Archive for August, 2011
NATO After Libya: A Threat to European Stability
More than two decades after the end of the Cold War, NATO is an obsolete and harmful anachronism. It has morphed into a vehicle for the attainment of misguided American strategic objectives on a global scale.
The Jobs Go Out, Like the Tide
Mike Dorning of Bloomberg has an interesting article on “The Slow Disappearance of the American Working Man.” The statistics set forth in the article are dire. Only 63.5% of American men have jobs, very near the low recorded in 2009, itself the lowest level of male participation in the labor force since these statistics were first kept in 1948. The number of men working in the prime earning years between 25 and 54 is just 81.2%, and the median real wage for men has declined 27% between 1969 and 2009.
The article also notes one of the causes: “Corporations have cut costs by moving manufacturing jobs, routine computer programming, and even simple legal work out of the country.” But the article, like all the presidential candidates, treats this massive outsourcing as a force of nature, akin to the tides, about which nothing can be done. Actually, something can be done about outsourcing, and was done for most of American history. That something was the tariff. And we are not going to see sustained improvement in jobs and wages until we begin to remember what earlier generations of Americans knew about protecting American industry and American jobs.
The Ron Paul Story
The most interesting Ron Paul Story these days is the Ron Paul Story. What? It’s like this. I well understand why so many disgruntled and disgusted Republicans are turning in despair to a man who probably cannot get the nomination, much less win in a general election.
Jerks: The Natural Man
“La plupart de jeunes gens croient etre naturels, lorsqu’ils ne sont que mal polis et grossiers.” La Rochefoucauld’s caustic observation on the false simplicity of young people who mistake crudeness for nature tells us that the cult of the primitive antedates both Rousseau and the Romantic writers who wrought so much mischief.
The Libyan Endgame
Regardless of whether Muammar Qaddafy is killed, brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague, or exiled, his regime has collapsed beyond recovery.
Jerks: Cases of Arrested Development
In the new millennium, the Americans acting badly are spoiled children who have never learned what it would mean to grow up. 100 years ago, this type was already developing, and Booth Tarkington describes some of these characters in his fiction—the Penrod stories, Little Orvie, and, most effectively, the character of Georgie Minafer in the Magnificent Ambersons.
The Middle East Heats Up
The string of attacks on civilian and military targets in southern Israel by gunmen suspected to have crossed from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula was a complex, carefully coordinated operation. Israeli sources say that its intelligence services, army and police were taken by surprise by the scale and slick organization of the multiple assaults staged near Eilat.
Today’s Rich Are Different
It used to be that plutocrats felt they were part of the society in which they lived, or at least felt the need to act as if they were part of that society. Thus, when they decided to give away some of their enormous fortunes, their gifts generally reflected a desire to improve the communities in which they lived, and often showed a desire to benefit a high culture they respected or at least felt the need to respect. Many American cities have museums, orchestras, libraries, and universities endowed by the robber barons or their descendants.
Today’s rich are different. Yesterday, there was a news item describing how Amazon founder Jeff Bezos “would be funding the ‘Clock of the Long Now.’ The clock is designed to keep ticking for 10,000 years, and will be built in a mountain in west Texas.” Bezos’ gift seems motivated by a desire to emulate bad science fiction; it certainly has nothing to do with helping Bezos’ community or advancing high culture.
Stranger still is the cause PayPal founder Peter Thiel has chosen to advance. Thiel is “a big backer of the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to build sovereign nations on oil-rig platforms to occupy waters beyond the reach of law-of-the-sea treaties. The idea is for these countries to start from scratch–free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place.” As a friend wrote me about this article: “Someone should write a novel about humans living on an island cut off from culture, religion, family and tradition. Oh yeah, William Golding already did. It’s called Lord of the Flies.”
The Fire This Time
“You’ve damaged your own race,” said Mayor Michael Nutter to the black youths of Philadelphia whose flash mobs have been beating and robbing shoppers in the fashionable district of downtown.
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