We read in the NY Times that the Obamarrhoids are starting to think that maybe, just maybe, they were deluded in thinking that Barack Obama sweet talked chemical weapons out of the hands of Bashar al Assad. Let's think about this.
Bashar al Assad did not decide one day to attack "his" people. Possibly, the initial unrest in 2011 was agitation for civil rights, but that unrest was quickly appropriated by Sunni fighters and converted into a jihad against the Alawites.
Bashar al Assad is the leader of the Alawites. Contrary to popular belief in the West, Alawites are not a denomination of Shia Islam. They may have started that way in the 9th century, but their syncretistic faith, that includes a strong resemblance to the triune god of the Christians, puts them beyond the pale in the eyes of mainstream Islam.
Depending on their mood, Muslims view Alawites either as heretics or apostates. Either quality is perilous for the Alawites. Historically the Alawites were severly oppressed and very poor. Only by the machinations of the colonial French did the Alawites become a military elite and, after colonialism, a ruling elite. And that is intolerable to the Muslims.
If al Assad loses the fight, there will be a genocide of the Alawites, that is why he will do anything to win. There is no atrocity he will not commit. He will fight to the death. He will make a pact with the Devil, if he has to. Making deals with Russians and Iranians was a no brainer for him.
Into this grisly scenario enters Barack H. Obama with a fetish for chemical weapons. Barack wanted al Assad to give up one important weapon in exchange for...what? Was Barack going to send in the Marines to protect the Alawites? Was he going to give aerial support (as the Russians ultimately did)? Was there going to be an endless stream of military supplies and financial support? What, exactly, was Barack offering, beyond words on paper?
Bashar al Assad was bargaining for the salvation of his people, and the unserious Barack Obama was talking shit. And today, the Obamarrhoids are scratching their...heads...and starting to think that maybe, just maybe, that deal they thought they had with al Assad did not go quite like they thought it went.
It is hard to fathom just what kind of a nitwit you would have to be to think that Bashar al Assad would gamble the safety of his people on the empty assurances of a transparent poseur. This is what I thought in 2014 when the oafish John Kerry said, "...we struck a deal where we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out", and today the NY Times admits it.
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Sunday, April 9, 2017
Sunday, January 8, 2017
Barack Brings a Knife to A Gunfight
The New York Times asks and answers the question,
Like Donald Trump says, it gets tiresome being right all the time. Five minutes into the first Barack speech I ever heard I knew that, if we were going to elect him, we would be electing a 19th century man for a 21st century job, and that it could not possibly end well. Of course, I had in mind social and economic policies. This was a guy, I thought, whose mental landscape is uncluttered by the monumental events of the 20th century. He is still a socialist, despite everything.
What I did not appreciate at the time, though I should have, is that his 19th century mentality would ramify outside of social and economic policies and into Cyberia. The first major instance of this was the sad case of the Obamacare website, which you must remember had a very difficult birth.
Yes of course, complicated websites are difficult to produce, so you have to meditate on this for a bit to fully appreciate the enormity of that experience. We are not talking about some cash-strapped start-up, we are talking about the United States of America. The USA is home to a deep bench of the best digital talent on the planet, and most of that talent is highly sympathetic to Barack. Furthermore, major private companies have long experience in health insurance and in developing and maintaining online services.
With an essentially unlimited pot of money and a deep well of sympathy, Barack could have easily organized an enthusiastic working group of the best talent on earth to develop the Obamacare website. It would have been a model of how to get things done.
Barack Obama did none of that, and you have to wonder why. The only answer that comes to me is that Barack simply did not know better. He is a 19th century man in a 21st century job. Too bad for us.
If you suppose that Barack, and the people who surround him, simply do not know better, that they are 19th century people living, rather uncomfortably, in the 21st century, then the recent hackings, of the DNC computer and of Hillary's personal server, must come as no surprise. These are the people who, when confronted with a phishing link, "Send Me Your Password," click on it.
Why did the DNC's technical support not respond to multiple warnings by the FBI? Only because they did not know better. What other answer could there possibly be???
And none of this is new. The U.S., both government agencies and private companies, have been under intense cybernetic assault for years. This is not about a slow response over 16 months, as the NYT suggests.
In other words, we have the answer to a question that the NY Times failed to ask. This abject failure of Barack Obama to protect the most fundamental interest of the United States, the integrity of the electoral system: was it malice or incompetence? People like me tend to suspect the worst, i.e., I suspected malice. It is now obvious that I was wrong. That the DNC, itself, actually had no digital defenses clearly reveals that these people are incompetent.
I had violated "Hanlon's Razor": Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.
"Why did it take the Obama administration more than 16 months to develop a response?In other words, Barack brought a knife to a gun fight.
The short answer, suggested by the report the agencies released on Friday, is that the United States government is still responding at an analog pace to a low-grade, though escalating, digital conflict."
Like Donald Trump says, it gets tiresome being right all the time. Five minutes into the first Barack speech I ever heard I knew that, if we were going to elect him, we would be electing a 19th century man for a 21st century job, and that it could not possibly end well. Of course, I had in mind social and economic policies. This was a guy, I thought, whose mental landscape is uncluttered by the monumental events of the 20th century. He is still a socialist, despite everything.
What I did not appreciate at the time, though I should have, is that his 19th century mentality would ramify outside of social and economic policies and into Cyberia. The first major instance of this was the sad case of the Obamacare website, which you must remember had a very difficult birth.
Yes of course, complicated websites are difficult to produce, so you have to meditate on this for a bit to fully appreciate the enormity of that experience. We are not talking about some cash-strapped start-up, we are talking about the United States of America. The USA is home to a deep bench of the best digital talent on the planet, and most of that talent is highly sympathetic to Barack. Furthermore, major private companies have long experience in health insurance and in developing and maintaining online services.
With an essentially unlimited pot of money and a deep well of sympathy, Barack could have easily organized an enthusiastic working group of the best talent on earth to develop the Obamacare website. It would have been a model of how to get things done.
Barack Obama did none of that, and you have to wonder why. The only answer that comes to me is that Barack simply did not know better. He is a 19th century man in a 21st century job. Too bad for us.
If you suppose that Barack, and the people who surround him, simply do not know better, that they are 19th century people living, rather uncomfortably, in the 21st century, then the recent hackings, of the DNC computer and of Hillary's personal server, must come as no surprise. These are the people who, when confronted with a phishing link, "Send Me Your Password," click on it.
Why did the DNC's technical support not respond to multiple warnings by the FBI? Only because they did not know better. What other answer could there possibly be???
And none of this is new. The U.S., both government agencies and private companies, have been under intense cybernetic assault for years. This is not about a slow response over 16 months, as the NYT suggests.
In other words, we have the answer to a question that the NY Times failed to ask. This abject failure of Barack Obama to protect the most fundamental interest of the United States, the integrity of the electoral system: was it malice or incompetence? People like me tend to suspect the worst, i.e., I suspected malice. It is now obvious that I was wrong. That the DNC, itself, actually had no digital defenses clearly reveals that these people are incompetent.
I had violated "Hanlon's Razor": Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Friday, December 9, 2016
What Was Russia Up To?
The WaPo article, "Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House" is plainly a cover-up of Barack's fickleness.
First, it is impossible to take the article at face value. Not only does the WaPo give no plausible reason why Russia should favor Trump over Clinton, recent history suggests otherwise. Recall the open-mic whisper of Obama's, in March 2012, in which he assured then Russian president Medvedev "After my election I will have more flexibility". To what end, one wonders? And previously there was the famous "Reset Button" affair between Hillary and then Russian foreign minister, Lavrov.
And it was under Obama/Clinton that Russia returned to the world stage in a really big way. Absorbing Crimea, starting a fight in Ukraine, and becoming hegemon in Syria. What's not to love? If you are a Russian.
So, it has been under Obama/Clinton that Russia has been able to advance its interests prodigiously, most especially undermining the EU, which the Russians hate and against which the Americans have done exactly...oh, let me see now, hmmm... nothing. If there is a reason to suppose anything would be different in a Clinton administration, I have not heard it.
Second, suppose the Russians were trying to influence the 2016 elections. What did they do? In point of fact, all the Russians did was to reveal to us the real Hillary Clinton. Absolutely, positively nobody has claimed the Hillary emails are false, that the leaks are a disinformation campaign. To the contrary, the depressing fact is that the Wikileaked emails really are from Hillary and her creature, John Podesta. How depressing is that? So the Russians have done us a huge favor and we owe them a debt of gratitude.
Now, that I think about it, I am reminded of the Vietnamese incursion into Cambodia, around 1978-79. Let me remind you, first, that by the late 1970's, the Vietnamese were really tough motherfuckers. They had been in a state of constant war from 1946 until 1975, first kicking French butt, then kicking American butt. They had endured real hardhsip, witnessed real carnage, for a generation and they were not to be trifled with.
Now, in 1975 Pol Pot, as leader of the Kmer Rouge, took over Cambodia. Although Hitler, Stalin, and Mao killed vastly more people, in absolute numbers, pound-for-pound Pol Pot (always "Pol Pot", never "Mr. Pot", for some reason) was the worst human being who had ever lived, if he was a human being, at all. Through sheer brutality, oppression, degradation, and insensate violence, Pol Pot murdered fully 1/4 of the entire Cambodian population, as documented in the famous movie, "The Killing Fields", based on the reportage of NY Times correspondent Sidney Schanberg (from when the NY Times still practiced journalism).
The Khmer Rouge were so awful that even the battle-hardened Vietnamese could not stomach them. The Vietnamese were compelled, by human decency and nothing else, to march into Cambodia and put an end to the Khmer Rouge, finally. G-d bless them.
As with Vietnam in Cambodia, so with Russia in the American elections of 2016. The Russians are no pussycats. They are as corrupt and as venal as they come. And yet, even they could not stand the blatant deceit, mendacity, and corruption of the Clinton Crime Family---even as that corruption served their own interests.
Compelled by sheer human decency and nothing else, or so it seems to me, the Russians drew back the heavy curtains and let sterilizing rays of daylight shine onto the undead Hillary Clinton, who then burst into flames.
Only towards the very end do we get a true sense of what this story may really be about.
First, it is impossible to take the article at face value. Not only does the WaPo give no plausible reason why Russia should favor Trump over Clinton, recent history suggests otherwise. Recall the open-mic whisper of Obama's, in March 2012, in which he assured then Russian president Medvedev "After my election I will have more flexibility". To what end, one wonders? And previously there was the famous "Reset Button" affair between Hillary and then Russian foreign minister, Lavrov.
And it was under Obama/Clinton that Russia returned to the world stage in a really big way. Absorbing Crimea, starting a fight in Ukraine, and becoming hegemon in Syria. What's not to love? If you are a Russian.
So, it has been under Obama/Clinton that Russia has been able to advance its interests prodigiously, most especially undermining the EU, which the Russians hate and against which the Americans have done exactly...oh, let me see now, hmmm... nothing. If there is a reason to suppose anything would be different in a Clinton administration, I have not heard it.
Second, suppose the Russians were trying to influence the 2016 elections. What did they do? In point of fact, all the Russians did was to reveal to us the real Hillary Clinton. Absolutely, positively nobody has claimed the Hillary emails are false, that the leaks are a disinformation campaign. To the contrary, the depressing fact is that the Wikileaked emails really are from Hillary and her creature, John Podesta. How depressing is that? So the Russians have done us a huge favor and we owe them a debt of gratitude.
Now, that I think about it, I am reminded of the Vietnamese incursion into Cambodia, around 1978-79. Let me remind you, first, that by the late 1970's, the Vietnamese were really tough motherfuckers. They had been in a state of constant war from 1946 until 1975, first kicking French butt, then kicking American butt. They had endured real hardhsip, witnessed real carnage, for a generation and they were not to be trifled with.
Now, in 1975 Pol Pot, as leader of the Kmer Rouge, took over Cambodia. Although Hitler, Stalin, and Mao killed vastly more people, in absolute numbers, pound-for-pound Pol Pot (always "Pol Pot", never "Mr. Pot", for some reason) was the worst human being who had ever lived, if he was a human being, at all. Through sheer brutality, oppression, degradation, and insensate violence, Pol Pot murdered fully 1/4 of the entire Cambodian population, as documented in the famous movie, "The Killing Fields", based on the reportage of NY Times correspondent Sidney Schanberg (from when the NY Times still practiced journalism).
The Khmer Rouge were so awful that even the battle-hardened Vietnamese could not stomach them. The Vietnamese were compelled, by human decency and nothing else, to march into Cambodia and put an end to the Khmer Rouge, finally. G-d bless them.
As with Vietnam in Cambodia, so with Russia in the American elections of 2016. The Russians are no pussycats. They are as corrupt and as venal as they come. And yet, even they could not stand the blatant deceit, mendacity, and corruption of the Clinton Crime Family---even as that corruption served their own interests.
Compelled by sheer human decency and nothing else, or so it seems to me, the Russians drew back the heavy curtains and let sterilizing rays of daylight shine onto the undead Hillary Clinton, who then burst into flames.
Only towards the very end do we get a true sense of what this story may really be about.
The reluctance of the Obama White House to respond to the alleged Russian intrusions before Election Day upset Democrats on the Hill as well as members of the Clinton campaign.And so, Barack Obama, a man incapable of action, failed to act. Yet again.
...
“The lack of an administration response on the Russian hacking cannot be attributed to Congress,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who was at the September meeting. “The administration has all the tools it needs to respond. They have the ability to impose sanctions. They have the ability to take clandestine means. The administration has decided not to utilize them in a way that would deter the Russians, and I think that’s a problem.”
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Happy Socialist Thanksgiving
The New York Times' Thanksgiving Day report on Venezuela, "Hungry Venezuelans Flee in Boats to Escape Economic Collapse". Of course, the headline should read, "Hungry Venezuelans Flee in Boats to Escape Socialism."
Now, where have we seen this, before? Oh, I remember, this Floating Truck is an image, one of thousands, of Cubans desperate to escape their Workers Paradise, abandoning free health care and everything.
As I have written before, more than a few times, the great mystery in my mind is how anyone can be a socialist today. Several friends recently provided some insight.
I had long assumed that modern Westerners simply were ignorant of the horrors of the Iron Curtain. Frankly, I still suspect this. Oh, they may have some sense that all was not well under communism (shortages of Xboxes and whatnot), but I still doubt they know the Chinese were eating babies during "The Great Leap Forward". And no, that is not a joke. Not a joke. Not a joke. The Chinese were eating babies when 50 MMMillion people starved to death. Just as Cubans were starving before reforms. Just as Venezuelans are starving now.
Socialism fabricates shortages. For some reason, this a big joke when people have to queue up, for hours, for toilet paper. It's a lot less funny when there is no food in the stores and no medicine in the hospitals.
It turns out that my socialistically-inclined friends do not see a connection between policies and results. Two of my friends specifically asserted that they see no analogy between the proposed policies of the Democrats, especially people like Barack and Bernie Sanders, and what had transpired behind the Iron Curtain or what is transpiring in Venezuela today. It cannot happen here, they say, and I do not know why. Is it the air we breath? The water we drink? Does the sun shine differently in the U.S.? The socialists do not believe in American Exceptionalism, and yet they do. For some magical reason, the same policies that have yielded destruction there, will work out gloriously here. We are exceptional after all.
Another friend outright dismissed socialism as the cause of Venezuela's agony. Corruption, she says, is the explanation. Her explanation sent chills down my spine, and let me say why.
It has been long explained that the essential element of the scientific method is model building. You build a model of how the world works, and you make predictions based on that model, and the better the predictions the better the model. This is a plainly inadequate description of the scientific method. Everybody builds models of the world. Religions build models of the world, and there is the Christian model, the Hindu model, the Muslim model, etc.
It was Karl Popper who explained that the key ingredient in model building is falsifiability. That is, are there certain phenomena that, if observed, would cause you to reject your model of the world? Scientific models have it, religious models do not. Since religion begins with faith---belief based on inadequate evidence---naturally there are no criteria of falsifiability. With rare exception, there is nothing you can tell a True Believer to make him stop believing.
On the other hand, there is the famous example of Albert Einstein who, when he published his theory of General Relativity, was first in the line of skeptics. Einstein asserted that he could not believe his own theory until certain tests were performed. Those tests were performed, and only then did Einstein believe. Many other tests were performed, and Relativity Theory went on to become one of the most thoroughly tested theories of the Cosmos.
So, does socialism look more like science or more like religion? Socialism looks more like religion, and we have the evidence to prove that.
Deep down in the marrow of their bones, socialists Know how to organize society for the Greater Good. And they have had 100 years (the centennial of the Russian Revolution is next year) and several billion people to prove it. Each time they implemented socialism, it did not work out well. In fact, it worked out very badly, indeed. In fact, it failed catastrophically. So, when things failed to work out as their model of the world predicted, the socialists had a choice: they could revise or reject their theory, or they could suppose that some especially evil-minded individuals---Enemies of the People---were conspiring to sabotage socialism. For a socialist, rejecting socialism is never an option.
Well! If you are working against the welfare of millions of your fellow citizens, you are a very evil person committing a very heinous crime. You deserve death. And the socialists started killing, and killing, and killing. That is why Lenin murdered more people in his first six months in power than the Tsars killed in the previous 100 years, why Stalin murdered more Russians during peace-time than Hitler murdered during wartime, why Mao murdered more Chinese during peace-time than the Japanese murdered during wartime, why Pol Pot murdered a quarter of the entire Cambodian population, etc., etc., etc.
That is why Venezuelans are launching themselves into dangerous waters in dangerous boats. And that is why my dear friend's comment, that "It's the corruption, stupid," sent chills down my spine. We have seen this all before.
Socialism is the problem. And if you do not see the connection between socialism and death, then you are the problem.
Now, where have we seen this, before? Oh, I remember, this Floating Truck is an image, one of thousands, of Cubans desperate to escape their Workers Paradise, abandoning free health care and everything.
As I have written before, more than a few times, the great mystery in my mind is how anyone can be a socialist today. Several friends recently provided some insight.
I had long assumed that modern Westerners simply were ignorant of the horrors of the Iron Curtain. Frankly, I still suspect this. Oh, they may have some sense that all was not well under communism (shortages of Xboxes and whatnot), but I still doubt they know the Chinese were eating babies during "The Great Leap Forward". And no, that is not a joke. Not a joke. Not a joke. The Chinese were eating babies when 50 MMMillion people starved to death. Just as Cubans were starving before reforms. Just as Venezuelans are starving now.
Socialism fabricates shortages. For some reason, this a big joke when people have to queue up, for hours, for toilet paper. It's a lot less funny when there is no food in the stores and no medicine in the hospitals.
It turns out that my socialistically-inclined friends do not see a connection between policies and results. Two of my friends specifically asserted that they see no analogy between the proposed policies of the Democrats, especially people like Barack and Bernie Sanders, and what had transpired behind the Iron Curtain or what is transpiring in Venezuela today. It cannot happen here, they say, and I do not know why. Is it the air we breath? The water we drink? Does the sun shine differently in the U.S.? The socialists do not believe in American Exceptionalism, and yet they do. For some magical reason, the same policies that have yielded destruction there, will work out gloriously here. We are exceptional after all.
Another friend outright dismissed socialism as the cause of Venezuela's agony. Corruption, she says, is the explanation. Her explanation sent chills down my spine, and let me say why.
It has been long explained that the essential element of the scientific method is model building. You build a model of how the world works, and you make predictions based on that model, and the better the predictions the better the model. This is a plainly inadequate description of the scientific method. Everybody builds models of the world. Religions build models of the world, and there is the Christian model, the Hindu model, the Muslim model, etc.
It was Karl Popper who explained that the key ingredient in model building is falsifiability. That is, are there certain phenomena that, if observed, would cause you to reject your model of the world? Scientific models have it, religious models do not. Since religion begins with faith---belief based on inadequate evidence---naturally there are no criteria of falsifiability. With rare exception, there is nothing you can tell a True Believer to make him stop believing.
On the other hand, there is the famous example of Albert Einstein who, when he published his theory of General Relativity, was first in the line of skeptics. Einstein asserted that he could not believe his own theory until certain tests were performed. Those tests were performed, and only then did Einstein believe. Many other tests were performed, and Relativity Theory went on to become one of the most thoroughly tested theories of the Cosmos.
So, does socialism look more like science or more like religion? Socialism looks more like religion, and we have the evidence to prove that.
Deep down in the marrow of their bones, socialists Know how to organize society for the Greater Good. And they have had 100 years (the centennial of the Russian Revolution is next year) and several billion people to prove it. Each time they implemented socialism, it did not work out well. In fact, it worked out very badly, indeed. In fact, it failed catastrophically. So, when things failed to work out as their model of the world predicted, the socialists had a choice: they could revise or reject their theory, or they could suppose that some especially evil-minded individuals---Enemies of the People---were conspiring to sabotage socialism. For a socialist, rejecting socialism is never an option.
Well! If you are working against the welfare of millions of your fellow citizens, you are a very evil person committing a very heinous crime. You deserve death. And the socialists started killing, and killing, and killing. That is why Lenin murdered more people in his first six months in power than the Tsars killed in the previous 100 years, why Stalin murdered more Russians during peace-time than Hitler murdered during wartime, why Mao murdered more Chinese during peace-time than the Japanese murdered during wartime, why Pol Pot murdered a quarter of the entire Cambodian population, etc., etc., etc.
That is why Venezuelans are launching themselves into dangerous waters in dangerous boats. And that is why my dear friend's comment, that "It's the corruption, stupid," sent chills down my spine. We have seen this all before.
Socialism is the problem. And if you do not see the connection between socialism and death, then you are the problem.
Saturday, November 19, 2016
The Bible Predicted Donald Trump
If you listen to the Establishment intelligentsia, the ascension of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States is a mystery, a shock, a surprise. I get they don't like it, but how could they be surprised by it? This surprise must be the first clue that "the best and the brightest" among us are just not that bright.
Who am I to judge my betters? I share your skepticism. But, here is the thing: I saw Trump coming a mile away, and they did not see him at all. Oh, alright, I did not see Trump, exactly, but I absolutely did see the Trump phenomenon coming. Of course, I did not know that it would be specifically Donald Trump, and I did not know it would happen exactly in 2016. But, since November 2008, I was completely sure that somebody just like Donald Trump, or worse, would arrive on the political scene sooner than later. Frankly, I am surprised it took this long.
How could the intelligentsia be so far off the mark? Here is David Remnick of the "New Yorker", on the night of November 8,
As I write this essay, one week after the 2016 election, the Left is firing all their ordnance against Trump, criticizing him from the dandruff in his hair to the corns on his toes. But, as an objective fact, Trump brings much more to the presidency than Barack ever did.
Whether he has done well or ill, and he seems to have done a whole lot of both, Donald Trump has done things. He ran businesses, he built buildings, he hired and fired people, etc. Donald Trump is an executive officer of one kind looking to turn himself into an executive officer of another kind.
In the elegant locution of the elegant Fouad Ajami, on the other hand, Barack Obama spent his life "unmaking and remaking the world in words." He brought nothing to the presidency. Not only did Barack never meet a payroll or lead men in battle, but as a legislator, both in Illinois state government and in the federal government, he brings to mind the Yiddish definition of a nebbish as the kind of nobody who, when he gets out of bed in the morning, doesn't even leave the sheets wrinkled.
In the history of the Harvard Law Review, Barack was the only editor to ever not write an article of his own. As a professor of law, he published no papers. His single accomlpishement before assuming the presidency, seems to be the unusual achievement of having written not one, but two autobiographies before the age of 50, and before he accomplished anything of social significance. Even in the world of words, this is odd.
So, exactly what did Barack have that made the Left swoon after him? Good ol' "Uncle Joe" Biden tells us,
I am convinced that very many people, Black and White, voted for Barack because he was the "Outside" candidate. But he was a candidate at all because the opinion makers of the political Left promoted him as a candidate. They promoted him with manic energy, and they did if for one reason and one reason only---the only attribute he had---the color of his skin.
Barack Obama was never the "post racial" president that the intelligentsia thought him to be. Quite to the contrary. And I knew that Barack, as an ol' timey race hustler of the Alinsky mold, would do as president the only thing he knew how to do: rub raw the resentments of the people. And that he did, in spades.
The backlash was coming just as sure as night follows day.
From start to finish, the intelligentsia saw none of this. Well, why not? I think, for precisely the reason Matthew gives in chapter 7, verse 4,
Who am I to judge my betters? I share your skepticism. But, here is the thing: I saw Trump coming a mile away, and they did not see him at all. Oh, alright, I did not see Trump, exactly, but I absolutely did see the Trump phenomenon coming. Of course, I did not know that it would be specifically Donald Trump, and I did not know it would happen exactly in 2016. But, since November 2008, I was completely sure that somebody just like Donald Trump, or worse, would arrive on the political scene sooner than later. Frankly, I am surprised it took this long.
How could the intelligentsia be so far off the mark? Here is David Remnick of the "New Yorker", on the night of November 8,
On January 20, 2017, we will bid farewell to the first African-American President—a man of integrity, dignity, and generous spirit.Now, let me tell you what I saw. First, I don't give a fig about Barack Obama's personal qualities (or Donald Trump's, for that matter, or George W's). This is not about being friends with the guy, golfing with him; my son will not marry one of his daughters, he will not write a recommendation to law school for my niece, or anything like that. And anybody who turns the political into the personal should be instantly disqualified from ever voting again. Or writing for the "New Yorker".
As I write this essay, one week after the 2016 election, the Left is firing all their ordnance against Trump, criticizing him from the dandruff in his hair to the corns on his toes. But, as an objective fact, Trump brings much more to the presidency than Barack ever did.
Whether he has done well or ill, and he seems to have done a whole lot of both, Donald Trump has done things. He ran businesses, he built buildings, he hired and fired people, etc. Donald Trump is an executive officer of one kind looking to turn himself into an executive officer of another kind.
In the elegant locution of the elegant Fouad Ajami, on the other hand, Barack Obama spent his life "unmaking and remaking the world in words." He brought nothing to the presidency. Not only did Barack never meet a payroll or lead men in battle, but as a legislator, both in Illinois state government and in the federal government, he brings to mind the Yiddish definition of a nebbish as the kind of nobody who, when he gets out of bed in the morning, doesn't even leave the sheets wrinkled.
In the history of the Harvard Law Review, Barack was the only editor to ever not write an article of his own. As a professor of law, he published no papers. His single accomlpishement before assuming the presidency, seems to be the unusual achievement of having written not one, but two autobiographies before the age of 50, and before he accomplished anything of social significance. Even in the world of words, this is odd.
So, exactly what did Barack have that made the Left swoon after him? Good ol' "Uncle Joe" Biden tells us,
I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man.In other words, Barack had nothing but the color of his skin. And from his long ties with the notorious "Acorn" (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), he had a been a race hustler. He was, in other words, the quintessential race candidate.
I am convinced that very many people, Black and White, voted for Barack because he was the "Outside" candidate. But he was a candidate at all because the opinion makers of the political Left promoted him as a candidate. They promoted him with manic energy, and they did if for one reason and one reason only---the only attribute he had---the color of his skin.
Barack Obama was never the "post racial" president that the intelligentsia thought him to be. Quite to the contrary. And I knew that Barack, as an ol' timey race hustler of the Alinsky mold, would do as president the only thing he knew how to do: rub raw the resentments of the people. And that he did, in spades.
The backlash was coming just as sure as night follows day.
From start to finish, the intelligentsia saw none of this. Well, why not? I think, for precisely the reason Matthew gives in chapter 7, verse 4,
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?The Left is blind to their own racism, and Donald Trump is president-elect.
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Donald Trump is Barack Obama
I am working on the theory that Barack Obama and Donald
Trump are the same person, politically speaking.
If you get your information mainly from the MSM, the votes
for Barack are one of the great mysteries of the 21st century. Whatever you may think of the man as an
individual, he had no resume going into the 2008 presidential elections. His only evident attributes are that he is a
socialist and---I hesitate say it, since political correctness has been
described as the "war on noticing"---he is black.
The MSM made much of both.
They were euphoric about the prospect of having the first Black president, and they were
industrious in portraying the man as a political centrist, so as not to
frighten the horses. But, secretly, we
all know he is a socialist.
<<<nudge, nudge, wink, wink>>>
Either way, he was not the kind of man we normally imagine mid-western
Whites would turn out for, in large numbers.
Ah, but he was also something else. Barack was an Outsider. Or, so it seemed, at the time. During the Democratic primaries of 2008, the
man came out of nowhere to defeat the Establishment candidate, the anointed
Democratic standard bearer, the notorious, HRH HRC. (That's a little British lingo for you. "HRH" is "Her Royal
Highness".) And he went on to
defeat the other Establishment candidates, first John McCain in 2008 then
Mittens Romney in 2012.
Looked at in this way, the political life of Barack Obama is
not so strange or unexpected. There have
been plenty of signs, for years, that the American people have grown restless
with the Established Order. You may
recall the 1992 elections and the peculiar candidacy of Ross Perot. For all his quirkiness and suspiciously
little commitment to his own cause, he garnered nearly 20% of the popular vote
in the general election. Lots of people
commented at the time, and then Perot was forgotten because he did not persist,
because no other capable independent candidate came forward, and because the
Established Order wanted to forget.
So, when an apparent outside candidate materialize again in
2008, he got everybody's attention. That
outside candidate was Barack Obama.
The MSM, being ideologically motivated entirely by race and
class and race and class and race and class, saw in Barack a candidate of race
and class. That is how they spoke of
him, they assumed everybody else saw him just the same way, and that is how I
saw him, too.
Look, when it comes to skepticism about the MSM, I take my
hat off to no one. But you can't be
vigilant every moment of every day. It's
not as if I have gone out to lunch with Barack, regularly or ever, so I don’t
know the man. The MSM talk of Barack in terms
of race and class, and I thought of Barack in terms of race and class.
But, here's the thing.
In 2008, not only did a whole lot of people vote for Barack whom you
might not have expected would vote in that way, but a lot of those same people
voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Now,
this is an odd thing, and you really have to think about that for a bit.
If you think exclusively in terms of race and class, it's
impossible to square this circle. But,
if you start to think in terms of the Outsider, if you remember Ross Perot and
remember that Americans are becoming, are already, fed up with the Established
Order, things start to make more sense.
It makes sense to think that the people who voted for Barack
in 2008, because he was the Outsider, might very well vote for Trump in 2016,
because he is the Outsider. And poor
Hillary lost to Donald Trump in the 2016 general elections for exactly the same
reason she lost to Barack Obama in the 2008 primaries: she was the Establishment candidate, each time,
in a time when voters were rejecting Establishment candidates.
So, in 2016 as in 2008, HRH HRC was the same Establishment
candidate losing to the same Outsider in the age of the Outsider. Barack Obama of 2016 is not the Barack Obama
of 2008. In the 2016, Barack is just another Establishment figure. In 2016, Donald
Trump is the Barack Obama of 2008.
Finally, a word about the MSM. They are certainly important, but maybe not
as important as they think of themselves.
In 2008, the MSM was in the tank for Barack and they appear to have
succeeded in putting him into the White House.
But, in 2008 the MSM was working with the zeitgeist. I.e., they favored the Outsider at a time
when Americans favored the Outsider.
In 2016, the MSM, for reasons best known to themselves,
favored the Establishment candidate.
They worked against the zeitgeist, and America’s ears were closed to
them. No doubt, by their efforts the MSM
made the race closer than it might otherwise have been, but working against the zeitgeist
is always going to be very heavy lifting.
In the end, it was the zeitgeist that won in 2016 just as it won in 2008. It was the zeitgeist each time, not the MSM.
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
The Ayatollah of Health Care
I know health care is a hideously complicated subject, and it is more than likely I am talking doggy doodoo, but here is what I think I know.
There was never any chance, whatever, that Obamacare was going to reduce costs, and everybody knew it at the time. Except, possibly, Barack, who does not care about cost. Cost was never an issue for him.
Barack wants to lead a revolution, nationalized health care is a means to an end, and he channels the late Ruhollah Khomeini, master of the 1979 Muslim revolution in Iran. It was once explained to Khomeini that certain of his plans would have adverse economic consequences, to which he famously replied, "This revolution is not about the price of watermelon." As with Khomeini, so with Barack.
Oh, the old American health care system certainly could have benefited with some tweaking, here and there. Maybe a lot of tweaking. But nothing more than tweaking. Certainly, there were some inefficiencies and some fraud, but there never were massive inefficiencies, or massive frauds, and rising costs were not due to the rising costs of established medicines and procedures.
It is not as if we are paying more for aspirin, for example. To the contrary, we are paying much less. Consider aspirin prices in Morris County, NJ. In 1932, aspirin cost 1¢ per pill. Prices varied over time, and in 2012 aspirin cost 3¢ per pill. Nominal prices. In real dollars (2011), aspirin cost 16¢ per pill in 1932 and just under 6¢ per pill in 2012. A 62.5% drop in the cost of aspirin in the 80 yr span.
And that's how it is with all old, established medicines. The "problem", especially over the last 30 years or so, is that pharmaceutical companies have developed a wide range of miracle drugs, real life savers. It may well be true that Big Pharma extorts obscene profits, but it is also true that it can cost half a billion dollars to bring a new drug to market. There is no way around the evident fact that, these days, we are buying aspirin and a whole lot of, very expensive, new life saving medications. In other words, we are buying more health care and we have to pay for it.
The same with medical procedures. Before 1967, nobody was buying a heart transplant because no such thing existed. The first heart was transplanted in December, 1967, it then took a while for the expertise to spread, and these days there are about 2,000 transplants a year, in the U.S. alone. Should I mention this is an expensive procedure? Well, the more heart transplants (and other daring, new, and very expensive procedures) we buy, the more we have to pay. It's really that simple.
There is also a well known allocation problem in health care. It is a strange but true fact that fully 30% of all Medicare expenditures are made in the last year of life. As the population ages, this will get worse. Does this enormous expense really make sense? Almost certainly not. Now, you explain to your neighbor that he cannot spend money on his beloved, dying mother. See the problem? The problem is that we have to pay for what we want.
In other words, unless Obama was going to withhold new medicines, or withhold new procedures, or withhold some significant amount of care from the elderly, there was no chance he was going to reduce costs. To the contrary, as he put more people on the health insurance rolls, costs had to go up.
And so they have.
There was never any chance, whatever, that Obamacare was going to reduce costs, and everybody knew it at the time. Except, possibly, Barack, who does not care about cost. Cost was never an issue for him.
Barack wants to lead a revolution, nationalized health care is a means to an end, and he channels the late Ruhollah Khomeini, master of the 1979 Muslim revolution in Iran. It was once explained to Khomeini that certain of his plans would have adverse economic consequences, to which he famously replied, "This revolution is not about the price of watermelon." As with Khomeini, so with Barack.
Oh, the old American health care system certainly could have benefited with some tweaking, here and there. Maybe a lot of tweaking. But nothing more than tweaking. Certainly, there were some inefficiencies and some fraud, but there never were massive inefficiencies, or massive frauds, and rising costs were not due to the rising costs of established medicines and procedures.
It is not as if we are paying more for aspirin, for example. To the contrary, we are paying much less. Consider aspirin prices in Morris County, NJ. In 1932, aspirin cost 1¢ per pill. Prices varied over time, and in 2012 aspirin cost 3¢ per pill. Nominal prices. In real dollars (2011), aspirin cost 16¢ per pill in 1932 and just under 6¢ per pill in 2012. A 62.5% drop in the cost of aspirin in the 80 yr span.
And that's how it is with all old, established medicines. The "problem", especially over the last 30 years or so, is that pharmaceutical companies have developed a wide range of miracle drugs, real life savers. It may well be true that Big Pharma extorts obscene profits, but it is also true that it can cost half a billion dollars to bring a new drug to market. There is no way around the evident fact that, these days, we are buying aspirin and a whole lot of, very expensive, new life saving medications. In other words, we are buying more health care and we have to pay for it.
The same with medical procedures. Before 1967, nobody was buying a heart transplant because no such thing existed. The first heart was transplanted in December, 1967, it then took a while for the expertise to spread, and these days there are about 2,000 transplants a year, in the U.S. alone. Should I mention this is an expensive procedure? Well, the more heart transplants (and other daring, new, and very expensive procedures) we buy, the more we have to pay. It's really that simple.
There is also a well known allocation problem in health care. It is a strange but true fact that fully 30% of all Medicare expenditures are made in the last year of life. As the population ages, this will get worse. Does this enormous expense really make sense? Almost certainly not. Now, you explain to your neighbor that he cannot spend money on his beloved, dying mother. See the problem? The problem is that we have to pay for what we want.
In other words, unless Obama was going to withhold new medicines, or withhold new procedures, or withhold some significant amount of care from the elderly, there was no chance he was going to reduce costs. To the contrary, as he put more people on the health insurance rolls, costs had to go up.
And so they have.
Thursday, July 28, 2016
The NY Times Comes Out of The Closet (again)
Socialists are exquisitely attuned to history. When Donald Trump declared that his foreign and trade policies will be organized around the principle of "America First", the Left was quick to pounce, making the connection between Trump and the "notorious" America First Committee. Started in 1940, the AFC was isolationist (anti-globalist, in modern parlance) and, by association with Charles Lindbergh, faintly racist and White Supremacist, if not actually sympathetic to the Nazi cause. This was an arcane connection even I did not make, and I am more historically literate than the average American (a very low bar, so I am hardly bragging). So, what are we to make of the NY Times editorial, "President Obama and the Long March"?
Does the phrase, "Long March", sound familiar to you? It should. Google "Long March" and the very first item to pop up, and rightly so, is the Wikipedia article about the heroic military retreat of the Red Army, under Mao Zedong. Passing through some of the most difficult terrain in China, over the course of a year Mao took his army more than 9,0000 kilometers (about 5,400 miles) to evade the Kuomintang, leave China to the tender mercies of Imperial Japan, and remain intact to fight, not the Japanese of course, but the Nationalists after they had been severely weakened in their mortal struggle with Japan. Rather than find common cause with the Nationalists to defend China, Mao sacrificed millions of his countrymen in order to enhance his ability to take over China after the Western powers defeated Japan (with no help from him).
For a generation afterwards, most of the power hierarchy of Maoist China was populated by the likes of Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, comrades of Mao in that arduous enterprise.
The next time we encounter the phrase "Long March" is with Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937). Gramsci developed the theory of "Cultural Hegemony", later aptly nicknamed "The Long March Through The Institutions". Probably the most realistic and practical thinker among the socialists, Gramsci realized much earlier than his socialist friends that they will never win against society via a marxist-style, mano-a-mano Class Struggle. Rather, the right strategy is that of the Glyptapanteles wasp, which lays her eggs inside the body of a paralyzed but still living caterpillar. Over a brief time, the eggs hatch and the wasp larvae eat their way out of the caterpillar, leaving behind a dead husk.
In other words, forget about Class Struggle. Rather, take over the schools, the universities, the government bureaucracies and other appointed positions of public service. Inject yourself into the institutions and, in this way, gradually transmogrify society into socialism.
How real is the Democratic Party's connection to Antonio Gramsci? Here is Anita Dunn, erstwhile communications director for Barack, telling us that one of her favorite political philosophers is the mass murder Mao Zedong. Van Jones, Barack's erstwhile Green Jobs Tsar is a self-avowed communist. For all his protestations to the contrary, Barack speaks in the lingo of socialism (redistribution, positive rights, radical transformation). And, finally (but not exclusively), one of the most important figures in recent Democratic Party politics is the socialist Bernie Sanders.
Donald Trump's connection to the America First Committee is illusory. Barack Obama's and the NY Times' connection to Karl Marx is not.
Does the phrase, "Long March", sound familiar to you? It should. Google "Long March" and the very first item to pop up, and rightly so, is the Wikipedia article about the heroic military retreat of the Red Army, under Mao Zedong. Passing through some of the most difficult terrain in China, over the course of a year Mao took his army more than 9,0000 kilometers (about 5,400 miles) to evade the Kuomintang, leave China to the tender mercies of Imperial Japan, and remain intact to fight, not the Japanese of course, but the Nationalists after they had been severely weakened in their mortal struggle with Japan. Rather than find common cause with the Nationalists to defend China, Mao sacrificed millions of his countrymen in order to enhance his ability to take over China after the Western powers defeated Japan (with no help from him).
For a generation afterwards, most of the power hierarchy of Maoist China was populated by the likes of Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, comrades of Mao in that arduous enterprise.
The next time we encounter the phrase "Long March" is with Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937). Gramsci developed the theory of "Cultural Hegemony", later aptly nicknamed "The Long March Through The Institutions". Probably the most realistic and practical thinker among the socialists, Gramsci realized much earlier than his socialist friends that they will never win against society via a marxist-style, mano-a-mano Class Struggle. Rather, the right strategy is that of the Glyptapanteles wasp, which lays her eggs inside the body of a paralyzed but still living caterpillar. Over a brief time, the eggs hatch and the wasp larvae eat their way out of the caterpillar, leaving behind a dead husk.
In other words, forget about Class Struggle. Rather, take over the schools, the universities, the government bureaucracies and other appointed positions of public service. Inject yourself into the institutions and, in this way, gradually transmogrify society into socialism.
How real is the Democratic Party's connection to Antonio Gramsci? Here is Anita Dunn, erstwhile communications director for Barack, telling us that one of her favorite political philosophers is the mass murder Mao Zedong. Van Jones, Barack's erstwhile Green Jobs Tsar is a self-avowed communist. For all his protestations to the contrary, Barack speaks in the lingo of socialism (redistribution, positive rights, radical transformation). And, finally (but not exclusively), one of the most important figures in recent Democratic Party politics is the socialist Bernie Sanders.
Donald Trump's connection to the America First Committee is illusory. Barack Obama's and the NY Times' connection to Karl Marx is not.
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