Archive for September, 2009

More Lies, More Deception

The G-20 ministers declared their meeting in Pittsburgh a success, but as Rob Kall reports in OpEdNews.com, the meeting’s main success was to turn Pittsburgh into “a ghost town, emptied of workers and the usual pedestrians, but filled to overflowing with over 12,000 SWAT cops from all over the U.S.”

This is “freedom and democracy” at work.

Kristol, Missiles, and a Big Boat

The decision by the Obama administration to scrap the missile “defense” shield that Bush had promised to install in Poland and the Czech Republic has been described by the neocon Right as nothing short of “appeasement”—but whom, exactly, is Obama supposed to be “appeasing”? According to the War Party, it’s Vladimir Putin, who is regularly portrayed as the neo-Stalin, ready, willing, and able to move westward and revive the Warsaw Pact.

Exporting Multiculturalism—October 2009

Thomas Fleming on Greek identity, Justin Raimondo on our multicultural agenda abroad, and Leon Hadar on the interventionist tendencies of conservatives. Plus, Mary Ellen Synon on the Lisbon Treaty.

Is Iran Nearing a Bomb?

That Iran is building a secret underground facility near the holy city of Qom, under custody of the Revolutionary Guard—too small to be a production center for nuclear fuel, but just right for the enrichment of uranium to weapons grade—is grounds for concern, but not panic.

War Movies and the Human Heart

In a previous contribution to Chronicles‘ Filmlog, “Three for the Resistance,” I discussed movies portraying the plight of small nations—Norway, the Netherlands, and Finland—overwhelmed by ruthless Nazi and Communist force during the World War II era.

At the Heart of Darkness

S.T. Joshi begins his mammoth biographical study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft by quoting his subject’s reaction to a suggestion from a fan that he write his autobiography. With the almost pathological modesty that characterized Lovecraft throughout his life, he snorted in response, “One might as well write the pompously documented biography of a sandwich man or elevator boy in 8 volumes.”

The Economy Is a Lie, Too

Americans cannot get any truth out of their government about anything, the economy included. Americans are being driven into the ground economically, with 1 million schoolchildren now homeless, while Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke announces that the recession is over.

Three for the Resistance

World War II has provided a vast amount of material for cinema in Europe, America, and Japan. Some if this is superb. Much of it is hokey entertainment and propaganda. We perhaps did not realise how hokey until the horrors of D-Day were portrayed in Saving Private Ryan. That useful dose of realism deserves to be set off against Stephen Spielberg’s many sins against culture

Black Sea Wars

In August, the Georgian navy seized a Turkish tanker carrying fuel to Abkhazia, Georgia’s former province whose declaration of independence a year ago is recognized by Russia but not the West.

The Turkish captain was sentenced to 24 years. When Ankara protested, he was released. Abkhazia has now threatened to sink any Georgian ship interfering in its “territorial waters,” but it has no navy.

The Joys of Failure

The “defects” that commentators keep finding in private-sector economics aren’t defects at all—bad guesses, stupidities, rapacious maneuvers and all the rest. They reflect the nature of the people—humans, that is—who engage in economics. People are people, wherever they live, whatever they do.