87 Comments

1. Utopia Parkway:

As far as I’m concerned we can Well and Truly F•ck T. Kumar of Amnesty International USA. His/Her organization is a bunch of lying ****s. I don’t care that he/she/it is shocked and whatever. Amnesty is a political organization masquerading as a human rights org. It certainly considers some groups more deserving of human rights than others.

Saying that its a matter of cash only though is probably simplistic. In Hillary’s case it’s a matter of interests. China is a big dog and there are lots of common issues between the US and China that aren’t cash per se.

Amnesty probably gets plenty of money from the Gazan issue and probably gets little or none from Tibet or other Chinese issues.

Feb 20, 2009 - 10:25 pm 2. Mark:

When suffering is out of sight, it’s out of mind. The lesson of the Rodney King videotape was that video documentation makes something real. (Of course, Palestinian fauxtographers learned this well.)

Eliot Paterson, in novels such as ‘Skull Mantra,’ provides literary documentation of, or at least fictional immersion into, the Tibet gulag and the destruction of Tibetan culture and religion by the Chinese.

Bush doctrine forever! Down with moral equivalence!

“Lha gyal lo,” victory to the gods!

Feb 20, 2009 - 10:31 pm 3. Mike Sylwester:

How does the Obama Administration’s stance toward the China-Tibet issue differ from the Bush Administration’s stance?

Feb 20, 2009 - 11:16 pm 4. wretchard:

How does the Obama Administration’s stance toward the China-Tibet issue differ from the Bush Administration’s stance?

Not by much. The weak are traded off, no matter how noble their cause. The strong are offered sympathy, however despicable. Imagine if the Tibet had employed terror tactics. Arguably it would be held in higher actual esteem today. Then the Dalai Lama would be a “partner for peace” or some such. After all, if you could give Yasser Arafat the Nobel Peace Prize, why not the Dalai Lama?

But this goes back to Santelli’s point about rewarding people for bad behavior. We reward people for bad behavior, time and again. We ignore the Lebanese democracy people and hang on Hassan Nasrallah’s every word. There must be thousands of Palestinian doctors, lawyers and ordinary joes throughout the world. But who do we listen to? Hamas. On what planet do people like Jesse Jackson, Jeremiah Wright and Al Sharpton get to speak for their ethnicity? What is their qualification if not the lack of it?

Feb 20, 2009 - 11:25 pm 5. Heh:

What is it about the Clintons and China?

Feb 20, 2009 - 11:41 pm 6. exhelodrvr:

Well, the Tibetans can at least be grateful that there are no Jews living there. Because then Tibet would be blamed for persecuting the Chinese.

Feb 20, 2009 - 11:52 pm 7. Starling:

Wretchard said: “But who do we listen to? Hamas. On what planet do people like Jesse Jackson, Jeremiah Wright and Al Sharpton get to speak for their ethnicity? What is their qualification if not the lack of it?”

Among their other “talents” Sharpton, Nasrallah, Jackson, and Wright have the ability to give a certain kind of persuasive speech. I say “a certain kind” because to my ears, their handiwork is hackwork. I’ve analyzed some of it at various points over the last four years. And the more I see, the more unsettling I find it. I’ve tried to put myself into the state of mind that responds affirmatively to the tacky tropes and figures of pathos which are the stock and trade of these demagogues. But I just can’t.

To his credit, Obama’s speech writers employ a more elevated style, but the substance… well that’s another matter entirely.

Starling on Nasrallah (2005): Bad Rhetoric, Bad Man

Starling on the Obama Inaugural Speech (2009): Rhetoric and Figures of Speech in Obama’s Inaugural Address: Sentence 1

Feb 21, 2009 - 1:36 am 8. Lifeofthemind:

Thirty years ago, when discussing events of less than 30 years in the past, it was stressed to me that particularly in regards to East Asia it would help if an American Secretary of State knew when to say either the whole truth, meaning here something like this,
“We care deeply about many things and we believe not only that we are right on these issues but that acting in accord with these democratic and humane principles are in every nations interest for a host of reasons including but emphatically not confined to the long term financial health that all forms of freedom fosters. Specific topics will be shared between us in privacy during a full and frank exchange of views based on mutual respect.”
or when to say nothing forcefully as in,
“Sorry but I don’t want to talk about that now.”

Famously Dean Acheson at the National Press Club did neither on January 12, 1950. He speculated on what the US defense perimeter was, did not support South Korea, and 6 months and two weeks later North Korea attacked.

Physicians take the Hippocratic Oath. It should be carved in stone over the entrance to Foggy Bottom and in the Capitol.
Do No Harm>

Feb 21, 2009 - 1:41 am 9. Lifeofthemind:

A few threads back I did predict that we would sell out the Tibetans to buy Chinese backing in Afghanistan. By kicking them to the curb we are giving Tibetans the Kurd.

Feb 21, 2009 - 1:48 am 10. a Duoist:

Secretary Clinton is demonstrating, as ever with the Clinton’s, that pragmatism trumps principle. Diplomacy is a skill, not a science, where morality becomes a means, not an end. The cardinal amoral rule of diplomacy comes from Talleyrand: “Don’t make a mistake.”

We are in debt to China for more than a TRILLION dollars, so without China continuing to buy our debt President Obama’s entire “stimulus” plan, to the extent that it relies upon deficit spending, is at the mercy of the Chinese. We are the world’s largest debtor; the Chinese are the world’s largest creditor. Where does one find “human rights” on a balance sheet?

We are locked in a bi-polar relationship with China that is a potential disaster for both, as the Chinese know full well: neither can afford to let go. Perhaps by Mrs. Clinton’s pragmatic diplomacy, she’ll accomplish more for advancing human rights in China than any of the finger-pointing moralists on the socialist Left or Religious Right ever would.

‘Don’t make a mistake’ is an argument for prudence, one made by a pragmatic. Unfortunately for moralists, pragamtism, too, is a principle.

Feb 21, 2009 - 2:08 am 11. Doug:

261. JFSanders:
Spengler has an article out that infers the Chinese position.

Obamas the biggest Unilateralist of all!

“Luo Ping, a director general at the China Bank Regulatory Commission, told an American audience, “We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion-$2 trillion … we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys but there is nothing much we can do.” (Financial Times, December 12, 2008.)”

For what it is worth. I don’t believe that Richard is of the opinion that our meltdown wasn’t manufactured. He just doesn’t think it was OBL and Putin.

Feb 21, 2009 - 3:29 am 12. Belmont Club:

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Feb 21, 2009 - 4:54 am 13. Sima Qian:

Actually, Bush was superb with China. He struck just the right balance: not too harsh, yet constructively engaged. China is clearly one of his foreign policy successes but it is neglected in the mainstream accounting of ‘what went right’ during his presidency.

The Sino-U.S. relationship is more stable than ever thanks to the previous administration’s groundwork. Clinton, I fear, is offering a cessation of rights talk as blandishment to the Chinese because she’s about to get tougher on issues even dearer to Chinese hearts — trade. China can take Western carping about their rights record (even if it annoys them); but they will take less kindly to a trade war.

Geithner’s absurdly ill-timed comments about yuan valuation appeared to be a shot across the bow, and it’s no surprise that Beijing, rudely jolted, felt alarm and took umbrage. To squander the rapport and goodwill built up by the trade delegations of both sides over the course of 8 years of negotiations would be the height of folly. At the end of the day, Beijing prefers substance, not blandishments.

Feb 21, 2009 - 5:36 am 14. Thomas Drew:

T. Kumar of Amnesty International USA said the global rights lobby was “shocked and extremely disappointed” by Clinton’s remarks.
He ought not to be.
Surely Amnesty International is part of the problem, having made plenty of “mazoola” by displaying self-righteousness and offering others the conduit for their own, in return for donations. The business model is quite that of Jesse Jackson, is it not?

The import of Hilary’s words might be read this way: she ain’t playing. If she ain’t playing, maybe ain’t so easy for others to play, and maybe that’s a good thing. Much as I am in the habit of scowling at the mention of her name, I begin to see reasons why I might have to change my notions about her. In her own way, she may have as unflinching a view of featherless biped behavior as our Wretchard himself.

Feb 21, 2009 - 6:51 am 15. Thomas Drew:

Sorry for the bold face in the above; need to review my html. Please don’t take it as yelling at anyone. Thanks.

TD

Feb 21, 2009 - 6:55 am 16. dan:

I think the whole policy since Nixon went to Mao should be re-examined. Covertly, of course. The government should adopt a position of unrelenting, passive-aggressive hostility to the CCP. Clearly the “market freedom leads to political freedom” is an ideological relic. Without direct confrontation, whether overt or covert, military political or economic, these conspiratorial regimes are extremely resilient where they sit atop societies acclimated thoroughly to autocracy. As usual, the “historical forces” argument is exposed as a Hegelian error. It has been a long un-learning.

Really Heh – what is with the Clintons and China? I remember in the recent WaPo op-ed the writer commented at the outset that “China has stolen all – repeat, all – of our nuclear secrets.” Gee, that seems like a neat trick. Wen Ho Lee is Klaus Fuchs?

Feb 21, 2009 - 7:05 am 17. Skookumchuk:

“The role of publics is to provide randomness: to supply the outbreak of heroism and generosity that the great can never be counted on to provide.”

That is very good, Wretchard. Perhaps we will see more flashes of this in the years to come.

Feb 21, 2009 - 8:28 am 18. Insufficiently Sensitive:

The lesson of the Rodney King videotape was that video documentation makes something real.

There’s a hell of a lot more to the Rodney King video than that. The publicly “real” part, as seen on TV, was just a snippet, and fit the MSM narrative of evil racist cops. But if the purveyors of that video had had any honesty, they’d have shown the whole thing, beginning with King driving nutso, then attacking the police who pulled him over.

The public was invited, by the MSM who showed the doctored part, to conclude the worst against the police; and it enthusiastically did. But the public has a more balanced sense of judgement, given all the facts. That’s why guilt at trial is determined by juries. But in King’s trial by public opinion, the MSM deliberately deprived the viewers of the whole story – an excellent example of fauxtography – and let its own amoral politics triumph over the whole truth.

Feb 21, 2009 - 9:00 am 19. Morton Doodslag:

I find it outrageous and telling that the lousy Muslims and Arabs at Durban II are going to pander to the radical black anti-American anti-Western anti-white agenda of “slave reparations”. Saudi Arabia only got around to “outlawing” slavery in 1962 — and as many of us know, this was only window dressing. In several recent and very astounding cases, Saudis have been convicted in America of enslaving servants. If they have the audacity to practice slavery on American soil — what is happening in that blackest heart of their satanic kingdom? Saudi’s idle oil filth still enslave with abandon. Servants lucky enough to escape from the Middle East return with harrowing tales of servitude in the lazy Arab redoubt of Islam.

Currently Arabs buy and sell and exploit slaves across the Mediterranean shores of Africa, Arabia and far into the African interior…

Will there be a single mention of the black and brown people, mostly Muslims following the most ancient Islamic tradition of slavery, in these “discussions” about “reparations”? I’d bet my entire fortune that it will be a discussion pandering to the blacks and marxist leftists in the West. These blacks are, by and large, horribly racist themselves, and tolerate the worst in grievance pimping by their disgusting leadership in America.

It won’t matter that whites living today have never bought, held, or sold slaves, nor have they done so for over 150 years. It won’t matter that those among them who did hold, buy, or trade slaves were always a very small fraction of the overall white population. It won’t matter that over 600,000 Americans died in the civil war, a war fought, in part, to end the execrable practice of slavery. It won’t matter that Arabs always played, and continue to play, a major leading role in the industry of slavery.

Durban II will represent a new low for America as Obama grovels in the filth with the Muslim nazi scum.

I can only see one silver lining in this dastardly capitulation to China though — I think American messianism has been a grave mistake — and I think it must stop. Our grandiose impulse to “help” everybody on planet earth, to give them medicine, to provide clean water, and neonatal care, to export for free our wonderful technologies, all of it has helped to augment the untenable third world population, thereby imperiling resources and endangering the planet itself. This population explosion will result in massive war, and massive annihilation.

Our American messianism has been responsible for exponentially exploding the legions and ranks of our enemies. Just see how the vile cynical lying Arabs are tailoring this “conference” to appeal to the hatred filled marxist inspired anti-White anti-American anti-Western blacks and leftists of the West. At this juncture in history, when these enemies of Europe and America are building a tsunami to swamp the West, while the Muslims adhere to their Islam and loot Western coffers with their oil weapon, while they use those funds to expand the reach of Islam as never before — I believe our messianism must come to an end one way or another. It may already be too late to secure our society from the onslaught our enemies are waging across the spectrum.

Feb 21, 2009 - 9:22 am 20. geoffgo:

I repeat – Today, Islam is the world’s largest slaver. Mostly, just their women.
And beating their women is a virtue, as commended in the Koran.

Feb 21, 2009 - 9:32 am 21. JFSanders:

Richard,

The “Great” men theory will get you in trouble with Whisky’s (I am Scots-Irish) enemy. While it is true much of history is a record of great men advancing or devolving society. I don’t think that theory works in today’s society due to the overwhelming amount of information available to the average Joe. There isn’t any room for legend to grow.

As for the argument that some slaves(issues) are more equal than others. This will always be true in a world that lacks Statesmen willing to sacrifice for the liberty of all men.

Hillary is doing just what her education says she should do. She is promoting Communism. She isn’t for human rights per se. She is for extending State control over all humans as a way to make their lives better. She really believes that. Look at what side people like Hillary choose in conflicts. Hillary does not except the binary view of the world. And it shows in her ability to choose both sides at the same time.

Lastly, What is the garbage @11? Why? Who does it help? I find it almost as worthless as a B**j C&P job.

Jim

Feb 21, 2009 - 10:06 am 22. RWE:

How did the Bush Admin policy toward China differ from the Clinton Admin?

Well, first off, the Bush Admin did not ride into town promising to follow the lead of the international “humanitarian” left, which has the position that one should be vocally in favor of omelets while at the same time abhoring the actual breaking of eggs.

Pres Bush broke some eggs and made some omelets. Clinton called for increased omelet production, accidently dropped a few eggs, and made no omelets.

Naturally, the international “humanitarian” left adores Clinton and hates Bush. They are more againers than forers, since being for something actually requires action.

Feb 21, 2009 - 10:25 am 23. Sima Qian:

‘Clearly the “market freedom leads to political freedom” is an ideological relic.’

You must not have been paying attention if you think China is not more free than 30 years ago, when market reforms began. It’s not a liberal democracy, but it is unmistakably freer. China in another 30 years would be as unrecognizable now as it was 30 years ago.

Bear in mind that Taiwan lifted martial law and democratized only after four decades, while South Korea fully emerged from military rule during the 90s. The idea that market freedom does not spur some degree of liberalization is hard to credit, and doesn’t comport well with history. In which case it isn’t the notion of market freedom leading to greater political freedom that is an ideological relic, but your view of recent history that is defective.

Feb 21, 2009 - 10:37 am 24. Mark:

How different was George Bush from Hillary and Barack? He was a mensch.

via Gateway Pundit: “Standing with the Kuanjie Summer Vacation School Choir and Pastor Meng Maoru, President George W. Bush delivers a statement outside Beijing Kuanjie Protestant Christian Church in Beijing Sunday, Aug. 10, 2008. Said the President, ‘Laura and I just had the great joy and privilege of worshiping here in Beijing, China. You know, it just goes to show that God is universal, and God is love, and no state, man or woman should fear the influence of loving religion.’”

“Lha gyal lo,” victory to the gods!

We’ve gone from Hero to zerO.

Feb 21, 2009 - 11:17 am 25. JFSanders:

Dan@15,”Clearly the “market freedom leads to political freedom” is an ideological relic.”

That is the result of an imperfect process. The world is imperfect and as such will not produce a pure end result. One cannot expect a perfect result. God didn’t expect one and he is all powerful.

The end result of any process is what the participants will endure. To put it simply, It will be what causes the least stress.

I say this not to support Totalitarianism. But to foster understanding of the process and push toward the ideal. Our purpose as a more free people is to push those who have never experienced freedom to seek it.

Locke said and I paraphrase. All knowledge comes from experience. And Mao held this as a core belief. That to understand revolution one had to experience it. This is central to the argument against professors without field experience teaching theories as facts to our children.

Because Socialism sounds great in theory. But it is deadly in practice.

Jim

Feb 21, 2009 - 11:24 am 26. Mark:

Geoffco writes:

“I repeat – Today, Islam is the world’s largest slaver. Mostly, just their women. And beating their women is a virtue, as commended in the Koran.”

Durban II is crass projection of Arab-Islamic guilt upon the west. The extent of Arab slave trade is well-documented. [via Wiki: "Some historians estimate that between 11 and 18 million black African slaves crossed the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara Desert between 650 and 1900,[5][6][7] or more than the 9.4 to 14 million Africans brought to the Americas in the Atlantic slave trade.[8]”

Where, by the way, did all of those black Africans imported into the Middle East disappear to? Economics drove the slave trade in the Americas. Slave were a valuable resource in the production of wealth. The descendent’s of these slaves are numerous in American countries where slavery existed. Not so in the Arab lands, where castration of males ensured a low increase of slave population. (See Bernard Lewis, and others.)

Out of sight, out of mind.

Feb 21, 2009 - 11:37 am 27. JFSanders:

Their bones are mixed with the sands of Arabia…

A large portion never made it to Arabian soil. They died along the way. Of course you knew that. But I would say it out loud instead of insinuating it.

Jim

Feb 21, 2009 - 11:46 am 28. geoffgo:

One wonders how much more democracy the US could have inflicted on the ME, faster and at far lower cost (at least in the lives that count) with a sustained groundswell of support coming from a homeland populated by a vast majority of moral people and their elected reps acting to foster those ends.

Enabling stuff like bombing the sh*t out of all the adversaries’ infrastructure at the slightest provocation, including mosques; extracting tribute with an instant heavy hand from the Saudi complicity – eg, 25 year contract for all their oil at $32/bbl; televising the leveling of Fallugah 1; actively supporting Israel against Hamas, Hezbolix, Syria et al; and laughingly dismissing Abu Grab as merely highjicks equivalent to college hazing that won’t be repeated, including the famous Democrat phrase, “sorry about that.”

Broadcasting to the Iraqis ahead of time, that the cost of this war will be paid with their oil revenues.

Publishing the MO cartoons in every Western media outlet, new ones continually…their riots only serve to show what they really are.

And, making waterboarding the standard and well-published method of US coercive interrogation (you can’t get good at resisting, because practicing is so very unpleasant).

And, advertising Gitmo as really, really uncomfortable and hyper-temporary for incarcerated war criminals…emptied daily. Okay, monthly.

Religious respect? Hell no, here we mock your false version of religion 24/7…meals here are served only with sides of pork, bacon, rinds and knuckles; take it or leave it. It’s enough nutrition to keep one alive for as long as we need.

And, anytime we see you praying we’ll interupt it with loud, repetitive music like Tip Toe thru…by Boy George (select your own least favorite here) and a hosing down with cold water. Or jihadi, you can start talking and things may get better. No gaurantees though that your remains will not be stitched into those pigskins we get from feeding you.

Where might we be 1,200 years in years in, had we done some/all of those things? I mean does the ummah hate us any less, because we were compassionate and gentle? Clearly tens of hundreds of millions of Muslims haven’t got the message about the fear-based alternatives, so how productive have we been in the cause of freedom? I’ve seen zero marches by tens of thousands of Muslims on our behalf, anywhere.

And what about the price paid by our troops, for our temerity in prosecuting in this war? Just wonderin’

Feb 21, 2009 - 1:14 pm 29. noprisoners:

In reference to the reparations question:

Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act (Introduced in House)
HR 40 IH
111th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 40
To acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery, subsequently de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
January 6, 2009
Mr. CONYERS (for himself and Mr. SCOTT of Virginia) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
________________________________________
A BILL
To acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery, subsequently de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act’.

Feb 21, 2009 - 1:20 pm 30. Utopia Parkway:

Durban II is crass projection of Arab-Islamic guilt upon the west.

Projection by whom? Certainly not by Iran, Libya, Venezuea and the rest of the anti-american/anti-israel totalitarian mafia that is going to be running Durban II. They understand 100% what they are doing. This meeting is pure politics for them. Projection has nothing to do with it.

Feb 21, 2009 - 1:29 pm 31. Charles:

Helplessly Hoping

Feb 21, 2009 - 2:25 pm 32. whiskey:

Wretchard — Do not forget the corrolary.

Most people will see the entire CONCEPT of Human Rights as nothing but a corrupt scam by violent men like Nasrallah to extort money from the West, and label the entire Muslim world as Nasrallah.

Or the entire Black Community as Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, and particularly, Jeremiah Wright who will have lots more publicity to come I am sure.

What this does, is erode all these checks, that the PC and Multiculturalists have errected. Then when times are desperate, it’s survival time, well the majority of the populace will see the entire enterprise as being the same character as that of it’s most prominent spokesman.

When Human Rights = Hezbollah, and it probably already does, for most Americans, then it’s dead.

When Civil Rights = Jeremiah Wright, it is dead. Which it is.

And NEITHER can be undone.
———–
A “Great Man” can change the particular channel of a river, this way or that, with considerable effort, but he cannot create the river itself.

Obama is President because of a somewhat skill-ful election policy, but the larger forces representing his victory over the majority population (the Media, Single Women, the Yuppie Class, Wall Street) are part of the same fabric that goes back to the Westerner-Easterner struggles between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams and the Bank of the United States.

Feb 21, 2009 - 2:26 pm 33. fred:

Durban II will be an event where the entire world’s socialist leaders, including our own, will be celebrating their victories over the forces of the capitalist pig dogs. It will be an event of inflated rhetoric and lofty summons to finish the job they set out to do, which is, the merging of Marxism with Islam (for now, later the headchoppers will be done with the pesky socialists).

Oh, and I’m sure that they will denounce the recent elections in Israel and Bibi’s ascent to the role of forging policy. There will be plenty of tough talk about how to slay the Zionist monsters.

All in all, a good time to be had by all.

Feb 21, 2009 - 2:31 pm 34. Marie Claude:

well, the “human rights were the official excuse, but :

Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi responded to Clinton’s remarks by saying that China will continue to invest in US treasury bills but wanted those investments be used safety with value and with liquidity. Her second most important concern in this tour is to get China to accept US perception on climate change.

INDIA TIMES

Feb 21, 2009 - 2:34 pm 35. dan:

I don’t dispute that there is more freedom since Mao; I dispute the meaning of that freedom. The CCP still controls China utterly. The market reforms were intended to enrich the regime; it is unnecessary to control the population to the previous extent. The political freedoms still occur due primarily to the sufferance of the regime, just as the initial reorientation was a political decision. I think the China speculation leaves out the crucial quantity of the Communist Party, which is a curious omission – as though there were no Chinese KGB penetrating American secrets, a Peoples’ Liberation Army providing nuclear technology and military aid to the worst regimes, and a Peoples’ Liberation Navy building a blue-water navy at an accelerated pace. Chinese freedom is still subordinated thoroughly to Communist ambitions. And now they own more than a trillion T-bills. Well, I guess we’ll see who’s right – rather it be you!

Feb 21, 2009 - 2:56 pm 36. slade:

Academia has been obssessed for years – a burning question – over the chicken-egg issue of which comes first – political freedom or economic markets. Back in the early stages of the Iraq War – before Falluja I turned public sentiment – the blog spac was filled with lengthy essays – many of them extraordinarily beautiful, passionate, and informative. This was one of the (ancillary) subjects that arose in the midst of the intellectual maelstrom that ensued as Iraq unfolded – badly. My view is that the jury is still out, which tells me that this country IS exceptional, but we are not currently living up to our legacy. Bad few years ahead but don’t let the Marie Claude’s get you down. The good news is that nobody ever accused this country of playing the dilettante. The bad news is that the (financial) cowboys got out of the corral.

That too shall pass. Grit.

Feb 21, 2009 - 3:43 pm 37. chiral:

A slave-owning caste system was replaced with “Chinese democracy” and the usual celebrities show phony outrage like they did about rain forests, AIDS, and apartheid. I’m not impressed.

Should the US allow states secession? I think so. The free-tibeters in popular culture certainly don’t. A few logical minds might at least be consistent, but my point is that most of them aren’t. They’re just saying what’s cool for the moment- “Free Tibet!”

Do see the video of protesters who couldn’t find Tibet on a map but asserted their ignorance didn’t matter.

Feb 21, 2009 - 3:52 pm 38. fred:

Marie-Claude,

Are you aware that the AGW hypothesis has been debunked? Basing economic policy on junk science is not a good idea. But thanks to the duo of international oligarchs Soros and Strong (and their friend Mikhail Gorbachev) we are about to go down the road of the carbon tax regime. In the middle of a recession no less. With no plans to expand our drilling and use of things like nuclear power.

Make no mistake about it. Vladimir Putin called AGW “junk science” long before it was fashionable to say it in mixed company.

Feb 21, 2009 - 4:03 pm 39. buddy larsen:

whiskey/31: “…the same fabric that goes back to the Westerner-Easterner struggles between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams and the Bank of the United States”

h/t Maggies, the debate as seen in 1938 sounds so much like today, as if the events of the last 71 years proved nothing at all. Jeez, how friggin depressing.

Good youtube, charles –thanks –a fave group so far as writing & performing phenominal three-part harmony. When they were handing out talents, CS&N were at the front of the music brains line but so far back in the politics brains line that they’re still standing back there waiting and helplessly hoping.

Feb 21, 2009 - 4:22 pm 40. buddy larsen:

…if one looks at the ‘1938′ link, pay attention to the mad circularity of Paul Nizan. his proposition re authentic vs inauthentic is why a lot of people believe Marxism damages the brain. Physically, like blunt force trauma.

Feb 21, 2009 - 4:30 pm 41. JFSanders:

Marxism is damaging to the mind. It is a illogic loop.

BOHICA

“the challenge they faced was directed against more than simply the liberal economic order and the political democracy born out of the 19th century. “The totalitarian rebellion,” Lippmann commented in his introductory remarks to the conference, “attacks the entirety of the Western tradition – its religion, its science, its law, its state, its property, its family, its morality and its conception of the human person.” As a matter of urgency, the civilised world had to find a response to an inhuman enemy.”

And we are still fighting this fight today. And losing it seems…

Jim

Feb 21, 2009 - 4:44 pm 42. buddy larsen:

Jim, don’t you take comfort that we’re still fighting something the first principle of which is to crush all opposition?

Feb 21, 2009 - 4:51 pm 43. JFSanders:

Sorry part of my post disappeared.

BOHICA is a repost of Buddy’s link. And the quote is from it.

Jim

Feb 21, 2009 - 5:00 pm 44. JFSanders:

Yeah, Makes me feel just like Capt. Picard. Doesn’t make me want to stop though.

It matters not that I may die in this struggle against an inhuman enemy. I willingly sacrifice my all so that my children will see a world in all of its beauty and liberty will be the norm not the exception.

Jim

Feb 21, 2009 - 5:05 pm 45. Marie Claude:

fred, I know all about this hoax, and certainly Sarko too, though this has become an “etendar” to hide many small arrangements between good friends, while they talk about that, they conspire on other things.

And the “supposed” allegated taxes we would have to pay for it, are still in purgatory, because of more urgent worries : money crisis, employment…

Feb 21, 2009 - 6:46 pm 46. Marie Claude:

I think you past too much time to decorticate our “has been” intellectuals, that no french read anymore, except that they are still university items, thus students amusements !

You should try to focuse on reality and no more on “old papers” that will, in no way, give you the clues to solve your actual problems.

I can’t find ideas innovators among the american intelligentia, only lecturers on french model, that can’t be applied on an american society !

So, you’d better think “new”, and forget the old shemas, the global world is doing well when you’re busy to argument on our exemple

what I replied below to Stormy :

“the debate about the adequation or the inepty of marxist, socialist ideologies doesn’t take much of our time anymore, they are university items ; what preoccupy us is how we can still get enough money to buy what we need, pay our charges, and yes too, to point on the social services incoherences, point on the sneakers, cheaters…

On the righ and or left sides you can hardly find anyone to contest the validity of our healthcare, of our free education, of our transports, except “education”, the left doesn’t want changes, still more labour helps, more money… the right wants the independance of the universities, thus they could get some extra externe financement and work on valuable and concrete projects, anyway the left will have to comply, already some universities got “partly” autonomy ; that means that the universities presidents can choose their teachers and servants on merits and not by administrative clientelism, that would also means that there will be a selection test for the future students… the left doesn’t want that, hey, how could the left recruits their apparatchniks as riots organisers then ? they mostly are of the non motivated herd.

I have read that the left prefers to have the youth in universities rather than in unemployment agencies, better for its media advertising, though the “losers” finally will get there too.

Well this isn’t a mere “marxist” world anymore, it’s a decadent and bureaucratic world, at the end of its breath, like experienced the egyptians during their phaarons eras, and centuries later, the Romans : there were a new scribes aristocraty that dictated to the official power tenants how they should behave, how the people should live, these scribes were no warriors, they only insured themselves of their survivance across the decades and centuries, in makind the administration more complicated, that no man of “action” would go through and understand, these scribes also organized the palaces revolutions…

so, we are in the same configuration, let’s this civilisation die, and select new “warrior” leaders to show us the path ! I don’t think I’ll see that during my life time, may-be not my children too, though we have to prepare them for when that will happen.”

Feb 21, 2009 - 7:09 pm 47. weSwinger:

Marie Claude gives us poor BCer’s great insight into contemporary French intellectual life: Marxism is passe’. They are concentrating on dividing the spoils. Vive la France! Surely the economic engine of Europe!

Feb 21, 2009 - 8:58 pm 48. dan:

Marie, you sound strangely like the french colonial in the usually omitted scenes from Apocalypse Now. Interesting.

Feb 21, 2009 - 8:59 pm 49. Marie Claude:

dan, you must “be crawling backward like a crab on the shore in search of the Atlantic Ocean… and missing it”? quoted from an averred superior mind…

Feb 21, 2009 - 9:08 pm 50. Marie Claude:

weSwinger:

we aren’t the worsts

Feb 21, 2009 - 9:09 pm 51. ag:

Wretchard “Imagine if the Tibet had employed terror tactics. Arguably it would be held in higher actual esteem today. Then the Dalai Lama would be a “partner for peace” or some such. After all, if you could give Yasser Arafat the Nobel Peace Prize, why not the Dalai Lama?” I beg to differ. There are no untouchable interest (money and/or force) behind Tibet, there is behind palestinian Arabs.

Feb 21, 2009 - 9:22 pm 52. Alexis:

So the Obama administration calls America “a nation of cowards”. Eric Holder may not speak for most Americans, but he does speak for the Obama administration. He said it.

The enemy is listening. Al-Qaeda will repeat Eric Holder’s words as a mantra, and al-Qaeda will succeed in recruiting more people using that mantra. I would be surprised if al-Qaeda doesn’t use Eric Holder’s words to describe all Americans.

In earlier eras, such remarks would have prompted calls for resignation, perhaps a duel. Now, where is the outrage among opposition politicians? In shark-filled waters of international diplomacy, Eric Holder’s remarks function as chum.

Feb 21, 2009 - 10:29 pm 53. fred:

Alexis,

Most decent men would certainly have demanded satisfaction from Eric Holder. Unfortunately, at the appointed time and place he would have been a no-show and his second would be frantically searching for Mr. Holder.

These are the kind of people running the show now, folks. Amateurs. Appeasers. Thieves. And now we have emotionally immature people like Holder projecting on to us his absence of masculine qualities.

Feb 21, 2009 - 10:57 pm 54. Dave:

@Siam Qian #12 and #22:

My sentiments exactly.

Also, during the Clinton years, there was friction between America and Japan. Under the Man From Midland, things have smoothed out.

BTW: I was around when the Red Guards were running amok. That scared me a lot more than the Chinese intervention into Korea. Looked like China was turning suicidal. It is a different China today, for sure. Might make Texans out of them yet.

Feb 21, 2009 - 11:08 pm 55. geoffgo:

And, this from Holder, who pardoned the second most wanted criminal and a bunch of terrorists, with nothing but a mea culpa.

Feb 22, 2009 - 12:11 am 56. buddy larsen:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Yjc3NDY4N2VkNDU4OTEyYTYzYzM3OWJmZTlhYjcxOGI=

“President Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on businesses and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said.”

“finishing touch” –boy is THAT a mouthful.

Feb 22, 2009 - 2:44 am 57. Doug:

At this rate, the country’s gonna be finished.
—
» Canadian Takes On Tanzanian Slaughter

Last spring, he said, he began to hear about albinos in Tanzania being murdered for their body parts. More than 40 have been killed since 2007, sometimes right in front of their families, by gangs of men who hack off legs, heads or genitals and run away with them.

In the last two years, rumors have spread in East Africa that potions made with albino blood, shoes made of albino skin, tendrils of albino hair woven into fishing nets and amulets with albino body parts will make people rich.

Traditional healers have told an undercover BBC reporter posing as a businesswoman that they could get her an albino corpse for $2,000.

Feb 22, 2009 - 4:47 am 58. steveaz:

If Hillary isn’t going to let China’s lack of human rights get in the way of “cooperation,” I wonder, will she let their contribution to Global Warming interfere instead.

I say this because, Hillary has injected Climate Change into her international agenda, and she and her party have never hesitated to hit their own country over the head with AGW.

Will they hit China with it, too?

Feb 22, 2009 - 5:50 am 59. Doug:

The Irony of that article escaped the WaPo, Buddy:
They report on BHO railing about tax enforcement, higher taxes, fewer loopholes, and etc and the fact that this is the same guy that holds the record for choosing more tax cheats than any other President!

Feb 22, 2009 - 6:44 am 60. Doug:

“and the fact that this is the same guy that holds the record for choosing more tax cheats than any other President ESCAPES THEIR ATTENTION!“

Feb 22, 2009 - 6:46 am 61. slade:

The budget also puts in place the building blocks of what administration officials say will be a broad restructuring of the U.S. health system, an effort aimed at covering some of the estimated 46 million Americans who lack insurance while controlling costs and improving quality. – Washington Post budget article

What never got resolved during the campaign is whether Obama’s intended plan includes the estimated 20 million illegals currently stateside. Dick Morris argued that it does. Obama’s people said no. Morris doesn’t usually make stuff up so it strikes me as a slippery issue.

Feb 22, 2009 - 7:31 am 62. buddy larsen:

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-big-problem-is-lack-of-health.html

Feb 22, 2009 - 8:38 am 63. Charles:

38. buddy larsen:

agreed on both counts. I would go further. there is a nasal whine that I think comes from Neil Young that is well nigh debilitating to the maintenance of a healthy mind. also the words sometimes are gibberish.

last thing: csny do create do suggest that we have been here before. Deja Vu

Feb 22, 2009 - 9:20 am 64. Lifeofthemind:

Maurice Strong has spent the last 40 years promoting schemes like AGW, Kyoto and carbon offsets on behalf of the massively environmentally destructive Chinese regime to advance their interests. They would laugh at the idea that these ideas could be used against them.

Feb 22, 2009 - 11:43 am 65. Doug:

Sam said…

“Karl Marx 1867

“Owners of capital will stimulate the working class
to buy more and more of expensive goods,houses and
technology,pushing them to take more and more expensive
credits,until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid
debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have
to be nationalized, and the State will have to take
the road which will eventually lead to communism.

(Das Kapital,1867)
“

Feb 22, 2009 - 4:01 pm 66. Doug:

Blog Archive » Guns, Gold, and Secession
SgtMom • 17p
And for all intents and purposes, Utah as a Mormon settlement was pretty much an independent political entity for a good chunk of the mid-19th century.

I’ve just finished a long historical novel trilogy about the German settlements in Texas (The Adelsverein Trilogy – it’s on Amazon.com at present!) , for which I did a lot of research – and a large percentage of Texas’ citizens at the time were not terribly keen on secession, either – and resented being dragged kicking and screaming out of the Union. For one thing, it deprived the frontier of the protection of the Regular Army, and for another, it deprived cattle ranchers of a market – selling their cattle to the Army. Just another weird sidelight on a more complicated state than you might think…

Feb 22, 2009 - 4:21 pm 67. Doug:

Sam said…
James Mann, a Johns Hopkins scholar who wrote a history of U.S.-China relations, viewed Clinton’s remarks as part of a further downgrading of the importance of human rights in American policy toward China over the past two decades.

“I agree that, to some extent, she’s being honest, in the sense that merely including something in the talking points for diplomacy doesn’t necessary lead to change and is sometimes designed more to mislead the public back home than to influence the interlocutors,” Mann said.

But he wondered if this honesty was now a general principle in the administration’s approach to the world. He asked: “Is Hillary Clinton going to not mention women’s rights to the Saudis because they already know what we think?”
“Own Style

Feb 22, 2009 - 4:48 pm 68. Doug:

Up S… Creek:

She said that each side needed the other to ensure the well-being of its economy: “We are truly going to rise or fall together. We are in the same boat and, thankfully, we are rowing in the same direction.”

Some dissidents were less impressed. Yu Jie, a prominent member of an unofficial house church, said he had been confined to his home for the duration of her visit.

Another said that police who had tailed him for a week disappeared when Mrs Clinton left.
Beijing Visit

– Sam

Feb 22, 2009 - 5:37 pm 69. buckets:

Anyone ever see “Bulletproof Monk” with Chow Yun Fat? Not much of a movie, but there was a fascinating plot device: some NGO human rights organization acted as the cover for some evil bad guy organization. Of course after you imagine something like that, the truth of it isn’t easily forgotten. For that insightful idea alone, the movie deserves to be remembered.

Feb 22, 2009 - 5:56 pm 70. steveaz:

Doug @67,
I see I’m not the only one harboring skepticism about the USA banking on China gobbling up our government’s treasuries.

Looks like Obama’s funding mechanism more and more relies on China’s government’s beneficence.

Is this smart?

A nation is just like a home. If you mortgage it – as the Dems are doing, do you really own it anymore? What happens when the repo man comes?

Feb 22, 2009 - 7:07 pm 71. Doug:

“…which will haveto be nationalized, and the State will have to take
the road…”

Feb 22, 2009 - 7:40 pm 72. buddy larsen:

Buckets/68; what if the War on Drugs is all about monopoly pricing for the narco cartels? All about protecting organized crime? What if that’s why the Democrat tops back the war in Afghanistan?

Feb 23, 2009 - 4:12 am 73. buddy larsen:

h/t instapundit,

THE RNC IS LOOKING FOR GRASSROOTS IDEAS.

Posted at 8:32 pm by Glenn Reynolds

http://rncroots.org/

Feb 23, 2009 - 4:23 am 74. steveaz:

Buddy, @71,
Been thinking that, myself.

The Dem’s have been capitalizing on the gradient created by prohibitive laws. Whether it is indirect via alliances with “underground” players, or direct, by gaming the financial regulations they generate, nurturing the trial-lawyers’ voting block and by abusing “plausible deniability.”

This last one, deniability, relies heavily on concealment and subsidiarity. Hamas or Fatah?! America’s progressives rely on this shell-game to avoid accountability as much as Iran’s mullahs do.

The Democrats can play this game confidently because they know that the GOP has cornered itself with its own “holier-than-thou” culture-wars rhetoric. The minute the GOP changes its tune on the Drug-Wars, expect the Democrats to suddenly discover their prudish side, and Obama will begin to parrot Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” refrain, pictures of Barry-O with a joint in his mouth not withstanding.

Perversely, this flip could ruin the Dem’s credibility with younger, urban voters, while it solidifies it with older, anti-drug voters.

The GOP could gain by forcing the Dem’s hand on this.

Feb 23, 2009 - 6:20 am 75. Mongoose:

As an aside, has anyone considered that Hillary is going to work ou a trade with China: Roll back US military dominance in Asia in exchange for the Chinese buying up US debt?

Just a thought…

Feb 23, 2009 - 8:05 am 76. steveaz:

Mongoose,
It’s hard to see that China has anything to offer us today, which makes me suspect the entire enterprise.

If China’s factory-closings are any indication, the Middle Kingdom may be about to experience its first modern workers uprising. In light of this, can Beijing be trusted to live up to China’s part of the deal?

For that matter, can Obama’s DC be held to anything?

Trust is a rare commodity these days. Who the CCP chooses to award its trust to may say more than the awardee wants.

Feb 23, 2009 - 9:44 am 77. dan:

“As an aside, has anyone considered that Hillary is going to work ou a trade with China: Roll back US military dominance in Asia in exchange for the Chinese buying up US debt?”

Yep pretty much. I think the only real stumbling is the strength of Japan so the parties have to figure out how to placate Tokyo. (comparatively, SK seems like it’d be just dandy under the Chinese sphere.)

Feb 23, 2009 - 1:25 pm 78. ag:

Presumed Karl Marx citation at post#64 is urban legend.

Feb 23, 2009 - 3:17 pm 79. buddy larsen:

Dan, you may have something there.

http://chattahbox.com/world/2009/02/23/north-korea-deploying-special-forces-and-new-medium-range-missiles/

Feb 23, 2009 - 9:07 pm 80. Doug:

Buddy,

75. steveaz
points to problems, saw some more posted at the Elephant Bar by someone.
I talked about plunging exports to Japan, So. Korea, and TAIWAN.

Still stand by your market-based hunch that the Chi-Coms will pull out of the dive anytime soon?

Feb 24, 2009 - 6:57 am 81. blert:

China is more bankrupt than America…

I know, I know, that’s pretty hard to believe…

You need to check out their INSANE over investment in commercial real estate. They’ve been ‘building Manhattan’ each year for years.

Shanghai is now Hung-Lo…

She has about a twenty-year supply of empty Class A office space for let.

China is set to IMPLODE.

Feb 24, 2009 - 2:31 pm 82. neo:

*
hope, change and… “why do i need government agencies, when i’ve got way cool friends like this?”

*

Feb 24, 2009 - 10:06 pm 83. buddy larsen:

Steve, those stats on PRC basic mtrls demand have leveled a bit –seems there was some re-stocking for a few months. But still, their internal stock market is up 25% or so since the 2008 bottom. Brazil’s stock market is up pretty big too. Trade between the two is rising sharply. World ain’t over yet!

Feb 25, 2009 - 4:23 am 84. Doug:

Did you get to see the video of the amazing Ford Plant in the middle of the Jungles of Brazil I linked a while back?
Light years ahead of what the UAW allows Ford to do here.

Feb 26, 2009 - 1:13 am 85. buddy larsen:

No, missed it –but they do have some amazing maquiladoras in Old Mexico. Ahh, the UAW. Shame, shame shame. What this country could have been.

Feb 26, 2009 - 6:58 am 86. Doug:

Yeah, if Nixon had played Ping-Pong in PLAYA DE LOS COCOS instead of PEKING, what a wonderful World this could be.
…I’ll find that link, you gotta see it.

Feb 26, 2009 - 7:25 pm 87. Doug:

Webvideo – Ford’s most advanced assembly plant operates in rural Brazil
…and the UAW won’t let them duplicate it here.
(Workers look a whole lot more alert and healthy than the fatasses @ the soon to be shuttered Saturn Plant)

Feb 26, 2009 - 7:30 pm

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