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October 2011
[ Re ] The "bromance", a familiar, over used device in films, has come to
politics, of which the last expression is the Barack-Lee Show. The over the top
welcome that United States President Barack Obama gave to South Korean
president Lee Myung-bak is a variation on the theme.
Obama, in a way, was "buying off" Lee with a FTA and ticker tape extravaganzas
in Detroit and Washington.
Less obvious, the United States is preparing the ground to bring North Korea
back to the six-party nuclear talks: the US-North Korea talks, the second set
in three months, and in Geneva this time, went well and were productive,
according to Stephen Bosworth, the US negotiator. More importantly, the US is
proceeding step by step to achieve its goal of restarting the stalled talks in
Beijing.
Lee's intransigence in dealing with North Korea is of much concern in
Washington; thus, by stroking the South Korean president's ego during his trip
to the US, and Secretary of Defense Panetta's robust embrace of the US-South
Korean military alliance, Obama is betting that Lee won't bolt and doing
something to "upset" its plans and provoke Pyongyang.
The US has not forgotten how Park Chung-hee tried to bribe the United States
Congress when then president Richard Nixon expressed a desire to withdraw
troops stationed in South Korea and send them to fight in Vietnam. Park gave us
"Koreagate", damaged United States-South Korean relations and ultimately led to
Park's assassination by his generals.
The election of Park Won-soon as mayor of Seoul is a message that Lee's Grand
National Party may not be returned to the presidency in 2012, and furthermore,
approaching North Korea is the right thing to do at present. It looks as though
the Lee's right policy towards the North is cracking on the surface by the
recent clampdown on university professors who expressed an interest in North
Korea. It looks, too, that a detente with Pyongyang is in the cards in the next
18 months which may bring back in play a modified "Sunshine Policy" that Lee
scuppered in 2008.
The times are a changin', not only in South Korea but in the US, where the hard
line advisers on North Korea policy's opinion holds less sway.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Oct 31, '11)
[Re Cambodia's
unrealized peace promise, Oct 28, '11] Ou Virak is remarkably long on
inflated rhetoric and remarkably short on specifics. Where it deigns to mention
specifics, it mostly gets them wrong.
The Royal Government of Cambodia ''has routinely flouted many of the covenants
it has ratified,'' according to Ou Virak. For example? No examples are
mentioned. The government has ''waged a sustained legislative and
administrative campaign to control every aspect of the Cambodian people's
lives''. Such as? No specifics are given. ''[T]hose wanting to speak openly and
protest peacefully [are] increasingly stifled by legislative and judicial
means.'' Who, where, when? Ou Virak doesn't tell us.
When he acknowledges achievements of the RGC, he does so only to deny or
belittle them at the same time. These achievements are ''on paper'': So,
apparently, Cambodia didn't really join ASEAN or develop its economy etc. Worse
yet, Ou Virak manages to portray ''the ultimate disintegration of the Khmer
Rouge'' as part of the Paris Agreements; it seems the post-1991 years of civil
war and the eventual triumph of the RGC's ''win-win'' strategy were all just
''on paper''.
Ou Virak even tries to blame the RGC for the fact that Cambodia doesn't have
''a viable political opposition''. Should the Cambodian People's Party put up
unpopular candidates, or advocate unpopular policies, to give the opposition a
better opportunity? And it is not true that opposition leader Sam Rainsy ''is
in exile fleeing a raft of politically-motivated criminal charges''. He is
fleeing convictions related to illegally pulling up border posts recently
placed by the Cambodia-Vietnam border demarcation body.
In 2008, a major theme of the Sam Rainsy Party's election campaign was the
false claim that the government was giving Cambodian territory to Vietnam.
Wisely, most voters weren't convinced. Sam Rainsy could have continued raising
his views in the National Assembly and in his party's print and electronic
propaganda, but that wasn't getting anywhere. On the other hand, committing a
punishable offense might get him sentenced and allow him to pretend that the
issue was ''human rights'' rather than trying to override the elected
government.
One ''example'' that Ou Virak does mention is the new Penal Code, which
''maintains'' disinformation and defamation ''as criminal offenses punishable
by prison terms''. Readers whose only source of information is Ou Virak will be
surprised to learn that the Code was not drafted by a subcommittee of the
Cambodian People's Party with instructions to suppress human rights. It was
prepared over many years by French legal advisers as part of French development
assistance. Furthermore, the reason the new Code ''maintains'' these provisions
is that they were contained in the Interim Code brought in by UNTAC in 1992 as
part of the Paris Peace Agreements. Now Ou Virak cites the maintenance of
legislation created by the Paris Agreements as a reason that signatories of
those agreements should exert ''economic and political leverage'' on the RGC!
The few other examples or specifics are not much better. The RGC has ''allowed
the wealth gap'' to ''widen alarmingly''. It is likely that economic inequality
has increased in the last 20 years. This is an almost universal phenomenon when
an economy starts to grow from an extremely low base, such as Cambodia's was in
1991.
How wide is the ''alarming'' gap today? On the Gini index of family income, in
which 0 represents perfect equality and 100 complete inequality, Cambodia's
rating is 43, less equal than Indonesia (37) or Russia (42.2), the same as
Thailand and more equal than Malaysia (44.1), the Philippines (45.8), Mexico
(48.2) and Brazil (56.7). Cambodia is also more equal than the United States,
whose Gini index of income is 45.
And of course Ou Virak has to devote a paragraph to distorting the planned law
on non-government organizations. Ou Virak to the contrary, this law is not the
''latest'' attempt to do anything, having been in preparation since 2003 and
having gone through several processes of public input and discussion with NGOs.
The draft law is still under consideration, but there is nothing in the latest
publicly released draft ''allowing for arbitrary administrative sanctions''.
Ou Virak and a minority of NGOs claim that if the law requires NGOs to
register, this will mean the end of freedom of expression and freedom of
association. They don't seem to notice that the requirement for publications to
register hasn't prevented more than 500 magazines and newspapers existing
today. In Cambodia and most countries, all sorts of organizations and
activities are required to register: medical clinics, political parties,
private schools, banks, restaurants, pre-schools, labor unions, businesses.
There are presently more than 3,000 voluntarily registered NGOs in the country,
so registration as such can't be too burdensome.
Furthermore, Ou Virak neglects to inform his readers that on October 27, the
day before his article appeared, the deputy director of political affairs of
the Ministry of the Interior told a public conference that mandatory
registration would be dropped from the fourth draft of the law. Of course,
revealing that might have undermined the claim that the law is part of a
campaign to jail anyone who dares to ''criticize the RGC's personalities,
policies and actions.''
One other fact that Ou Virak neglects to impart is the history of his own
organization, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR). In 2002, after a
career as a Funcinpec member of the National Assembly and then the Senate, Kem
Sokha announced his retirement from politics to establish the CCHR - with a
grant of US$450,000 from the US government, channeled through the International
Republican Institute. In subsequent years, a host of Western governments and
semi-government organizations provided funding, particularly for ''public
forum'' projects.
In 2008, Kem Sokha decided to return to politics by launching the Human Rights
Party. In the United States and other countries that outlaw foreign
contributions to political parties, that history would invite close scrutiny of
whether the NGO was acting as a cover for illegal contributions. In the
Cambodia of ever increasing ''restrictive laws'', such contributions are not
illegal. Still, this may explain why some NGOs are worried about a law calling
on them to disclose their sources of income and expenditures.
Allen Myers
Cambodia (Oct 31, '11)
Ask your average neo-con monkey-parrot what troubles Amerika and they will
spout a long list of government ills, but what invariably tops their list is
"overregulation." When pressed for specifics, however, they get very vague,
unless they happen to be in an industry that has to follow federal regulations.
In Texas, they'll immediately cite da oyl bi'niss as being stifled; in
West Virginia, it's always coal mining that is suffocated.
But when you ask them if Wall Street bankers are overregulated, the animus
becomes muted, if it doesn't disappear altogether. If you ask them about
nuclear power regs, that too seems to become an exception to standard
Republican dogma (especially if the respondent lives downwind of one.) Indeed,
when the respondent is required to actually think rather than knee jerk react
(I know, I ask for the moon), the answer to that question tends to dilute, if
not nullify, the original conviction.
As well it should, because, in fact, the federal government underregulates
everything. The reasoning is simple; the gladhandlers and political hacks who
occupy top management in the federal regulating agencies are very susceptible
to political pressure from industry lobbyists and the politicians bribed by
lobbyists, and they are very conscious of the revolving door to the every
industries they're expected to regulate. So it behooves no one in the
regulating bureaucracies to irritate the industries that may some day employ
them. Coupled with the underfunding and understaffing of actual regulators, the
rationale for doing nothing becomes overwhelming and self-justifying.
Such underregulation, whether as a result of industry-friendly laws on the
books or weak enforcement of so-called "tough" regulations, has resulted in a
Wonderland flooded with carcinogenic pesticide soaked fruits and vegetables,
disease-ridden meat and poultry, radioactive waste and toxic chemical seepage
into groundwater, structurally unsound bridges and roads, economy-crippling
financial hijinks on Wall Street, mysteriously vanished Pentagon funds, air and
water polluting coal plants, bursting gas and water pipelines, oil spilling
wells, nuclear plant accidents, chemical plant leaks and explosions, lethal
safety violations, dangerous, untested "legal" pharmaceutical drugs, unsafe
vehicles and an unending list of products, services and goods vital to the
health and well being of the WonderPublic that routinely are defective and
dysfunctional.
But evidently those hazards don't impress the average neo-conman, who is happy
to allow corporations to rape, pillage and pollute at their hearts's content,
because they are, after all, "job creators." It doesn't bother them that the
jobs being created are in the mortuary and tombstone carving industries.
Hardy Campbell
United States (Oct 31, '11)
Might I be permitted to congratulate all regular contributors to our "Letters
Section". In this area I've been remiss.
I am especially grateful to our good friend Hardy Campbell, for an alternative
view point of what is really happening across the USA. I believe he is more
accurate than he actually imagines or really portrays or believes.
Ian C Purdie
Australia (Oct 31, '11)
[Re Is modern science
Biblical or Greek?, Oct 24] Spengler raises a very important point.
There is an unfortunate dichotomy between science and religion in many people's
minds: religion is associated with the Church burning Giordano Bruno (who, by
the way, was not much of a scientist), while science is associated with atheist
diatribes by Richard Dawkins (who is not much of a scientist either).
Acknowledging that science and religion share at least some common roots moves
us towards closing this unnecessary gap.
I would not go as far as claiming that modern science is Biblical (or Greek for
that matter). It is more of a synthesis of different intellectual currents
prevalent in different places and at different times. However, Biblical
influences on the scientific way of thinking are indeed profound.
St Augustine was only one of many Christian intellectuals making important
contributions to science. The very development of the modern scientific method
would have been impossible without the works of Franciscan friar Roger Bacon.
Nicolaus Copernicus, whose heliocentric model essentially heralded the modern
scientific era, was canon of the Cathedral Chapter of Warmia. Gregor Mendel,
the father of genetics and the grandfather of biotechnological revolution, was
Augustinian friar.
Development of the modern theory of evolution, belief in which is considered by
the secular left to be a litmus test for a true scientist, would have been
impossible without paleontological works of a staunch creationist Georges
Cuvier. Modern chemistry and physics are based in large part on the periodic
system of elements developed by a religious layman, Dmitri Mendeleev.
Experiments by another religious layman, Ivan Pavlov, laid foundations of
neurophysiology and behavioral sciences.
Of course, correlation does not necessary mean causation. However, it is hard
to conclude that it is simply a coincidence that so many important scientific
contributions were made by religious Christians. Plus, modern science largely
boils to finding correlations between different properties and events anyway.
Andrei Alyokhin
United States (Oct 28, '11)
[Re Ruling party tastes
defeat in Seoul, Oct 27] The election of Park Won-soon as mayor Seoul
has boosted the chances that South Korea's ruling GNP won't recapture the Blue
House in 2012.
Lee Myung bak's tenure has been showing fissures and cracks for sometime now.
And instances of his cronies corruption have brought shame and sapped public
confidence. The mood in South Korea is changing: there is a palpable desire for
detente with North Korea and relaxation of an aggressive military posturing
towards China, as well. There is also social pressure for better income
distribution and more openness in political life.
So, in a way, Park's election is not a shot in the dark.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Oct 28, '11)
That sound you hear from the of WonderState of Alabama is the hoisting of
Republican state politicians on their short-sighted, mean-spirited petards. The
state's new highly restrictive immigration laws, which requires jail time for
people who knowingly house or sell to illegals, have had the effect of driving
out the Hispanic migrant workers who pick the agricultural products that are
the primary export products of this very southern state. Consequently, tons of
fruit and vegetables are rotting on the ground, costing farmers hundreds of
thousands of dollars and the xenophobic and poor state much needed tax revenue.
Not that they haven't tried getting legal "real" Americans to take their place,
but evidently their citizenry, accustomed to cashing their welfare checks in
air conditioned comfort, find such grueling work beneath them. But one bright
Republican (an oxymoronic joke), doubtless pining for the good ol' days of the
slave holding Confederacy, thought of using state prisoners (mostly black) to
harvest the verdant gold, until it was discovered that their productivity was
also well below Hispanic par, as if people who had selected a life of crime
would suddenly decide working for hours in the searing sun for nothing would
somehow be a smart career change.
Stephen Colbert, America's favorite faux neo-con, came up with the perfect
solution, though; just arrest all the illegals before they leave the state,
incarcerate them and then put them back in the fields to pick the crops for
free. Of course, since the shortfall in workers is close to 11,000, this scheme
may put pressure on the already overcrowded prison system of 'Bama, so they
would have to rent hotels, motels and homes in order to house this "criminal"
gang of desperately needed workers. But in so doing, Alabama's government would
find itself in violation of its own law, which logically means the state
politicians would all need to be arrested. Hmm ... I wonder what kind of
pickers they would make?
H Campbell
United States (Oct 28, '11)
[Re Is modern science
Biblical or Greek?, Oct 24] "The Hebrew Bible remains a force in modern
science, despite the best efforts of rationalists and materialists to send it
into exile."
Mostly with 7-day Creationists and anti-Copernicans! More seriously, this
article ignores the contributions of ancient Egyptians and Iraqis and Indians,
medieval Muslims, etc. It is not in contact with real history of science.
"What divides Hebrews from Greeks" ...
... is a few kilometers of water! Often less. The Philistines were Greeks, the
Phoenicians were Hebrews. If we knew the contents of the libraries of Tyre or
of Carthage, Greeks and Hebrews would look even less different.
Spengler appears to be get his misinformation, not from the Bible or the Greek
writers but from the madness of Lyndon Larouche.
Lester Ness
China (Oct 27, '11)
[Re Dennis O'Connell's letter, Oct 26] Having worked in the United States many
years ago, I was astounded by the paranoia towards someone called a "leftist".
Canada at the time had Pierre Trudeau as a leader, a liberal leader, who was
absolutely despised in the United States administrations for ... well ... being
a liberal.
Dennis O'Connell brings back memories of many arguments I had in the US at the
time. I asked many, and ask Mr O'Connell, exactly what is a "leftist" in the
US. It is Marxist? Leninist? Socialist? Democratic Socialist? Anti-war? Saying
that "we’re achieving Bin Laden’s ends", that "this is far graver than
Vietnam", is leftist?
Former general and Reagan National Security Agency chief William Odom and
former marine commander and head of US CENTCOM Joseph Hoare should really think
hard before saying such "leftist" things again in the future.
Is leftist automatically anti-American? Mr O'Connell says "the vast majority of
professors in US universities are leftist and anti-American". Give me a break.
The US just bought a huge interest in the banking and insurance and financial
industry in the US, they tossed their soul at the car manufacturers ... and Mr
O'Connell is looking for leftists? Go look at the Credit Unions and Co-ops and
you will find those "leftists" .... handling the financial crunch as well as
any institution in your country ... and being very democratic about it by the
way. Look at your libraries, fire and police services, all public roads,
airports and air travel; local, state, and national parks; public schools,
universities and day care; subsidized/low-income housing, everything having to
do with the military, social security, public transportation, and the the price
of gasoline; bridges, dams, tunnels, public beaches, and courthouses; all
farming; subsidized health insurance & benefits for all Federal employees
... you are surrounded by functions that might appear to be leftist. And you
could run 'em for 25 years with everything the Republicans tossed at the banks
in one short quick weekend.
Conservatives in the United States don't even know what real conservatism is,
let alone what defines a leftist.
Miles Tompkins
Canada (Oct 27, '11)
[Re Dennis O'Connell's letter, Oct 26] "Also the vast majority of professors in
US universities are leftist and anti-American." - Dennis O'Connell
Perhaps Mr O'Connell should give us a definition of "leftist"? Something more
rational than "I don't like them, they must be leftist"? As for
"anti-American", weren't most of the better-known rightist professional
patriots draft-dodgers back in the bad old Viet Nam days? (I wasn't.)
Lester Ness
China (Oct 27, '11)
"Quality" was a hot button buzzword in the Wonderland of the 1990s. The Deming
Prize was a much ballyhooed recognition of Japanese-style quality that everyone
and their brother aspired to in the flavor-of-the-month wisdom of corporate
Amerika that was getting its global tail kicked by the Land of the Rising Yen.
The irony that this prize, awarded by the Japanese union of scientists and
engineers, was inspired by an American prophet who could not find supporters in
his own land but found enthusiastic fans in war devastated Japan, was
undoubtedly lost on the monkey-see monkey-do CEOs who not so long before had
disdained anything non-American and non-white.
I recall the firm I was working for at that time jumping on the quality
bandwagon with missionary zeal, ignoring and neglecting all of the core
principles involved in quality just for the sake of getting its hands on a
certificate saying it had embraced quality as its core culture. Just like
American students who routinely pass classes in English and math and graduate
without being able to write a coherent sentence or balance a checkbook, that
firm got its passing grade without learning a single thing about quality. This
fact speaks volumes of the certification of quality industry also, akin to a
diploma mill that will hand apes slips of graduating sheepskin for a price or
inspectors who will green light manure in order to keep their jobs.
And so it is in virtually all aspects of the WonderLife. Entire industries have
been wiped out because their owners and managers paid lip service to quality,
all the while their overpriced products were slipshod, poorly designed, poorly
built and poorly inspected. The extinct or moribund auto, steel and electronics
industries will cry and moan about the unfair trade practices and dirt cheap
labor of their foreign rivals and environmental regulation strangulation
domestically, but that is all smoke and mirrors excuse making for the white
trash burger-flipping neo-cons.
The fact is Wonderlanders have always effusively praised quality with a nod and
wink, without believing a word of it. The philosophy that it's cheaper to fix
mistakes than prevent them in the first place has everything to do with
short-term profits and quarterly statements and is antithetical to quality
cultures, mindsets and practices. But that is just another price that American
capitalism paid to keep blind and delusional shareholders thinking they were
getting a good deal, not unlike the passenger who hit the casino jackpot the
very moment the Titanic hit that chunk of North Atlantic ice. Only the cynic
will point out that what probably took that "unsinkable" vessel down was poor
quality control during its construction, but at least that wasn't a
WonderBlunder. But we did inherit that sinking Empire's zeitgeist as well as
arrogance. Soon, very soon, we shall share its fate.
Hardy Campbell
United States (Oct 27, '11)
[Re McCarthyism, South
Korea-style, Oct 25] I believe Aidan Foster-Carter radically
underestimates the power of the South Korean left. The North Korean leftist
sympathizers in the South are 20 to 25% of the population, not one person in
7,700.
In a recent poll of South Korean students, 44% say they would flee their
country in a time of war and only 15% would aid their country. The South Korean
teachers unions are leftist and are teaching their views to the students of
South Korea. The left in South Korea can bring out a million and a half
citizens to protest against the US, a rally called to protest North Korea can
only manage a handful of old men.
There is a least a 50% chance the South Koreans will elect more leftists in the
upcoming elections, and than we're off for sunshine fantasy land again, as the
North Koreans suffer and die. I believe he also understates the penetration of
the American government by the Soviets in the 40's and 50's don't forget they
stole the nuclear weapon from the US. Also the vast majority of professors in
US universities are leftist and anti-American and if you want to see their
effect on the US just read a newspaper.
Dennis O'Connell
United States (Oct 26, '11)
[Re McCarthyism, South
Korea-style, Oct 25] Foster-Carter's article is a simple affirmation of
the anti-North Korea paranoia that South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has
fostered since 2008 when he assumed the presidency.
Lee sees North Korea in straight lines, without shadows at midday. It reminds
one of Orwell's "Animal Farm" where the pigs, having seized power and excusing
their human behavior, chant, "two legs good, four legs bad". In the same spirit
Lee, who poses as an upholder of democracy, finds no inconsistency in adopting
the tyrant's terror tactics in suppressing liberal interest in North Korea by
South Korean university professors.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Oct 26, '11)
[Re China's grand strategy,
Oct 24] Though his description of the inner workings of the Chinese political
system seems a bit simplistic, the author nevertheless demonstrates a strong
intuitive grasp of the Middle Kingdom.
On one level, the West will likely have a tough time competing effectively with
China in the long run because Western policy makers are constantly bombarded by
skewed portrayals of the country. As Sun Tzu said, if you know yourself and
your enemy, you shall prevail in all your battles. A true and comprehensive
understanding of China by the West is sorely lacking.
John Chen
United States (Oct 25, '11)
The inevitable collapse of Wonderland's economy will come as no surprise to
anyone, as there have been no shortage of pundits, experts, cognoscenti, etc,
eager to chart, graph and enumerate the crushing debt burden, shrinking tax
base, massive permanent unemployment and continually devaluing currency.
But the real physical collapse of Amerika that is equally impending has
received far less attention but has consequences just as dire. The sinews of
any economy and society, its civil and structural engineering infrastructure,
enable the transportation of goods and services between states, protection of
homes from flooding, and the reliable provision of potable water and gas for
domestic consumption as well as agriculture.
These roads, bridges, dams, levees, sewers, pipelines, culverts and causeways
depend on steel, concrete and earthworks to perform as designed. These, in
turn, require maintenance, refurbishing, strengthening and eventually,
replacement, as no material will last indefinitely. But the vast majority of
state and federally built infrastructures are either nearing the end of their
life cycle or way past it, as public moneys dry up or are diverted for overtly
political reasons and not used for any of these preservation purposes.
Patch 'n Pray is the order of the day with virtually all cash strapped
governments in Wonderland, as bridges rust and spall, dams leak and break,
roads crack and fray, pipes burst and spill. Applying band aids has worked in
the past as very short-term remedies, but that is no longer viable.
Transporting goods becomes a dicey proposition, as roads become impassable,
bridges collapse, waterlines burst, the safety of drinking water becomes Third
World, dams break, houses are destroyed, crops are ruined. It is estimated that
a TRILLION dollars is required to make Amerika's infrastructure safe and
reliable again, a trillion dollars no one has or is used instead to kill
colored people overseas.
The worst part is that as the infrastructure decays, industries have to
consider how they are affected financially by these growing liabilities.
Without dependable roads and bridges, timely delivery of goods in highly
competitive global markets becomes problematic. Many decide that relocation,
even overseas, is a more logical move, to countries like China that invest
billions in improving infrastructure grids. In turn, the erosion of tax bases
resulting from departing companies leaves even less money for maintenance, thus
ensuring more road shutdowns, more flooding, more epidemics, more gas
explosions, more industries leaving.
Our government officials surely must know better, musn't they? Surely their
wisdom at engaging in illegal invasions, unregulating monopolies, creating pork
barrel projects to nowhere and the endless printing of funny money is a sure
sign that all that engineering geek stuff is really not needed. Let's just
create another financial gee-whiz miracle instrument, say it's 'merican
capitalism at its finest and pretend that the muck we're sinking in is honey
and cream. Just don't try tasting that foul smelling goo.
Hardy Campbell
United States (Oct 25, '11)
[Re The Green Book's
final chapter, Oct 21] The year 2011 will be remembered for many
things, with Muammar Gaddafi's murder being the capping cherry on the Libyan
Liberation Pie. But let me wind the clock back exactly 100 years to commemorate
another event in Libyan history that, at the time, seemed marginal, incidental
and even comic opera, but which had repercussions that the whole world feels to
this day.
In 1911, Libya was a nominal part of the decaying Ottoman Empire, a
conglomeration of ethnicities and religions that controlled vast swaths of the
Middle East, Africa and the European Balkans. Italy, a relatively new European
state with pretensions to colonial imperialism, saw in the Turkish decline an
opportunity to profit at a relatively cheap cost. The Italians invaded Libya,
in short order defeated the disorganized Turks, and established a colony that
lasted until the Allies liberated it in World War II.
That in itself is merely an anecdotal footnote to history, but what happened in
the wake of the Turkish defeat set in train events that changed the world. When
the Christian states that had formerly been part of the Ottoman Empire saw what
easy pickings the Italians had, they formed an alliance that waged a victorious
war against the Turks in 1912, a war that saw Greece, Bulgaria and most
especially a fiercely nationalistic, expansionist Serbia annex new territories.
This First Balkan War rattled the big imperial powers in Europe, most
especially the Austro-Hungarians, who feared ethnic rebellions in their Balkan
properties encouraged by the victorious and arrogant Serbs. A follow on war the
very next year amongst the victors (and that even saw the Turks allied with
their former enemies!) aggrandized Serbia even more, a situation that its
Austro-Hungarian neighbor found completely intolerable. Something had to be
done.
The Balkan powder keg was set off when the heir to the Viennese throne was
murdered by a Bosnian in 1914, an event, while tragic, which need not have
resulted in war but for the Austro-Hungarian determination to once and for all
teach the Serbs a lesson that they would never forget. Thus World War I, with
all its attendant post-Versailles consequences, including the Second World War,
the Cold War and our "modern" world.
But the origins to all that are found in the Libyan invasion by Italy in 1911,
an incident in that north African country's history that bookends the fall of
the Gaddafi regime over precisely a century. Hopefully the next century will
see a happier outcome, both for the Libyans and the world.
Hardy Campbell
United States (Oct 24, '11)
[Re Stars align for North
Korean progress, Oct 21] The nomination of Glyn Davies to replace
Stephen Bosworth as chief US point man on North Korea signifies a nuanced shift
in dealing with the DPRK. Davies represented the US at the International Atomic
Energy Agency in Vienna and is understands the ins and outs of the nuclear
issue that is at the heart of the stalled six-party talks in Beijing.
To begin with, the meeting between the two countries is exploratory, meaning
the issues raised in New York by Kim Kye-gwan and his US counterpart have been
explored, refined, and perhaps expanded. Hence the new talks.
More broadly, shall we call it the "Obama doctrine"? The US president is
looking to defuse some hot spots that have bogged down America military or
diplomatically. Consider Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's surprise visit to
Kabul, to urge Afghani president Kasai to continue talking to the Taliban. Or
Barack Obama's drawing down of the remaining US troops in Iraq. Libya is proof
positive of the new approach.
As for dealing with North Korea, the American president is looking to bell the
North Korean nuclear cat diplomatically and Davies may be the herald of the new
strategy. Obama is looking to "disengage" yet remain engaged as the dominant
power worldwide by putting a velvet glove on a steel fist.
He bought off South Korea's president Lee Myung bak with a FTA and much media
hoopla during Lee's visit to the US. For the US, Lee's hard line has not
brought results that the Obama administration had originally hoped for. As a
lame duck president and with spreading revelations of his government, Lee is
now a liability, and anyone who succeeds him in 2012 will engage more openly
with Kim Jong-il.
So, Obama is changing the rules with a little tinkering here and there and at a
minimum harm to America's prestige and image.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Oct 24, '11)
[Re QE4 -
forgive the students, Oct 20] Student debt is certainly a very serious
economic and political problem facing the United States. It was really painful
to watch how during the last two years a number of students (some of whom were
very strong academically) had to cut their course load or drop out of college
due to financial difficulties. However, the solution offered by Ellen Brown is
likely to further aggravate the situation instead of improving it. Adding more
TNT to the debt time-bomb is not a wise decision, especially when the clock on
its time mechanism is ticking.
It is a well-known fact that tuition costs in the United States have been
rising much faster than the rate of inflation. This was driven essentially by
two factors. First, unlike most other things, it is logistically difficult to
outsource undergraduate education to lower-cost countries. Perhaps at some time
in the future, the Indian Institute of Technology will be a prime destination
for the US-born engineering students, but we are not there yet. Secondly, and
more importantly, easy availability of federally-backed student loans allowed
colleges and universities to jack up tuition prices without suffering reduced
student enrollment.
In essence, the situation is very similar to the bubble experienced at
more-or-less the same time in the housing market. People who could not afford
to buy a house and would have been better off renting were getting
federally-backed loans and buying McMansions built of plywood and plastic
scraps. Along the same lines, people who cannot afford going to college and
have not figured out what they want to do after graduation get federally backed
loans and pursue baccalaureate degrees that do not teach them any useful skills
and are not even distantly related to their future areas of employment.
For a while, homebuilders and academics reaped financial benefits, while
politicians got to read lofty words about "ownership society" and
"knowledge-based economy" from their teleprompters. Continuous availability of
taxpayer-provided cheap credit may continue such debt-driven bonanzas for a
while, but will not make them sustainable. Inevitably, the general public will
get stuck with the bill.
The GI bill was indeed one of the relatively few successful programs carried
out by the federal government. However, people getting their degrees right
after World War II graduated into the rapidly growing economy with a booming
industrial sector. Therefore, there was a strong demand for engineers,
scientists, and yes, even lawyers. Unfortunately, current and future graduates
are likely to compete for service jobs in an economy that is stagnant at best.
It is true that the unemployment rate in the US is lower among college
graduates. However, as I argued in one of my previous letters, that might have
more to do with their higher socioeconomic status before going to college.
Expecting that artificially creating a supply of college graduates will
miraculously create demand for their labor makes very little sense.
Andrei Alyokhin
United States (Oct 24, '11)
[Re Shalit: Israel
wins, but it's only half-time, Oct 19] I was shocked and perturbed by
the ignorant and irresponsible sentiments expressed by M K Bhadrakumar in his
column.
To begin with, he praises Israel for releasing 1,027 Palestinian terrorists in
return for ONE Israeli soldier who was abducted by the terrorist organization,
Hamas, not captured in any military action. This was not a praiseworthy
decision by Israel, but a dangerous and risky one in the long run. Why? Because
it tells Hamas that it can now abduct another Israeli and use him or her to get
hundreds more of their terrorists released by Israel. Why would they not?
Some of the Hamas terrorists who were released have already threatened to
become "martyrs" and attack Israel or Israelis at the next opportunity, which
means they are willing to commit suicide in an attempt to kill Israelis. Even
if 1% of those released think this way, that's a lot of dead Israelis, and for
what? Is the release of ONE Israeli soldier whose life was not even in danger
worth the lives of the several Israelis who will surely die because of this
unfortunate decision?
Mr Bhadrakumar says the prisoner release "repairs Israel's tarnished image".
What "tarnished image" is he talking about? Israel has been under attack for 63
years now, and under threat of being "wiped off the map" by Hamas, other
radical Palestinian organizations and Iran. Does a nation tarnish its image by
defending its citizens, which is a nation's primary responsibility?
Mr Bhadrakumar then suggests that Israel make more concessions to Hamas, like
lifting the blockade of Gaza. In the meantime he does not ask for a single
concession from Hamas. It seems like Mr Bhadrakumar, who was an Indian
Ambassador to several countries, is either disingenuous, or incredibly ignorant
of the situation facing Israel. Why? Because he shows absolutely no knowledge
that the founding charter of Hamas requires this organization to eliminate
Israel and kill Jews whenever they can. Here is a copy of the
Hamas Charter as translated by Yale University:
I think it is shameful for someone with Mr Bhadrakumar's credentials to be
ignorant of a situation and yet demand that the party being threatened with
elimination and death make concessions without asking the party making the
threats to cease and desist.
Mario Goveia
United States (Oct 24, '11)
[Re Blind hatred lurks
in Western views, Oct 21] Although most observations made in this
article seem to be correct, the author makes one principle mistake - he
identifies "West" with Britain and the United States. In fact, the "West" is
quite diverse. The views of people in Germany, Spain, Greece, for example, are
different from the views of people in Britain and the US (and not only towards
China).
Klement Pyatt (Oct 24, '11)
[Re Little Yueyue and
China's moral road, Oct 18] The recent event in China where a child was
hit by a van but only one person helped is a sign that China's emulation of
Amerika is moving along quite briskly, and maybe ahead of schedule, in fact.
Various reasons are being exchanged in the Chinese e-media touting perfectly
sound rationales, including fear of litigation, indifference to non-family,
etc.
Universally, the Chinese are mortified at such apathy and are engaged in soul
searching, seeking explanations, including the role "progress" and "prosperity"
may have played. America had its infamous Kitty Genovese moment in the 60s when
that young woman was stabbed and left bleeding to death for hours in a very
public part of New York, which generated its own national angst about social
disconnection. The Good Samaritanism that people wish everyone was capable of
seems to be a function of empathy more than anything else. That virtue, the
ability to vicariously experience another's anguish, seems to be most prevalent
amongst those that have recently experienced pain and suffering themselves. It
is useful to recall that the Samaritan that lent his ethnic group's name to
this quality was himself a member of a shunned and reviled sect in Judea.
It seems a given that as a society increases in material wealth and prosperity,
the struggle for day-to-day subsistence living becomes a distant memory. This
tends to inhibit or neutralize feelings of identification with others,
especially those less fortunate economically but also in general. To be a Good
Samaritan, you have to be able to think of others as Samaritans, and that's
hard to do when you're tooling around in a your new Jaguar or Maserati.
This neutralization of emotion has long been a feature of political and
cultural life here in ubercompetitive Wonderland, where routinely the wealthy
shamelessly chastise the poor, neo-cons advocate the killing of brown people
overseas and throwing people from their homes out onto the streets is seen as
capitalism-as-usual. That may be about to change though, as the descent of the
middle class into subclass hell may provide plenty of opportunity for long term
suffering and new found empathy, but we shall see.
In the meantime, wrapped up in their big screen TVs, real estate deals and
export industries, the Chinese of today are roughly where we were in the 60s,
when the US was on top of the world, we were bombing brown people at will, the
world revered our dollar and free market system and we thought ourselves and
our auto, electronic and steel industries eternally untouchable. That
separation in time, roughly 50 years, gives China a heads up about their own
time frame in the sun.
Hardy Campbell
United States (Oct 21, '11)
[Re Shalit: Israel
wins, but it's only half-time, Oct 19] The release of captive Gilad
Shalit eases domestic pressures on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is
true. On the other hand, it reveals the decline of Israel in the Middle East.
Some critics wonder if Netanyahu could negotiate a prisoner swap with its sworn
adversary Hamas, why could not he find a way to come up with a two states
agreement with the "pliable" Palestinian Authority (PA).
A simple glance at the map gives us the answer: Israel abandoned the Gaza Strip
under Ariel Sharon. So as a piece of real estate, it has been written off in
pursuit of the Likud government's grand design: a "Greater Israel from the
Mediterranean to the Jordan River". To accomplish this, it needs the West Bank
nominally under the PA's authority but really under the Zionist state's
military occupation for the last 44 years.
Let's not forget, for Netanyahu and his ilk, the West Bank represents the
biblical "Judea and Samaria", G-D's grant in perpetuity to the Jewish people.
Little wonder, Netanyahu and predecessors have played political football with
the two-state solution, by putting the goal post so far back until Jewish
colonists live in and control the "West Bank". Hence, there is no need for an
independent Palestine, only enclaves a la South African bantustans, to park the
Palestinians.
PA president's Mahmoud Abbas' petition to the UN in the name of a recognized
and independent Palestine has upended this Zionist dream that Netanyahu feels
is within his grasp.
Abraham Bin Yiju
Italy (Oct 20, '11)
[Re US coercive diplomacy
threatens Korean war, Oct 19] Yong Kwon deserves our thanks for drawing
our attention to American Enterprise Institute senior adviser Michael Mazza's
strong recommendations in the short run to "pursuing the short-term goal of
wiping out North Korea's power projection (read nuclear program) and the
long-term goal of demolishing the regime".
Mazza hawkishly says out loud what the Barack Obama administration has been
trying to do, in coordination with the Lee Myung-bak government in Seoul, since
2008. US North Korea policy is firmly in the hands of hard liners. Victor Cha
in an opinion piece in the October 8/9, 2011 Financial Times entitled "Kim
Jong-il must see dark path ghat follows failing talks", delivered a similar
message.
Cha, who is no stranger to North Korea, shies away from nuclear brinksmanship.
The strong riposte to joint US-South Korea military exercises with live ammo on
the Northern Limit Line in November 2010 should have given policy advisers in
Washington and Seoul second thoughts of restarting the dormant Korean War.
Apparently not, it seems.
Mazza's paper is yet another indication of the frustration in the Obama and Lee
circles of their failed propaganda war to topple Kim Jong il. As Yong Kwon
suggestions, you would think that such "experts" should know their history
better. They might, but their dogmatic assertions remodel and rewrite bad past
and present history.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Oct 20, '11)
[Little Yueyue and China's
moral road, Oct 18] I never do this, I never send letters or e-mails,
but I have to today. I have to do something. I am e-mailing you in response to
Wu Zhong’s article about the little toddler who was hit by a van on October 13.
I watched this video yesterday. I watched it while at work, and sat in my
office crying the rest of the day.
I live in Utah, United States. Sitting here at my desk, I am so angry, sad and
frustrated. This video has changed my life, it has changed how I view the
world. If I were given one wish today it would be to reverse time, and help
this little girl somehow. How can people walk past her and not do anything?
What has happened to our society?
The woman who helped her said Yueyue had tears in her eyes. The video told the
story, of how lifeless her little body was. I can’t get these images out of my
head, I am so completely heartbroken and angry. As I went on a walk today, I
looked down at the road and thought of her. I have even wondered if the road
felt cold on her delicate skin. I would do anything to help this little girl.
These people who hit her, and walked passed her and did nothing, aren’t people.
They are monsters. I pray that they will have to answer to somebody someday.
I live clear across the world from you, but I feel like I need to help in some
way. I would donate, pray for her, anything. I just don’t know where to begin.
I don’t know where to even send money, toys, etc. if she survives. I guess what
I want to do the most is to write you and express my feelings. I don’t know
what has happened to people, and can only imagine a world where we all love and
help each other. That world will obviously never exist.
Sara Golding
United States (Oct 20, '11)
[Re Hawks behind Iraq
War rally for Iran strikes, Oct 18] I talked with a fellow Texas
liberal (OK, the only other one in Texas) the other day. He told me how his
60-something neo-con friends were 100% behind the Republican plank of drastic
social spending cuts across the board. He sarcastically asked them what they
would do when those cuts included their Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare
benefits.
They indignantly insisted that those couldn't be touched, those were benefits
"they" were entitled to and not subject to "other" cuts. He and I agreed that
was completely delusional, and I added the rationale typically used by
Republicans to justify such hallucinations: When they white neo-con says
"social spending cuts," that's neo-con code for "excluding government goodies
for the non-WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) but keeping all the benefits
for WASPs." In the filtering apparatus called the neo-con brain, all
pronouncements from Republican mouths only apply to God's Chosen Race, and all
the wannabe 'mericans need not apply.
In Wonderland, everything on the Right is seen through the prism of religion
and race, whereas on the Left it's all about class and socioeconomics. The fact
that Herman Cain is now getting so much attention is because of the dichotomy
the Grand Old Party faces. On the one hand, Mitt Romney represents a sect of
Christianity that is borderline cultic, if not heretical, which offends the
evangelical neo-con base, while Cain represents the "good" Negro - ie, the
Uncle Tom who betrays his race for his class, a reassuring sign that money can
trump race loyalty. This makes Cain slightly more palatable, but in the end
neither unsatisfactory dalliance will last. Rick Perry, the lily white cowboy
with swagger and little else, will emerge victorious, as long as he keeps his
mouth shout, his Bible open and his gunpowder dry.
Hardy Campbell
United States (Oct 19, '11)
[Re North Korea tied to
China, Oct 14] I do wonder if the reader seizes the irony in "North
Korea tied to China". It is a charming idea to entertain that the North ever
practiced autocracy.
Would anyone write an article tying South Korea to the United States? South
Korea is just as dependent on the US in things financial, economic, and
military as North Korea is linked to China. Hardly anyone sees the parallel
between the two Koreas and their protectors. And dependency on a stronger power
goes back centuries when Korea kowtowed to the emperors in Beijing. Thus,
DePavia's conceit appears quaint in the light of history.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Oct 17, '11)
Wonderland Creed Number 67: Always blame a catastrophic event on A) a foreign
devil, B) a one-in-a-billion or totally unpredictable event no one could
foresee, or C) incredible but well meaning incompetence. (Subcreed: If at all
possible - and even more importantly, when impossible - combine all three in
order to provide more distraction and resignedness to fate.)
Item A is more American than foreign apples masquerading as American fruit; the
demonization or manipulation of of fictitious enemies is a tried and true
strategy that worked in our wars with Mexico, Spain, Wilhelmine and Hitlerite
Germany, imperial Japan, socialist Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua and Grenada, Panama
as well as Afghanistan and Iraq. In absolutely none of these cases was
belligerence shown to America prior to direct or indirect US aggression or
provocation, but the deft use of lies, planted evidence, patriotic bombast and
propaganda convinced the DunderPublic that they were the
pure-as-the-driven-snow innocent victims of dastardly foes allied with Satan
himself.
Item B was little used until lately, but it has become extremely popular with
government officials, most conspicuously when Hurricane Katrina wrecked the
flimsy, underdesigned and poorly maintained levees of New Orleans, an event
long foretold by experts as being inevitable by even a moderate storm. The
crutch was also also used by the Bush Mob to explain how 9/11 could happen; who
could predict anyone could conceive of flying planes into buildings? Of course,
on the very day Arab terrorists allegedly performed this unlikely feat, a US
military drill was being conducted simulating precisely that scenario. Could a
lie be anymore transparent if it tried? Yet nary a word was mentioned in the
whore-media pointing out the preposterousness of the government's contention.
How dare anyone talk about a conspiracy! Mention should also be made of Item
B's employment in the Subprime Black Hole, when countless economists sat before
Congress slackjawed with stunned amazement that such a confluence of
once-in-lifetime Perfect Stormisms could occur. The fact that many indeed
predicted the collapse years before seemed to make little impression on these
self-anointed voodoo doctors.
Item C is understandably little employed by itself, since such admissions would
cost jobs, power and privileges. But when combined with B, the confession of
stupidity, cupidity, arrogance, ignorance, miscommunication and gross
incompetence become not only exculpatory but in some mystical way reassuring to
a befuddled public. This combo was used brilliantly to explain away all the
incredible coincidences, spectacular lapses of judgement and easy opportunities
to expose the 9/11 plot prior to execution, so much so that many government
officials directly responsible for such ineptitudes received medals. Of course,
everyone is all too familiar, the Depression of '08 was earmarked by dazzling
exhibitions of incompetence from so-called "public" officials as well as their
private masters in the banking industry, even though on closer examination,
collusion seems a better word to use. But the public seemed reassured that even
the egghead economists get a tad confused by their arcane esoterica, so they
can't really be to blame, could they?
Creed Number 67 is a sacred philosophy in Wonderland. It cleanses, purifies and
condones any and all acts of Wonderism and lets us sleep comfortably in the
knowledge that despite all these miraculous, foreign conspired incompetences,
the USA still exists, blessed by a God that protects the mentally infirm.
Hardy Campbell
United States (Oct 14, '11)
[Re Shalit deal sets
scene for negotiations, Oct 12] It is too early to write off the
Palestinian Authority's bid for full membership in the name of Palestine at the
UN. The deal Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu worked out with Hamas is a sign
of weakness and the shift of power within the Zionist state's ruling classes.
Confronted by an ever growing restive Israeli population who have seen the
quality of their lives cheapened by a greedy oligarchy of tycoons, he had to
try to take hold of the public narrative by agreeing to Hamas' terms to release
1027 Palestinian "security prisoners" for Gilad Shalit.
The release of the Israeli soldier will not put a break on the momentum that
the Palestinian Authority's appeal has taken in the corridors of the UN, and
especially in UNESCO, nor PA president Abbas' meeting with heads of states. In
fact, the prisoner exchange, ironically, shows that the dispossessed and long
occupied Palestinians have achieved a sense of self and capacity to express its
hopes and aspirations that have touched UN members but the US and Israel and a
few Pacific island states.
Netanyahu and any Israeli leader for that matter will henceforth have to rely
on the good offices of a new Egypt. So do not be surprised in the redefinition
of relations between the two states. Israel now needs Egypt more than Egypt
needs Israel.
At a moment of "triumph", the Zionist state is obvious can no longer control
the upper hand over Palestinians nor in the Middle East.
Abraham Bin Yiju
Italy (Oct 13, '11)
[Re Revisiting
Japanese-American internment, Oct 12] Linda Goetz Holmes's attempts to
justify the mass confinement without trial of over 110,000 Americans of
Japanese ancestry during World War II are without substance.
First, she recycles the late David Lowman's long-discredited charges of spying
by Japanese Americans. Not only do the documents that Lowman produced not
support the interpretation he placed on them, but the West Coast military
officials who made the decision to expel Japanese-Americans did not have access
to the documents and would not have been influenced by them.
She then cites two alleged facts in support of her assertions. First, she
claims that she found evidence in an FBI reports of Japanese-Americans hiding
radios. In fact, the FBI's (warrantless and patently unconstitutional) searches
of Japanese-American homes, as Attorney General Francis Biddle admitted, turned
up nothing incriminating. FBI Director J Edgar Hoover strenuously, if quietly,
opposed the mass confinement of Japanese-Americans as unjust and unnecessary.
Holmes also alleges that 8,000 Japanese declared loyalty to the emperor and
were interned at Camp Livingston, Louisiana. Exactly what Holmes means by this
pronouncement is not clear. Camp Livingston held Japanese aliens, mostly from
Hawaii, who were arrested and interned on an individual basis by the Justice
Department as potentially dangerous as enemy aliens, as well as Japanese from
Latin America who were abducted from their homes and shipped to internment in
the United States. Whatever the case, it had nothing to do with the 112,000
West Coast Japanese-Americans who were rounded up by the army and confined in
camps on the basis of their collective ancestry.
Perhaps the worst part of Holmes's charges is in the statistics she provides
for West Coast Japanese-Americans, stating that ''40,869 were aliens and 71,484
- children - were citizens of both the US and Japan.'' Not only are her figures
scewed, but her attempts to get around the fact that these children (and young
adults) were US-born citizens, whose constitutional rights were wantonly
violated, through the smokescreen of their being also citizens of Japan is
deplorable. In fact, the mass of Americans of Japanese ancestry, born after
1924 did not automatically receive Japanese citizenship, and the dual
citizenship of those who did have it was purely a formality and implied no
allegiance on their part to a Japanese nation. Indeed, thousands of Japanese
Americans formally renounced even this nominal Japanese citizenship before
World War II.
Holmes has devoted years to studying Japan's wartime abuse of Prisoners of War
by the Japanese government. It would be unfortunate if this work blinded her to
the very real differences between Americans of Japanese ancestry and Tokyo's
military regime.
Greg Robinson
Associate Professor of History
Universite du Quebec A Montr้al
Canada (Oct 13, '11)
[Re Iranian plot stirs
US hawks, Oct 12] By the time you read this, the pathetic accusation of
Iranian plots to kill Saudi diplomats will doubtless be exposed for the
ridiculous CIA/Mossad sham that it is. The irony of the stooge Americans and
their Jewish masters accusing anyone of craven assassination, when their own
hands are stained crimson with the murdered lives of hundreds who oppose
imperialism and Zionism, is laughable indeed. But the fact that such a poorly
conceived frame is being used to tout yet another round of isolating Iran shows
how desperate the Washington/Tel Aviv Gang is becoming.
With military strikes off the table (not because of imperial humanity, but
because their own military would oppose them), all that's left for these
WonderBoys is fabricating ever more outrageous fairy tales in the hope that
somebody will believe them. Already most security organs in the non-Zionist
West are raising eyebrows at the amateurish transparency of this latest ruse,
justifiably wondering what happened to the smooth operators who pulled off the
whole 9/11 Scam so expertly? Do these fools really think anyone in the US cares
about yet another Muslim being snuffed by another Muslim? The yawns of American
public indifference are already deafening poor Joe Biden, the latest tool to
occupy the First Clown office, who has huffed and puffed mightily about all the
horrible things that will happen to Iran.
Hillary Clinton has joked about whether anyone could make up a story like this.
Yes, Hillary, someone could and did, the same people who expect the
WonderPublic to believe one bullet and one assassin killed JFK, that a "lone,
crazed gunman" shot Martin Luther King, that the Vietnamese attacked the US
fleet at the Gulf of Tonkin, that Nixon knew nothing about Watergate, that
turbaned Neanderthals could pull off 9/11, that so many WMDs were littering the
deserts of Iraq our soldiers would be tripping over them and that house prices
would never go down.
The moral of this story is; (paraphrasing PT Barnum), Suckers aren't just born
every minute in Dunderland, they emerge fervently convinced theirs is a virgin
birth.
Hardy Campbell
United States (Oct 13, '11)
[Re Liquid modernity,
solid elites, Oct 11] It is difficult to square the firebrand Slavoj
Zizek, who Escobar quotes on his latest column, with the one who wrote the
following lines barely two months ago, on the London riots:
"Can we even imagine what it means to be a young man in a poor,
racially mixed area, a priori suspected and harassed by the police, not only
unemployed but often unemployable, with no hope of a future? The implication is
that the conditions these people find themselves in make it inevitable that
they will take to the streets. The problem with this account, though, is that
it lists only the objective conditions for the riots. To riot is to make a
subjective statement, implicitly to declare how one relates to one’s objective
conditions." (London Review of Books, August 19) One can read
Zizek's convoluted reasoning probably a thousand different ways, but in the
last analysis, what stands out is the patently reactionary conclusion that the
protesters' response to an unequal and oppressive order is irrational because
subjective. According to his reasoning, peasant revolts in the Middle Ages, or
even Christianity's revolt against Roman oppression, have no grounding on
reason. A neo-classical economist or neo-liberal politician would heartily
agree: it doesn't fit with rational choice or marginal utility theory.
And this brings to mind another essay by Zizek, aptly titled "Gentlemen of the
Left" (LRB, January 20, 2011), on the importance of WikiLeaks. Zizek's
conclusion is that sometimes secrecy is important to avoid violence. Fair
enough. Typically, he comes up with several examples. Most of them don't add
much support to his argument. But the one that stands out refers to the
Portuguese revolution of the 1970s. The Socialists made a secret compromise
with the military to keep the unions from making a serious attempt at taking
over the government, which would have avoided compromises with the established
order. And so it is not surprising that now Portugal, like Spain, finds itself
with only nominally left wing governments carrying out the Austerity dictates
of cosmopolitan bankers.
Zizek basks in his reputation as an enfant terrible, but he's little
more than the court jester of the Chardonnay Left, the pampered bourgeois
children of 1968 that sold their union comrades down the river to get to power
and lead a chic luxurious life. Forty years later, they have become a New Left
nouveau Ancien R้gime.
For all his populist appeals, Zizek is as protective of another failed,
particularly corrupt and despotic order as your own Spengler. Behind his half
cooked, middle brow attempts at churning out serious theory, behind fiery
speeches such as the one Escobar quotes, lies a personality that seeks to
freeze on its track any serious attempt at change - Zizek would rather lead a
left that lives off wittily put hopes. The Occupy Wall Street people would do
well to keep him away, or soon enough they will find themselves betraying their
revolution just to do things the way the effete gentlemen of the New Left
prefer.
Carlos
Ecuador (Oct 13, '11)
Misinformation has the ability to travel across continents very fast when it
finds distorters of truth willing to export lies. The Occupy Wall Street
Movement is a media-manufactured movement. This so called protest being
exported as an authentic grass root movement when it is not.
I had an opportunity to watch the protesters from a couple of feet away while I
was on a business trip to New York City. I saw a bunch of people with
questionable hygiene, manners, and self-respect, trashing the streets of New
York. I am not the one to judge an entire group for a couple of psychos
carrying vicious messages poorly written on a board. But that night I tuned to
the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and even a radical leftist, die hard Democrat,
like Stewart and his staffers worked an entire section of the show on
complaints from local business owners. These protests are a facade rooted in
political reasons.
Now these business owners were not the magnates on Wall Street, they were the
small shop owners, the bakery owners, the coffee shop owners. The local
business owners are complaining that these people come to the store, order
products and don't pay for them. The protesters also come to the stores of New
York City trash the place or gather en masse, leaving the place with a terrible
smell. So basically small business are suffering while unemployed scumbags
create anarchy. These people also -in their majority - have MacBook Pros,
Blackberries and iPhones, and other toys that they must have purchased with
welfare money from some evil capitalist corporation.
Many of us are angry at Wall Street and at out government for bailing out
failure, but I cannot afford to stop working - and showering for that matter -
to disrupt local businesses, trash a place that I did not or will clean, and
create civil unrest. This is not Zimbabwe and the American press should be
ashamed of itself for playing these lunatics game. Corporatism is an evil.
Capitalism is not perfect. But the alternative is far worst, because socialism
is just the share of miseries for people at the bottom, while the rulers of the
oppressed majority travel to Paris, London, Tokyo, and New York, drink wine,
and hire prostitutes. It is that simple. You don't need glasses to see
something so obvious.
Ysais Martinez
United States (Oct 13, '11)
[Re China ploughs a new
corn furrow, Oct 8] Any powerful technology has its advantages and
disadvantages. Unfortunately, all issues related to genetically modified
organisms immediately become highly politicized and blown out of proportions.
Genetically modified Bt corn has been grown for more than a decade on millions
of acres. Most of those were in the United States in Canada, which have fairly
stringent (albeit not perfect) government oversight and vocal environmentalist
and consumer advocate movements. If there were any real risks for human health,
they would have surfaced already.
Pest resistance is more of a problem, especially since the US Environmental
Protection Agency has apparently bowed to the industry pressure and
significantly eased resistance management requirements over the last three
years. However, pests also adapt to other management techniques, chemical and
non-chemical alike.
Andrei Alyokhin
United States (Oct 13, '11)
[Re Pass the China
Currency Bill, Oct 11] Let's see. A stronger yuan would cause
manufacturing to gradually move from China to other low-cost locations instead
of rushing back to the US as asserted by Peter Morici. Meanwhile, the already
cash-strapped American consumer would be made to suffer higher prices, leading
to more widespread discontent and adding fuel to social unrest like the Occupy
Wall Street movement. In the ensuing internecine trade war, the erosion of
dollar hegemony would exacerbate, further undermining US global leadership.
Though the bill has passed the US Senate, cooler heads will likely prevail in
the end. President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner are realists,
not some academic schlub screaming from an ivory tower and without real-world
accountability.
John Chen
United States (Oct 12, '11)
[Re Pass the China
Currency Bill, Oct 11] In response to the American Senate's threat to
pass the currency bill, this week's suspension of operations of seven of
Walmart's stores in China is just a shot across the bow - a power move to show
the xenophobics in the United States Congress that all is not just one way.
Fair trade means equal profits. American companies annually make more than
US$100 billion in profits from and in China. That is many times what
Chinese companies make on the exports to America (which carry typical margins
of 3-5%). If the sillies do not back off in Washington, expect to see further
heat on Walmart and other US companies in China.
Law enforcement is very much the tool for politics, even international
politics. This is not the first time Walmart is caught violating China's food
safety laws. So you catch them, and you warn them, so they can't say they did
not know they were violating the law. Then you catch them again, and you warn
them again, and they continue to blatantly violate the law. Not shutting them
down altogether is giving Americans face; shutting them down for extended
periods would be reasonable and by rights. It certainly lines up the balls.
This time there is a 15-day suspension for seven stores. Next time it could be
all stores suspended for a month, or more, as needed, repeated until the
profits are equal on both sides.
Zhuubaajie
Hong Kong (Oct 12, '11)
[Re Naval base plan stokes
conflict in Jeju, Oct 7] Artist Koh Gillchun is currently visiting the
US, in order to draw attention through his art to the building of the naval
installation at Kangjung village on Jeju. His mission is to alert American
public to the dangers that US plans for that base that is being done in their
name by their government and without their knowing.
The protest against the base did not arise out of a hurt feeling of spontaneous
combustion. The islanders are well aware of the damage to Jeju, which UNESCO
has designated as a "World Heritage site". They are also aware of the larger
geopolitical implications of a port that will soon provide 20 berths for mainly
American warships and a base equipped with US Aegis missile. Thus, the protest
takes on a larger meaning.
Jeju islanders are not the naifs their critics try to make them out to be. They
grasp the dangers of the Kangjung base: strategically situated, the naval
installation is part of a joint US-South Korea design to dominate the Yellow
and the East seas. Although, it seemingly is directed at North Korea, the value
of Kangjung is to challenge China's growing naval preeminence in the region. We
should not forget, it is a warning to Japan too, for the seas are reported to
house untapped trillions of cubic meters of natural gas. Additionally Jeju is a
forward post of South Korea's pretensions to being a key player in the region,
naturally with heavy US military backing.
It is little wonder Kangjung stokes conflict on Jeju as a first strike base and
a target in any regional conflict.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Oct 11, '11)
The "occupation" of Wall Street by frustrated angry Americans must worry the
likes of Obama and Bernanke, willing tools of their oligarch masters, whose
primary job is to keep the Injuns down on the reservation while their tribal
lands are looted, pillaged and discarded. The strategy has worked for years,
even with a steadily decaying manufacturing base, a declining standard of
living, corrupt politics and seemingly endless financial bubbles, each whose
bursting leaves less and less of a middle class standing.
The secret to plutocratic success was class-warfare-by-stealth, using the media
to vilify those who fell further and further behind the Joneses as being
unworthy of Wonderlandism, while simultaneously making obscene wealth the only
criteria of divine anointment worth having. But that was a delicate balancing
act that required a critical core mass of the relatively well-off to sustain;
below some magical number of people not living in their cars or scavenging
trash bins for supper, the chain reaction of collective smug indifference to
the Ponzi Scheme called America could not be sustained.
Perhaps that's what happened to invigorate previously quiescent people to
descend on the bastions of capitalist theft. Or maybe it was the images of the
Arab Springers who decided after decades of abuse that Enough was Enough and
showed the lethargic West that more than just stale rhetoric about democracy
was needed to make that lazy donkey budge. Right now the occupiers are merely a
mass of like-minded and frustrated Joe Schmoes bound together by common
antipathy to the rigged status quo. But spontaneous movements without leaders
rarely accomplish much other than inspiring individuals with talent, vision and
yes, even a certain ruthlessness from grabbing the riderless reins and taking
us where logic, justice and historic inevitability demand.
It is also hard to say whether the seeds of the coming Revolution are being
planted. But the longer Wonderland continues with business-as-usual, the harder
it will be to avoid what history demands of all thoroughly corrupt,
irredeemable systems of misgovernance. That the Revolution is coming let there
seems little doubt, and if it goes according to our previous two revolutions in
1776 and 1861, the process will be a most unhappy one.
Hardy Campbell
United States (Oct 11, '11)
In Afghanistan's
energy war [October 6] we are treated to two hardcore leftists' take on
international oil. Shukria Dellawar and Antonia Juhasz want you to believe the
Central Intelligence Agency and the imperialists are out to steal every drop of
oil from Third World patriots. Regarding the Iraq oil contracts they write,
"ExxonMobil and BP , among other companies are today producing oil in Iraq for
the first time in over 30 years under some of the most corporate-friendly terms
in the world." So what are these terms in the Iraqi oil contracts that are so
horrible. First 44 foreign oil companies bid in competitive secret sealed bids
and most winning bids have the foreign firms getting US$1.40 to $2 per barrel,
so if oil's retail price is $85 per barrel the Iraqi government will get $83.
That sounds totality unfair to me. So the foreign oil firm must invest $5 to
$10 billion in an environment that is very difficult to do business in and risk
having its employees killed and captured for 4% of the profits, that is
completely outrageous. I guess they long for the good olde days when Saddam
Hussein and United Nations insiders made billions of dollars and the Iraqi
people starved. So is America going to do the same thing in Afghanistan? I
guess so. Let's see in a $3 billion copper mine deal the contract went to the
Chinese for a $30 million bribe to the mining minister. So the US is spending
hundreds of billions while losing thousands of US solders killed in Afghanistan
to defend Chinese mines, makes sense to me. And now the CIA imperialists are
going to build a pipeline to India and Pakistan so the US can have more oil,
brilliant plan. The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline has less chance of succeeding
than a leftist does of ever having any sense of how the world really works, or
that what the CIA tells me.
Dennis O'Connell
USA (Oct 7, '11)
In the new movie Contagion, a pandemic emerges from China to wreak
catastrophic mayhem and death. The cause, a virus that made a transspecies jump
from bat to pig to unassuming American eating at a restaurant in Shanghai to
the entire planet. This fits in neatly with Wonderlander Sinophobia, of course.
The racism and "Yellow Hordeism" that is always just below the surface of all
American transactions with the Middle Kingdom makes China the logical foil for
a disease born of unsanitary "foreign" conditions but ultimately vanquished
with good ol' 'merican technological expertise and know-how.
The subliminal metaphorizing of America's ongoing preoccupation with its
decline vis-a-vis China is apt and oh-so-Hollywood; turbaned Arab terrorists
are so passe (now that bin Laden is allegedly no longer watching porn in caves)
and everyone knows the Chinese are the New Bad Guys but it just won't do to
demonize those who keep your roof from collapsing on your overspent heads. So
subtle means remain to give Wonderlanders a warm and fuzzy feeling that they're
"still on top". No opportunity is wasted to remind us that the Chinese are
exploitative human-rights oppressors, godless commies and make shoddy cheap
products that we can't get enough of. If that sounds slightly schizophrenic, it
of course totally is precisely that.
Like the teenager who resents his parents for having complete control of his
mobility, Americans both love and hate the Chinese for having our Rocky
Mountain oysters firmly in their grip but allowing us to swing them as before.
Except it's not "before" anymore, is it? We know it, they know it, the whole
solar system knows it, and it drives Dunderheadlanders insane with suppressed
Anglo-Saxon impotence and rage. So we'll continue to see more movies,
documentaries, books and news reports that gently continue the fiction that
somehow America is still superior to our landlords. Until Dad takes our T-Bird
away, for good.
Hardy Campbell
Houston TX USA (Oct 7, '11)
[Re Food before politics
on Pyongyang , Oct 5, '11] The Barack Obama administration is using
food as a political bargaining chip. The State Department is not losing any
sleep over the malnutrition and starvation caused by it cutting off food
assistance through NGOs in 2008. The American president's policy is influenced
by hardline North Korean experts in and out of government. For them, food aid
will be funneled to North Korea's armed forces and not to the people who are in
dire need of it. NGOs like Mercy Corps, which until 2008 monitored the chain of
US food from the port of entry to the point of distribution to the needy in
drought stricken provinces, have testified time and time again that this was
not the case, but the ideologically driven "experts" say they know better. So
if the US eventually comes up with aid, it won't be food but blankets and other
non-food items which will not fill any empty stomachs. It, however, will be of
little use to the military?
The growing prominence of the "dear young general" in North Korea should put to
rest the endless and meaningless speculation by US North Korean experts about
Kim Jong il's successor.
Nakamura Junzo
Guam (Oct 6, '11)
[Re: Italy's
future - a theme park, Oct 3] Spengler's use of demographic data is
creative and invariably entertaining. Unfortunately, it is also completely
unscientific.
For some reason, Spengler assumes that population trends observed over a
relatively short period of time last in perpetuity (or, pardon my jargon,
display zero-order nonequilibrial dynamics). While such an approach is very
convenient for making doomsday predictions, it is scantily supported by actual
data. In fact, existing historic records indicate that populations of both
human and non-human animals often go in cycles, with periods of growth followed
by periods of declines, and vice versa. After two centuries of extremely rapid
growth, the current population stabilization and/or decline in industrialized
nations is neither surprising nor catastrophic.
In the United States, which Spengler considers to be a paragon of demographic
virtue, the fertility rate (number of children per woman) collapsed from 3.65
in 1960 to 1.74 in 1976. Applying Spengler?s logic to those data would have
predicted that no children would be born in this country by 1990. In reality,
by that year the US fertility rate bounced back to 2.08, and has stayed around
2.0 ever since. That bounce, by the way, had little to do with Americans
abandoning their ungodly ways and finding a higher purpose in procreation
(another one of Spengler?s favorite arguments). It can be largely attributed to
a big influx of Hispanic immigrants. Currently, the fertility rate for a
Hispanic woman in the US is 2.91. For a white non-Hispanic woman it is 1.83.
This is higher than in Western Europe, but is still under the population
replacement level.
Population decline does not necessarily mean death of a nation or a
civilization. Western Europe experienced a demographic collapse in the Late
Middle Ages, with the population falling from 54 million in 1340 to 37 million
in 1450. That did not turn it to an otherwise irrelevant theme park. On the
opposite, the subsequent Renaissance was the beginning of a major expansionary
phase that has eventually resulted in the Western dominance of the world.
In a more recent example, the world?s Jewish population has not yet returned to
its pre- Holocaust level of 17 million people. Nevertheless, the Jewish
civilization is currently thriving both in cultural and economic terms.
Even if Spengler'?s demographic musings are correct, it is not clear why Italy
will become a theme park for Chinese tourists. Fertility rates are 1.54 in the
mainland China, and 1.15 on Taiwan. Following his logic, these should put them
into the category of theme parks along with Italy.
As for Fiat making poor quality cars, perhaps Spengler can spend royalties from
his new book on buying a Ferrari or a Lamborghini.
Andrei Alyokhin
United States (Oct 6, '11)
In US follows a failed
path, Asia Times Online, October 4, Ramzy Baroud says "The US insists
on enforcing the same failed policies of the past, but expects different
results ... And in the long run, the economically frail and militarily
compromised US cannot be an effective player in shaping the political landscape
in Syria - or anywhere else in the Middle East." This applies to Libya, Syria,
the promised US veto of any United Nations resolution to form a sovereign
Palestine, the continued printing of fiat currency, and the massive continued
borrowing of money at the expense of the people. These actions reveal that the
US Democrat administration and congress is still under the domination of the
same entities that controlled the Republicans under president George W Bush -
namely, those dark and mysterious figures in charge of the giant banks and big
corporations.
The "Occupy Wallstreet" movement has, finally, exposed, that these entities
have been influencing our government to repeal and ignore regulations, which
were imposed by the people after the Great Depression to prevent formation and
collapse of huge economic bubbles. As these giant bubbles form, they suck in
the most vulnerable small investors last, just before they burst - yes, due to
their greed, too. The people are then separated from their hard-earned life
savings as these bubbles burst. Must we repeat this insanity without end? It is
time for an new (old) paradigm. Let's throw all the bums out from both of these
political parties next election, and let's get back to our roots and support a
Workers Party of the People, by the People and for the People. What say?
Daniel Russell
Willow, Alaska (Oct 5, '11)
[letter, Htoo Htet Tayza, September 30] Yes, the sanctions imposed on Myanmar
may have caused people like Htoo Htet Tayza's father and his cronies to
downgrade from a "Lamborghini" to a "Ferrari" or from an apartment in London to
an apartment in Paris - mind my sarcasm here - but the dictators running
Myanmar have caused the misery you talk about multiplied by a Google. I am
equally confident that JD Rockefeller and JP Morgan were only trying to provide
good jobs to their employees when they profited big time from World War I and
the couple of panics that led to the Great Depression. In fact, the last
paragraph of that letter mocks human rights. It's like if human rights get in
the way of his father, and the profiteers who are just arm dealers, plain
simple.
Ysais Martinez (Oct 5, '11)
September Letters
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