Clarifying the Stakes

Mark Steyn on Occupy Oakland and their riots this week:

I don't "stand with the 99%," and certainly not downwind of them. But I'm all for their "occupation" continuing on its merry way. It usefully clarifies the stakes. At first glance, an alliance of anarchists and government might appear to be somewhat paradoxical. But the formal convergence in Oakland makes explicit the movement's aims: They're anarchists for statism, wild free-spirited youth demanding more and more total government control of every aspect of life – just so long as it respects the fundamental human right to sloth. What's happening in Oakland is a logical exercise in class solidarity: the government class enthusiastically backing the breakdown of civil order is making common cause with the leisured varsity class, the thuggish union class and the criminal class in order to stick it to what's left of the beleaguered productive class. It's a grand alliance of all those societal interests that wish to enjoy in perpetuity a lifestyle they are not willing to earn.

The Eternal Struggle Remains

In light of this reporting by Kevin Williamson, Jonah Goldberg adds this observation:

...I’ve got to say there’s something truly refreshing, even reassuring, about the all of the Marxist twaddle coming out of these protests. These Red goons, buffoons, ruffians and tatterdemalions didn’t spring forth ex nihilo. They’ve been living among us all of this time.

Both articles are worth your time.

Pushing Buttons

From Day by Day, Oct. 4, 2011.

It is interesting how the "hot-button" issues of the day change...

A Nation of Adults - or Children?

From Bill Whittle:



Quoting John Stark: "Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils."

Late and Unlamented

When you really want the first-class snark, your first choice should be Moe Lane. From his post on the debt deal:

RIP: Neo-Keynesianism, 2007-2011.

Mourners please omit flowers. Or public urination on the graveside.

You shouldn't tempt somebody like that, Moe.

What Were You Thinking, Mr. President?

President Obama called for a return to the 1967, pre-Six Day War borders in a speech yesterday outlining his policies for peace in the Middle East.

The president has taken an indefensible position, as it means compelling Israel to give up Old Jerusalem and the Temple Mount to the Palestinians as their initial negotiating position. That will not happen, so negotiations are a non-starter.

Worse still, we have sent a signal to Israel: you are on your own. We have now made a general Arab-Israeli war more likely, a war with potential to go nuclear.

P.S. I'm hardly alone in feeling this way.

P.P.S. For background, pick up Six Days of War by Ambassador Michael Oren. Well-written and in-depth.

The End of The War Powers Act?

Once again, President Obama's administration says one thing, and does another. Jim Geraghty pointed out this editorial from Tuesday's Washington Post by Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway:

This week, the War Powers Act confronts its moment of truth. Friday will mark the 60th day since President Obama told Congress of his Libyan campaign. According to the act, that declaration started a 60-day clock: If Obama fails to obtain congressional support for his decision within this time limit, he has only one option — end American involvement within the following 30 days.

Obama has not only failed but he hasn’t even tried — leaving it to Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, to call for a “specific resolution that would give [the president] authority.” Neither the president nor the Democratic congressional leadership has shown any interest. They have been sleep-walking their way to Day 60...

...Make no mistake: Obama is breaking new ground, moving decisively beyond his predecessors. George W. Bush gained congressional approval for his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Bill Clinton acted unilaterally when he committed American forces to NATO’s bombing campaign in Kosovo, but he persuaded Congress to approve special funding for his initiative within 60 days. And the entire operation ended on its 78th day.

In contrast, Congress has not granted special funds for Libya since the bombing began, and the campaign is likely to continue beyond the 30-day limit set for termination of all operations.

Since the House of Representatives is out of session this week, Congress can’t approve the operation before the Friday deadline. But under the expedited procedures specified by the act, speedy congressional approval is feasible next week.

If nothing happens, history will say that the War Powers Act was condemned to a quiet death by a president who had solemnly pledged, on the campaign trail, to put an end to indiscriminate warmaking.

The administration intends to assert that operations in and over Libya are now under NATO command, and therefore American involvement is at an end. This is despite the continued American support. (And technically, since the US is part of NATO - aren't we involved as long as NATO is involved?)

Apparently, the War Powers Act was only intended to restrain Republican Presidents.

P.S.: Steven Hayward at The Corner adds:

"It hardly even seems worth the bother to point out how much the Left would be screaming about “lawlessness” if Bush were still on the scene. (There’s a an app for that now, isn’t there?)

So the War Powers Act now takes is place along side the Independent Counsel statute as a measure that liberals discard when it turns out to be applicable to Democratic presidents."

Who Knew Socialism Paid So Well?

One of the more interesting facets of the lurid story of Dominique Strauss-Kahn is the lifestyle to which Mr. Strauss-Kahn was accustomed:

Just note that the New York Times states that he was staying in a $3,000 a night suite and was taking a first class flight to Paris. This is the IMF, the body that imposes austerity on indebted countries and is funded by global taxpayers. And this was the likely leading socialist candidate for the French presidency.

UPDATE: One more detail emerged this morning. According to the London Times, Mr Strauss-Kahn had an arrangment with Air France whereby he could just turn up and be put on the first plane.

And here I thought socialism was supposedly all about lifting up the little people...

Well, no. It's all about promising to, in order to obtain the proletariat's vote. And then when in power, keep promising early and often enough to distract them from the fact that one hasn't yet delivered the miracle and in actuality never will - because there isn't enough money in all the world to do it.

But rather than face those facts, one must soak in the trappings of power, since after all, one's earned it, straining to serve the little people. Surely they understand...

Not only that, but in order to relieve that stress, one has to waylay any woman he fancies, it's so stressful. This is hardly the first time for Mr. Strauss-Kahn.

Fascinating that the intellectual heirs of the French Revolution prove to be no more noble than the aristocrats they supposedly despise, but cannot help but emulate.

It's amazing how presicient Orwell was in Animal Farm...

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.

P.S. Note Victor Davis Hanson's take on the topic.

P.P.S. Looks like VDH is right.

Print the Narrative

When narrative becomes fact, print the narrative.

Truth be damned.


(With apologies to John Ford.)

Regarding Earth Hour

Moe Lane: 

"The history of civilization is the history of turning the lights on, people. Crouch in the dark on your own time."

It's The Taking

A key graph from a piece well worth reading, by Paul Rahe over at Ricochet:

But what was at issue in 1896 and what will be at issue in 2012 is not sharing: it is taking. It is using coercive force, which is possessed in plenitude by the government, to be generous with other people’s money, and this is a policy recommended not in the Gospels but in the sixteenth chapter of Machiavelli’s Prince. The real choice is between systematic theft and a public policy aimed at encouraging and enabling individuals to earn their own way, and that is the way it should be pitched in 2012.

The Simple Point

Jay Nordlinger, writing today at The Corner:

"I will make the simple point that society belongs to everyone: not just to people who can yell, shut down schools, and intimidate."

Fly Navy? No, Fly Neptunus

Neptunus Lex, that is.

If you don;t ever stop by, you really should. He's been blogging up a storm lately, and they're well worth the read. Such as:

•   This piece on the accidental sinking of a Indian Navy frigate by a merchant ship. (We can laugh -and grumble - over this one; fortunately no one was hurt in the mishap.)
  
  Sayeth Lex: "Merchant ships entering harbor at a flank bell is why we can’t have nice things…"

•   Or Lex's laconic summary of Western-Islamic relations:
  

  Anyone who has paid any attention to what’s left of the Ottoman Empire since it faded into dust has realized that the region remains afflicted to a greater or lesser degree by backwardness, economic dysfunction, corruption and political malaise. In fact, apart from Africa, scourged with its own unique diseases, no other region of the world so typifies these characteristics. The question of “what went wrong” to what had- not so very long ago – been one of the world’s most successfully aggressive empires has been asked and (mostly) answered: It will not do for a society desiring the fruits of modernity to, 1) close its mind to science and philosophy, even if it leads in uncongenial directions, 2) idle half its intellectual capital.
  
  Here, from an admittedly Orientalist point of view, is a ridiculously brief history of the last 1400 years or so:
  
  1. Who are you lot, and will you mind removing that spear from my side, it hurts.
  2. I’ll bash you for that, and take back the Holy Land as well.
  3. Fine then, have it. But I wouldn’t mind a bit of that algebra and medical science, if it’s all right.
  4. More Holy Land, please and if you don’t like it we’ll see you off.
  5. Fine then, have it.
  6. Wait, the Mediterranean is our ocean.
  7. Fine, have half.
  8. Wait, Constantinople is the capital of our faith.
  9. Fine, have it. (We need bigger ships.)
  10. It’s called “Spain,” not “al Andalus.” And what are you still doing here? Off you go.
  11. Wait, Vienna is a capital of our culture. And no, you can’t have it. No matter how many times you ask.
  12. (Some of those big cannon would go well aboard those ships, don’t you think?)
  13. We’d like the Med back, and are all too willing to take it – see those ships, and all those cannon? There’s a good culture.
  14. My name is Napoleon. Lovely place you have here, Egypt.
  15. Fine, have it back, courtesy of La Perfide Albion. You couldn’t have done it by yourself, you know.
  16. Train your military? Certainly, why not? We’re dreadfully good at industrial scale slaughter; it takes practice. And industry. We’ve got both.
  17. Fight your military? Certainly, why not? Especially when you’re going to ally yourselves with the Hun.
  18. Rather a mess you left behind, old boy. Shall we help you sort it out?
  19. What’s this, oil? Fascinating.
  20. We’ve invented fascism: Have some!
  21. Sorry about that.
  22. We’re busy among ourselves just now, can’t it wait?
  23. What a bother, you lot. Can’t you see we’re tired?
  24. Just call that fellow over there “king,” and we’ll be on our way. Do write.
  25. We’ve invented socialism: Have some!
  26. Sorry about that.
  27. I know you’re rather a mess, but then you always were. Want some expertise to get that oil out of the ground? There’s money in it. Win-win.
  28. I really wish you wouldn’t treat your people that way. More tea?
  29. I REALLY wish you wouldn’t treat our people that way. Stand by for a case of the a**.
  30. With nation building.
  31. Jesus C*****, this is hard!
  
  All caught up.

•   And then, in a far more somber vein, is this contemplation of The New York Times' revelations about its role in the Wikileaks scandal.
  
  

  There’s obviously a self-serving element in Keller’s description of the events. The NYT and Guardian manage to carefully thread the needle between preserving the public’s right to know while responsibly declining to publish names that might get anyone killed. Directly, I mean. They don’t actually link to the Wikileaks site, containing the unredacted messages.
  
  They just, you know: Publicize it.
  
  The distinction helps them sleep at night.

  
  There's more; read the whole thing.
  

A Madman Succeeds

It is nothing short of a miracle that Congressman Gabrielle Giffords is alive; it is a testament to modern medical skill and technology that her doctors are even moderately optimistic.

May the wounded quickly heal, and those who suffered such a heart-rending loss be comforted. Gabrielle Giffords has a long, hard road ahead of her; but she has more cheering for her recovery than she will ever know.

It is a monument to the courage to be found in the average bystander that the gunman was tackled before he could finish his rampage.

Sadly, 6 died and 14 more were wounded before then.

Jim Geraghty's comments on all this stand out:

One more point: we’re starting to hear more reports of people who sensed this man was deeply troubled and potentially dangerous, suggesting another egregious, unforgivable pattern in modern American life. After the Columbine massacre, endless amounts of media coverage declared that sometimes a troubled teen is much more than a troubled teen; sometimes they’re ticking time bombs. In the years after the unparalleled Colorado shooting, students, teachers, and parents were encouraged and constantly reminded that if they saw signs of potentially threatening behavior, to inform the authorities immediately. Fast forward almost a decade, and a particularly troubled Virginia Tech student generated more than his share of red flags: writing in a school assignment that he wanted to “repeat Columbine,” professors describing his behavior as “menacing”, removal from class, at least three stalking incidents, repeated reports to the student affairs office, the dean’s office, and the campus police.

Time and again, students and teachers did what they had been instructed to do — report troubling behavior — and yet the shooter was never seriously impeded from this ultimate murderous act. I suspect it was a combination of bureaucratic inertia, fears of action triggering a lawsuit, and flat-out underestimation and dismissal of the danger the shooter presented.

Do we ever break this cycle?

Sadly, a more cynical side of this has already emerged, a political dimension that disgusts me. I won't talk more about it here, except to say this: the Pima County Sheriff should know better, and be better. And so should those that are trying to use this to manipulate the political debate. In short, I agree with Moe Lane.

"Communism Kills." Yet We Still Need Reminding.

Marxism is intellectualism for stupid people; it tends to attract the sort who can’t understand that an economic system that cannot feed its own population reliably has failed at the game of Life. Literally.

Moe Lane

I've been lax in my blogging lately, and I'm paying for it, as there has been a flood of fascinating things to discuss the last couple of days.

For now, let me share the discussions ongoing at Instapundit and Moe Lane. (I mention both, as each is worth reading, and each references the other.)

Prompting this discussion is new evidence of deliberate Communist Chinese policy to starve its peasants into obedience during Mao's Great Leap Forward. (Tom Friedman, please call your office. Paging Dr. Friedman...)

But this is not mere policy, of harsh measures to reel in rebels. Rather, this is a product of the unique totalitarian ability to mass produce death, to the scale of almost 6.5% of China's 1960 population - 45 million people. All in the name of progress.

How progressive.

And it was not unique to China. Rather, such carnage is inherent in the communist system. (So successful in the Soviet Union, Ukraine, Cambodia...)

And yet, people still defend it.

I'll let Moe Lane have the last words:

Ah, Glenn got a irate email from somebody throwing out the ‘But their motivations are noble!’ apology. Yes, of course: when I get a bullet in the back of the head from somebody for the ‘crime’ of believing in property rights I so totally will feel better about it because the shooter and I ‘merely’ disagree on the best route to Utopia.

More Wikileaks Reverberations

From Legal Insurrection:

Throughout the day WikiLeaks supporters have been mounting denial of service attacks against Mastercard, PayPal, Visa, and others deemed to have impeded WikiLeaks. Reportedly, these supporters have disclosed large files containing Mastercard account numbers and expiration dates.

But don't call it Cyberwar, you might offend some people.

And of course, the government of the United States is standing idly by, twiddling its thumbs and dawdling.

And Eric Holder? He's still reading the Instruction Manual for Attorney General.

Interesting Wikileaks Take

From Theodore Dalrymple, in City Journal:

The idea behind WikiLeaks is that life should be an open book, that everything that is said and done should be immediately revealed to everybody, that there should be no secret agreements, deeds, or conversations. In the fanatically puritanical view of WikiLeaks, no one and no organization should have anything to hide. It is scarcely worth arguing against such a childish view of life.

The actual effect of WikiLeaks is likely to be profound and precisely the opposite of what it supposedly sets out to achieve. Far from making for a more open world, it could make for a much more closed one. Secrecy, or rather the possibility of secrecy, is not the enemy but the precondition of frankness. WikiLeaks will sow distrust and fear, indeed paranoia; people will be increasingly unwilling to express themselves openly in case what they say is taken down by their interlocutor and used in evidence against them, not necessarily by the interlocutor himself. This could happen not in the official sphere alone, but also in the private sphere, which it works to destroy. An Iron Curtain could descend, not just on Eastern Europe, but over the whole world. A reign of assumed virtue would be imposed, in which people would say only what they do not think and think only what they do not say.

The dissolution of the distinction between the private and public spheres was one of the great aims of totalitarianism. Opening and reading other people’s e-mails is not different in principle from opening and reading other people’s letters. In effect, WikiLeaks has assumed the role of censor to the world, a role that requires an astonishing moral grandiosity and arrogance to have assumed. Even if some evils are exposed by it, or some necessary truths aired, the end does not justify the means.

Nutty NorKs with Nukes?

An artillery barrage is not the way to win friends. Shelling a fishing village isn't either.

I have no idea what is going on over there, and the North Koreans aren't talking.

But things are starting to get real tense, real quick.

Schadenfreude. Just A Little.

[Awesome graphic stolen from Instapundit.]

Yeah, the mid-terms were a little ugly for the Prez and the Dems. And Pelosi's going to be mad; she lost her rights to her own Big Jet. (Heh heh heh. Bwahah hah hah!) [REDACTED: Additional ten minutes of gleeful laughter.]

But $200 million a day? That can't be right, can it?

It's be cheaper to send a carrier battle group...

[From Instapundit.]

Our Zombie Preparedness Has A Long Ways To Go

Jim Geraghty adds this coda to this morning's Morning Jolt:

On Tuesday, AMC tried a publicity stunt to promote their new horror series about life after zombies take over the world, The Walking Dead. The stunt was to hire actors, have the makeup crew turn them into bloody, ugly zombies, and have them start slouching around major landmarks like the Lincoln Memorial and the Brooklyn Bridge and 24 others around the world.

Of course, zombie movies are now so ubiquitous that I half-figured that a well-conditioned and educated populace would simply roll into action with double-tap headshots and creative use of chainsaws to ensure the continued existence of humanity.

More preparation and public education is obviously needed.