Doctor Zero has a carefully thought out proposal on how to save America through mass democracy, through getting 50% of the voters plus one behind the measures necessary to save America, behind measures that are carefully pruned to be the minimum possible measures that could save the country, measures that are as “moderate” as possible, which is not very moderate at all.
No way Jose. Democracy is doomed, or the country is doomed, or, quite likely, both. (more…)
So far, when the Republican establishment has endorsed a republican in a primary, and Palin has endorsed a different candidate, Palin’s candidate wins. Looks like Republican party activists listen to Palin, and rank and file republicans listen to party activists. The next test of Palin’s power is Lisa Murkowski against Joe Miller. The party establishment are not only way to the left of the party base, they are also incompetent, corrupt, politically clumsy, and astonishingly stupid, the kind of stupid that only years of teaching in an elite university can induce.
With these tactics, Obama should be able to win in 2012 And 2016, and …
Of course, winning by such tactics may well result in a victory as useless as that which Patrice Lumumba won when the Congo became independent. Two or three weeks after independence, the government of the Congo had largely vanished from underneath Premier Patrice Lumumba, even though parliament continued to meet and vote him ever greater powers and additional titles for several months.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win.
We have been noticing a lot more attacks on Sarah Palin lately. The latest concedes she is brilliant. (more…)
The green room has a wonderful summary of the economic crisis in the form of a children’s book. They neglect, however, to mention George Bush’s role in making the CRA even worse than it already was.
Obama was surrounded by the lunatic death-to-Americans left, his friends and social circle all come from those crazies, which led to widespread suspicion he was and is one of them – that he is a crazed commie nazi muslim who seeks to destroy America and reduce Americans to poverty and slavery. Birds of a feather flock together. On the other hand, a lot of people believe he is a moderate centrist.
He is now surrounded by the pillars of the Harvard Goldman Wall Street establishment, leavened with a fair few death-to-Americans crazies whom he helicoptered into top positions, but invariably positions where their actual ability to bring death to Americans is rather limited, which positions have been resentfully described by their demented denizens as “policy Siberia”, a disappointed complaint that implies they see Obama as really the moderate centrist, rather than really the crazed commie nazi muslim.
Those who think that Obama is lunatic left think that Bush was a left winger, and those who think that Obama is centrist think that Bush was far right, so there is evidently broad agreement that Obama policies are not all that different from Bush’s policies.
Bush’s big spending becomes much bigger spending, Bush’s heavy handed regulation becomes regulation considerably more heavy handed and much more hostile to business. Bush’s disastrous affirmative action has not much changed, foreign war becomes foreign war with somewhat more cringing before our enemies – the bowing is uniquely Obama, but the Hasan debacle was unchanged Bush policy. Politically correct warfare in Afghanistan has become even more politically correct warfare in Afghanistan.
Politicians always tend towards compromise, and politically correct warfare is a compromise between making war and making peace, but of course, such a compromise is unviable – it was unviable for Bush, and even less viable for Obama. You either have to annihilate the enemy with ruthless disregard for the women and children, or else cut and run. There is no middle road. The Bush disease has infected west point, which now upholds the politically correct position that slaying our enemies is so last century, a transformation that represents a victory for the State Department over the Pentagon.
If one considers these Bush policies to be left wing, as I do, then Obama’s policies are lunatic left, his crazy pals hanging out in “policy Siberia” are looming threat of cataclysm, and the fact that he is surrounded by pillars of the Harvard Goldman Wall Street establishment just shows how corrupt, decadent, incompetent, and out of touch with reality our establishment has become.
To synthesize these conflicting views of Obama, it is necessary to realize he is just not very bright. People overestimate Obama’s intelligence, because he presents as one of the Harvard elite, which he culturally belongs to. Therefore, he sincerely believes progressivism is moderate, humane, centrist, and good for America, and the swift implementation of these policies will make himself and democrats popular, while his brighter fellow believers (seething bitterly in policy Siberia) believe that Americans are evil sinners, and deserve to suffer progressivism every bit.
Obama delusively believes himself fairly moderate, but fears that if he was entirely frank, others would not see him so.
Immediately after losing a senate seat to a Republican populist, Obama the next day proceeded to go populist. He, is, he tells us, going to punish those unregulated wall street fat cats who caused the crisis.
He is going to tax the banks, and restrict proprietary trading by banks. But proprietary trading had little to do with the crisis.
All the things that caused the crisis are still going: the continuing misbehavior of Fannie, Freddie, and the FHA, the continuing regulatory pressure on banks to lower credit standards for non Asian minorities, and the continuing government created opportunity for banks to unload dud mortgages on the taxpayer.
Past private misbehavior was facilitated by the hedge fund activities of too-big-to-fail AIG selling naked CDSs, and too-big-to-be-defaulted-on Goldman and Sach, purchasing naked CDSs. These activities enabled banks to unload the dud politically correct loans that they made.
The misbehavior of AIG and Goldman was downstream of the center of the problem ? banks made dud loans, and then unloaded them thanks to the hedge fund activities of too-big-to-fail businesses, primarily AIG. The problem was that the government wanted, and still wants, banks to make dud loans, and will do whatever it takes to get them to make dud loans. When too-big-to-fail hedge funds ceased to facilitate dud loans, this was a crisis, which crisis the government has swiftly acted to remedy.
Today banks get to unload their dud loans directly on the government. The taxpayer is “stabilizing” the market for unwanted mortgages, which is a huge off the books housing subsidy to minorities, irresponsible borrowers, irresponsible lenders, and bums with no credit rating.
Precisely because AIG and Goldman have stopped their bad conduct, bad conduct that the government needed and wanted, government stepped in, and is now doing exactly the stuff that AIG and Goldman were doing.
The lesser hedge funds did the right thing throughout, and the smaller they were, the more right they were – naturally so, because if a smaller hedge fund screws up, no one bails them out.
The one populist intervention against fat cats that would be both effectual and popular is a special tax or special restrictions on businesses that are too big to fail, and this one populist and popular intervention is not proposed, and is highly unlikely.
The election for New York’s 23rd Congressional District was a straight up and down test of Tea Party conservatism and Palin Republicanism against “moderate” Republicanism.
It proved, decisively, that Palin Republicanism wins votes and that “moderate” Republicanism loses votes.
It proved, decisively, that “moderate” Republicans wish the party harm.
Dede Scozzafava
The Republican party machine (the NRCC and the RNC) gave near a million dollars to a candidate who in the end endorsed the Democratic party candidate, thus exposing “moderate” Republicanism as treason against the party. A purge will ensue, or else a third party run. Possibly both, an incomplete and ineffectual purge, leading to a third party run. The swift unification of the party around Hoffman suggests an effectual purge may be happening.
Those who supported Scozzafava are revealed as dupes or traitors. If the purge fails to remove from power everyone who supported giving a million dollars to the candidate who endorsed the Democrat, a third party run is likely. If those who run the party are not loyal to it, who will be?
Palin Republicanism may not necessarily be able to save the Republican party, but it certainly has lot better chance than “moderate” Republicanism. It might be able to postpone the apocalypse for a decade or so, though eventually elections will be fought between the likes of the Institutional Revolutionary Party and the Party of the Democratic Revolution.
Democracy has an inherent drift towards self destruction. The masses are seduced by demagogues who promise them they can vote themselves rich, leading to bankruptcy and social war. But when the drift gets out of hand, when the end approaches too rapidly, there is a reaction as final collapse comes in sight, leading to a retreat from the abyss. The 1948 Congress that rejected Truman’s Fair Deal and proceeded to disband war socialism, and the Reagan revolution were such reactions to the alarmingly rapid approach of self destruction, and Palin may well be the next one – probably the last one.
Since 1994 I have been predicting collapse around 2020—2025 or so. If Palin succeeds, my prediction will need to be substantially rescheduled. I hope for the best, but expect the worst.
Hillary has just announced that it is fine by her for Karzai to steal the election.
“that bestowed legitimacy from that moment forward”
Democrats of the Vietnam generation long for a re-run of Vietnam. Karzai is militarily incompetent, an enemy of western civilization, and is fighting to lose, thus to allow him to steal the election is defeatism, guaranteeing the Vietnam quagmire that Democrats long for. Next stop, conscription, compulsory voluntary community service.
The correct response, as I have long argued, to this and to each of Karzai’s previous grave provocations, is to put him in a sack, and drop the sack on Pakistan’s presidential palace from ten thousand feet as a message to the president of Pakistan.
This Afghan government is clearly a disadvantage in our efforts to slay our enemies. If Afghanistan can only be governed by enemy tyrants, why should we permit it to be governed? Propping up governments is hard, costly, and bloody. Propping up illegitimate enemy tyrannies is stupid.
In Afghanistan we are already defeated. From now on, it is just a theatrical display of American weakness and impotence, to the great rejoicing of our enemies within and without.
In my previous post, I observed that when the Republican party machine says one thing, and Sarah Palin says a different thing, Republican party activists do what Sarah Palin says, and not what the party machine says. But, of course, we next have to ask do Republican voters do what Republican party activists say, or do they do what the party machine says?