A family member is dying. Of old age, near as I can tell, but I hate to see the fellow suffer. It’s particularly difficult for my daughter, Jagan. He’s her hamster, after all.
Some of you, admit it, immediately dropped the significance of the story when you read that I am talking about a hamster. Yes, Micho is a senior hamster, going through what appears to be the inevitable fate of us all, excepting that hamsters do not regularly enjoy the benefits of hospice care, so the poor fellow is having a rough go of it. he might survive, but I doubt it. Judging by the spasms and cries of pain, Micho is in a bad way and there’s nothing we can do for him but try to keep him comfortable.
We took Micho about a year and a half ago from a family which had gotten bored with their old hamster. They were talking as if they would simply throw the animal away after about three years, now that they no longer wanted it. When I first saw Micho, he looked unhappy and listless, and no wonder – his cage was filthy and his food nothing but suet pellets. I cleaned his cage out and he imemdiately began running on his wheel, and some fresh lettuce and carrots brightened him up no end. I looked up on the internet about hamsters, and whatever Micho’s age was, he appeared to be a senior but healthy hamster. He cleared four and a half years old with no apparent problems.
Micho is principally active at night, so I noticed when he started moving around briskly Sunday morning. Trouble is, he was jerky, seemed spasmodic, as if he was having a seizure. By afternoon, his seizures were obvious and clearly causing him great pain. He would jump and throw himself onto his back, then cry, sometimes loudly and sometimes loudly while he twitched his left legs and waved his right legs in circles in the air. That’s when my wife and I had the discussion about what to do.
Now, I’d like to write out some noble tale of solid ethics and the perfect example of how a father and head-of-household should act. But the fact is, I could not justify extreme measures to save a rodent that was a bit older than the books say hamsters usually live. Also, I did not know any veterinarians open on Sunday, and neither my wife or I could take off work Monday. At the same time, as odd as it may sound to some, even ‘New Age’, I accepted Micho as family when I took him into my house and I accepted responsibility for him. I do not for a moment confuse a hamster for equal importance to my dogs, let alone my blood kin, but for all of that he is family. So I owe him the dignity and comfort I can provide, as little as it turns out I could do. He had let go of his bladder, so I cleaned him and his cage up again. I got him some choice lettuce and carrots and vegetable chips. I thought about getting him some apple bits, but I worried he might have become diabetic. I also changed his water bottle. I moved him to a quiet part of the house where he would not be startled by light or noise. I also figured this would make Jagan less likely to worry about him, and for all I like Micho, keeping my daughter happy is always a priority.
So here we are. Micho appears to have slept some, and he was a little better this morning, but he is still in obvious pain and will not eat. He’s still lying on his back, and he’s obviously been sweating a lot, something I had never seen a hamster do before; his fur is matted and damp. I hate to see him in pain, but I am not about to kill him on the assumption that he can’t get better. I want to make him comfortable, but I can’t justify spending hundreds of dollars to keep him alive, maybe, a few more weeks. Part of me thinks I’m being reasonable, but I hate to see him suffer. Part of me says he’s not much different than a mouse, but on the other hand I accepted responsibility for him as part of my household.
This situation reminds me that we sometimes do not have good alternatives, and no easy solution.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
The Distance MBA – Revisiting the Decision
Spring is the season of new beginnings and renewal, and that includes consideration of continuing education. High school juniors begin to plan for college, high school seniors eagerly (or anxiously) wait for word from the school of their choice, and many adults examine the merits of going after a degree or an advanced degree. I noticed that a fair number of my readers here when I post articles on the MBA degree get here by way of a search engine that hit on the letters ‘MBA’, and no wonder – there is basically an urban myth that earning yourself an MBA is the ticket to a solid job with good money. So I have to start by shooting that meme down.
An MBA, no matter where you receive yours, does not guarantee you anything. You might be able to parley the degree and school name into an interview for a position, but if the company is even half what it should be, you will still have to prove your credentials to win the job, let alone keep it and succeed in the company. Getting your MBA is not the focus you should have, nor should you get too proud or worried about your school – you should focus on earning your MBA, as in learning, claiming, and installing the tools that a good program offers for the students willing to do the work and grow in skills and maturity. Consequently, anyone earning an MBA should, when considering the school, focus on what tools and opportunity for development that school offers. Take a look at the backgrounds of the biggest crooks and failures in business, and you will see that some of them went to top-reputation schools, while some of the sharpest and most savvy businessmen do not always come from Stanford, Wharton, or Kellogg.
Full disclosure here; I am finishing up my degree at the University of Houston – Victoria, and I chose that school for reasons that suited my case better than they might suit someone else. I like the school and would certainly recommend the prospective student give UHV a look, but even so my first recommendation is to know what it is that you need. It would be impossible to list everything, but as an example students just finishing their bachelor’s have little real-world business experience, and so need a program which offers interneship opportunities and brings in lecturers who run their own business, while students pursuing their MBA after working in management will want to find programs which offer tools they do not already have; in my case I wanted more work in marketing strategy, as that is an area where my resume was relatively weak. I needed a school that was not excessive in cost or difficulty; raising a family and working a full-time management job meant that a distance degree might be the most suitable vector for my studies. That said, I did some research and found that for business schools, the AACSB accreditation is critically important. The AACSB is the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, an international accrediting body that focuses on management and accounting schools. Founded in 1916, the AACSB is the most recognized body which distinguishes first-rate business and accounting schools; schools like theHarvard Business School and Rice and the University of Texas (and UHV) are accredited by the AACSB; schools like the University of Phoenix and Kaplan are not. This does not mean that every AACSB school is the same in stature, but I would recommend against earning an MBA at a school which is not an AACSB member.
There are three chief differences between the traditional on-campus schools and distance curriculums. First, let’s be clear that there is a lot of prejudice out there – there are companies which judge education by whether the school is prominent, especially for higher-level positions. There is a kind of cowardice in such thinking, the notion that simply going to a certain school produces a more qualified candidate, and such thinking – like all prejudice – demonstrates a weakness in the target company’s organizational mindset, but you’d better understand that such thinking does exist, and many students go to obscenely expensive schools in the hope that they can mke that factor work for them. While choosing your school on the basis of what it can actually teach you, and performing your own cost-benefit analysis in that decision, means that you will miss the chance to join some of these companies, it should be recognized that you probably would be miserable working at a company where thinking was so hide-bound that where you went to school somehow limited your abilities as a manager or accountant; I speak with some experience here, and such companies do odd things like imagine that working inflexible M-F 8-5 hours and requiring a full suit at all times were necessary ingredients for success in business. Claiming the tools and honing the skills that make you as effective as possible in your work will not only make you more marketable in the long term, they also lead to a great deal more satisfaction in your career.
The second difference of note between the on-campus and distance schools, is the way you take your classes. In an on-campus class, you show up for the class when scheduled, take notes and participate in live discussion, complete and turn in your assignments when due and take tests in person. For the online class, you take tests and complete assignments, but your attendance is virtual, which some people take to mean something easier than attending a physical class. First off, just like an on-campus class, you will sometimes need to log in at a certain time for a lecture or seminar. But what’s more, you can’t just hide in the back of the room when you’re unprepared for an online class, the way you can in a campus classroom; the system notes not only how many times you answer questions or comment in a discussion, it also records the actual answer or comment, so its quality and context are there for everyone, including the professor, to see. Online class discussions therefore tend to be more substantive and relevant to the subject matter and instructional themes than the more traditional classes. Similarly, an online exam may require security measures to prevent cheating or misuse of resources, but physical separation of students from each other and the presence of a proctor work to create better security than some campus examinations can boast. And just in case someone has it in mind to try to get around the security in an online class, don’t forget that in the end the class is designed to teach tools and develop critical thinking skills that you will want to call upon when you are a working professional years later. Think long-term, and apply every opportunity to developing ways to be your best in every respect. In the online class, that means a lot of reading, a need to be very self-disciplined, especially in time management, and to thoroughly follow-up on every chance to answer questions or dig a little deeper than you have to to set yourself apart from the ordinary student.
The third way in which distance learning is different, is the cost in money and time. Now again, I have to be blunt – there are various levels of schools you can go to, and the value of your degree will depend on how well that school suits your abilities and goals. If you have it in mind to become a Fortune 500 CEO within ten years of getting your MBA, the only schools worth considering that can help you in any real sense will be those mentioned in publications like BusinessWeek, Forbes, or the Princeton Review. You will spend upwards of a quarter-million dollars, and even then you get no guarantee that the degree will be worth what it costs you. Before anyone dives into such a program, however, I would recommend they consider their personal profile. In my own case, for example, UHV was a much more appropriate choice because of my work history and my bachelor’s degree from Baylor. That is, my profile is solid but not a top-tier CEO, while on the other hand my previous degree gave me some school recognotion, so that my first need in an MBA program was one which was AACSB-accredited, offered real-world applicability, and was cost-effective. I would frankly recommend students take courses at schools which have physical campuses; this allows you a way to take face-to-face courses when that is more appropriate to the subject matter, it avoids the apparent stigma of the online-only schools, and it raises the profile of the school in the nominal opinion.
An MBA, no matter where you receive yours, does not guarantee you anything. You might be able to parley the degree and school name into an interview for a position, but if the company is even half what it should be, you will still have to prove your credentials to win the job, let alone keep it and succeed in the company. Getting your MBA is not the focus you should have, nor should you get too proud or worried about your school – you should focus on earning your MBA, as in learning, claiming, and installing the tools that a good program offers for the students willing to do the work and grow in skills and maturity. Consequently, anyone earning an MBA should, when considering the school, focus on what tools and opportunity for development that school offers. Take a look at the backgrounds of the biggest crooks and failures in business, and you will see that some of them went to top-reputation schools, while some of the sharpest and most savvy businessmen do not always come from Stanford, Wharton, or Kellogg.
Full disclosure here; I am finishing up my degree at the University of Houston – Victoria, and I chose that school for reasons that suited my case better than they might suit someone else. I like the school and would certainly recommend the prospective student give UHV a look, but even so my first recommendation is to know what it is that you need. It would be impossible to list everything, but as an example students just finishing their bachelor’s have little real-world business experience, and so need a program which offers interneship opportunities and brings in lecturers who run their own business, while students pursuing their MBA after working in management will want to find programs which offer tools they do not already have; in my case I wanted more work in marketing strategy, as that is an area where my resume was relatively weak. I needed a school that was not excessive in cost or difficulty; raising a family and working a full-time management job meant that a distance degree might be the most suitable vector for my studies. That said, I did some research and found that for business schools, the AACSB accreditation is critically important. The AACSB is the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, an international accrediting body that focuses on management and accounting schools. Founded in 1916, the AACSB is the most recognized body which distinguishes first-rate business and accounting schools; schools like theHarvard Business School and Rice and the University of Texas (and UHV) are accredited by the AACSB; schools like the University of Phoenix and Kaplan are not. This does not mean that every AACSB school is the same in stature, but I would recommend against earning an MBA at a school which is not an AACSB member.
There are three chief differences between the traditional on-campus schools and distance curriculums. First, let’s be clear that there is a lot of prejudice out there – there are companies which judge education by whether the school is prominent, especially for higher-level positions. There is a kind of cowardice in such thinking, the notion that simply going to a certain school produces a more qualified candidate, and such thinking – like all prejudice – demonstrates a weakness in the target company’s organizational mindset, but you’d better understand that such thinking does exist, and many students go to obscenely expensive schools in the hope that they can mke that factor work for them. While choosing your school on the basis of what it can actually teach you, and performing your own cost-benefit analysis in that decision, means that you will miss the chance to join some of these companies, it should be recognized that you probably would be miserable working at a company where thinking was so hide-bound that where you went to school somehow limited your abilities as a manager or accountant; I speak with some experience here, and such companies do odd things like imagine that working inflexible M-F 8-5 hours and requiring a full suit at all times were necessary ingredients for success in business. Claiming the tools and honing the skills that make you as effective as possible in your work will not only make you more marketable in the long term, they also lead to a great deal more satisfaction in your career.
The second difference of note between the on-campus and distance schools, is the way you take your classes. In an on-campus class, you show up for the class when scheduled, take notes and participate in live discussion, complete and turn in your assignments when due and take tests in person. For the online class, you take tests and complete assignments, but your attendance is virtual, which some people take to mean something easier than attending a physical class. First off, just like an on-campus class, you will sometimes need to log in at a certain time for a lecture or seminar. But what’s more, you can’t just hide in the back of the room when you’re unprepared for an online class, the way you can in a campus classroom; the system notes not only how many times you answer questions or comment in a discussion, it also records the actual answer or comment, so its quality and context are there for everyone, including the professor, to see. Online class discussions therefore tend to be more substantive and relevant to the subject matter and instructional themes than the more traditional classes. Similarly, an online exam may require security measures to prevent cheating or misuse of resources, but physical separation of students from each other and the presence of a proctor work to create better security than some campus examinations can boast. And just in case someone has it in mind to try to get around the security in an online class, don’t forget that in the end the class is designed to teach tools and develop critical thinking skills that you will want to call upon when you are a working professional years later. Think long-term, and apply every opportunity to developing ways to be your best in every respect. In the online class, that means a lot of reading, a need to be very self-disciplined, especially in time management, and to thoroughly follow-up on every chance to answer questions or dig a little deeper than you have to to set yourself apart from the ordinary student.
The third way in which distance learning is different, is the cost in money and time. Now again, I have to be blunt – there are various levels of schools you can go to, and the value of your degree will depend on how well that school suits your abilities and goals. If you have it in mind to become a Fortune 500 CEO within ten years of getting your MBA, the only schools worth considering that can help you in any real sense will be those mentioned in publications like BusinessWeek, Forbes, or the Princeton Review. You will spend upwards of a quarter-million dollars, and even then you get no guarantee that the degree will be worth what it costs you. Before anyone dives into such a program, however, I would recommend they consider their personal profile. In my own case, for example, UHV was a much more appropriate choice because of my work history and my bachelor’s degree from Baylor. That is, my profile is solid but not a top-tier CEO, while on the other hand my previous degree gave me some school recognotion, so that my first need in an MBA program was one which was AACSB-accredited, offered real-world applicability, and was cost-effective. I would frankly recommend students take courses at schools which have physical campuses; this allows you a way to take face-to-face courses when that is more appropriate to the subject matter, it avoids the apparent stigma of the online-only schools, and it raises the profile of the school in the nominal opinion.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
The MBA in Modern Business
As I near the completion of my MBA studies, I am naturally interested in my prospects to make something of my accomplishment, besides the opportunity to cover my wall with some tasteful calligraphy. The news of late – say for the last year or so – has been increasingly dismal, especially for those about to graduate from school. I’ve been fortunate in that regard, since I have a job right now, but I do admit that it bothers me to think that all my work to earn an MBA might not result in any substantive improvement in my career profile. Then again, a few initials on a resume do not change the person carrying them. At best, they open the door to discussions with people who might be interested in the person who accomplished the degree. I have to say that some of the people in my class who are about to graduate with me, are not worth an interview in my opinion for any important position. This is because while they have collected the degree, they have neglected to incorporate the tools that make the salient difference in their qualifications to lead employees. This is sadly too common; far too many managers seem to think that management is about giving orders to someone else, who then is expected to do the real work. Such people are corporate vampires and they kill businesses. Obviously, a good interviewer should be able to screen them out and keep them far away from any position involving decision-making or course-setting. I have not only applied for many positions in my life, I have also done a lot of the hiring and interviewing, and I would say that overall, the ratio of qualified applicants to unqualified contenders is about 1 in 4. With higher-profile positions, that ratio becomes more acute, so that executive positions are likely to attract a candidate pool that is at least 95% unsuitable.
A lot of my classmates are, to be blunt, coasting as they see graduation approaching, and they do not understand that they need to make themselves valuable to the companies they wish to impress. The suit and the crisp paper for the resume are details, not the substance. The first mission of the MBA graduate is to make himself valuable for a company that agrees to take him aboard, then to work constantly to improve that value for the company. In short, be worth more than you cost, and exceed expectations as you progress in the company. This not only is what the company expects when they hire someone with an MBA, it’s also the best way to improve your profile for promotion. This should be obvious to everyone, yet sadly I see over and over again that many would-be executives place their personal responsibility and commitment to go beyond expectations as low priorities.
I made one ‘B’ my first semester at UHV, the same semester when I had emergency surgery and was diagnosed with cancer. Even so, I was disappointed in that ‘B’, and I worked hard to make sure everything since then was an ‘A’. My initial 3.66 GPA for the first semester has steadily climbed to 3.93 as I earned nothing but A’s. This was not because it would matter to anyone but me; so far as I know there are no rewards for a high GPA beyond knowing you met the grade. But I have made sure to learn every concept and acquire every tool that was possible, so that when I leave with my MBA I will be much more capable as a manager. That, when everything is said and done, is the value of a Masters in Business Administration, no matter the time or place.
A lot of my classmates are, to be blunt, coasting as they see graduation approaching, and they do not understand that they need to make themselves valuable to the companies they wish to impress. The suit and the crisp paper for the resume are details, not the substance. The first mission of the MBA graduate is to make himself valuable for a company that agrees to take him aboard, then to work constantly to improve that value for the company. In short, be worth more than you cost, and exceed expectations as you progress in the company. This not only is what the company expects when they hire someone with an MBA, it’s also the best way to improve your profile for promotion. This should be obvious to everyone, yet sadly I see over and over again that many would-be executives place their personal responsibility and commitment to go beyond expectations as low priorities.
I made one ‘B’ my first semester at UHV, the same semester when I had emergency surgery and was diagnosed with cancer. Even so, I was disappointed in that ‘B’, and I worked hard to make sure everything since then was an ‘A’. My initial 3.66 GPA for the first semester has steadily climbed to 3.93 as I earned nothing but A’s. This was not because it would matter to anyone but me; so far as I know there are no rewards for a high GPA beyond knowing you met the grade. But I have made sure to learn every concept and acquire every tool that was possible, so that when I leave with my MBA I will be much more capable as a manager. That, when everything is said and done, is the value of a Masters in Business Administration, no matter the time or place.
Friday, March 06, 2009
The Case Competition
This post may not interest that many people, but I am enjoying this final stretch of my MBA pursuit. The Strategic MBA at the University of Houston – Victoria culminates in a capstone course which includes a case competition. As you might expect, I mean for my team to win that competition.
There are basically three reasons why I want to win the MBA Case Competition. First, the practical point – there is no ‘Dean’s List’ for MBA candidates, we do not graduate cum laude, magna cum laude, or summa cum laude, and while a strong GPA is nice, no employer really cares about it; since the necessary GPA to graduate is 3.0 or better, everyone should have a nice result for their efforts (mine so far is 3.933, if I get A’s in both classes this spring I can finish with a GPA of 3.9412). The only way to stand out in the graduating class of MBAs, is to place in the competition.
The second reason is personal motivation. I think I am one of the smartest and hardest-working students at UHV, so I’d better do my best to show that in my results. Besides, who doesn’t want to finish strong? And third, you never know when you need to look for work, and adding honors to your resume is always a good idea.
The competition, for good and bad, is relatively simple. Each 4-person team will prepare a paper for the target company, in our case PetSmart. We started working last month on the project, so everyone will have three full months to get their project show-ready. Of course, that lets the slackers catch up so our team will just have to be better in depth and in quality of analysis. That’s the second major part; the presentation. A lot of folks won’t rehearse enough, or will assume that their paper is enough to work on. Fact is, however, a good presentation may use the same data, but selling it to judges (or in real life, clients and superiors) means preparing the information to be easy to understand and compellingly persuasive. And of course, we can’t forget the Question and Answer session after the presentation, which can make all the difference between a good team and a winner.
Since it’s such a big deal for me, I will be writing more about the case competition this Spring. Hope it’s worth the read!
There are basically three reasons why I want to win the MBA Case Competition. First, the practical point – there is no ‘Dean’s List’ for MBA candidates, we do not graduate cum laude, magna cum laude, or summa cum laude, and while a strong GPA is nice, no employer really cares about it; since the necessary GPA to graduate is 3.0 or better, everyone should have a nice result for their efforts (mine so far is 3.933, if I get A’s in both classes this spring I can finish with a GPA of 3.9412). The only way to stand out in the graduating class of MBAs, is to place in the competition.
The second reason is personal motivation. I think I am one of the smartest and hardest-working students at UHV, so I’d better do my best to show that in my results. Besides, who doesn’t want to finish strong? And third, you never know when you need to look for work, and adding honors to your resume is always a good idea.
The competition, for good and bad, is relatively simple. Each 4-person team will prepare a paper for the target company, in our case PetSmart. We started working last month on the project, so everyone will have three full months to get their project show-ready. Of course, that lets the slackers catch up so our team will just have to be better in depth and in quality of analysis. That’s the second major part; the presentation. A lot of folks won’t rehearse enough, or will assume that their paper is enough to work on. Fact is, however, a good presentation may use the same data, but selling it to judges (or in real life, clients and superiors) means preparing the information to be easy to understand and compellingly persuasive. And of course, we can’t forget the Question and Answer session after the presentation, which can make all the difference between a good team and a winner.
Since it’s such a big deal for me, I will be writing more about the case competition this Spring. Hope it’s worth the read!
Thursday, March 05, 2009
A Fool and His Influence
Barack Obama once again showed why he is not up to the job, when he decided to personally antagonize radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. This latest decision, consistent with most of Obama’s judgment calls since winning the White House, has once again shown President Obama to be the most paranoid and divisive President since Nixon.
Let’s start with the mechanics of Obama deciding to attack Limbaugh. Yes, Limbaugh mocked Obama’s stimulus plan and said he hoped Obama would fail, since in Limbaugh’s opinion Obama is a socialist who is a threat to the United States. That, however, is Limbaugh’s right as a private citizen, to hold his opinion and speak it freely, even into a microphone on a popular radio talk show. It is not appropriate for government officials to appear to be oppressing free speech, but that is precisely the move Obama chose. On January 23, President Obama demanded that Republicans not even listen to Limbaugh’s show if they wanted any chance of participating in the stimulus bill discussion.
For all the false claims that President Bush was a fascist, this action by Obama comes far closer to actual fascism than anything even imagined in the last decade. President Obama not only painted his administration in the colors of suppressing free speech and attempting to stifle open debate on critical legislation, he inadvertently raised Limbaugh’s influence profile to that of the national government. Rush Limbaugh’s identity went overnight from ‘annoying self-righteous individual’ to ‘legitimate opposition leader’, because in his attack the president chose to treat Limbaugh as someone as worthy of his attention as any head of state or political faction. Obama could have ignored him as a no-account nuisance, the way most presidents ignore the noisy jibes from wanna-be populists, but instead he accomplished the exact opposite of his intent.
The secondary effect of Obama’s latest blunder was a further bullet in his façade of bipartisan leadership. The Telegraph in England, for example, noted that “after less than a week in office, Mr Obama's presidency is already encountering the very partisan bickering he had pledged to stamp out during his first 100 days.” The Telegraph further noted the dishonesty of Obama’s pretense by noting that “the president responded with a clear signal that he is prepared to ram the bill through without the bipartisan consensus he promised to construct, telling Republican leaders from the House of Representatives: "I won. I'm the president."
Barack Obama somehow fooled himself into imagining that no one would say bad things about him once he was president, that he would face no mockery or ridicule as the highest-profile figurehead in the world. He somehow believed that he could pass himself off as ‘post-partisan’ while simultaneously demanding that everything be done his way. Anyone familiar with American politics, let alone recent events, would have known better, but Obama bought into his own spin too far to accept reality when it did not march in his parade. As a result he diluted the value of his own brand, and tacitly granted equal merit to an unelected entertainer. At this point the best course for the Obama Administration would be to quietly back away and pretend the dustup never happened.
The second major reason that Obama’s attacks on Limbaugh were unwise, is the effect that action had on the debate surrounding Obama’s plans. Loading a trillion dollars more debt onto the taxpayers for a bill which guaranteed not even one private-sector job, did not save one house already facing foreclosure, and which made no effort at all to save even one private industry company in crisis, is more than controversial on its own merit; the Obama Administration needed to lead the debate on its merits, not allow itself to lose focus and create doubt as to how well it planned its policies. Reacting emotionally to a talk show host sends out the signal that Obama is worried about anyone looking closely at his proposals. Certainly the apparent contradictions are causing people to wonder about the plans, and not just talk show hosts:
Given the lack of civil discussion on the issues, a reasonable observer might well conclude that the Obama Administration is not able to defend its policies on a rational basis. The juvenile spat between the president and the radio host only adds support to that belief.
Let’s start with the mechanics of Obama deciding to attack Limbaugh. Yes, Limbaugh mocked Obama’s stimulus plan and said he hoped Obama would fail, since in Limbaugh’s opinion Obama is a socialist who is a threat to the United States. That, however, is Limbaugh’s right as a private citizen, to hold his opinion and speak it freely, even into a microphone on a popular radio talk show. It is not appropriate for government officials to appear to be oppressing free speech, but that is precisely the move Obama chose. On January 23, President Obama demanded that Republicans not even listen to Limbaugh’s show if they wanted any chance of participating in the stimulus bill discussion.
For all the false claims that President Bush was a fascist, this action by Obama comes far closer to actual fascism than anything even imagined in the last decade. President Obama not only painted his administration in the colors of suppressing free speech and attempting to stifle open debate on critical legislation, he inadvertently raised Limbaugh’s influence profile to that of the national government. Rush Limbaugh’s identity went overnight from ‘annoying self-righteous individual’ to ‘legitimate opposition leader’, because in his attack the president chose to treat Limbaugh as someone as worthy of his attention as any head of state or political faction. Obama could have ignored him as a no-account nuisance, the way most presidents ignore the noisy jibes from wanna-be populists, but instead he accomplished the exact opposite of his intent.
The secondary effect of Obama’s latest blunder was a further bullet in his façade of bipartisan leadership. The Telegraph in England, for example, noted that “after less than a week in office, Mr Obama's presidency is already encountering the very partisan bickering he had pledged to stamp out during his first 100 days.” The Telegraph further noted the dishonesty of Obama’s pretense by noting that “the president responded with a clear signal that he is prepared to ram the bill through without the bipartisan consensus he promised to construct, telling Republican leaders from the House of Representatives: "I won. I'm the president."
Barack Obama somehow fooled himself into imagining that no one would say bad things about him once he was president, that he would face no mockery or ridicule as the highest-profile figurehead in the world. He somehow believed that he could pass himself off as ‘post-partisan’ while simultaneously demanding that everything be done his way. Anyone familiar with American politics, let alone recent events, would have known better, but Obama bought into his own spin too far to accept reality when it did not march in his parade. As a result he diluted the value of his own brand, and tacitly granted equal merit to an unelected entertainer. At this point the best course for the Obama Administration would be to quietly back away and pretend the dustup never happened.
The second major reason that Obama’s attacks on Limbaugh were unwise, is the effect that action had on the debate surrounding Obama’s plans. Loading a trillion dollars more debt onto the taxpayers for a bill which guaranteed not even one private-sector job, did not save one house already facing foreclosure, and which made no effort at all to save even one private industry company in crisis, is more than controversial on its own merit; the Obama Administration needed to lead the debate on its merits, not allow itself to lose focus and create doubt as to how well it planned its policies. Reacting emotionally to a talk show host sends out the signal that Obama is worried about anyone looking closely at his proposals. Certainly the apparent contradictions are causing people to wonder about the plans, and not just talk show hosts:
In the midst of signing and proposing massive spending bills, the president announces his plans to cut the deficit in half
The president urged the Congress to pass his massive ‘stimulus’ package with admonitions that delay could be catastrophic, yet the bulk of the bill’s effects won’t occur until late 2010 at the earliest
The president has repeatedly promised that 95% of “working families” will see a tax cut, but only 66% of working Americans actually pay any taxes to begin with
The president has announced plans to close the terrorist incarceration facility at Guantanamo, on the basis that the site was inhumane, yet investigators have determined that the Guantanamo site was not inhumane, indeed was superior to many places the inmates would be transferred to. Yet the shut-down is still scheduled to occur, even as the Obama Administration admits that in some cases it considers rendition to be an appropriate option
Given the lack of civil discussion on the issues, a reasonable observer might well conclude that the Obama Administration is not able to defend its policies on a rational basis. The juvenile spat between the president and the radio host only adds support to that belief.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Genuine Trumps Gimmick
The failure of Barack Obama to comprehend the financial crisis, let alone deal with it effectively, is crumbling the façade of his competence as President. His minions, as a result, are going through the classic first stage of grief and loss, the stage of denial. That denial is performed through their ludicrous comparisons of Obama to Ronald Reagan, as if the blundering and desperate moves by the present President can be said to be reasonable and prudent, let alone considered the equal of Reagan’s leadership. To understand why the comparison is not valid in any sense, we must consider the nature and causes of the two presidents’ economic environments.
Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama each inherited a recession when they came to office. That’s not unusual, though – Presidents Kennedy, Ford, and Bush also inherited recessions when they arrived at the White House, and in fact Presidents Taft, Cleveland, Buchanan, Van Buren, and Washington were also greeted with recessions upon their arrival (in Cleveland’s case it was upon his return to the White House). Recessions are cyclical, and so far no one has been able to prevent them from happening, although a bad president can make things worse if he bungles the job. The point here, is that recessions are not ‘republican’ or ‘democrat’ in their cause per se, but should be examined in the specific causes of each and their conditions created upon the nation.
The recession which greeted Barack Obama was caused by three forces – the burst of the housing bubble, the credit crunch brought about by bank speculation, and the liquidity crisis in the domestic auto industry. The initial symptoms were an unemployment of 7.2% in December 2008 (7.6% in January 2009) and a 3.85% inflation rate.
When Ronald Reagan took office, the recession he faced was more profound, because of the heretofore unimagined combination of unemployment and inflation rising at the same time. The chief causes of that recession were the rising price of oil and instability in the Middle East. The initial symptoms were an unemployment rate of 7.2% in December 1980 (7.5% in January 1981) and a 15.81% inflation rate.
You cannot change what you cannot control. This is the essence of why Reagan’s economics were so radical. Reagan established four general goals he believed were essential to setting a sound economic course:
1 - Reduce the growth of government spending
2 - Reduce the marginal tax rates on income from both labor and capital
3 - Reduce regulation, and
4 - Reduce inflation by controlling the growth of the money supply.
While not perfect in its results, Reagan accomplished all four goals and established conditions for an unprecedented boom in business and prosperity.
Obama’s plan is far less complete, and in spirit opposes every one of Reagan’s goals, by massively increasing government spending, raising taxes on both individuals and corporations, drastically increasing regulation and driving inflation upward, deliberately so in the case of energy and finance costs. Essentially, President Obama is rolling the dice on some old notions of Keynes, hoping that simply spending massive amounts on his pet projects will renew economic prosperity by simply spending money. Any parent with a teenager knows the flaws in such thinking; spending is not desirable in itself, but only when it creates the necessary results. In the individual case, this means you pay the rent or mortgage and you buy your food, before you ever entertain the idea of buying that SUV or investing in that can’t-miss IPO. When a teenager wastes his money, he is depending on his parents to cover his needs, but the parents have to be responsible themselves for keeping sound priorities and enforcing discipline. In the case of the government, it’s necessary for government to be cautious about spending and to think through its goals and abilities before engaging on a new bout of projects. It’s catastrophic, nothing less, when a government becomes reckless in spending and in committing its resources without consideration of the critical needs. Obama’s “stimulus” package spent almost eight hundred billion dollars – before interest – without creating even one private-sector job, without addressing even one home foreclosure in process, and without even addressing consumer confidence. This is the government version of trying to justify spending mortgage money on a hooker.
Everything has to be paid for. That’s as basic as economics gets, yet somehow it gets ignored when government is putting together a budget. Literally trillions of dollars are being committed with no reasonable explanation of how it will be paid. When anyone, even the President, tells you that “only the rich” will see their taxes go up, do the math. There are simply not enough “rich” people to pay all these costs and bear these new taxes.
The historical record warns that the massive tax hikes envisioned by the Obama Administration will result in less revenue than they intend to collect. This is because what gets rewarded gets repeated, and what gets punished stops. And in practical terms, this means that when people and corporations are punished for succeeding financially under US tax law, they will find alternatives to paying taxes. They will move business off-shore, they will stop spending money on goodwill initiatives, they will hire fewer people and pay less to their employees, because the government is destroying their effective business models. Obama’s heavy-handed plan for tax and spending with government in control of every major initiative, has no successful model in practice in the world.
Comparing Barack Obama to Ronald Reagan is pathetic and arrogant, to say the least. While it must be admitted that Obama is a far better actor than Reagan ever was, he cannot hope to be even half the leader that Reagan was.
Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama each inherited a recession when they came to office. That’s not unusual, though – Presidents Kennedy, Ford, and Bush also inherited recessions when they arrived at the White House, and in fact Presidents Taft, Cleveland, Buchanan, Van Buren, and Washington were also greeted with recessions upon their arrival (in Cleveland’s case it was upon his return to the White House). Recessions are cyclical, and so far no one has been able to prevent them from happening, although a bad president can make things worse if he bungles the job. The point here, is that recessions are not ‘republican’ or ‘democrat’ in their cause per se, but should be examined in the specific causes of each and their conditions created upon the nation.
The recession which greeted Barack Obama was caused by three forces – the burst of the housing bubble, the credit crunch brought about by bank speculation, and the liquidity crisis in the domestic auto industry. The initial symptoms were an unemployment of 7.2% in December 2008 (7.6% in January 2009) and a 3.85% inflation rate.
When Ronald Reagan took office, the recession he faced was more profound, because of the heretofore unimagined combination of unemployment and inflation rising at the same time. The chief causes of that recession were the rising price of oil and instability in the Middle East. The initial symptoms were an unemployment rate of 7.2% in December 1980 (7.5% in January 1981) and a 15.81% inflation rate.
You cannot change what you cannot control. This is the essence of why Reagan’s economics were so radical. Reagan established four general goals he believed were essential to setting a sound economic course:
1 - Reduce the growth of government spending
2 - Reduce the marginal tax rates on income from both labor and capital
3 - Reduce regulation, and
4 - Reduce inflation by controlling the growth of the money supply.
While not perfect in its results, Reagan accomplished all four goals and established conditions for an unprecedented boom in business and prosperity.
Obama’s plan is far less complete, and in spirit opposes every one of Reagan’s goals, by massively increasing government spending, raising taxes on both individuals and corporations, drastically increasing regulation and driving inflation upward, deliberately so in the case of energy and finance costs. Essentially, President Obama is rolling the dice on some old notions of Keynes, hoping that simply spending massive amounts on his pet projects will renew economic prosperity by simply spending money. Any parent with a teenager knows the flaws in such thinking; spending is not desirable in itself, but only when it creates the necessary results. In the individual case, this means you pay the rent or mortgage and you buy your food, before you ever entertain the idea of buying that SUV or investing in that can’t-miss IPO. When a teenager wastes his money, he is depending on his parents to cover his needs, but the parents have to be responsible themselves for keeping sound priorities and enforcing discipline. In the case of the government, it’s necessary for government to be cautious about spending and to think through its goals and abilities before engaging on a new bout of projects. It’s catastrophic, nothing less, when a government becomes reckless in spending and in committing its resources without consideration of the critical needs. Obama’s “stimulus” package spent almost eight hundred billion dollars – before interest – without creating even one private-sector job, without addressing even one home foreclosure in process, and without even addressing consumer confidence. This is the government version of trying to justify spending mortgage money on a hooker.
Everything has to be paid for. That’s as basic as economics gets, yet somehow it gets ignored when government is putting together a budget. Literally trillions of dollars are being committed with no reasonable explanation of how it will be paid. When anyone, even the President, tells you that “only the rich” will see their taxes go up, do the math. There are simply not enough “rich” people to pay all these costs and bear these new taxes.
The historical record warns that the massive tax hikes envisioned by the Obama Administration will result in less revenue than they intend to collect. This is because what gets rewarded gets repeated, and what gets punished stops. And in practical terms, this means that when people and corporations are punished for succeeding financially under US tax law, they will find alternatives to paying taxes. They will move business off-shore, they will stop spending money on goodwill initiatives, they will hire fewer people and pay less to their employees, because the government is destroying their effective business models. Obama’s heavy-handed plan for tax and spending with government in control of every major initiative, has no successful model in practice in the world.
Comparing Barack Obama to Ronald Reagan is pathetic and arrogant, to say the least. While it must be admitted that Obama is a far better actor than Reagan ever was, he cannot hope to be even half the leader that Reagan was.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
The Trust Deficit
Perhaps the most immoral choice made by democrats in the last ten years was the decision to attack Republicans solely on the basis of partisan goals. Consequently, the hundreds of democrats in the House and Senate who voted for the Iraq War feigned indignation at the war’s costs, ignoring success and the threat of terrorism in order to gain political leverage. Pleas by Bush to address Social Security and Medicare reform went unheeded, although democrats would later blame the President for their own dishonesty. Democrats nominated a man they knew to be unprepared for the office, simply because their lust for power was far greater than their last few glimmers of love for their country. Nine of every ten democrats has sold his soul for power, and could not care less how many Americans he hurts, so long as he gets re-elected.
Republicans see the rising anger in the eyes and voices of Americans, and many of them think they can turn this to their advantage in 2010 or 2012. But they forget how far they have left the road of moral leadership. The GOP tolerated Larry Craig, they resisted President Bush when he led like a conservative but rode along when he proposed liberal budgets and found no voice to oppose earmarks or corruption in politics. The GOP likes to imagine they are the party of Reagan, but not one of them evokes comparison with the Gipper. True, John McCain would have been a significantly better choice for President than Barack Obama, but that is only because Obama is so horribly incompetent and dishonest; there was no real conservative among the leading candidates, partly because none of the GOP leadership wanted one. America has not yet forgotten how few of its promises the republican party kept during the years it held power. So only a great fool, which is to say a politician, would imagine that incompetency and dishonesty by democrats would mean a return to the pachyderm’s glory days. It’s just not going to play out that way.
Ronald Reagan was probably the greatest President of the twentieth century, not least because he was the only president to rebuild much of the public trust in the office. But since he left office, the brand has quickly eroded. Some of that comes from character assassination, especially by the mainstream media, but it was also spurred by an incredibly clumsy history of bad judgment, personal arrogance, and rejection of common-sense thinking. It’s difficult to imagine a president counting terrorists and despots as moral equals to democratically-elected leaders, or imagining that Moscow would hold a worldview comparable to that of the average American, or promoting laws to essentially cause banks to ignore risk evaluations in mortgages, or to ignore radical terrorist groups which publicly declare their desire to kill Americans, or that massive government programs would result in effective improvements in education and medicine, or that terrorists should enjoy the same civil rights as decent citizens, or that the best way to create new employment would be to punish the people who create and run companies, but all of those things have happened.
To put it plainly, the American people do not trust the politicians. Democrats grabbed power in 2006 and the White House in 2008 largely by lying about the situation and what they promised to do, but they will only be voted out if the public sees a more trustworthy alternative. If republicans truly want to regain the power they had before, they will have to show that they have reformed and are worthy of the responsibility. As for the democrats, they can and will play on fear and prejudice to hold onto their seats, but in the end this will kill their party unless the few democrats with scruples left, the ones who remember what their party once stood for, reform their party as well. It has become difficult to kill off an obsolete party, but the Whigs died because they became completely useless to the nation; the republicans and democrats had better learn from that history. If things continue as they are now, then no matter who hold office, the public will treat the federal government with all the contempt it has richly earned, and eventually no policy or program will have a chance of success, because its source is an illegitimate government, a bastard set of dictators.
Republicans see the rising anger in the eyes and voices of Americans, and many of them think they can turn this to their advantage in 2010 or 2012. But they forget how far they have left the road of moral leadership. The GOP tolerated Larry Craig, they resisted President Bush when he led like a conservative but rode along when he proposed liberal budgets and found no voice to oppose earmarks or corruption in politics. The GOP likes to imagine they are the party of Reagan, but not one of them evokes comparison with the Gipper. True, John McCain would have been a significantly better choice for President than Barack Obama, but that is only because Obama is so horribly incompetent and dishonest; there was no real conservative among the leading candidates, partly because none of the GOP leadership wanted one. America has not yet forgotten how few of its promises the republican party kept during the years it held power. So only a great fool, which is to say a politician, would imagine that incompetency and dishonesty by democrats would mean a return to the pachyderm’s glory days. It’s just not going to play out that way.
Ronald Reagan was probably the greatest President of the twentieth century, not least because he was the only president to rebuild much of the public trust in the office. But since he left office, the brand has quickly eroded. Some of that comes from character assassination, especially by the mainstream media, but it was also spurred by an incredibly clumsy history of bad judgment, personal arrogance, and rejection of common-sense thinking. It’s difficult to imagine a president counting terrorists and despots as moral equals to democratically-elected leaders, or imagining that Moscow would hold a worldview comparable to that of the average American, or promoting laws to essentially cause banks to ignore risk evaluations in mortgages, or to ignore radical terrorist groups which publicly declare their desire to kill Americans, or that massive government programs would result in effective improvements in education and medicine, or that terrorists should enjoy the same civil rights as decent citizens, or that the best way to create new employment would be to punish the people who create and run companies, but all of those things have happened.
To put it plainly, the American people do not trust the politicians. Democrats grabbed power in 2006 and the White House in 2008 largely by lying about the situation and what they promised to do, but they will only be voted out if the public sees a more trustworthy alternative. If republicans truly want to regain the power they had before, they will have to show that they have reformed and are worthy of the responsibility. As for the democrats, they can and will play on fear and prejudice to hold onto their seats, but in the end this will kill their party unless the few democrats with scruples left, the ones who remember what their party once stood for, reform their party as well. It has become difficult to kill off an obsolete party, but the Whigs died because they became completely useless to the nation; the republicans and democrats had better learn from that history. If things continue as they are now, then no matter who hold office, the public will treat the federal government with all the contempt it has richly earned, and eventually no policy or program will have a chance of success, because its source is an illegitimate government, a bastard set of dictators.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Apology for Poor Post Production
I have a cold, an 8-year-old preparing for her first TAKS tests, and I am also working on my presentation for my MBA Case Competition later this semester. As a result, what blog posts I have attempted to produce have generally been below acceptable, and as a result I have been slow in posting this month. I hope to improve production as circumstances improve.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
The Lord of Business
People are scared, really scared. The US economy is enduring a recession at a time of multiple crises, the Administration which took office less than a month ago has shown no grasp of even the fundamental facts and forces at work, and the Congress has added a massive spending bill which has no direct effect at all on any of the root causes. Europe is also in trouble, with rising unemployment and its own financial crisis. Japan has lost more than twelve percent of its GDP in the last year, and China has laid off more than twenty million workers because of the global crisis. There is fear in the finance sector, in housing, in retail, manufacturing, and in government. Unemployment is rising in every industrialized nation and concerns about the future heighten almost daily. Some folks are even saying that the debt is so great, that all the money in the world cannot pay it.
And it is at that point of worry and doubt, that the pressure in my mind is abruptly relieved, and I realize we are trying to control too much. Money, after all, is an artificial construct, a human device used to describe and direct an intangible force. For all our formulae, theories, and even our experience, it must be understood that money is not something we can completely control; at best we can influence it, and we are not at our best just now.
That’s not to say that the effects of mistakes are not real. Indeed they are, but when seeking to address large-scale problems, even multiple crises as we see here, we must understand our limits, and more to the point remember that there is one who controls the Reality beyond our comprehension. Yes, I am talking about God.
God and Finance are not often paired together, and most of the time that they are, it is by a speaker who holds commerce in rather strong contempt. But we should know better. Abraham was beloved of God, and God made Abraham a wealthy man. God made Job wealthy, and David, Solomon, and countless other righteous men. It’s a sin to love money, but not to succeed in business. It’s wrong to ignore the needs of others, but no sin to provide for your family and community. Further, if biblical accounts are to be believed, the Lord has often shown favor to individuals, in business as well as other endeavors. The book of Genesis notes the rise of Joseph on the strength of business acumen, the same for Abraham, Job, and so on. Details are not given, so I am not about to try to sell the notion that the Bible has a blueprint that anyone can use to get rich, but I am saying that there seem to be forces at work that we can only partly comprehend, let alone control. The Bible contained the instruction for the year of jubilee, in which all debts were forgiven. It may seem simplistic to us, but such a model allows for people to look forward to a point in time when they can put mistakes and bad fortune behind them. Without such a model, it becomes difficult for a person to recover from even a single bad event, if it should be large or long enough in severity or duration. The careful reader may even note aspects of the modern bankruptcy code in the ‘jubilee’ concept.
So what concrete advice would I give to our leaders, as we wrestle with this present situation? Millions of families are in danger of poverty, or losing their homes, and of seeing their life savings disappear, and these are real, undeniable problems which demand effective, immediate answers. Is it as simple as praying to the Lord and trusting Him? Essentially, yes.
I do not mean pray and wait for the Lord to make it happen while we sit around and do nothing. Sorry folks, but we are here to work, and work we must, but I will surely say it’s a far sight better to know we have a patron who cares for our welfare, who wants us to do well, and who hears our prayers – and answers. We may not understand the answer, we may well not like the answer, but we shall be answered, and we shall find our way according to His grace. Those who refuse to ask His help will do as they choose, but I would not invest my money with anyone who thinks he can out-think God.
It also helps, I think, to consider whether what we are doing is pleasing to the Lord. I don’t think many of us would be foolish enough to imagine that the Lord considers alcohol and immoral entertainment to be as worthy a place for our investment as construction and manufacturing, much less spending money to help protect children from disease and support farms. Don’t spend money that is not yours, make sure you are honest and complete in reporting to investors what you do with their money. Old-fashioned values, those, but that’s what made us a strong country in the first place.
Pray to God, and get to work. And don’t worry about the politicians, in the end they will either get right with God or they just won’t matter.
And it is at that point of worry and doubt, that the pressure in my mind is abruptly relieved, and I realize we are trying to control too much. Money, after all, is an artificial construct, a human device used to describe and direct an intangible force. For all our formulae, theories, and even our experience, it must be understood that money is not something we can completely control; at best we can influence it, and we are not at our best just now.
That’s not to say that the effects of mistakes are not real. Indeed they are, but when seeking to address large-scale problems, even multiple crises as we see here, we must understand our limits, and more to the point remember that there is one who controls the Reality beyond our comprehension. Yes, I am talking about God.
God and Finance are not often paired together, and most of the time that they are, it is by a speaker who holds commerce in rather strong contempt. But we should know better. Abraham was beloved of God, and God made Abraham a wealthy man. God made Job wealthy, and David, Solomon, and countless other righteous men. It’s a sin to love money, but not to succeed in business. It’s wrong to ignore the needs of others, but no sin to provide for your family and community. Further, if biblical accounts are to be believed, the Lord has often shown favor to individuals, in business as well as other endeavors. The book of Genesis notes the rise of Joseph on the strength of business acumen, the same for Abraham, Job, and so on. Details are not given, so I am not about to try to sell the notion that the Bible has a blueprint that anyone can use to get rich, but I am saying that there seem to be forces at work that we can only partly comprehend, let alone control. The Bible contained the instruction for the year of jubilee, in which all debts were forgiven. It may seem simplistic to us, but such a model allows for people to look forward to a point in time when they can put mistakes and bad fortune behind them. Without such a model, it becomes difficult for a person to recover from even a single bad event, if it should be large or long enough in severity or duration. The careful reader may even note aspects of the modern bankruptcy code in the ‘jubilee’ concept.
So what concrete advice would I give to our leaders, as we wrestle with this present situation? Millions of families are in danger of poverty, or losing their homes, and of seeing their life savings disappear, and these are real, undeniable problems which demand effective, immediate answers. Is it as simple as praying to the Lord and trusting Him? Essentially, yes.
I do not mean pray and wait for the Lord to make it happen while we sit around and do nothing. Sorry folks, but we are here to work, and work we must, but I will surely say it’s a far sight better to know we have a patron who cares for our welfare, who wants us to do well, and who hears our prayers – and answers. We may not understand the answer, we may well not like the answer, but we shall be answered, and we shall find our way according to His grace. Those who refuse to ask His help will do as they choose, but I would not invest my money with anyone who thinks he can out-think God.
It also helps, I think, to consider whether what we are doing is pleasing to the Lord. I don’t think many of us would be foolish enough to imagine that the Lord considers alcohol and immoral entertainment to be as worthy a place for our investment as construction and manufacturing, much less spending money to help protect children from disease and support farms. Don’t spend money that is not yours, make sure you are honest and complete in reporting to investors what you do with their money. Old-fashioned values, those, but that’s what made us a strong country in the first place.
Pray to God, and get to work. And don’t worry about the politicians, in the end they will either get right with God or they just won’t matter.
Can You Read This?
Google has blocked me from seeing my own blog. I can post, but I cannot read my own blog.
Just out of curiosity, can you read this? Just curious about what's going on.
Thanks.
Just out of curiosity, can you read this? Just curious about what's going on.
Thanks.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Junk Economics
An online magazine called “The Week” posted an article by an eonomist about why he thinks the Stimulus Package passed by Congress last week will actually help the economy. For all my suspicions regarding President Obama and the frat boys at the Hill, Omnis Porcinus Modo, I would like to believe that there is actually some genuine interest in addressing the economic crisis, rather than just stuffing their own pockets and feeding their special interests with money desperately needed for better purposes. The writer was Brad Delong, and your first warning sign is that the professor hails from U.C. Berkeley. Things do not get better from there, but it’s still useful to look at his article, since it reflects the self-deluding mindset of the Left, how they can lie to themselves and push this fraud on the people.
The first lie by Delong comes early; he describes the bill as “$500 billion in extra government spending, and $300 billion in tax cuts”. Unfortunately, examination of the bill shows no real tax “cuts” to speak of. A genuine tax cut is a reduction in the tax rate. Everything related to taxes in the bill, however, comes down to either a credit applied to taxes, or special-interest exemptions for government contractors and one-time payments to state and local governments in exchange for permanent federal conditions on state and local government operations (which smells a lot like a violation of the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution). No reduction of tax rates or payment of any money exists for tax payers, in relation to the taxes paid or their identity as citizens. None whatsoever, so there are zero actual tax cuts in the bill. None whatsoever.
Delong has to know this, given his academic credentials and on the assumption that only a complete moron or a democrat would support so large and expensive a bill without at least reading it first. Delong compares government to “some group or another” who creates an era “in which production and employment are high and unemployment is low”. One wonders how Delong can imagine it, but he repeats his assertion that the federal government is “just like any other group of starry-eyed optimists whose eagerness to spend pulls the economy into a high-employment, high-pressure boom.”
Delong compares the present Porkfest to the housing boom (before 2005) and the Internet boom (before 1998). He contends, without bothering to lay out why he sees the comparison as valid, that simply spending tax money will create this boom – Delong crows that “the government’s money, after all, is as good as anybody else’s”.
But is it, leaving aside for a moment the fact that it's not the government's money, but the people's money we are discussing here? Delong claims that this bill should be compared to Reagan’s defense spending in the 1980s, or any number of private-company investments. But that’s cherry-picking at best; Delong makes no mention of the massive spending during the Vietnam War on defense, or the huge amounts of money spent on Welfare, Medicare, and the War on Drugs. Financially, all of those could be most charitably described as failures, characterized by inept or dishonest management and a lack of effective oversight. Delong knows this, yet chooses not to mention the evidence which not only weakens his claim, but which warns that government spending is, in the main, a bad idea when taken to extremes. Delong forgets that most economists now recognize that FDR’s policies of the 1930s not only did not help end the Great Depression, they extended the suffering for several years. The bill passed by Congress last week lays almost eight hundred billion dollars of debt on an already weary taxpayer, not to mention the interest on the thing, and for that there is not one penny spent to actually save a home facing foreclosure, create any private-sector jobs, or restore value to the stock market. Read the bill for yourself, and see how much it ignores the crisis that Obama himself said we could not afford to put off facing.
Perhaps some of that spending is worthy, even important. But none of it, not one penny, goes to address the most serious problems facing our nation today. And President Obama himself observed that one of the greatest threats we must face now is the massive deficit, yet in one stroke he has more than doubled it, for no need at all.
Government is inherently wasteful and inefficient. Remember the press reports about thousand-dollar hammers and ten-thousand dollar toilets? Remember hearing how the government could not even account for much of the money spent on Welfare? How many times have we heard about money designated for schools or police but spent on something it was never meant for? The problem is not the intent of the people crafting the program, it’s that large-scale programs run by people with no relevant experience or proven ability will always, always, waste resources, especially money.
If you want to understand why government is wasteful by its nature, consider any large company. There are different departments in that company, some which produce revenue and others which do not produce revenue. The manufacturing group, for example, creates value by turning raw resources into the product to sell, increasing the value by that work. On the other hand, the accounting department does not produce revenue. It is a necessary function, since the company needs to report on its actions and results, but accountants do not bring in money. The same for management; they can be valuable to the company, even vital, but they do not bring money in by their function. So, the company has to make enough money in its revenue-producing departments to cover the ones which don’t make money. Also, any successful company needs to trim fat and get rid of unnecessary costs. The motive to do that is the fact that waste eats profits and makes a company weaker.
Government is like a non-revenue-producing department of the company, in this case the company is the U.S. Economy. At its best, government provides vital functions for defense, safety, and law enforcement. At its worst, government eats tax money for no benefit to the country. There are three problems which make government more wasteful than private business, however. First, private business has top management in place to pursue one set of goals and objectives, while in government there are at two major political parties at work, with very different goals and objectives, as well as a horde of little empire-builders who cannot easily be fired and who consider themselves unanswerable to anyone. Second, all public corporations must submit annual reports with audited financial data complying with specific statutes carrying clear penalties for violations. Government has never submitted annual reports worthy of the name, since the United States government has never even pretended to follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). And third, all businesses which operate to make a profit are compelled by necessity to provide some product or service or both that the public will agree to purchase with money. If the public is not convinced to buy what the company sells, it’s over right there. Government, on the other hand, can and does compel its will upon the public, sometimes egregiously so. It’s no surprise at all to see a politician pay attention to the voters when he wants re-election, but not one politician asked for genuine public feedback on this swinefest of a bill before the vote.
Government eats money and lies. Always has, always will. This bill that Congress passed last week (a product of the democratic party, greed, and nothing else) is a deceitful crime against America. Anyone who would support it is criminal, incompetent, or both. But at least this article by Dr. Delong shows us the spin we can expect from the Left.
The first lie by Delong comes early; he describes the bill as “$500 billion in extra government spending, and $300 billion in tax cuts”. Unfortunately, examination of the bill shows no real tax “cuts” to speak of. A genuine tax cut is a reduction in the tax rate. Everything related to taxes in the bill, however, comes down to either a credit applied to taxes, or special-interest exemptions for government contractors and one-time payments to state and local governments in exchange for permanent federal conditions on state and local government operations (which smells a lot like a violation of the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution). No reduction of tax rates or payment of any money exists for tax payers, in relation to the taxes paid or their identity as citizens. None whatsoever, so there are zero actual tax cuts in the bill. None whatsoever.
Delong has to know this, given his academic credentials and on the assumption that only a complete moron or a democrat would support so large and expensive a bill without at least reading it first. Delong compares government to “some group or another” who creates an era “in which production and employment are high and unemployment is low”. One wonders how Delong can imagine it, but he repeats his assertion that the federal government is “just like any other group of starry-eyed optimists whose eagerness to spend pulls the economy into a high-employment, high-pressure boom.”
Delong compares the present Porkfest to the housing boom (before 2005) and the Internet boom (before 1998). He contends, without bothering to lay out why he sees the comparison as valid, that simply spending tax money will create this boom – Delong crows that “the government’s money, after all, is as good as anybody else’s”.
But is it, leaving aside for a moment the fact that it's not the government's money, but the people's money we are discussing here? Delong claims that this bill should be compared to Reagan’s defense spending in the 1980s, or any number of private-company investments. But that’s cherry-picking at best; Delong makes no mention of the massive spending during the Vietnam War on defense, or the huge amounts of money spent on Welfare, Medicare, and the War on Drugs. Financially, all of those could be most charitably described as failures, characterized by inept or dishonest management and a lack of effective oversight. Delong knows this, yet chooses not to mention the evidence which not only weakens his claim, but which warns that government spending is, in the main, a bad idea when taken to extremes. Delong forgets that most economists now recognize that FDR’s policies of the 1930s not only did not help end the Great Depression, they extended the suffering for several years. The bill passed by Congress last week lays almost eight hundred billion dollars of debt on an already weary taxpayer, not to mention the interest on the thing, and for that there is not one penny spent to actually save a home facing foreclosure, create any private-sector jobs, or restore value to the stock market. Read the bill for yourself, and see how much it ignores the crisis that Obama himself said we could not afford to put off facing.
Perhaps some of that spending is worthy, even important. But none of it, not one penny, goes to address the most serious problems facing our nation today. And President Obama himself observed that one of the greatest threats we must face now is the massive deficit, yet in one stroke he has more than doubled it, for no need at all.
Government is inherently wasteful and inefficient. Remember the press reports about thousand-dollar hammers and ten-thousand dollar toilets? Remember hearing how the government could not even account for much of the money spent on Welfare? How many times have we heard about money designated for schools or police but spent on something it was never meant for? The problem is not the intent of the people crafting the program, it’s that large-scale programs run by people with no relevant experience or proven ability will always, always, waste resources, especially money.
If you want to understand why government is wasteful by its nature, consider any large company. There are different departments in that company, some which produce revenue and others which do not produce revenue. The manufacturing group, for example, creates value by turning raw resources into the product to sell, increasing the value by that work. On the other hand, the accounting department does not produce revenue. It is a necessary function, since the company needs to report on its actions and results, but accountants do not bring in money. The same for management; they can be valuable to the company, even vital, but they do not bring money in by their function. So, the company has to make enough money in its revenue-producing departments to cover the ones which don’t make money. Also, any successful company needs to trim fat and get rid of unnecessary costs. The motive to do that is the fact that waste eats profits and makes a company weaker.
Government is like a non-revenue-producing department of the company, in this case the company is the U.S. Economy. At its best, government provides vital functions for defense, safety, and law enforcement. At its worst, government eats tax money for no benefit to the country. There are three problems which make government more wasteful than private business, however. First, private business has top management in place to pursue one set of goals and objectives, while in government there are at two major political parties at work, with very different goals and objectives, as well as a horde of little empire-builders who cannot easily be fired and who consider themselves unanswerable to anyone. Second, all public corporations must submit annual reports with audited financial data complying with specific statutes carrying clear penalties for violations. Government has never submitted annual reports worthy of the name, since the United States government has never even pretended to follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). And third, all businesses which operate to make a profit are compelled by necessity to provide some product or service or both that the public will agree to purchase with money. If the public is not convinced to buy what the company sells, it’s over right there. Government, on the other hand, can and does compel its will upon the public, sometimes egregiously so. It’s no surprise at all to see a politician pay attention to the voters when he wants re-election, but not one politician asked for genuine public feedback on this swinefest of a bill before the vote.
Government eats money and lies. Always has, always will. This bill that Congress passed last week (a product of the democratic party, greed, and nothing else) is a deceitful crime against America. Anyone who would support it is criminal, incompetent, or both. But at least this article by Dr. Delong shows us the spin we can expect from the Left.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Barack Obama - The O stands for Zero Honesty
“The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook” – August 28, 2008
“95% of working families will get a tax cut” – September 26, 2008
“I will put an end to lobbyists and special interests in Washington” – October 7, 2008
“What I’ve done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut” - October 15, 2008
“I have been a strong proponent of pay-as- you-go. Every dollar that I've proposed, I've proposed an additional cut so that it matches.” – October 15, 2008
“to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.” - November 4, 2008
“[The stimulus plan] contains an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability so that every American will be able to go online and see where and how we're spending every dime. What it does not contain, however, is a single pet project, not a single earmark, and it has been stripped of the projects members of both parties found most objectionable.” – February 9, 2009
“So my bottom line when it comes to the recovery package is: Send me a bill that creates or saves 4 million jobs. Because everybody has to be possessed with a sense of urgency about putting people back to work, making sure that folks are staying in their homes, that they can send their kids to college.” – February 9, 2009
Obama’s own words, nothing but lies.
“95% of working families will get a tax cut” – September 26, 2008
“I will put an end to lobbyists and special interests in Washington” – October 7, 2008
“What I’ve done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut” - October 15, 2008
“I have been a strong proponent of pay-as- you-go. Every dollar that I've proposed, I've proposed an additional cut so that it matches.” – October 15, 2008
“to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.” - November 4, 2008
“[The stimulus plan] contains an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability so that every American will be able to go online and see where and how we're spending every dime. What it does not contain, however, is a single pet project, not a single earmark, and it has been stripped of the projects members of both parties found most objectionable.” – February 9, 2009
“So my bottom line when it comes to the recovery package is: Send me a bill that creates or saves 4 million jobs. Because everybody has to be possessed with a sense of urgency about putting people back to work, making sure that folks are staying in their homes, that they can send their kids to college.” – February 9, 2009
Obama’s own words, nothing but lies.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
President Faust
Somewhere back in 2006, I became fascinated by Senator Barack Obama. While I am a firm Republican and Conservative, and a strong supporter of President Bush, I was impressed with the emergence of a Democratic party candidate who spoke about the need for rising above petty differences, and the opportunity for a national dialogue based on the needs of the country, rather than the self-serving business of politics as usual. If he meant what he said, and if this naïve-sounding young man could manage his work to match his claims, the promise of a new era in government seemed to be within grasp. I believe many millions of Americans believed in that promise, and trusted Senator Obama to be what he claimed to be.
Unfortunately, the many promises broken already by Obama make it increasingly obvious that Barack Obama had no intention of living up to the high ideals he used to get elected. Republicans discovered that ‘bipartisan’ meant having liberal pork orgies shoved down their throats, with a complicit media blaming as ‘obstructionist’ anyone conscientious enough to point out that the ‘stimulus’ bill was useless for its intended purposes and in its main effect as toxic as the mortgages which launched the recession. Democrats discovered that ‘closing Gitmo’ really meant sometime in the future, with rendition and relocation to similar camps very much in discussion. And apolitical people discovered lies in Obama’s promise to have all bills fully available to the public for five days of debate and discussion, and in his promise to respect all reasonable positions and opinions in policy matters. President Obama’s excuse for eviscerating his ideals immediately after taking office? “I won”, says Obama, demonstrating his clear alignment with Niccolo Macchiavelli … or perhaps more accurately Dr. Johann Faust.
For those unfamiliar with the legend, Dr. Faust sold his soul to the devil in exchange for a number of diabolical favors, including wealth and power. Considering his station and stature just ten years ago, a man might reasonably wonder how Barack Obama, for all his talents, managed to gain so much money and rise so fast on such feeble accomplishments as he has. More to the point, it seems that our modern Faust has it in mind to have someone else pay his debt, in this case the nation.
The text of this devil’s pact is here. The $790 billion bill includes (just for Title I of twenty-three separate titles in the Bill), $24 million for new buildings for the Dept. of Agriculture, $176 million for “agricultural research”, $50 million in “additional salaries” for Dept. of Agriculture employees, $145 million for “floodplain easements” (taking private land), an additional $145 million for the Agriculture Dept. general fund, $11.4 billion for “section 502” direct and unsubsidized guaranteed loans for homes (but only for the “rural housing insurance fund”), $200 million for administrative costs in applying the home loan money, $1.6 billion for the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act, $2.5 billion to build broadband networks in rural areas, $100 million for the National School Lunch program, with another $400 million set aside for the Secretary of Education to use as he sees fit, another $150 million for the “Emergency Food Assistance” program for public schools, and $5 million for food assistance to Indian Reservations. That’s $16.895 billion dollars just for that first section, and not a penny of that creates even a single private-sector job, protects the public from loss of their investments or savings, or protects even a single house from foreclosure in any metropolitan area.
Title II hands out money to the Commerce and Justice departments, spending $13.02 billion, of which only one billion dollars is meant to be used to hire anyone – to be used to “hire and rehire” police officers to be used for special initiatives – governments are specifically prohibited from using this money for street patrol, routine criminal investigations, or any nominal law enforcement function. The rest is spent on administrative costs, government oversight, and new buildings or renovations.
Title III applies to the Department of Defense. $4.555 billion is allocated for research, operation and maintenance.
So, through just the first three titles $34.47 billion has been spent, and while some of the programs could be argued as important and necessary, not a penny of this money has been spent to address the three crises of mortgages in major population areas, solvency of the financial network, and unemployment in the private sector. Just as Doctor Faust wanted to do good things for his fellow man but failed because his fundamental assumptions were wrong, so too President Obama has chosen exactly the wrong tool, as he fails to understand that his position is by definition dishonest, since he uses a false claim to support massive spending that, less than a year ago, he himself understood could not be supported by the economy in place at this time. His demand for one-party dominance belies his promise to rise above partisan politics. His lies prove the character beneath his veneer. Like Faust, Obama cannot succeed in his dreams but continues to lie to himself that he can get out of his contract, that good intentions are sufficient excuse for whatever his sins.
But unlike Faust, Obama may be able to drag the country down with him when he goes.
Unfortunately, the many promises broken already by Obama make it increasingly obvious that Barack Obama had no intention of living up to the high ideals he used to get elected. Republicans discovered that ‘bipartisan’ meant having liberal pork orgies shoved down their throats, with a complicit media blaming as ‘obstructionist’ anyone conscientious enough to point out that the ‘stimulus’ bill was useless for its intended purposes and in its main effect as toxic as the mortgages which launched the recession. Democrats discovered that ‘closing Gitmo’ really meant sometime in the future, with rendition and relocation to similar camps very much in discussion. And apolitical people discovered lies in Obama’s promise to have all bills fully available to the public for five days of debate and discussion, and in his promise to respect all reasonable positions and opinions in policy matters. President Obama’s excuse for eviscerating his ideals immediately after taking office? “I won”, says Obama, demonstrating his clear alignment with Niccolo Macchiavelli … or perhaps more accurately Dr. Johann Faust.
For those unfamiliar with the legend, Dr. Faust sold his soul to the devil in exchange for a number of diabolical favors, including wealth and power. Considering his station and stature just ten years ago, a man might reasonably wonder how Barack Obama, for all his talents, managed to gain so much money and rise so fast on such feeble accomplishments as he has. More to the point, it seems that our modern Faust has it in mind to have someone else pay his debt, in this case the nation.
The text of this devil’s pact is here. The $790 billion bill includes (just for Title I of twenty-three separate titles in the Bill), $24 million for new buildings for the Dept. of Agriculture, $176 million for “agricultural research”, $50 million in “additional salaries” for Dept. of Agriculture employees, $145 million for “floodplain easements” (taking private land), an additional $145 million for the Agriculture Dept. general fund, $11.4 billion for “section 502” direct and unsubsidized guaranteed loans for homes (but only for the “rural housing insurance fund”), $200 million for administrative costs in applying the home loan money, $1.6 billion for the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act, $2.5 billion to build broadband networks in rural areas, $100 million for the National School Lunch program, with another $400 million set aside for the Secretary of Education to use as he sees fit, another $150 million for the “Emergency Food Assistance” program for public schools, and $5 million for food assistance to Indian Reservations. That’s $16.895 billion dollars just for that first section, and not a penny of that creates even a single private-sector job, protects the public from loss of their investments or savings, or protects even a single house from foreclosure in any metropolitan area.
Title II hands out money to the Commerce and Justice departments, spending $13.02 billion, of which only one billion dollars is meant to be used to hire anyone – to be used to “hire and rehire” police officers to be used for special initiatives – governments are specifically prohibited from using this money for street patrol, routine criminal investigations, or any nominal law enforcement function. The rest is spent on administrative costs, government oversight, and new buildings or renovations.
Title III applies to the Department of Defense. $4.555 billion is allocated for research, operation and maintenance.
So, through just the first three titles $34.47 billion has been spent, and while some of the programs could be argued as important and necessary, not a penny of this money has been spent to address the three crises of mortgages in major population areas, solvency of the financial network, and unemployment in the private sector. Just as Doctor Faust wanted to do good things for his fellow man but failed because his fundamental assumptions were wrong, so too President Obama has chosen exactly the wrong tool, as he fails to understand that his position is by definition dishonest, since he uses a false claim to support massive spending that, less than a year ago, he himself understood could not be supported by the economy in place at this time. His demand for one-party dominance belies his promise to rise above partisan politics. His lies prove the character beneath his veneer. Like Faust, Obama cannot succeed in his dreams but continues to lie to himself that he can get out of his contract, that good intentions are sufficient excuse for whatever his sins.
But unlike Faust, Obama may be able to drag the country down with him when he goes.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Would You?
A thought about food in times of tribulation:
In 1941 Poland, it was a capital crime to give food to a Jew.
In 1967 China, it was a capital crime to give food to a Christian.
In 1972 Siberia, it was a capital crime in a gulag for an inmate to give food to a political prisoner.
In 1994 Rwanda, people were killed for sheltering or feeding Tutsi tribe members.
Would you risk your life to feed an outcast?
In 1941 Poland, it was a capital crime to give food to a Jew.
In 1967 China, it was a capital crime to give food to a Christian.
In 1972 Siberia, it was a capital crime in a gulag for an inmate to give food to a political prisoner.
In 1994 Rwanda, people were killed for sheltering or feeding Tutsi tribe members.
Would you risk your life to feed an outcast?
Saturday, February 14, 2009
National Bribery and Guilt Day
Yes, it’s that day again, when various industries conspire to assure you that if you really love that special someone, you will spend more money than you can afford on things that person neither needs nor has specifically said they even want. After all, if you really want to help someone improve their life condition, flowers that will die soon, candy that will rot their teeth and clog their arteries, and jewelry that will spend most of its time in a box inside a larger case somewhere are not really going to be the way to go. Of course, it’s not considered “romantic” if you don’t spend prime dollars on florists, choclatiers, and bling. This con game goes on every year, and somehow millions of Americans play along.
So if you’re wondering how Obama and the Donkey Congress decided to sell their Graft N’ Pork bill as some kind of ‘emergency economic stimulus’, just look at the fraud that is Valentine’s day, and you should see the template they used. In their case, however, the recipient of all that useless bilge is also expected to pay for it.
Makes ya wanna whack Cupid upside the head, doesn’t it?
So if you’re wondering how Obama and the Donkey Congress decided to sell their Graft N’ Pork bill as some kind of ‘emergency economic stimulus’, just look at the fraud that is Valentine’s day, and you should see the template they used. In their case, however, the recipient of all that useless bilge is also expected to pay for it.
Makes ya wanna whack Cupid upside the head, doesn’t it?
Thursday, February 12, 2009
The Lincoln Lunch
***
I was sitting at my desk late this morning, trying to decide when to take lunch, when an tall, lanky, and unexpected visitor sat down and scowled at me.
“May I help you?” I asked him. He leaned forward and extended a long arm to shake my hand.
“I need to talk to someone” he said, “I am exceptionally agitated and I think you may be able to assist me in recovering my composure, prior to the many unpleasant actions I am presently contemplating..”
“You have me at a disadvantage” I answered to the thin yet powerful man before me, “I apologize for anything I may have done to anger you, but I confess I am at a loss-”
The man stopped me with an upraised hand and a kinder expression.
“My apologies, sir. I did not mean to imply that you were the cause of my present discomfiture. It is the man who now holds my job and makes a mockery of my home and name … and on my birthday yet!”
Without thinking, I blurted “Strange, it’s Lincoln’s birthday today, and a tall thin strong guy like you could pass for –”
He stopped me again, this time with a chuckle, and an uncanny thought caught me as he spoke:
“Well, I have lost many things over time, but I should like to keep my own name, sir.
“Mister President?” I ventured.
Abe Lincoln shrugged. “I suppose I may still claim the honorific, though it has been a long time since I performed the office.
“Although the present occupant is certainly working to diminish the honor in that title.”
“So you are not a fan of President Obama?” I inquired.
“Not in the slightest” said Lincoln. “There is always room for gentlemen to disagree on points and in opinion, but the man is disparagement incarnate. His efforts are a slur upon the profession of law, the White House, the great state of Illinois, and against his people."
“Which efforts specifically?”, I asked Mister Lincoln.
“Where has he not been so?” countered Lincoln. “Every one of his gestures has been in connivance of election or contempt of his duty. He is willing to lay more taxes on people already burdened beyond what they can carry, he sees no sin in saying something to one man to gain his favor, and something else at another time, with no commitment to keep his word to anyone at all.”
“That makes him an ordinary politician, so far”, I suggested.
““But he promised to be different” countered Lincoln. “Remember ‘post-partisanship’? Remember when he wanted to be ‘everyone’s president’? I said it myself long ago: If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.” .
“So you’re angry at President Obama” I said, in my usual slow grasp of the obvious.
“Well, I am also hungry. If you do not mind, could we go to Kim Son?” asked Lincoln. “I seldom get to try oriental food, but I have found I am fond of Dim Sum.”
So I and the sixteenth President of the United States, both of us wearing chinos and golf shirts, walked over to the Asian restaurant and enjoyed a lunch buffet which included Sushi, Dim Sum, and a variety of soups and noodles, finishing with sweetened tofu for dessert. After a time, Lincoln leaned back in his seat and smiled.
“I have eaten more in this meal than I usually eat in a day,” he said. “I was going to remark on the fact that despite being a foot shorter than me, you have me outdone in weight, but with food like this available, anyone would have to resist that temptation to eat too well.”.
I am a little sensitive to comments about my weight, and I did not want Mr. Lincoln to observe how many people maneged to keep their weight down, so I redirected our conversation to the original topic.
“When you first arrived sir, you mentioned that you thought I might be able to assist you with regard to our current President.”
Lincoln nodded somberly.
“He is an unprepared man, and surrounded by poor counsel.” opined Lincoln. “I fear what sort of course he will set under such conditions.”
“To be fair,” I said, “A lot historians say that your cabinet and advisers, especially your generals, were similarly limited in their abilities.”
Lincoln grimaced.
“But I could at least recognize a fool, and call him out for it” he said. “I could almost imagine that this Obama fellow seeks out inadequate men for his circle, in order that his own image may shine more brilliantly.
“I have seen it many times before.” finished Lincoln.
“So what can we do about it?” I asked. “Obama’s the President and he has the Congress backing him.”
“But he is wrong” said Lincoln flatly. “To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men. Where is the party of Conscience?”
“I think they’re on sabbatical” I answered. “The Republicans have not exactly been listening to the people, either.”
Lincoln became angry.
“ No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent” he asserted strongly. “What manner of country have we now, when the people have no voice in their own affairs, and whole generations may be consigned without even the pretense of true democracy?”
“Things are dicey right now with the economy, and Obama is playing on that.” I told Lincoln. “It started when housing started to get risky, the government forcing banks to offer loans to people who could not possibly pay them back, and banks getting greedy trying to play on the ‘everyone gets an easy mortgage’ theme.”
Lincoln sighed. “I warned people years ago about just this kind of thing.” Lincoln shook his head. “You may not believe it, but I once said, ‘let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.’ As I recall, it was tough to help people understand even then.”
Lincoln’s eyes blazed as he continued. “I know this theme playing out now, we have surely seen it many times before, but you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
“As difficult as it may sound, you must let men succeed or fail on their own efforts. Government should even the field, so each man has his chance, but inevitably to cushion men is to cripple them.”
Lincoln stood to leave, and shook my hand.
“So, where next?” I asked him.
“The library, I should think.” answered Lincoln.
“Have you considered visiting President Obama yourself?” I suggested. “Surely you could help him see the mistakes he is making by confronting him directly.”
Lincoln’s shoulders shrank. “He will not see me. He only has time for his friends and flunkies. I saw someone dressed up as me acting out the ceremony of my birthday, though poorly done and a buffoon to play the part. I think it was Will Farrell, in which case I should be offended.”
I was sitting at my desk late this morning, trying to decide when to take lunch, when an tall, lanky, and unexpected visitor sat down and scowled at me.
“May I help you?” I asked him. He leaned forward and extended a long arm to shake my hand.
“I need to talk to someone” he said, “I am exceptionally agitated and I think you may be able to assist me in recovering my composure, prior to the many unpleasant actions I am presently contemplating..”
“You have me at a disadvantage” I answered to the thin yet powerful man before me, “I apologize for anything I may have done to anger you, but I confess I am at a loss-”
The man stopped me with an upraised hand and a kinder expression.
“My apologies, sir. I did not mean to imply that you were the cause of my present discomfiture. It is the man who now holds my job and makes a mockery of my home and name … and on my birthday yet!”
Without thinking, I blurted “Strange, it’s Lincoln’s birthday today, and a tall thin strong guy like you could pass for –”
He stopped me again, this time with a chuckle, and an uncanny thought caught me as he spoke:
“Well, I have lost many things over time, but I should like to keep my own name, sir.
“Mister President?” I ventured.
Abe Lincoln shrugged. “I suppose I may still claim the honorific, though it has been a long time since I performed the office.
“Although the present occupant is certainly working to diminish the honor in that title.”
“So you are not a fan of President Obama?” I inquired.
“Not in the slightest” said Lincoln. “There is always room for gentlemen to disagree on points and in opinion, but the man is disparagement incarnate. His efforts are a slur upon the profession of law, the White House, the great state of Illinois, and against his people."
“Which efforts specifically?”, I asked Mister Lincoln.
“Where has he not been so?” countered Lincoln. “Every one of his gestures has been in connivance of election or contempt of his duty. He is willing to lay more taxes on people already burdened beyond what they can carry, he sees no sin in saying something to one man to gain his favor, and something else at another time, with no commitment to keep his word to anyone at all.”
“That makes him an ordinary politician, so far”, I suggested.
““But he promised to be different” countered Lincoln. “Remember ‘post-partisanship’? Remember when he wanted to be ‘everyone’s president’? I said it myself long ago: If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.” .
“So you’re angry at President Obama” I said, in my usual slow grasp of the obvious.
“Well, I am also hungry. If you do not mind, could we go to Kim Son?” asked Lincoln. “I seldom get to try oriental food, but I have found I am fond of Dim Sum.”
So I and the sixteenth President of the United States, both of us wearing chinos and golf shirts, walked over to the Asian restaurant and enjoyed a lunch buffet which included Sushi, Dim Sum, and a variety of soups and noodles, finishing with sweetened tofu for dessert. After a time, Lincoln leaned back in his seat and smiled.
“I have eaten more in this meal than I usually eat in a day,” he said. “I was going to remark on the fact that despite being a foot shorter than me, you have me outdone in weight, but with food like this available, anyone would have to resist that temptation to eat too well.”.
I am a little sensitive to comments about my weight, and I did not want Mr. Lincoln to observe how many people maneged to keep their weight down, so I redirected our conversation to the original topic.
“When you first arrived sir, you mentioned that you thought I might be able to assist you with regard to our current President.”
Lincoln nodded somberly.
“He is an unprepared man, and surrounded by poor counsel.” opined Lincoln. “I fear what sort of course he will set under such conditions.”
“To be fair,” I said, “A lot historians say that your cabinet and advisers, especially your generals, were similarly limited in their abilities.”
Lincoln grimaced.
“But I could at least recognize a fool, and call him out for it” he said. “I could almost imagine that this Obama fellow seeks out inadequate men for his circle, in order that his own image may shine more brilliantly.
“I have seen it many times before.” finished Lincoln.
“So what can we do about it?” I asked. “Obama’s the President and he has the Congress backing him.”
“But he is wrong” said Lincoln flatly. “To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men. Where is the party of Conscience?”
“I think they’re on sabbatical” I answered. “The Republicans have not exactly been listening to the people, either.”
Lincoln became angry.
“ No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent” he asserted strongly. “What manner of country have we now, when the people have no voice in their own affairs, and whole generations may be consigned without even the pretense of true democracy?”
“Things are dicey right now with the economy, and Obama is playing on that.” I told Lincoln. “It started when housing started to get risky, the government forcing banks to offer loans to people who could not possibly pay them back, and banks getting greedy trying to play on the ‘everyone gets an easy mortgage’ theme.”
Lincoln sighed. “I warned people years ago about just this kind of thing.” Lincoln shook his head. “You may not believe it, but I once said, ‘let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.’ As I recall, it was tough to help people understand even then.”
Lincoln’s eyes blazed as he continued. “I know this theme playing out now, we have surely seen it many times before, but you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
“As difficult as it may sound, you must let men succeed or fail on their own efforts. Government should even the field, so each man has his chance, but inevitably to cushion men is to cripple them.”
Lincoln stood to leave, and shook my hand.
“So, where next?” I asked him.
“The library, I should think.” answered Lincoln.
“Have you considered visiting President Obama yourself?” I suggested. “Surely you could help him see the mistakes he is making by confronting him directly.”
Lincoln’s shoulders shrank. “He will not see me. He only has time for his friends and flunkies. I saw someone dressed up as me acting out the ceremony of my birthday, though poorly done and a buffoon to play the part. I think it was Will Farrell, in which case I should be offended.”
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Barack Obama, Bauer-Wanna-Be
Barack Obama thinks Jack Bauer is cool. He must, because the President is obviously trying to be like him in pursuing his agenda.
Jack Bauer started out in the first couple seasons as the head agent of CTU, a shadowy group who did pretty much as they pleased, accountable to no one, although Bauer was in frequent communication with the President, a tall urbane black man with no apparent qualifications for the job beyond his ability to speak seriously in deep tones. Barack Obama has made it clear he feels entitled to do as he pleases (“I won”, he reminds those who question his strident partisan tone), and he is accountable to no one. Barack Obama is also a tall urbane black man with no apparent qualifications for the job beyond his ability to speak seriously in deep tones, although we have yet to see Obama in an Allstate commercial.
Many of Jack Bauer’s discussions begin along the lines of “listen to me carefully and do exactly what I tell you to do.” Many of Obama’s early directives and orders are similarly lacking in debate and consideration of alternatives. As far as Obama is concerned, only his opinion matters. It’s not like he thinks he’s a dictator or some kind of king, though – he’s just following after what Jack would do.
Jack Bauer has an effective way of cutting through annoying details like discussing whether his plan is an effective solution to the crisis or just a risky bit of ego and arrogance, by assuring people that “there’s no time!”. President Obama has no interest in discussing alternatives or defending the massive pork in his “stimulus” bill, so he simply warns that failure to do as he demands could lead to “catastrophe”. Yet somehow Obama lacks Bauer’s panache’ when he tries that line. In fact, he begins to look distinctly uncool, almost Jimmy-Carterish in his clear inability to explain his program’s functions and defend it’s cost.
Barack Obama’s essential mistake is that just as Jack Bauer does not in fact exist, so too Obama’s explanation of his stimulus program is built using fictions and bald-faced lies. The Congressional Budget Office is no fan of Obama’s plan, warning that “President Obama's economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing”.
Worse, Obama’s plan does not directly help people who have already been impacted the most by the recession and financial crisis:
• The crisis began with the sub-prime mortgage crisis, with many Americans losing their homes to foreclosure; the stimulus package offers nothing to address these conditions, but instead offers a tax credit for people buying homes, although someone who has lost their home to foreclosure will be very unlikely to be in a position to buy another one anytime soon.
• The secondary crisis for many Americans is the devaluation of their 401k accounts and the plummeting value of their homes. But rather than create a plan which protects the remaining savings and encourages thrift, the Obama plan depends on spurring spending, even when households cannot afford to spend money on the obligations they already have.
• The scariest part of the recession so far, is the loss of jobs. President Obama himself has repeatedly said that the top priority needs to be creating new jobs. But the stimulus plan endorsed by Obama does not create jobs to match the need. Much of the money spent is not going to create jobs at all. The Wall Street Journal observed that $90 billion is going straight to Medicare, another $79 billion to supplement state revenues, and $43 billion for government transportation projects already underway. The WSJ notes that the little bit designed to create jobs will have no effect until late 2009 at the earliest.
No one points out the hypocrisy in rushing to avoid debate on a bill because of urgent need, when that bill will not even begin to do what is promised for half a year or more, if it works at all.
• The bill which just passed the Senate will cost every American who still has a job about $8800 in new taxes, plus interest. This at a time when everyone admits spending needs to be cut and no one can afford extra burdens.
That’s the biggest difference between Obama and Jack Bauer. When Bauer gets to be old or unbelievable, you can just turn off the TV. Obama plans to be controlling your life and eating out your wallet for a long, long time to come.
Jack Bauer started out in the first couple seasons as the head agent of CTU, a shadowy group who did pretty much as they pleased, accountable to no one, although Bauer was in frequent communication with the President, a tall urbane black man with no apparent qualifications for the job beyond his ability to speak seriously in deep tones. Barack Obama has made it clear he feels entitled to do as he pleases (“I won”, he reminds those who question his strident partisan tone), and he is accountable to no one. Barack Obama is also a tall urbane black man with no apparent qualifications for the job beyond his ability to speak seriously in deep tones, although we have yet to see Obama in an Allstate commercial.
Many of Jack Bauer’s discussions begin along the lines of “listen to me carefully and do exactly what I tell you to do.” Many of Obama’s early directives and orders are similarly lacking in debate and consideration of alternatives. As far as Obama is concerned, only his opinion matters. It’s not like he thinks he’s a dictator or some kind of king, though – he’s just following after what Jack would do.
Jack Bauer has an effective way of cutting through annoying details like discussing whether his plan is an effective solution to the crisis or just a risky bit of ego and arrogance, by assuring people that “there’s no time!”. President Obama has no interest in discussing alternatives or defending the massive pork in his “stimulus” bill, so he simply warns that failure to do as he demands could lead to “catastrophe”. Yet somehow Obama lacks Bauer’s panache’ when he tries that line. In fact, he begins to look distinctly uncool, almost Jimmy-Carterish in his clear inability to explain his program’s functions and defend it’s cost.
Barack Obama’s essential mistake is that just as Jack Bauer does not in fact exist, so too Obama’s explanation of his stimulus program is built using fictions and bald-faced lies. The Congressional Budget Office is no fan of Obama’s plan, warning that “President Obama's economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing”.
Worse, Obama’s plan does not directly help people who have already been impacted the most by the recession and financial crisis:
• The crisis began with the sub-prime mortgage crisis, with many Americans losing their homes to foreclosure; the stimulus package offers nothing to address these conditions, but instead offers a tax credit for people buying homes, although someone who has lost their home to foreclosure will be very unlikely to be in a position to buy another one anytime soon.
• The secondary crisis for many Americans is the devaluation of their 401k accounts and the plummeting value of their homes. But rather than create a plan which protects the remaining savings and encourages thrift, the Obama plan depends on spurring spending, even when households cannot afford to spend money on the obligations they already have.
• The scariest part of the recession so far, is the loss of jobs. President Obama himself has repeatedly said that the top priority needs to be creating new jobs. But the stimulus plan endorsed by Obama does not create jobs to match the need. Much of the money spent is not going to create jobs at all. The Wall Street Journal observed that $90 billion is going straight to Medicare, another $79 billion to supplement state revenues, and $43 billion for government transportation projects already underway. The WSJ notes that the little bit designed to create jobs will have no effect until late 2009 at the earliest.
No one points out the hypocrisy in rushing to avoid debate on a bill because of urgent need, when that bill will not even begin to do what is promised for half a year or more, if it works at all.
• The bill which just passed the Senate will cost every American who still has a job about $8800 in new taxes, plus interest. This at a time when everyone admits spending needs to be cut and no one can afford extra burdens.
That’s the biggest difference between Obama and Jack Bauer. When Bauer gets to be old or unbelievable, you can just turn off the TV. Obama plans to be controlling your life and eating out your wallet for a long, long time to come.
Monday, February 09, 2009
The Good, the Bad, and Obama
First, some good news. This country has been through some really, really tough times in its history, and we have always gotten through them. Being a man of faith, I count that as grace from God, with more than a little bit of American character seeing us through, the stubborn refusal to give up on what is right and true, and the unyielding belief that this country exists for a noble purpose, one not dependent on the moment or on popular opinion. We will pay for our mistakes and make some more along the way, but in the end we will prevail.
Now the bad news. While I have read of such times, never in my personal experience have I seen the nation so superficial and concerned with trivial matters as now, and never before have I see our elected officials as disinterested in their sworn duty to the people as I do now. That’s in both parties, not just the ones in power now. While there are still some good men and women in federal office, they are fewer now than I have ever seen before. The majority have no concern about the cost they lay on the taxpayers, they care only for winning their own re-election by any means necessary. They care nothing for what is coming when Social Security collapses, what will happen when the world sees we will no longer keep our commitments to defend our friends and root out terrorists in their own training and recruiting grounds, or what will happen when the government finally asks Americans to pay for a system which rewards corruption and greed while punishing individual success and self-reliance.
And then there is Barack Obama. His minions shouted down those who dared to point out his utter lack of experience and poor choice of associates, as racists and hate-mongers. It quickly became ‘obstructionist’ for anyone to follow up on Obama’s promises or question how he would accomplish his grand vision, which was quietly and quickly deleted from his web site as each proved too difficult, too unrealistic, or a total impossibility. Perhaps he will grow into the job, but thus far he has shown remarkably poor judgment, a shallow understanding of the major issues, and an inability to lead in office to anything like the image he cast as a candidate.
Now the bad news. While I have read of such times, never in my personal experience have I seen the nation so superficial and concerned with trivial matters as now, and never before have I see our elected officials as disinterested in their sworn duty to the people as I do now. That’s in both parties, not just the ones in power now. While there are still some good men and women in federal office, they are fewer now than I have ever seen before. The majority have no concern about the cost they lay on the taxpayers, they care only for winning their own re-election by any means necessary. They care nothing for what is coming when Social Security collapses, what will happen when the world sees we will no longer keep our commitments to defend our friends and root out terrorists in their own training and recruiting grounds, or what will happen when the government finally asks Americans to pay for a system which rewards corruption and greed while punishing individual success and self-reliance.
And then there is Barack Obama. His minions shouted down those who dared to point out his utter lack of experience and poor choice of associates, as racists and hate-mongers. It quickly became ‘obstructionist’ for anyone to follow up on Obama’s promises or question how he would accomplish his grand vision, which was quietly and quickly deleted from his web site as each proved too difficult, too unrealistic, or a total impossibility. Perhaps he will grow into the job, but thus far he has shown remarkably poor judgment, a shallow understanding of the major issues, and an inability to lead in office to anything like the image he cast as a candidate.
Friday, February 06, 2009
An Unprepared President
President Obama is not off to a good start. Not since Nixon has a sitting President blamed his inability to get his agenda rolling on individual media types, and even Nixon did not go this far overboard until about 1973, five years into his Presidency. Obama did not even make five weeks before telling Republicans he could not work with them if they listened to radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The issue is not whether Limbaugh is a self-important blowhard (he is); it’s that the President of the United States diminishes himself and his office to obsess about an individual citizen, especially one not elected to any office. Obama has effectively raised the profile of Limbaugh to his own national image. It’s worth noting that despite years of jibes and taunts from Limbaugh, President Clinton never let anyone sense that he considered Limbaugh a big deal. Will an ‘enemies list’ be next for Obama?
I have not listened to Rush Limbaugh for a long time. Not my taste these days. If Obama had realized that even many conservatives are not all that inspired by El Rushbo, he might have been able to work things out with the Right before careening into this present mess he’s made, but then again all indications are that despite campaign promises of “post-partisanship”, Obama never intended Republican participation in government to be anything more than getting conned or dragged into backing his agenda. Again, a more experienced politico would have seen the dangers of thinking he can fly his programs in reality the way they play out in planning, but Obama was elected partly because he has no resume.
Obama is also in trouble because of the “stimulus” bill sitting in the Senate right now. First warning sign was when Obama’s press secretary started backing off and trying to separate the White House from “the bill in Congress”; a hint that Obama was surprised by the flak he was taking. Second problem was Obama’s mistake in blaming Republicans for not backing his plan, trying to bully his way to victory by casting them as opposed to recovery by opposing his plan. The reason it was a mistake was twofold – first, public support for the bill is dropping, as it fails to show just how all this spending is supposed to result in new jobs, especially when so many are needed to revive the economy, and second because it betrays the political spin of the bill.
Three essential political facts exist about the stimulus bill:
1. Democrats have majorities in both the House and Senate, they do not need a single Republican vote
2. Because of heavy Democrat majorities, the bill will include massive spending and promote liberal policies
3. The Democrats have tried hard to get Republicans to sign onto the bill, in order to sell it as “bi-partisan”
The Democrats do not need Republicans to get their bill passed, so why the sell to get them on-board? Because this bill won’t create jobs, won’t put money into the pockets of ordinary Americans, and will cost a lot in future taxes. Democrats need Republicans’ names on the vote so they can deflect the blame when it comes. But Republicans have figured out that there is no way they can support this bill – it is really nothing more than a massive theft of taxpayer money, and the only way that Republicans can win is to oppose it. If the bill works Democrats will take credit, all of it, no matter whether Republicans sign on or not, and if it fails the way it looks sure to do, anyone connected to it is in real trouble. Consequently, the Republican strategy is to oppose the bill, to force either radical changes to avoid the disastrous course the White House is now on, or to put on record that this bill belongs completely to Obama and the Democrats. Obama failed to understand the need to compromise to get what you want, and as a result is left with the choice of giving up major portions of his bill or accepting full responsibility for its likely failure, responsibility which would forbode real and serious consequences in the 2010 midterm elections. The Republicans are usually clumsy at political floorplay, but Obama has shown incredibly poor foresight and judgment in not seeing this long ago.
The real problem for Obama is beginning to appear, one he never expected to see after being elected – the dissolution of his political capital. Obama first gained prominence by winning against the Clinton machine, which made his team the dominant force in the Democratic party. His increasing strength during the general campaign gave Obama the aura of an irresistible force, and a lot of politicians signed onto his entourage in the expectation that his agenda would sweep in a new era of Democratic and Liberal control, not seen since the days of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. But less than a month after taking office, Obama has made a series of blunders – nominees with serious problems that disqualified them from consideration, the appearance of narcissistic indifference to the disaster in Kentucky and the Ozarks, not visiting the towns struck by the storm or making a point to mention the suffering and deaths, and now his clumsy inability to sell his first major initiative. The gleam of the Obama veneer is already fading and his obvious petulance at the early cracks in the Democrats’ efforts to shove the bill through without any real debate or effective opposition warns of a man less capable than the job requires.
I have not listened to Rush Limbaugh for a long time. Not my taste these days. If Obama had realized that even many conservatives are not all that inspired by El Rushbo, he might have been able to work things out with the Right before careening into this present mess he’s made, but then again all indications are that despite campaign promises of “post-partisanship”, Obama never intended Republican participation in government to be anything more than getting conned or dragged into backing his agenda. Again, a more experienced politico would have seen the dangers of thinking he can fly his programs in reality the way they play out in planning, but Obama was elected partly because he has no resume.
Obama is also in trouble because of the “stimulus” bill sitting in the Senate right now. First warning sign was when Obama’s press secretary started backing off and trying to separate the White House from “the bill in Congress”; a hint that Obama was surprised by the flak he was taking. Second problem was Obama’s mistake in blaming Republicans for not backing his plan, trying to bully his way to victory by casting them as opposed to recovery by opposing his plan. The reason it was a mistake was twofold – first, public support for the bill is dropping, as it fails to show just how all this spending is supposed to result in new jobs, especially when so many are needed to revive the economy, and second because it betrays the political spin of the bill.
Three essential political facts exist about the stimulus bill:
1. Democrats have majorities in both the House and Senate, they do not need a single Republican vote
2. Because of heavy Democrat majorities, the bill will include massive spending and promote liberal policies
3. The Democrats have tried hard to get Republicans to sign onto the bill, in order to sell it as “bi-partisan”
The Democrats do not need Republicans to get their bill passed, so why the sell to get them on-board? Because this bill won’t create jobs, won’t put money into the pockets of ordinary Americans, and will cost a lot in future taxes. Democrats need Republicans’ names on the vote so they can deflect the blame when it comes. But Republicans have figured out that there is no way they can support this bill – it is really nothing more than a massive theft of taxpayer money, and the only way that Republicans can win is to oppose it. If the bill works Democrats will take credit, all of it, no matter whether Republicans sign on or not, and if it fails the way it looks sure to do, anyone connected to it is in real trouble. Consequently, the Republican strategy is to oppose the bill, to force either radical changes to avoid the disastrous course the White House is now on, or to put on record that this bill belongs completely to Obama and the Democrats. Obama failed to understand the need to compromise to get what you want, and as a result is left with the choice of giving up major portions of his bill or accepting full responsibility for its likely failure, responsibility which would forbode real and serious consequences in the 2010 midterm elections. The Republicans are usually clumsy at political floorplay, but Obama has shown incredibly poor foresight and judgment in not seeing this long ago.
The real problem for Obama is beginning to appear, one he never expected to see after being elected – the dissolution of his political capital. Obama first gained prominence by winning against the Clinton machine, which made his team the dominant force in the Democratic party. His increasing strength during the general campaign gave Obama the aura of an irresistible force, and a lot of politicians signed onto his entourage in the expectation that his agenda would sweep in a new era of Democratic and Liberal control, not seen since the days of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. But less than a month after taking office, Obama has made a series of blunders – nominees with serious problems that disqualified them from consideration, the appearance of narcissistic indifference to the disaster in Kentucky and the Ozarks, not visiting the towns struck by the storm or making a point to mention the suffering and deaths, and now his clumsy inability to sell his first major initiative. The gleam of the Obama veneer is already fading and his obvious petulance at the early cracks in the Democrats’ efforts to shove the bill through without any real debate or effective opposition warns of a man less capable than the job requires.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
A Thought About Why So Few People Stand Up for Ideals
My ancestors were Anabaptists from Scotland. Having been treated as slaves by their brutish British overlords, they had no love for anyone who thought he had the right to own other people. So it was natural for them to become abolitionists, and militant about the christian duty to fight against Slavery and all such tyrannies. They volunteered for the Civil War eagerly, seeing in it their opportunity to back their ideals with actions.
More than a dozen men of my family went to that war - two survived, and both of them maimed by their injuries. Their valor left the family with no one to manage their land, and so they lost it, no one to bring about new generations, and so many of the lines simply died out. The men who survived the war, indeed made money from it, were the same men who became notorious "carpetbaggers" from the North and who formed groups like the Klan in the South. To stand for universal human ideals was to risk losing all, and many men did just that.
And many people have learned that cruel lesson, over and over again, that to stand up in such a world is to risk being hammered down. It's easy to speak your opinion when you are risking nothing, and when you have many friends around to back you up. It's a rare man, even today, who will dare to be unpopular, let alone truly risk himself to help someone who is cast as an undesirable.
More than a dozen men of my family went to that war - two survived, and both of them maimed by their injuries. Their valor left the family with no one to manage their land, and so they lost it, no one to bring about new generations, and so many of the lines simply died out. The men who survived the war, indeed made money from it, were the same men who became notorious "carpetbaggers" from the North and who formed groups like the Klan in the South. To stand for universal human ideals was to risk losing all, and many men did just that.
And many people have learned that cruel lesson, over and over again, that to stand up in such a world is to risk being hammered down. It's easy to speak your opinion when you are risking nothing, and when you have many friends around to back you up. It's a rare man, even today, who will dare to be unpopular, let alone truly risk himself to help someone who is cast as an undesirable.
Monday, February 02, 2009
Punxsutawney Phil Banned by White House
Gobbler's Knob (ONN) - After seeing his shadow and forecasting six more weeks of winter, eminent groundhog Punxsutawney Phil was condemned by President Obama and banned from all future participation in events supported with federal funds. Explaining the move, Obama said “This is a time of unprecedented crisis and we are obligated to work together to advance my agenda for the good of the nation. I won, not that overfed hamster, and he has no business obstructing my plans. Besides, I’m from Hawaii and all this snow and ice is harshing my mellow. Everything will be fine just as soon as you all agree with me!”
Federal authorities installed a replacement guru-groundhog, a New York product which some observers said bore a striking resemblance to former Illinois Governor Blagojevich. The substitute fur-faced prophet toed the party line, not only predicting imminent spring, but also that Obama would cause job creation by his desire alone that it should be so, and that anyone who disagreed with The One was “a hater like Rush Limbaugh”. The New York audience was not notably impressed.
Back in Pennsylvania, Phil refused all questions from the media but did attempt to chew off Keith Olbermann’s face, to the delight of the crowd. “Sure and that’s what happened to Helen Thomas as well” claimed an anonymous citizen.
No real groundhogs were harmed in the making of this parody.
Federal authorities installed a replacement guru-groundhog, a New York product which some observers said bore a striking resemblance to former Illinois Governor Blagojevich. The substitute fur-faced prophet toed the party line, not only predicting imminent spring, but also that Obama would cause job creation by his desire alone that it should be so, and that anyone who disagreed with The One was “a hater like Rush Limbaugh”. The New York audience was not notably impressed.
Back in Pennsylvania, Phil refused all questions from the media but did attempt to chew off Keith Olbermann’s face, to the delight of the crowd. “Sure and that’s what happened to Helen Thomas as well” claimed an anonymous citizen.
No real groundhogs were harmed in the making of this parody.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
An Unending War
Thursday was an interesting day, if a long one. I spent it speaking with various doctors, and discussing my prognosis with Dr. Paul Mansfield at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Before speaking with Dr. Mansfield, however, I reviewed my test results with Dr. Fournier. It’s a nasty bit of a reminder, to see the proof that the little mutants are still there, not doing anything that needs an immediate response but there all the same. I have mentioned before that I am lucky, yet it’s never over. I can do most normal things that anyone does, but then again the word ‘normal’ changed forever for me.
No, it’s not a medical blog thing, but I take the present crisis very seriously, pretty much the same way. We’re never going to be ‘normal’ again, not the way it used to men. Not the financial crisis, which in the end comes down to the usual foolishness of people not doing their homework in how they invest their money and the usual con men cheating them because of it, the usual government people seizing the chance to spend tax money on things we don’t need and can’t really afford, in order to pay off the people they owe for their political careers, and the usual media inability to give us facts, instead trying their best to exaggerate every bump in order to get ratings, and the eventual exasperation in general when all these facts finally become too obvious to ignore anymore. We will survive this mess because we always do.
But there are groups, and governments as well, who think the world would be better if a lot of Americans died, and if the US was castrated militarily and economically. They are supported by enemies within the US as well as without. They hurt us badly on 09/11/01, and our traitors showed their colors by pretending America deserved it, and that our response should be apology and surrender. That war has not ended, nor will it in our lifetimes.
We have no choice but to win.
No, it’s not a medical blog thing, but I take the present crisis very seriously, pretty much the same way. We’re never going to be ‘normal’ again, not the way it used to men. Not the financial crisis, which in the end comes down to the usual foolishness of people not doing their homework in how they invest their money and the usual con men cheating them because of it, the usual government people seizing the chance to spend tax money on things we don’t need and can’t really afford, in order to pay off the people they owe for their political careers, and the usual media inability to give us facts, instead trying their best to exaggerate every bump in order to get ratings, and the eventual exasperation in general when all these facts finally become too obvious to ignore anymore. We will survive this mess because we always do.
But there are groups, and governments as well, who think the world would be better if a lot of Americans died, and if the US was castrated militarily and economically. They are supported by enemies within the US as well as without. They hurt us badly on 09/11/01, and our traitors showed their colors by pretending America deserved it, and that our response should be apology and surrender. That war has not ended, nor will it in our lifetimes.
We have no choice but to win.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Jobs, Education and Policy
Charge more but offer less. That’s essentially the game plan thrown out by John E Potter to Congress this week, as the Postmaster General of the USPS once again admitted that his organization is incompetent, corrupt, and bloated.
What’s significant is not that a government bureaucracy would – as usual – refuse to address the causes of its problems (once again it appears that accountability, like paying taxes, is only for the ‘little people’), but that Congress is an accomplice in that denial. This is evidenced by the new “stimulus” bill, which provides pretty close to nothing for the average American but saddles the nation with nearly another trillion dollars in debt. That’s not to say the first one was a great idea, but at least that one involved getting money to people and it is – theoretically – paid for by reductions in this year’s tax refunds (if you have not read through your tax instructions for this year, get ready for a shock – the government is all about taking your money, and they are determined to do just that, no matter what they say in front of the cameras). The new “stimulus” includes a mess of government spending which does all but nothing to help mainstream American businesses and communities, and which effects won’t be seen for two to three years, and a tax-cut component which basically rewards people who don’t pay taxes, and does nothing for employers who need help finding a way to keep the employees they have now, let alone hire any new ones. Unemployment, alas, is also not a problem for the bureaucrat to worry about, but one of those things that only hit those unfortunates who work to support their families.
I have been thinking about this mess, and the heart of things is unemployment. If folks lose jobs, they worry and spend less, which in turn hurts the economy and causes more job loss. The only way to stop that cycle is for enough people to get new jobs that the people getting jobs outnumber the people still losing jobs. Well, it should surprise no one that our good elected officials in Congress lied to us; they’re not going to help in the jobs market, not least because they never really could help. Ask anyone who has been in a hiring position, and they will tell you that government never significantly impacts the job market. Government jobs fall into three broad categories – the military, bloated over-staffed positions that could be better done by private companies, and pure pork positions which do nothing but eat tax money. Jobs are always available, even during the Depression some companies were hiring, but to get those jobs you had to be in the right place at the right time, but you also had to be well-qualified. And sorry, “well-qualified” means being able to do the job and to prove your credentials, not being the right race or gender or culture.
There’s a lot of whining about jobs going overseas or jobs that do not pay well. And there are groups which exist solely to force companies to provide jobs to people who frankly are not interested in working hard, and to pay a “living wage”, which always means about twice as much as the job is worth. Look, imagine you were going to buy a car, and you chose the Hyundai over the Mercedes because you couldn’t afford the Benz. “Living wage” is the same thing as someone coming up and telling you that even though you bought the Hyundai, you have to pay the Mercedes price, just because they want you to do that. Same logic, folks. If you want a job that pays a certain amount of money, then you best get off your butt and make your services worth that kind of coin. A high school diploma and a resume that shows nothing more complicated that customer service and jobs that primarily involve data entry, are not jobs that lead to high pay or security.
There are really only three ways to get a good-paying job, and by the way, a job that is less likely to get cut in a recession. One way is to develop a necessary expertise that is in short supply. The problem there is that over time those niches get filled, look at what happened to IT. The second way is to be related or a really good friend to the owner of a successful business. The other 99.99% of us will move on. The last way is to continue your education.
Now, ‘education’ is a trite word, and I am not saying what we hear so often from job counselors, that getting a degree (or an advanced degree) will by itself mean a better career. I personally knew a couple guys with doctorates who could not hold long-term jobs at decent pay. I mean that we all have brains, which are meant to be used effectively at important tasks. In third grade that means book reports, at the Masters’ level that means a defensible thesis, but in the real world of employment that means doing a bit of research and analysis on the community and environment you have, and making informed choices on your strategy and actions. I did not choose to earn my MBA because some Godmother in a glittering tutu promised I would be rich if I did, I chose that path on the basis of Houston’s economy, the relative proportion of MBA-holders to significant positions in management in my industry, and after discussion on the issue with some people whose opinion I value. After my MBA, will take a few more courses and then sit for my CPA license exams, which decision was made in a similar manner. And as the years go by, I will further add coursework and continuing education to my resume in order to stay current not only in my field, but to be aware of business conditions where I live and work.
It is significant to consider now the effect of policy. For long-term meaningful employment, a person must have appropriate and continuing education, and they must be proactive in using their knowledge. This strategy not only makes the individual more valuable, it improves the company which hires that person, and as a whole the nation becomes more competitive in global commerce. It should be noted, however, that the government does not support this strategy, except at the level of lip service. If the government would like to really address unemployment and the nation’s long-term interests, then there needs to be a ‘stimulus’ program which benefits education quality for working Americans who want better employment and those who will soon enter the workforce, rather than payoffs to Abortion clinics.
What’s significant is not that a government bureaucracy would – as usual – refuse to address the causes of its problems (once again it appears that accountability, like paying taxes, is only for the ‘little people’), but that Congress is an accomplice in that denial. This is evidenced by the new “stimulus” bill, which provides pretty close to nothing for the average American but saddles the nation with nearly another trillion dollars in debt. That’s not to say the first one was a great idea, but at least that one involved getting money to people and it is – theoretically – paid for by reductions in this year’s tax refunds (if you have not read through your tax instructions for this year, get ready for a shock – the government is all about taking your money, and they are determined to do just that, no matter what they say in front of the cameras). The new “stimulus” includes a mess of government spending which does all but nothing to help mainstream American businesses and communities, and which effects won’t be seen for two to three years, and a tax-cut component which basically rewards people who don’t pay taxes, and does nothing for employers who need help finding a way to keep the employees they have now, let alone hire any new ones. Unemployment, alas, is also not a problem for the bureaucrat to worry about, but one of those things that only hit those unfortunates who work to support their families.
I have been thinking about this mess, and the heart of things is unemployment. If folks lose jobs, they worry and spend less, which in turn hurts the economy and causes more job loss. The only way to stop that cycle is for enough people to get new jobs that the people getting jobs outnumber the people still losing jobs. Well, it should surprise no one that our good elected officials in Congress lied to us; they’re not going to help in the jobs market, not least because they never really could help. Ask anyone who has been in a hiring position, and they will tell you that government never significantly impacts the job market. Government jobs fall into three broad categories – the military, bloated over-staffed positions that could be better done by private companies, and pure pork positions which do nothing but eat tax money. Jobs are always available, even during the Depression some companies were hiring, but to get those jobs you had to be in the right place at the right time, but you also had to be well-qualified. And sorry, “well-qualified” means being able to do the job and to prove your credentials, not being the right race or gender or culture.
There’s a lot of whining about jobs going overseas or jobs that do not pay well. And there are groups which exist solely to force companies to provide jobs to people who frankly are not interested in working hard, and to pay a “living wage”, which always means about twice as much as the job is worth. Look, imagine you were going to buy a car, and you chose the Hyundai over the Mercedes because you couldn’t afford the Benz. “Living wage” is the same thing as someone coming up and telling you that even though you bought the Hyundai, you have to pay the Mercedes price, just because they want you to do that. Same logic, folks. If you want a job that pays a certain amount of money, then you best get off your butt and make your services worth that kind of coin. A high school diploma and a resume that shows nothing more complicated that customer service and jobs that primarily involve data entry, are not jobs that lead to high pay or security.
There are really only three ways to get a good-paying job, and by the way, a job that is less likely to get cut in a recession. One way is to develop a necessary expertise that is in short supply. The problem there is that over time those niches get filled, look at what happened to IT. The second way is to be related or a really good friend to the owner of a successful business. The other 99.99% of us will move on. The last way is to continue your education.
Now, ‘education’ is a trite word, and I am not saying what we hear so often from job counselors, that getting a degree (or an advanced degree) will by itself mean a better career. I personally knew a couple guys with doctorates who could not hold long-term jobs at decent pay. I mean that we all have brains, which are meant to be used effectively at important tasks. In third grade that means book reports, at the Masters’ level that means a defensible thesis, but in the real world of employment that means doing a bit of research and analysis on the community and environment you have, and making informed choices on your strategy and actions. I did not choose to earn my MBA because some Godmother in a glittering tutu promised I would be rich if I did, I chose that path on the basis of Houston’s economy, the relative proportion of MBA-holders to significant positions in management in my industry, and after discussion on the issue with some people whose opinion I value. After my MBA, will take a few more courses and then sit for my CPA license exams, which decision was made in a similar manner. And as the years go by, I will further add coursework and continuing education to my resume in order to stay current not only in my field, but to be aware of business conditions where I live and work.
It is significant to consider now the effect of policy. For long-term meaningful employment, a person must have appropriate and continuing education, and they must be proactive in using their knowledge. This strategy not only makes the individual more valuable, it improves the company which hires that person, and as a whole the nation becomes more competitive in global commerce. It should be noted, however, that the government does not support this strategy, except at the level of lip service. If the government would like to really address unemployment and the nation’s long-term interests, then there needs to be a ‘stimulus’ program which benefits education quality for working Americans who want better employment and those who will soon enter the workforce, rather than payoffs to Abortion clinics.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
On War Against Terrorists, Part 3
There are more than one billion professed Muslims in the world. US Intelligence says that at its height, Al Qaeda numbered perhaps fifty thousand members and another hundred thousand supporting persons. That works out to about 0.015% of all Muslims. If all terrorist groups and – let’s be generous – all radical Islamist groups which desire to attack the West and Israel are counted, that number reaches a total of perhaps ten million people, or just 1.0% of all Muslims. While Islam has many factions which are hostile to American values and policies, it must be understood at the outset that the overwhelming majority of Muslims have effectively nothing in common with terrorists. The common complaint from the West that Muslims must protest the behavior of terrorist groups misses the point that most Muslims already consider terrorists to be well beyond the pale, so that protesting against them would make no more sense than believing that young white Christian men should disavow any connection to Ted Bundy, Timothy McVeigh, or Charles Manson – it should not be necessary to state the obvious.
This is not to claim that the Muslims are just like Christians, except for a few different customs and spiritual practices. Islam is a strongly evangelistic faith, based on the belief that only Islam is true in God’s eyes, all other beliefs being in error or outright rebellion against God. Tradition is revered in Islam, because Islamic law (Sharia) is rooted in the teachings of the Prophet Muhammed and his hand-picked disciples and successors (the Caliphs). This is roughly comparable to the old Roman Catholic practice of considering the Church of Rome to hold the full authority of Peter as granted by the word of Jesus Christ Himself, back in the day when the Pope could call up armies to kill in the name of God. It should be noted, however, that the Caliphs of Islam are long removed to the past, so that no current Imam has the authority to speak for all of Islam. From time to time, someone gets bold enough to declare himself the Mahdi, basically the Muslim equivalent of the Messiah, which effort up to now has invariably resulted in a bloody war of conquest, ending in the death of the false Mahdi and his supporters. This point is significant, in the light of reports that the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been pushing to have himself proclaimed the Mahdi of Islam or Twelfth Imam (the ‘hidden Imam’). This is not merely narcissism, but also a power play intended to promote the ascendancy of the Iranian race, the Aryans (yes, those Ayrans) as the natural leaders of Islam. Ahmadinejad appears to be playing Sunni against Shia in order to advance a racial caste to the top, conveniently his own. While to Western eyes and ears this kind of claim may appear laughable, there are various accounts which purport to describe the physical appearance of the Mahdi, and Ahmadinejad has been spinning the ones which happen to work in his favor (not all of them do, of course).
Ahmadinejad’s attempts to spin himself as a spiritual leader are part of the Middle East political movement renewing state ties to religion. This is actually a periodic cycle for the region, dating back to the Islamic Caliphates prior to the Fatimad Empire, which shifted the center of power to Egypt and created a meritocracy in the government. This secularization was further continued by the Khan invasions of the thirteenth century, which saw the Mamluks come to power through their defense of the nation (note, defense of the nation, not the faith). Later, Islam became influential in politics again under the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughul empires, but as the names imply, this regional division of power devolved the unity of Islam still further.
Following the first World War, the Ottoman Empire essentially collapsed, and the vacuum was partly addressed by the rise of Wahhabism, a movement begun in the eighteenth century which argued that Muslims were being punished by Allah for an impure faith. It is important to understand that the leader of that movement allied himself with one Abdul Ibn Saud, who successfully claimed the territory of present-day Saudi Arabia for himself, and not coincidentally this territory included the two holiest places in Islam, the cities of Mecca and Medina. Saud’s success seemed to indicate that radical Islam could prevail over the colonial powers, restoring Muslims to their rightful control of their own land.
To Muslim eyes after World War 2, modern history shows the consistent rise of Muslim power, from the removal of colonial powers, to the end of secular masters, to the increased wealth and power worldwide of Islamist states. The existence of Israel and the annoying habit of Americans in demanding that their views become global polity aside, the leaders of the Islamist movement came to believe that their power and influence would only increase, and all that was left to do was to simply follow through.
‘Following through’ did not work out so well. Attempts to invade and destroy Israel failed over and over again, and frequently cost the Muslim forces much more than it did the Israelis. The various oil crises posed threats to the United States, but they too seemed to end to the Americans’ advantage. The Islamists have a bad knack of choosing the wrong friends, from Germany in both World Wars, business negotiators who could not see beyond the end of the decade, and religious leaders whose extreme ideology made their doctrines inpracticible in any real sense. Unfortunately, rather than admit errors and rethink the strategy, the Islamists in positions of power reacted with hostility and malice. It is no random fact that the Muslim Brotherhood, which engaged in small-scale murders and thuggery in the 1920s, evolved into more elaborate and extensive conspiracies to topple undesirable regimes (e.g. the Shah), blackmail wealthy families into bankrolling terrorist operations (Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Egypt, especially), and seek to eradicate western presence through violence and intimidation.
The western response also evolved. Early capitulation in paying ransoms and acceptance of hard-line Muslim dogma (such as refusing to do business with Jews, women, or blacks in positions of importance as corporate representatives) became less attractive as groups became less mercenary and more bloodthirsty. American businesses began demanding better protection from their own government, and mercenary armies came into being to protect western compounds and facilities. Eventually, this need to protect American interests influenced official policy under the Reagan and Bush Administrations. Even the Clinton Administration supported sub rosa operations, which were accepted by Middle East governments because they did not embarrass the officials personally. But by the end of the twentieth century, it was becoming apparent that terrorist groups had taken on a new dimension; the façade of legitimacy.
The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza territory is a solid example of what happens when terrorists are allowed to gain political power and to present themselves as the duly elected representatives of the people. But Hamas is not the first group to play this role. Elements of the PLO, Islamic Jihad, and of course Al Qaeda have all played the game of diplomat, in some cases becoming able to claim the image of respectability, as seen in Afghanistan under the Taliban, the Sudan, and Yemen. This was a tipping point for the George W. Bush Administration, the concern that the sense of control in their own territory would lead to attacks on American soil. This concern, of course, was built in large part on the character and scale of the 9/11 attacks. The profile of the conflict, as well as the stakes, changed completely almost overnight.
This is not to claim that the Muslims are just like Christians, except for a few different customs and spiritual practices. Islam is a strongly evangelistic faith, based on the belief that only Islam is true in God’s eyes, all other beliefs being in error or outright rebellion against God. Tradition is revered in Islam, because Islamic law (Sharia) is rooted in the teachings of the Prophet Muhammed and his hand-picked disciples and successors (the Caliphs). This is roughly comparable to the old Roman Catholic practice of considering the Church of Rome to hold the full authority of Peter as granted by the word of Jesus Christ Himself, back in the day when the Pope could call up armies to kill in the name of God. It should be noted, however, that the Caliphs of Islam are long removed to the past, so that no current Imam has the authority to speak for all of Islam. From time to time, someone gets bold enough to declare himself the Mahdi, basically the Muslim equivalent of the Messiah, which effort up to now has invariably resulted in a bloody war of conquest, ending in the death of the false Mahdi and his supporters. This point is significant, in the light of reports that the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been pushing to have himself proclaimed the Mahdi of Islam or Twelfth Imam (the ‘hidden Imam’). This is not merely narcissism, but also a power play intended to promote the ascendancy of the Iranian race, the Aryans (yes, those Ayrans) as the natural leaders of Islam. Ahmadinejad appears to be playing Sunni against Shia in order to advance a racial caste to the top, conveniently his own. While to Western eyes and ears this kind of claim may appear laughable, there are various accounts which purport to describe the physical appearance of the Mahdi, and Ahmadinejad has been spinning the ones which happen to work in his favor (not all of them do, of course).
Ahmadinejad’s attempts to spin himself as a spiritual leader are part of the Middle East political movement renewing state ties to religion. This is actually a periodic cycle for the region, dating back to the Islamic Caliphates prior to the Fatimad Empire, which shifted the center of power to Egypt and created a meritocracy in the government. This secularization was further continued by the Khan invasions of the thirteenth century, which saw the Mamluks come to power through their defense of the nation (note, defense of the nation, not the faith). Later, Islam became influential in politics again under the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughul empires, but as the names imply, this regional division of power devolved the unity of Islam still further.
Following the first World War, the Ottoman Empire essentially collapsed, and the vacuum was partly addressed by the rise of Wahhabism, a movement begun in the eighteenth century which argued that Muslims were being punished by Allah for an impure faith. It is important to understand that the leader of that movement allied himself with one Abdul Ibn Saud, who successfully claimed the territory of present-day Saudi Arabia for himself, and not coincidentally this territory included the two holiest places in Islam, the cities of Mecca and Medina. Saud’s success seemed to indicate that radical Islam could prevail over the colonial powers, restoring Muslims to their rightful control of their own land.
To Muslim eyes after World War 2, modern history shows the consistent rise of Muslim power, from the removal of colonial powers, to the end of secular masters, to the increased wealth and power worldwide of Islamist states. The existence of Israel and the annoying habit of Americans in demanding that their views become global polity aside, the leaders of the Islamist movement came to believe that their power and influence would only increase, and all that was left to do was to simply follow through.
‘Following through’ did not work out so well. Attempts to invade and destroy Israel failed over and over again, and frequently cost the Muslim forces much more than it did the Israelis. The various oil crises posed threats to the United States, but they too seemed to end to the Americans’ advantage. The Islamists have a bad knack of choosing the wrong friends, from Germany in both World Wars, business negotiators who could not see beyond the end of the decade, and religious leaders whose extreme ideology made their doctrines inpracticible in any real sense. Unfortunately, rather than admit errors and rethink the strategy, the Islamists in positions of power reacted with hostility and malice. It is no random fact that the Muslim Brotherhood, which engaged in small-scale murders and thuggery in the 1920s, evolved into more elaborate and extensive conspiracies to topple undesirable regimes (e.g. the Shah), blackmail wealthy families into bankrolling terrorist operations (Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Egypt, especially), and seek to eradicate western presence through violence and intimidation.
The western response also evolved. Early capitulation in paying ransoms and acceptance of hard-line Muslim dogma (such as refusing to do business with Jews, women, or blacks in positions of importance as corporate representatives) became less attractive as groups became less mercenary and more bloodthirsty. American businesses began demanding better protection from their own government, and mercenary armies came into being to protect western compounds and facilities. Eventually, this need to protect American interests influenced official policy under the Reagan and Bush Administrations. Even the Clinton Administration supported sub rosa operations, which were accepted by Middle East governments because they did not embarrass the officials personally. But by the end of the twentieth century, it was becoming apparent that terrorist groups had taken on a new dimension; the façade of legitimacy.
The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza territory is a solid example of what happens when terrorists are allowed to gain political power and to present themselves as the duly elected representatives of the people. But Hamas is not the first group to play this role. Elements of the PLO, Islamic Jihad, and of course Al Qaeda have all played the game of diplomat, in some cases becoming able to claim the image of respectability, as seen in Afghanistan under the Taliban, the Sudan, and Yemen. This was a tipping point for the George W. Bush Administration, the concern that the sense of control in their own territory would lead to attacks on American soil. This concern, of course, was built in large part on the character and scale of the 9/11 attacks. The profile of the conflict, as well as the stakes, changed completely almost overnight.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
On War Against Terrorists, Part 2
Shortly after the end of the War of 1812, a strange event took place which changed the world. Naval officers, then diplomatic officials of the American and British governments agreed to cooperate to seek out and destroy pirate operations in the Caribbean Sea. The new policy took decades to fully effect, but eventually ended piracy in the Western Hemisphere as a major threat. The episode is significant not only because of the drastic shifts in policy, but also as a rejection of the contemporary belief that piracy was impossible to eradicate, a problem the civilized would have to accept and deal with as an unpleasant reality. It is further significant that the effort to wipe out piracy was not limited to one nation, nor was it the property of only one political party. The effective resolution of international terrorism by Jihadist factions requires a similar purview.
The shock of the 9/11 attacks united the nation – for a moment – and focused attention on the true cause and foundation of the culprits. But soon after, groups reverted to their nominal postures, which behavior may be generally categorized as reactive, passive, and proactive.
The majority of Americans hold a position regarding terrorism that may be described as reactive. That is, their desire for a certain action is in response to something that happens to provoke that reaction. Therefore, when thousands of Americans were killed in the 9/11 attacks, most Americans wanted to find and attack the men responsible. Most Americans supported the invasion of Afghanistan to remove the Taliban, because of clear connections between the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The war in Iraq was also initially popular, because of Saddam Hussein’s behavior which appeared to demonstrate support for terrorism (which was true) as well as a threat of WMD use (which turned out not to be true). Reactive opinions tend to shift focus over time, preferring predictable routine to unusual conditions.
Some Americans opposed any military action whatsoever with regard to the terrorist attacks. This position is the passive position. These people want terrorism to treated as a crime, with the nominal legal framework used to pursue and punish the attackers. The problem with the passive approach is that it has already been shown to be ineffective against large groups, as the planners and leaders stay out of legal reach. The 1993 bomb attack against the World Trade Center built a case against only the lowest-level participants, for example.
The third group contends that the best strategy in attacking terrorism is to strike at its source. This group is the proactive or peremptory group. The position is often controversial, as is evidence by shifting public and congressional opinion on the Iraq war, but has a solid core of support, especially among military. The proactive strategy has not been used successfully very often, although there are historical precedents in the Napoleanic Wars, the campaigns of Genghis Khan, and the Six Day War of 1967, among others.
The significant lesson in addressing these three groups, is to understand that all three exist to varying degrees, and any effective plan must take all of them into consideration.
The shock of the 9/11 attacks united the nation – for a moment – and focused attention on the true cause and foundation of the culprits. But soon after, groups reverted to their nominal postures, which behavior may be generally categorized as reactive, passive, and proactive.
The majority of Americans hold a position regarding terrorism that may be described as reactive. That is, their desire for a certain action is in response to something that happens to provoke that reaction. Therefore, when thousands of Americans were killed in the 9/11 attacks, most Americans wanted to find and attack the men responsible. Most Americans supported the invasion of Afghanistan to remove the Taliban, because of clear connections between the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The war in Iraq was also initially popular, because of Saddam Hussein’s behavior which appeared to demonstrate support for terrorism (which was true) as well as a threat of WMD use (which turned out not to be true). Reactive opinions tend to shift focus over time, preferring predictable routine to unusual conditions.
Some Americans opposed any military action whatsoever with regard to the terrorist attacks. This position is the passive position. These people want terrorism to treated as a crime, with the nominal legal framework used to pursue and punish the attackers. The problem with the passive approach is that it has already been shown to be ineffective against large groups, as the planners and leaders stay out of legal reach. The 1993 bomb attack against the World Trade Center built a case against only the lowest-level participants, for example.
The third group contends that the best strategy in attacking terrorism is to strike at its source. This group is the proactive or peremptory group. The position is often controversial, as is evidence by shifting public and congressional opinion on the Iraq war, but has a solid core of support, especially among military. The proactive strategy has not been used successfully very often, although there are historical precedents in the Napoleanic Wars, the campaigns of Genghis Khan, and the Six Day War of 1967, among others.
The significant lesson in addressing these three groups, is to understand that all three exist to varying degrees, and any effective plan must take all of them into consideration.
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