Marching to Persepolis
"The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness; and the end of his talk is mischievous madness." —Ecclesiastes 10:13
I do not know whether Chief Magistrate Bush will start an offensive war against the Persians, as is expected by many observers. I am inclined to think that even so irresponsible and morally trivial a man as Bush will draw back from the unpredictable consequences of such an action.
However, I know that history is replete with catastrophes brought on by the folly of foolish and reckless rulers. I know that Bush is an arrested adolescent who has little experience in suffering the consequences of his bad actions and choices and seems unable to admit a mistake. That he has never in his life experienced the discipline in reality involved in having to do an actual honest day’s work. Further, that he is catastrophically ignorant of history—the little that he knows is wrong—and his view of the world is that of a corporate vice-president for public relations, and not a very good one. Also, that he usually strives to please his friends among the Likudniks and the oil sheiks.
I am also pretty certain that other parts of the ruling establishment do not have sufficient integrity and patriotism to prevent Bush from launching another war of aggression if he grabs at that option.
I know with certainty that the U.S. government is in such actions in contempt of the Constitution that established it. I am fairly certain that the wars Bush has made or will make in the Mideast qualify as war crimes by the Nuremberg standard, i.e., legally they are indistinguishable from Hitler’s invasion of Poland. I am convinced that Americans risking their lives in Iraq (or Iran) are badly mistaken if they think they are somehow fighting for their country.
Americans in general are giving a vivid exhibition of the folly of putting trust in Power. That they are doing so means that the wisdom of our Founding Fathers is now forgotten, as irrelevant and alien to us as the laws of Hammurabi.
"For the leaders of the people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed." —Isaiah 9:16
Entries(RSS)
(Of course, GDP 5.3%, not "GPD")
Philip or Filippo. One of these two (40) says: “Since its [it's] too expensive to live and work in Italy, I’m content to keep it Philip."
I am wondering if it were too expensive to live and work in the United States of America, what would the name of this person be, for instance, in Serbia or Russia? How can readers believe such a person who keeps changing or adapting his name to the circumstances? He thinks that spelling his name "Philip"would help him sound more American and what he says be more credible.
How can real Americans respond to him and believe what this person who is pro-Serbia, pro-Russia and pro Pan Slavism, says?
How can real Americans respond to him and believe what this person who is pro-Serbia, pro-Russia and pro Pan Slavism, says?
What? Do you know how many Italian Americans change their name from Giovanni to John? Or go from Lucianna to Lucy? Good grief! It is easier to spell it the way people in your host country spell it when you plan on living there. If for no other reason it helps to not be made fun of in school. A friend of mine is Spanish and he goes by an Anglocized form of his middle name, because his first name sounds just like a girl's name in English. It would be different if I was merely a tourist.
You need to get a life. I have spelled my name Philip for the last 20 years that I have stayed settled in this country. It is even on my American passport, while my Italian passport has Filippo. The real question is why should we believe Albanians when their leaders are terrorists? And I'm not pro-Russia, I'm merely not anti-Russia. As long as they fight Chechnyian Jihadist butchers, they are okay in my book.
I am the last to deny the relevance of historical lessons---nevertheless, I do detect a lot of intellectual evasiveness in our discussions.
If I started (or help start) a wandering discussion then I apologize to Dr. Wilson. I know my intent was to point to a glaring historical irony...the only country to ever use nuclear weapons attacks another country unprovoked and implies that it will continue this aggressive policy on yet another nation. Due to what? Due to the idea that the other nation might attack while unprovoked and possibly use nuclear weapons.
An intelligent hawk would do one thing...withdraw American troops and let the region hash it out on its own (which is exactly what it is doing anyway, only with American soldiers in the crossfire). Send a clear message...we don't think nukes are good, but if you use them in a way that is none of our business then so be it. If we get a wiff that you plan to use them on us, we will come after you.
First off, I am not the "Tim" from above.
As for the real question at hand... Iran. I'm guessing that Bush will delay and delay and delay on invading. But he'll do it, just before he leaves office. That's my impression, for what it's worth.
If a Zionist (aka GOP) candidate is elected, then let's just try not to sound too cold-hearted when we're tempted to say I-Told-You-So about a 9/11 numero dos.
Judging from the insane what-if-the-world-is-coming-to-an-end questions in the GOP debates, we're bound to see lots more attention on Iran before Nov. '08.
Clyde,
"... I am the last to deny the relevance of historical lessons—nevertheless, I do detect a lot of intellectual evasiveness in our discussions. ..."
Granted.
Thus,
"... Gentlemen, almost everything has been discussed here except the subject of the article—the tyranny of the present moment. I fear this means we have all accepted that there is nothing we can do about it, so we debate events of 60 years ago instead. ..."
what specifically do you believe we here could actually do about that tyranny?
Write petitions? Phone & e-mail "our congressmen"? Post pricey ads? Collect donations? Make donations? Make "revolution" (American good, Soviet bad ...)? Pray in a Hippie circle with closed eyes while holding hands? Cast voodoo spells upon the culprits? Dance? Or ... just talk and call it ... whatever we please...
"Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King were doing the bidding of the Soviets. They were not patriots. Knowingly or unknowingly, they were traitors, or 'useful idiots'".
Whatever the Soviets may have thought about it, it seems both natural and commendable that Ms. Parks should insist on the right to board a public facility on equal terms. On some issues I disagree with Dr. King's stands, but on his fundamental point he was plainly right, it seems to me.
Against your emphasis on such connections to communism as can, I have no doubt, be shown, I suggest that one of the great underreported stories of the 20th Century domestic US history is how little communists were able to infiltrate the black community. I'd like to see some investigation on why this was. I can see people arguing for patriotism, decency, laziness, lack of education and dozens of other reasons, and no doubt there are multiple explanations, but I suspect no single factor was more important that Christianity.
Clyde Wilson (54) right again, when he says:
"I am the last to deny the relevance of historical lessons—nevertheless, I do detect a lot of intellectual evasiveness in our discussions."
Mr. Peters,
My response seems to have been caught by the filter.
I'm glad you agree, and I must agree here:
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NumbersUSA was supposedly very successful with gathering opposition to the amnesty. What did it do well, and could the same be done with regard to the war?
Admittedly though, it's difficult for me to get riled up over another of the emperor's wars when my nation is being invaded and destroyed. It's up the Iranians to defend their nation, and it's up to Americans to defend ours against the evil emperor who would have both destroyed if he could.
As a subject of his empire, am I responsible for my emperor's crimes?
Philip Candido says:
"The real question is why should we believe Albanians when their leaders are terrorists?"
The same person, Filippo (Philip) by name, is an ardent supporter of Kostunica and the Serbs. When I say "Serbs", I mean the Serb politicians and their policies, past and present. As they say, Italy, (Filippo is Italian, by origin, a distant one, I suppose though he says he has stayed settled in this country for 20 years. Nobody can believe it because he sounds as a real American) has made many investments in Serbia and, since economics is the basis of politics, Italian position to the Kosova issue is a vascillating one. Money attracts it to Belgrade. Does Philippo side with the Serbs because of his mother country's position or does he have some vested interest in Servia?
A reminder to Philip and other respondents on this website:
Take a look at Kostunica, the so-called democrat, today's prime minister of Serbia, on the link below. While in Kosovo he posed holding a rifle in hand as the infamous Serb paramilitaries look on. Kostunica has persistently defended Karadzic and is adamantly against NATO.
http://www.alb-net.com/kostunica.htm
sometimes I can't even spell my own name. what a century the 20th, bloodiest in the history of the world. when gertrude stein noticed us all heading toward jerusalem and the young scam at the expense of knowledge and age old athens she remarked 'you are all a lost generation.' that is intellectual non-evasiveness!
why expand...your brains might fall out.
Mr. Kissane,
I think you are mistaken. Communists did a fine job of infiltrating the black community, as well. Huey Newton and the Black Panthers, including David Horowitz (who has since denounced both the Panthers and communism), who was their chief legal counsel, were almost entirely backed by money that came directly or indirectly from the Kremlin. Additionally, Rosa Parks attended the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee that was a communist indoctrination camp for radical activists. Martin Luther King was also known to frequent the "school," as well. Rosa Parks entire incident on the bus was a staged event, engineered by communists to cause civil unrest. The following piece provides a little more detail:
http://www.vdare.com/francis/history.htm
Mr. Droney:
As I said, I do not doubt that some infiltration can be shown. I hope it will not appear overly coy when I say that I nonetheless stand by my belief that it is surprising "how little communists were able to infiltrate the black community".
The extent to which one is suprised depends, of course, upon how much one would have expected communists to have succeded in infiltrating black communities. Given that the communist party was very actively pushing for civil rights at a time when the dem. party was opposing them (and the rep. party was largely indifferent), and had deliberately targeted the black community for infiltration, I would have expected them to make substantial headway.
Taking organized labor (especially earlier in the century) and academia (throughout, but especially later in the century) as two control groups, and comparing their respective grievences to those of the black community, I believe the late and rather slight penetration by communists that you allude to does more to support than to refute my assertion.
Mr. Kissane
Taken as a whole the black community has never met a redistributionist scheme it didn’t like. Whether or not blacks felt compelled to sit around for hours long discussions of Marxist Dialectic seems to lose sight of this fundamental truth of post-civil rights politics.
As far as the topic at hand; if the powers that be want another war, however ill advised they will have it. And send you the bill. Our opinions mean less than nothing.
T. French,
"As far as the topic at hand; if the powers that be want another war, however ill advised they will have it. And send you the bill. Our opinions mean less than nothing."
In medias res. You are absolutely right.
"Our opinions mean less than nothing."
The honest answer to the question Clyde has evaded.
Sep 18 2007 2:34PM
Russia alarmed by reports of possible military action against Iran - Lavrov
MOSCOW. Sept 18 (Interfax) - Moscow is concerned over reports about a possible military action against Iran, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"We are particularly concerned about increasing reports that they are seriously thinking about a military action against Iran," Lavrov said following talks with his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner.
"It is even hard to imagine the implications that may have for the region, where there are already very serious problems with Iraq and Afghanistan," Lavrov said.
http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28.html?id_issue=11859859
Re: #65:
I understand that economic liberty is an essential element of all liberty, but I nonetheless distinguish between those who advocate for democratic passage of redistributionist schemes and those who advocate violent revolution to impose a redistributionist state.
It would be surprising if any group possessing the U.S. black population's historical demographics did not advocate for redistributionism. (There are groups of poor whites who do not, but they are smaller, more difficult to define and on the whole anamolous).
That the US black population had little interest, by and large, in Moscow's propaganda is a fact I consider worthy of note and credit. (BTW, I don't count resisting Jim Crow as Moscow's propaganda, even if Moscow attempted to exploit the US race problem: people are entitled to seek their own interests even if evil foreigners support them as well, for entirely different reasons.)
“That the US black population had little interest, by and large, in Moscow’s propaganda is a fact I consider worthy of note and credit.”
Please. Few Americans outside of academia showed any enduring mass attraction to doctrinaire Marxism. You may as well give praise for excellence in breathing.
If by peaceful, democratic means you include urban riots, wholesale criminality and reflexive white guilt leading to totalitarian lite social and economic leveling you may have a point I could agree with. In any event black/white issues are passé. They are more and more used as a secular morality play to feed the egos of white liberals and fuel the transition to a multi-ethnic empire. And yes, my opinions still count for less than nothing.
Sep 21, 2007
French warmongering aids Iran's cause
The French are trying to limit the damage of recent warmongering comments about Iran, but the harm has already been done - although it could be to the benefit of Tehran. France's quest for a unified European approach to additional "precise sanctions" against Iran is now under threat.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/II21Ak04.html
Re: #69:
Let me take your points in turn.
1. "Excellence in breathing." Black Americans were specifically targeted by communist propaganda, and had every reason to be more suceptible to it based on prevailing social conditions. Their relative lack of interest shows, I think, at the very least, excellent instincts about Moscow's motives. Compared to the general discourse in the country, that amounts to more that excellence in breathing, in my view.
2. "Riots/crime/guilt/social leveling." I make no defense of these behaviors, many of which did more harm to the black community than to society as a whole, but which have certainly hurt the country as well when viewed as things in themselves.
But they are not only things in themselves, they are also products of of decisions made, at the national, local and individual levels, long before the nation was founded. (And, I might add, made before the industrial revolution made it possible to oppose slavery and still get cheap sugar, at which point the modern moral position became tenable for many more people.)
The accounting between the US and its black population required as a result of these decisions is not over, but it has long been inevitable and deferring it, as we did upon the end of Reconstruction, did not make it any easier and may well have contributed to the behaviors you criticize. And no, in saying that I am not looking to excuse anything or anyone -- just to have bad things placed in the context of their causes.
3. "Black-white issues passé". I mean to be commenting on a historical phenomenon. It is near-history, but still history. History is never passé (unless it always is, depending on your definition): either way, I think it worthy of discussion.
"The accounting between the US and its black population required as a result of these decisions is not over, but it has long been inevitable and deferring it, as we did upon the end of Reconstruction, did not make it any easier and may well have contributed to the behaviors you criticize."
The average black American would whole heartedly agree with the statement above. Indeed it would be difficult to fathom the depth of agreement and the appetite for recompense it excites.
The plain fact is though that every minority that can gin up a pressure group is going after the same trove of wealth. This competition won’t help blacks and in fact leads me to believe that spectacles such as the “Jena 6” farce are symptomatic of a civil rights movement providing little more than comic relief in the future. So although historic resentments will continue to exist and some will hope to profit from inflaming them, appeals for “economic justice” or “inclusion” will fall not only on deaf ears, but on ears filled with a relentless cacophony of demands. If that’s not having your issues become passé, what is?
“Their relative lack of interest shows, I think, at the very least, excellent instincts about Moscow’s motives.”
Or perhaps a complete lack of interest in an ideological construct that they were incapable of understanding in any save the crudest terms and was emotionally barren in the bargain. Although Marxism could provide a path to power that power would flow from factors which were alien to the American black’s perspectives and took no notice of their “time on the cross”. A choice between “lumpen prole makes good” or “long suffering saint gets just reward” is a no brainer, if you’re a saint in your own mind. I realize that I am simplifying the received liberal narrative but that’s its essence. I’ve written enough. Believe what you will it makes little difference to me.
Since we've almost certainly never met and never will, I had assumed that it makes no difference to you what I believe. No need for clarification there. Because you're engaged in discussion here, I had also assumed that you were interested in looking critically at what you believe. For that reason, I will respond to your latest.
You defend your premises on the ground that the average black American would agree with me (and/or would then use my our area of agreement as a demand for reparations). Assuming that either or both of your premises is true, I can only say that who agrees or disagrees with me, or their motives, interest me less than whether I'm right or wrong. It's an approach I can't and wouldn't impose, but highly recommend.
I'll accept your invitation to believe what I will. I continue to believe "that one of the great underreported stories of the 20th Century domestic US history is how little communists were able to infiltrate the black community', and that "no single factor was more important" to that than Christianity.
If you don't think the black community, or Christianity, or any other factor should be credited for this apart from black American's purported "complete lack of interest in an ideological construct that they were incapable of understanding in any save the crudest terms and was emotionally barren in the bargain", that's up to you.
I don't agree that communism's basic premise -- that the less affluent should team up to steal from and/or kill the more affluent through revolutionary violence -- was beyond the understanding of American blacks. Do you, really? (Regard the question as rhetorical, if you're resolved to write no more.)