinks they come in from the north, and hold a hold a position long enough to severely damage their multiple nuclear facilities.
They will need to re-supply quickly, because there will be a cold wind blowing from Washington after Jan. 20.
Is this the test? Iran will have to retaliate through its proxies.
“I remember nasty anti-American rhetoric in the 90’s and it was especially vicious during the Reagan presidency.”
Yes, perhaps, but under Bush, the world’s dislike was far more widespread and deeper-rooted than that. It was almost unanimous. And, it was top of mind.
“The partisan dishonesty was grossly unfair and the double-standard by which America was judged as opposed to America’s enemies was contemptible.”
America is the leader of the free-world. Leaders are expected to behave differently; they are judged by a higher bar. Contrast this with America’s enemies. Iraq and Afghanistan were two of the most f-ed up countries of the world to start with, and Al Qaeda is a terrorist organisation. None of these enemies are an elected government with responsibilities to a population. You want to be treated like that?
Brian:
What you describe sounds plausible. Israel MUST act quickly — Obama will withdraw U.S. support from Israel no matter what, and will probably use Israeli strikes on the mullahs as the excuse.
If the Iranians are smart, they will strike back heavily against the Israelis and the chickenshits in Europe, but avoid any retaliation against the U.S.
As long as they avoid pushing a deeply ambivalent Obama into having to use U.S. power, they can pound away at Israel while getting the Europeans to supply them with what they need to eventually carry out their holocaust.
I remember traveling in Europe in the 70′s they didn’t like us for the Vietnam War. Got into several fights over that. The only folks that had any respect for the US were those that remembered WWII.
“Quite apart from the fact that spending on the Iraq War is a root cause of the economic crisis,”- Ravanna
Idiotic. Please, just trash Bush, don’t try and pretend you know anything about economics.
Brian, I asked Ravana who he talked to in Uruguay and Nepal about U.S. popularity, and he won’t tell me.
Same on who he talked to in Burkina-Fasso and Latvia: He won’t tell me.
Yet he knows what everybody — everybody! — in the world thinks about America.
Charles,
“The Iraqi war was not the “root cause” of our economic problems. The cost of that war comes nowhere near to explaining the amount of debt the government has incurred. Spending in Iraq did not cause the U.S. housing bubble to burst.”
You couldn’t be more wrong, Charlie.
“The spending on Iraq was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch because the US central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit.
“The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system,” he said.
That led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom, and the fallout was plunging the US economy into recession and saddling the next US president with the biggest budget deficit in history, he said.”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23286149-2703,00.html
More:
Durbin – http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/26/durbin-iraq-economy/
“Overconfidence and overdependence by the U.S. on its military and financial power, in which U.S. superiority is most outstanding, has led the U.S. to behave in an excessive manner. The result of the excess was a kind of “self poisoning” of its power. This is a classical example of “tragedy of power.”
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/perspectives/news/20081105p2a00m0na001000c.html
Brian E, I probably know more about economics than any of you in here. Unless, someone in here is a PhD holder.
My opposition to the Iraq war has always been partly based on the unsustanable economics of it. I have said so years ago, on this very same blog. Now, the former head of the World Bank is echoing my views.
This is what I said on this blog on September 23rd, 2006:
“My point is this: I see what the US is trying to do in the Middle East, especially Iraq, as yet another imposition of a Western ideal on a region that is not ready to handle it. I fear that in the long run, this strategy is going to backfire and create more problems for the world than it is going to solve, especially for the US. I don’t think the US political will and economic ability is strong enough to keep it in Iraq for the long term. In my opinion, come election pressures either this government or the next is going to try and find a hasty media-friendly exit strategy and this will mean a premature pull out of Iraq. Within an year or two of the US leaving, political chaos will reign in Iraq leading to a hotbed of violence and an ideal breeding ground for angry US-hating terrorists. And then we won’t even be able to blame them for feeling that way.”
http://bookwormroom.wordpress.com/2006/09/18/are-fanatic-islamists-finally-overreaching-themselves/
Book, I will disagree with you on the following points:
BDS will not go away, it will transfer to Republicans, conservatives, Christians, Jews…take your pick. Too many people have hard-wired themselves to hate and they will be looking for another focus for their own psychological disorders. Two years from now, they will STILL be blaming Republicans for the country’s worsening problems. You don’t think they will blame themselves, do you?
The media will have no place to go except to fawn over the Democrats…their last remaining constituency, for that is where their only access to power lies. BTW, I don’t watch any of the mainstream news organizations (nor CNN) anymore and we just canceled our local newspaper. Talk radio will become history, I suppose, although there still is the WSJ, IBD and internet (for now).
Since, my last comment is awaiting moderation due to the links, let me just post ths here:
“The spending on Iraq was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch because the US central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit.
“The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system,” he said.
That led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom, and the fallout was plunging the US economy into recession and saddling the next US president with the biggest budget deficit in history, he said.”
That’s the opinion of Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics. Now, who’s being absurd?
Ravana,
If you’re going to assume the mantle of expertise regarding so many subjects, please back it up with credentials, or at least a little personal background so those of us (relatively) new to this blog can more clearly understand your perspective.
What is the basis of your claim to expertise in economics?
What is the basis of your (apparent) claim to expertise in military matters?
On what do you base your apparently encyclopedic knowledge of what the world thinks, and why the world thinks that way?
I’m just looking for a little background here to be able to properly assess your comments and appropriately respond to them.
BTW – I saw a story earlier tonight that Israel attacked missile positions inside Gaza for the first time in months… I think Book’s observation number 3 is spot on.
>>Brian E, I probably know more about economics than any of you in here. Unless, someone in here is a PhD holder.<>Not to mention, Brian, that I know everybody in the world and what he thinks about the U.S. Don’t mess with me, Brian.<<
Bob K – Yes, in the next few months, while Bush is still in power, Number 3, is spot on, but I took Bookworm’s intention to mean after Obama was in power.
On the rest, I don’t think my credentials or education really matters. Just as I don’t know anything about you, and I don’t need to know about you, to blow holes in your argument, I don’t think it would be necessary for you to know my background, in order to attack my argument.
BobK, regarding that story about Israeli attacks on Gaza, I think Israel realizes it has arrived at a “now-or-never” moment.
There is still a great residuum of support for Israel in the U.S., especially, of course, among Jews. If Obama does not continue with that support, even if just rhetorically, it will create the first crack in the coalition that got him to the White House.
But that crack is going to appear no matter what — there are simply too many anti-Semites surrounding Obama for him to long hide his true intentions toward Israel and his stated willingness to accommodate Islamic fascism.
It will also probably finally push Joe Lieberman out of the Democratic Party and either into the Republican Party or truly independent status.
American Jews will be the canaries in Obama’s mine.
“The spending on Iraq was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch because the US central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit.
“The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system,” he said.
That led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom, and the fallout was plunging the US economy into recession and saddling the next US president with the biggest budget deficit in history, he said.”- Stiglitz
http://ivo.co.za/2008/03/24/whered-stiglitz-buy-his-nobel-prize/
Stiglitz is also fast and loose with his estimates of the cost, which have varied from $1 trillion to as high as $5 trillion and represents obligations that even Stiglitz would agree aren’t part of the economic drain he suggests caused the crisis. His accounting for the costs are suspect.
My opposition to the Iraq war has always been partly based on the unsustanable economics of it.
Life requires money to sustain. That seems like an inconvenience to the eugenics and socialist crowd who prefer that the cogs in the machine get to be sacrificed for economic sustainability.
Brian E,
Are you serious? The most expert opinion you found on the internet to counter Nobel Laureate Stiglitz’s expert opinion is a self-executed analysis by some blogger who doesn’t even claim to be an economist? THAT’s your response?
BrianE, now pay close attention:
“Are you serious? The most expert opinion you found on the internet to counter Nobel Laureate Stiglitz’s expert opinion is a self-executed analysis by some blogger who doesn’t even claim to be an economist? THAT’s your response?”
The above had been preceded by this response to BobK:
“On the rest, I don’t think my credentials or education really matters. Just as I don’t know anything about you, and I don’t need to know about you, to blow holes in your argument, I don’t think it would be necessary for you to know my background, in order to attack my argument.”
Let’s be clear, Brian: You are accept anything Ravana says if “it blows a hole in your argument” whether you know his educational attainments or not.
But you are NOT allowed to use arguments posed by people whose educational attainments have not been vetted by Ravana.
You clear now?
Charles,
You fail to compare apples with apples. I don’t need to know Brian E’s credentials to argue with him, because his argument with me speaks for itself. Similarly, the strength of my argument speaks for me.
However, if you evoke an opinion of someone else to back up your argument, as people (on this blog as well) often do, then that is a different matter. An expert opinion works only if it is precisely that. It is an admission that a respected source has had the time, inclination and abilty to study the problem and give its opinion. If the person who’s opinion Brian E evokes, to counter Stiglitz, is not an expert, then his evoking it is pointless. N’est-ce pas?
Ravana, Ravana, Ravana:
I love it when somebody like you sets out, in such earnest Shirley Temple-like earnestness, to use logic, then loses track of it.
The issue here is very simple: Does an argument work or not?
Not, does the argument have a credential that Ravana approves of or is impressed by?
Your tack is to “blow a hole in” BrianE’s citation not by refuting it but by sneering at its pedigree.
That may pass for sophisticated argument in whatever third-world s*ithole you call home, it doesn’t pass muster here.
Nay pah?
Ravana,
You made your knowledge and expertise an issue when you made statements tantamount to fact regarding economics, military matters and global realpolitik. If you make statements such as
you should be prepared to back them up with some information. If you don’t, I suspect many of the regulars here will simply dismiss your opinions as baseless.
That being said, what, precisely, is the strength of your argument? The origin of the mortgage crises is the Iraqi war? Many conservatives would agree that government spending is out of control, but I would argue the policies that led to the disaster at Freddie and Fannie have their main roots in socialist housing policies that focus on trying to ensure equality of result rather than equality of opportunity. Democrats in Congress didn’t just ‘look the other way’ as Stiglitz says, they actively squelched efforts in the past few years to place reasonable regulatory oversight in place on these quasi-governmental boondoggles in the name of ‘social justice’, or political expediency – which amounts to much the same thing for many progressives.
The spending in Iraq is trivial compared to the trillions in questionable paper re-bundled and peddled to complicit hedge-funds and investment houses.
Finally, do you believe that an expansionist China or ideological Venezuela are going to look at Sen. Obama with respect and love? That Iran’s mullah’s are going to get warm and fuzzy over the change that we have become? Or are they more likely to look at him, and by extension the United States, as a malleable target for exploitation – diplomatically, financially or militarily?
Ooooh, losing your cool, there a little bit are we, Charlie? I guess it’s understandable after losing the election due to the overwhelming rejection of your opinions by your own countrymen.
Look, the reason we cite experts is because we trust them to know more about the subject than us. I am not an expert on the financial crisis, but I do hold a degree in Economics from one of the best universties in Britain. I am willing to admit that a Nobel Prize Laureate knows more about the causes of the financial crisis than me, or you, or this blogger in South Africa that was cited. If you can’t find an economist of equal prominence as Stiglitz who refutes his claim, then there is no reason for me to waste my time finding and analyzing the data.
BobK, nicely, cogently, incisively said.
You go!
BobK,
See reply to Charles.
“Finally, do you believe that an expansionist China or ideological Venezuela are going to look at Sen. Obama with respect and love? That Iran’s mullah’s are going to get warm and fuzzy over the change that we have become?”
You are exaggerating, but yes, I do believe that even Bush’s enemies will respect Obama. I wouldn’t be too surprised if we see Ahmedinejad and Chavez speaking to congratulating him.
The people in Venezuela are already thrilled:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/reactions-from-around-the-world/
Ravana, nah.
I don’t lose my cool over Europeans (or European wannabes) who trip themselves up on the one thing that Continentals can never wean themselves from: their arrogance and their worship of status.
It did not occur to you — because your smug European sensibility won’t allow it — that the question isn’t whether an economist has credentials that pass muster with you, but whether his argument works.
The reason why Europe cannot match America’s intellectual and economic performance is because you guys are so busy sniffing one another’s butts for the proper perfume that you forget that butts are just the means to an end.
(Goodness, I, a Yank, made a pun in Ravana’s native language! Tee hee!)
I know this sounds terribly New-Worldish of me, but I could not care less that you hold an economics degree from one of Britain’s “best universities.” Considering the utterly low level of discourse and performance among your intelligentsia over the past generation, your universities are not held in quite the high regard here that you might think.
“Voices in the reformist camp are more nuanced about the prospects of an Obama win. Hossein Adeli, head of the Ravand Foundation, the country’s only non-official NGO, predicts that positive gestures from Washington will be met by greater Iranian cooperation over Iraq and Afghanistan. “If Obama wants to change the image of America in the world Iran is one area were he can demonstrate it,” he said. “It would give him the edge over his predecessors.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/04/iran-uselections2008
I’m going to bed. Ravana, you can chew up the rest of your bright European day conjuring up ripostes to me, and BrianE and BobK.
In the morning, the two B’s and I will each sit down and spend the 30 or 40 seconds it takes to “blow a hole” through your latest Appeal to Authority and/or recitation of academic bona fides.
Wish me sweet dreams, you highly degreed master of economics from a highly regarded university of highly superior people!
Charles,
I sense a certain hostlity in your tone. Perhaps, you would like to take a break? Or, perhaps, try and attack the subject at hand? Something, perhaps, that the Republican campaign should have done, instead of attacking the man.
At least in this case, it might be more constructive than you wasting your time insulting Europeans, when I am not a European. It’s great watching you do this, by the way. Please continue. What else do you have to say about Europeans, Charlie?
Oh ok, goodnight.
Bookworm said,
Bush Derangement Syndrome will go away…
I disagree,
I think instead of blaming Obama when some of his ” hope and change ” ideas fail – and many will fail – the left and their media will put the blame on Bush.
They will claim Bush has left the USA in such bad shape that even their dear leader Obama can not fix everything Bush destroyed and blahblahblah…
Blaming Bush is way too convenient, so it will be around for a long time.
“America is the leader of the free-world. Leaders are expected to behave differently; they are judged by a higher bar.”
Again, false. Over and over, I saw Europeans say that America was “no better than” its enemies. This is not “judging by a higher bar”, this is imposing a double standard. But then, what can one say of people who are welcoming and respectful to Marxists, Maoists, and Trotskyites–not to mention islamo-fascists–but who are openly disrespectful and contemptuous toward Ronald Reagan?
That’s the opinion of Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics. Now, who’s being absurd?
They gave a Nobel Peace Prize to Arrafat who was a terrorist who did everything he could to avoid peace with Israel.
They gave a Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore who did NOTHING for world peace and who is the biggest snake oil salesman in the world and who is unqualified to talk about world climate and who is making zillions of dollars in carbon trading.
so who is being absurd?
The Nobel people are being absurd.
“America is the leader of the free-world.”
There’s an old saying, “lead, follow, or get out of the way.” Unfortunately, too many “progressive” Europeans prefer to throw stones.
On a different topic:
Did anyone see the video tape last night of Obama supporters who were celebrating near the White House? One guy was actually waving a Soviet flag. My mouth fell open.
Forget about what the Soviets did to those in other countries – don’t they know that millions upon millions of Soviets were killed by their OWN countrymen?
I just can’t believe that someone would celebrate the win of a presidency with a symbol that represents death, destruction, and utter lack of liberty.
Deana
“One guy was actually waving a Soviet flag.”
I’m not at all surprised. There’s an old joke that liberals see Communists as merely “liberals in a hurry”. Over the years this has become less a joke and more literally true. Did you know that in much of Western Europe schoolchildren are taught that Communism was, in many ways, admirable and good? Sure, they got too “enthusiastic” and millions were died which was regrettable, but their ideals of equality and ending poverty were impeccable. Never mind that their ideas about how to end poverty were utterly wrong, and that their “solution” to inequality and unfreedom was to create a universal, all-pervasive god-state. Those errors are still invisible to most “progressives”.
pst314 –
I had never heard that joke before. That’s pretty funny! And yet sad, when you think about it.
It sort of surprises me how much people don’t know about history. I’ve recommended this book here before but it’s worth repeating. Earlier this year, I read:
“The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia” by Orlando Figes.
After about the first 75 pages in which Figes paints the scene, he then delves deeply into what regular folks experienced during Stalin’s reign.
I simply could NOT put that book down! I took it everywhere with me, sneaking away to read it, even if just for 5 minutes. It was just this fascinating look into people’s lives and how Stalin and communist ideology affected the Soviet people over the decades.
It made me realize how critical it is for people to understand that good intentions and soaring rhetoric are not the criteria by which political ideas and movements should be judged. Actual results are what should matter. When they don’t, the harm that caused the initial damage is simply repeated, over and over.
Deana
“The spending on Iraq was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch because the US central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit.
“The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system,” he said.
That led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom, and the fallout was plunging the US economy into recession and saddling the next US president with the biggest budget deficit in history, he said.”- Stiglitz
“If you can’t find an economist of equal prominence as Stiglitz who refutes his claim, then there is no reason for me to waste my time finding and analyzing the data.”- Ravana
Stiglitz has become the darling of the left, anti-globalization crowd. Look it’s no secret that the left abhored the war. But cheap credit began before the war, as a result of the recession of 2000 and it had already been announced by Franklin Raines in 1999 that as part of social policy, they were going to make $2 trillion of subprime loans. You know, the risky kind.
You are right that the fed should have raised interest rates in 2004-2005 to slow the economy. For that I do blame Greenspan.
But to say that the war caused the crisis, as opposed to the medicare prescription drug plan, or any other deficit government spending. Why only the war spending?
I would be interested to see you break down the costs Stiglitz claims for the war. At first he said $1 trillion, his latest figures are $3 trillion and rising.
If you’re looking for an argument that cheap money policy is good, you won’t get it. If you’re arguing that consumption can sustain an economy, no argument.
I actually agree with him on this, from an Aug interview with MSNBC:
Ravana,
It would not surprise me in the least if the totalitarian Chavez or the armageddon-baiting Ahmedinejad were to call Sen. Obama and congratulate him. I believe it would not be a result of respect, though. Quite the opposite. The goals of these ‘leaders’ and the states they represent are not congruent with the goals of my country. Throughout history despots (Chavez) and figureheads (Ahmedinejad), seek first their own advantage and personal validation. Iran seeks hegemony in the Middle East and therefore control over a good deal of Europe’s and southeast Asia’s petroleum supply. Venezuela seeks to dominate the energy market and political landscape of Central and South America. The leaders of these countries have sought self-validation in the spotlight of world attention, and feign courage by daring to insult the Great Satan.
In fact, this is cheap bravado. If the United States were as evil and expansionist as these tyrants claim, why haven’t we simply assimilated Cuba? Why haven’t we forcefully extracted from oil revenues the cost of our military expedition in Iraq, instead of letting those revenues be used to rebuild infrastructure in Iraq? Why hasn’t the devil George Bush armed Colombia to the teeth and through that surrogate placed guerilla fighters in Venezuela to destabilize the government (wait… isn’t there substantial evidence that the communist Chavez is doing just that with FARC?)
Seriously, do you see a moral equivalence between Venezuela, Iran and the United States? Will either of those nations do what the United States (and some other countries, notably the U.K.) have consistently done over the past century – namely place their own wealth and the very lives of their citizens at risk to protect and promote the lives and liberty of people in other countries?
“Bush Derangement Syndrome will go away”
Book, I wish it could be so, but haven’t you heard the calls to try Bush and Cheney as “war criminals”? That’s all we need to finally reduce this great country to the level of a banana republic.
I don’t trust Mr. Obama as far as I can throw him. Nevertheless, he is now the president-elect and I pray that he will turn out to be a far better president than I expect, and I wish him well.
That said, buckle your seatbelts, boys and girls, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!
BDS will go away? I doubt it. If conservatives didn’t exist, the Democrats would invent them. They need *someone* to blame their mistakes on, as all liberals do.
Ravana
Your assertion that only expert opinion can refute expert opinion makes no sense. Since the assertion was made that the debt wasn’t inflated and that the fed was raising rates during the war, after lowering them in response to the 2000 recession and 9/11, it should be fairly simple for you, as an expert, to explain the explanation away.
What I don’t hear much about is the effect of 9/11.
Stiglitz appears to be the maverick of the economics world, and I have to take with a grain of salt when he mixes economics with politics. One would hope he would stick to economics. Stiglitz is an Obama supporter, and one might question which came first, the thesis or his support for Obama.
Stiglitz talking about the financial crisis:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/17/stiglitz.crisis/index.html
As to soaring oil prices, which is one of the factors in the meltdown, George Soros, Stiglitz’s benefactor, doesn’t see it the same way. This from June, 2008:
I would also take exception with Stiglitz’s assertion that the tax cut of 2001 was not designed to stimulate the economy.
“Specifically, the Council of Economic Advisors (CAE) estimates that the provisions of the tax bill added 1.2 percentage points (at an annual rate) to GDP during the last two quarters of 2001 and 0.5 percentage points to GDP during 2002. The CEA estimates were based on the total impact of the tax policy of $57 billion in 2001 and $69 billion in 2002.10 The majority of these amounts are the rebate in 2001 or the impact of new 10 percent bracket in 2002.
Given that GDP in 2001 was about $10 trillion, the CEA estimates imply that tax policy left GDP about $60 billion higher by the end of 2001 and $112 billion higher by the end of 2002 than it would have been without the tax cut. Mechanically, these numbers imply that the tax cut raised GDP roughly dollar for dollar in the second half of 2001, and with a multiplier substantially above one in 2002.”
From: DID THE 2001 TAX REBATE STIMULATE SPENDING? EVIDENCE FROM TAXPAYER SURVEYS
Are you serious? The most expert opinion you found on the internet to counter Nobel Laureate Stiglitz’s expert opinion is a self-executed analysis by some blogger who doesn’t even claim to be an economist? THAT’s your response?
Very hoity toity of Ravanna, neh.
The Nobel Committee did award the Peace Prize to Al Gore in a recent year, well after global temperatures began cooling in 1998.
(A cooling trend which is ten years long, now, and which underwent a 0.5 degree C decline in 2007, leaving the globe cooler than at any point in forty years. A trend entirely, completely unpredicted by any human-only global warming model, especially given the massive productivity and economic worldwide expansion driven by the U.S., China, and India over the last twenty years; an expansion halted only within the last year due to the worldwide credit crunch economic catastrophe.)
Surely this refusal to consider reality in awarding the Peace Prize to Gore refutes any validity that the Nobel Committees might have once had.
I’d add as to Ravana, that at least he has decided to begin corresponding with some of you! I truly expected that he would only henceforth communicate with Book, as that was his stated desire. Though it did seem odd that he didn’t choose to commence those sole-party interactions with her via private email. (He must at least subconsciously have realized he sought a wider audience for his comments.)
BrianE, bless you for hanging in there and trying to reach Ravana with reason.
I doubt that he will read your comments with any end other than to insult them or refute them out of hand, but I find them informative and well constructed.
Mike, it is amazing how much the Nobel Prize has degenerated into a series of cheap shots against democracy and capitalism. I’m not much of an Ayn Rand fan, but her expression ‘the second-raters” sure explains most of Europe and academia these days.
I think that deep down Al Gore knows his prize is a travesty and that he is being used. The question is how long will the part of him that knows the truth continue to exist before it is completely swallowed up by ego and mendacity?
It made me realize how critical it is for people to understand that good intentions and soaring rhetoric are not the criteria by which political ideas and movements should be judged. Actual results are what should matter. When they don’t, the harm that caused the initial damage is simply repeated, over and over.
Deana
Check out this comment of mine on VC.
This will be an interesting lesson in human pain thresholds, purple.
Perhaps with this election, there is a chance for some honest dialogue about things we have not been allowed to discuss in the name of political correctness.-Cassandra
I tend to think that pain makes for quite a many honest dialogues. It just depends. The Al Anbar tribes, after feeling enough of the pain of the consequences of their choice of friends and allies, eventually started talking to each other, to us, and the Iraqi government.
Pain is a great way to smooth communications out, for human empathy only works when the pain is personal or close. It doesn’t work if the pain is only on tvs, courts, news programs, or in words. Since human beings naturally have defense mechanisms against feeling pain, painful memories, or other such things, you have to bring the pain past their pain threshold level. The Sunnis had an extremely high pain threshold but it was not infinite. AQ has an even higher pain threshold level due to their being fanatics, but their threshold isn’t infinite either. Humans are still humans.
www dot villainouscompany dot com/vcblog/
Cass has some other good posts up pre and post election results.
One of the classic differences between villains and heroes are that the heroes’ methods are perfectly acceptable when applied against the hero or his enemies. The villains’ methods, however, are only acceptable to the villain when applied against the villain’s enemies. Applied against the villain and suddenly things are no good, purple [Link]. Suddenly the villains must be protected from their own methods even though those methods were justified when used against people like Joe or Sarah.
That’s how you can detect the difference between ethics and lack of ethics.
I’d add as to Ravana, that at least he has decided to begin corresponding with some of you! I truly expected that he would only henceforth communicate with Book, as that was his stated desire. Though it did seem odd that he didn’t choose to commence those sole-party interactions with her via private email. (He must at least subconsciously have realized he sought a wider audience for his comments.)
I personally think the election results put some stiffening in the spines of Leftists that have recently felt very insecure about their place in life. Obama has validated it all for them now, however. Everything will be alright now. They simply must follow orders and Defend the Cause.
Btw, the scenario purple and I were discussing involved Ayer’s kicking out of a Fox News reporter based on the claim that “it was his private property”. Ayer now believes in private property for himself but not for his enemies, eh?
Charles Martel (#64)
>> I’m not much of an Ayn Rand fan, but her expression ‘the second-raters” sure explains most of Europe and academia these days. >>
Interesting that you brought up Ayn Rand. On Monday I decided to begin rereading ‘Atlas Shrugged’. I picked up a copy that had the Leonard Piekoff introduction, which I highly recommend. The intro consists primarily of four excerpts from Ayn Rand’s notes.
These excerpts clued me into the fact that I’ve been reading ‘Atlas Shrugged’ incorrectly all along: Ms. Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged primarily as an expression of her own perfect ideal of three men and one woman (all but Galt admittedly with critical, deliberate flaws), and to present a view of a World where rationality had been abandoned. She said she wanted to express, and be able to immerse herself, in such an idealized version of reality.
I’ve been highly critical in the past of the novel because it is *so* hyper-realized, to the point where it has no relation to actual people or events that could occur in reality; that it was essentially a crude cartoon. But knowing what I know now, I’m a hundred pages in, and I find it *immensely* enjoyable and extraordinarily well-written. Once you accept its hyper-realizations, its broadness, as completely deliberate, I think it achieves its goal of providing a broad, deep satisfaction.
If you take the Obama super-radical past as an indicator of where he and the Democrats intend to take us, the novel also satisfies as a perfect warning of what is to come. It’s positively delicious how well it matches up. (I’m currently in the chapter ‘Climax of the D’Anconias’, which exhibits such delights that I think it must have been Ayn Rand’s favorite chapter that she ever wrote.) I’m going to enjoy the time I spend with the remainder of the novel, though time will be less available as I’m starting a new software project soon…
The plot for Atlas Shrugged was very nice and enjoyable. You just have to read it like a philosophical treatise and not as an actual newspaper.
It also helped that I’d recently begun ‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley over the weekend. It is as “ridiculous” in its creation of a hyper-realized world as ‘Atlas Shrugged’, and yet has never come in for the same level of criticism as has ‘Atlas Shrugged’. I recognized the usual double standard immediately upon beginning Atlas Shrugged; and that has helped me completely discard my prior concerns about it.
Mike:
On another blog several years ago I went under the name “John Galt.” I liked the sound of it, and I had agreed with many of the points Rand had made in “Atlas Shrugged.”
I agree with you that the book is a “hyper-real” novel of ideas, with characters and situations almost cartoonishly delineated. But, considering how a great cartoonist can clarify by simplifying (Thomas Nast and David Low come to mind), there’s much to be said for that approach.
So, yes, I think we’re at the point Obama and his enablers are determined to deliver us into a nightmarish peasant world. It’s one where wealth cannot be created but only stolen by capitalists, then rightly expropriated and redistributed by compassionate socialists.
What bothered me the most about “Atlas Shrugged” was that Rand left out very much discussion of what was going on in hell-holes like Russia or China at the time, and what the cowardly responses from the novel’s “second raters” would have been doing to aid and abet advances in the war against wealth and intelligence. I suppose there was just a sheer limit to the number of important ideas she could address.
You’re right, “Brave New World” has drawn far less criticism over the years than “Atlas Shrugged.” Maybe that’s because until now it has been the dystopia that has come closest to describing the pit our civilization is sliding into — the profound disrespect for human life (abortion, euthansia, cloning), the degeneration of education (I’ve made tens of thousands of dollars teaching college graduates how to write), the divorce of sex from any end other than pleasure, as well as the mindless pursuit of pleasure.
But “Brave New World” presupposes a vast, wealthy, self-sustaining economy. With the recent financial debacles, and the ascension of wealth haters into power in the world’s greatest economy, the United States, this may well be the time when “Atlas Shrugged” becomes the dystopia du jour.
Submitted 11/06/08…
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