Thinking About Syria

Mark Noonan16 Comments

Does anyone in any position of responsibility realize that for the Alawites lead by Assad, this is a matter of life and death?  That if they don’t win the civil war, they are in for a round of murder and pillage at the hands of their enemies?  While they are Muslims, they are considered to be a sort of heretical Islam by the dominant Sunni Muslims and for centuries before Syria fell under French rule post-WWI, they were oppressed by their fellow Muslims.  To be sure, they have used cruelty and chicanery to gain and maintain mastery as a minority Ruling Class in Syria, but now the fat is in the fire – the Alawites are not expecting mercy and brotherhood from the other side if they lose, so they’ll fight on until destroyed or they have secured their own homes and families.  Lobbing a few missiles at them will not make them stop doing whatever they think proves necessary to, at minimum, maintain their control over predominantly Alawite ares of Syria.  Only an army more powerful than they can do the trick…and if you’re wondering why this minority of 12% of Syria’s population has maintained control for decades and has an even chance of winning the Civil War look no further than the fact that the Alawites retained for themselves the best weapons…and constituted a majority of the total Syrian armed forces pre-Civil War.

I bring this up because no one seems to be thinking along these lines – that people with their backs to the wall are not likely to be easily swayed.  We’re treating them as if they are concerned about the whole of Syria and its welfare.  In some theoretical sense, this might be true – but in the concrete, the Alawite soldiers are fighting for lives of their wives and children.  These people will not go down easily.  Of course, they are not the only minority group in Syria.  In fact, Syria is a grab-bag of minority groups.  Sure, its overwhelmingly Muslim – but there are nearly as many Christians as there are Alawites (and the Christians probably do favor the Alawites because, point blank, the more secular-minded Alawites have tended to live and let live with the Christians…meanwhile, the rebels are increasingly infected with Islamism, and so Christians are increasingly brutalized); Islam in Syria is broken up in to quite a lot of different sects.

Syria isn’t really a nation as we think of it – its just another one of those colonial left-overs.  Ruled for centuries by the Turks, taken over by the French post-WWI, the people there never thought of themselves as “Syrians” in the sense that we think of ourselves as “Americans”…people with a common history, a shared set of basic values and a willingness to sink sectarian differences for the good of the larger community.  Essentially, the Alawites have provided what the Ottomans provided until 1918 and the French until 1946 – a group of people who keep down everyone else, until just lately, when for a variety of reasons a rebellion broke out (not in any case the first), at a time when non-Syrian forces were willing to back the rebels (and not us, good people – quite a lot of Gulf State Muslim money has poured in to the rebels).  And don’t think the rebels are keen on establishing a republic in which all Syrians live in brotherhood.  There might be a few such trotted out to meet with a junketing Senator McCain, but most of them are primarily interested in securing their own particular interests…and, if things work out, grabbing the sort of power the Alawites have held on to since the 1970’s.  I almost hate to point this out, but the only thing which can be found in common among most Syrians is probably a loathing of Israel…but even that has been set aside so that they can kill each other in a mad scramble for power.

Crucial to any expectations of results is to understand the reality of things.  Syria is not just “Syria”.  Its a lot of different things and the people battling there with extreme cruelty have clear ideas of what they want.  If we don’t have a clear idea of what we want and how it relates to the reality on the ground in Syria, then whatever we do will fail.  This does not at all preclude a diplomatic solution to the problem, by the way – in fact, it opens up wide vistas of diplomatic action, if we will understand the facts and figure out what it is we want.

Furthermore, we do have the power to impose a solution – our weight thrown on to any particular side will allow that side to emerge victorious.  If, that is, we make it clear that if we decide to come in on a side that we’ll come all the way in with whatever level of force would prove necessary.  Half measure won’t do; lobbing a few missiles is absurd.  If we want to have any particular result in Syria, then we have to will the means as well as envision the ends.  We could, perhaps, use our overwhelming power to convince all sides that it is time to sit down and talk – to set up some sort of federal or cantonal system of government which will allow each major element its own absolute sphere, surrendering only enough power to the central government as is necessary to make Syria a functional, national unit.  Carrots for everyone – and a threat of the Big Stick for anyone who decides that they’d rather keep fighting instead of negotiating a settlement…and, yes, this does mean that in certain circumstances we throw our weight behind Assad’s Alawites (if not behind Assad, who probably could be eased out by Alawites convinced that we’ll ensure their lives and property against revenge).

But if we are not willing to envision an end and unwilling to provide the means to achieve the end, then it is best we stay out.  At this stage of the game, staying out is probably the best course of action – mostly because Obama has botched it so badly to this point. It is not because people are getting isolationist that intervention in Syria is unpopular, but because Obama has proven himself a fool and no one wants to dive in to a murky situation without some idea of what we hope to accomplish, what it might cost and how long it will take.  But good things can be done with American power – wisdom is not to be found in launching endless wars, nor in the twin follies of pacifism and isolationism.  Clear headed, rational thinking informed by the actual facts can get us out of this mess – and help the people of Syria, in to the bargain.  My prayer is that some how, some way even Obama will start to see things clearly and a reasonable, humane policy will emerge.

UPDATE:  I’ve pondered it some more and here’s a follow-on comment I left elsewhere:

…(we have) all the ingredients which cool headed diplomacy can make much hay with.  If we understood diplomacy (ie, if we didn’t have Obama and team in charge) we would long-ago have said that our interest is peace in Syria and to that end we will exert pressure on all sides to engage in talks to reform the government of Syria to secure absolutely minority rights.  Once that announcement is made, support can be rounded up in the world for the effort and support built at home for a forward policy – while backstairs negotiations let all and sundry know that we are determined upon a peace settlement to be imposed on the warring sides with the carrot being US and international help to rebuild and the stick being US force being thrown against whichever sides proves most resistant to compromise (in other words, we’re telling them that we’ll even fight on Assad’s side, if he proves most willing to compromise).  Once the preliminary work is done, we call a conference of all the interested parties to reach an agreement to embargo all arms and impose sanctions on the warring factions…Russia, China and Iran would strongly object to this (and thus no such thing could be done through the UN…which is why we’d ignore the UN and go for genuine diplomacy), and we’d lay down the marker:  we’re going to do this and we’re willing to fight…and if Russia, China and Iran want to fight us in order to maintain their particular clients in Syria, then let’s have at it.  They would back down in front of that as no one in the world wants to go to actual war with the United States of America.  Once a cease-fire agreement is hammered out it is presented to the Syrian factions and they are given 36 hours to comply or face sustained military action by the United States until they do agree.  More than likely, all but the Islamist fanatics would agree, and they could be swiftly exterminated.  We can then mid-wife in Syria a Cantonal form of government allowing each group to keep its own while cooperating to sustain the larger entity of Syria.

At any rate, that’s what I would do.

Uh Oh! Contrary to Climate Models Arctic Ice Grows 60% in a Year

tiredoflibbs3 Comments

Again, the prevailing climate models are proven faulty, inaccurate and fraudulent by NASA and NOAA.

http://personalliberty.com/2011/07/29/nasa-data-proves-global-warming-computer-models-wrong-29347/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/noaa-proves-that-climate-models-are-wrong/

To the chagrin of climate change alarmists (formerly know as global warming alarmists and global cooling alarmists) NASA data shows that far less heat is trapped by earth’s increased CO2 laden atmosphere. (Even AlGore’s own chart showed that temperature increases PRECEEDED CO2 concentration increases by 800 years).

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/NASA-Global-Warming-Alarmists/2011/07/28/id/405200

Now after seeing dozens of pictures and videos (by very discriminating camera persons) of Polar Bears stranded on smaller and smaller ice flows (again pictures were misleading), it seams, that during one of the highest concentrations of atmospheric CO2 and contrary to the climate models, arctic ice has increased by 60% in one year!  The pictures speak for themselves.

The current models, which are supposedly based on “settled” and “peer reviewed” science, that the alarmists take as gospel have yet to predict any of the contrary physical evidence that we have seen.  This goes to show anyone with an open mind, who avoids the zealotry of the left that treats Global Climate Change as their religion, can see that the science is far from settled and that consensus does not a solid conclusion make.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415191/Global-cooling-Arctic-ice-caps-grows-60-global-warming-predictions.html

Uh oh, what is an global warming…errrr… climate change alarmist to do?

Democrats Who Are for Action in Syria Don’t Want the pResident Humiliated

tiredoflibbs20 Comments

Dem Congresswoman: Only Reason I’d Vote for Syria Attack Is Loyalty to Obama

It goes to show that Democrats can’t think for themselves and their actions are a result of partisanship.

HOLMES NORTON: So I think he’ll be in real trouble if he then does it anyway. No president has done that.

PRESS: It’s not an easy decision for any of you, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton.

HOLMES NORTON: Oh, and I’d like to say, Bill, that if he gets saved at all, I think it’ll be because, it’ll be because of loyalty of Democrats. They just don’t want to see him shamed and humiliated on the national stage.

PRESS: Yeah, right.

HOLMES NORTON: At the, at the moment, that’s the only reason I would vote for it if I could vote on it.

Wow, she has said it all.  It is a shame that a pResident who claimed to “restore our world image” is an utter failure at that as well.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan

You want to know just how we got ourselves in to this mess?  Where, here’s the level of stupidity in the Obama Administration:

…Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, hoped that a team of UN investigators — many of whom, presumably, have a longstanding relationship with Iranian leaders — could write a report that would convince Iran to abandon its ally at the behest of the United States.

“We worked with the UN to create a group of inspectors and then worked for more than six months to get them access to the country on the logic that perhaps the presence of an investigative team in the country might deter future attacks,” Power said at the Center for American Progress as she made the case for intervening in Syria.

“Or, if not, at a minimum, we thought perhaps a shared evidentiary base could convince Russia or Iran — itself a victim of Saddam Hussein’s monstrous chemical weapons attacks in 1987-1988 — to cast loose a regime that was gassing it’s people,” she said…

So, here goes the “thinking” – if we can just get the Iranians to see that Assad is a bad guy, they’ll get on board with us against him!  Genius, I tell ya!  Just where to heck to we get such idiots?  Well, Tom Elia on his Facebook page details it:

Yale undergrad; journalist; Harvard Law School; Pulitzer Prize winner (non-fiction book); professor, Kennedy School; diplomat.

We get it from the Ruling Class – the privileged elite who are supposedly just oh, so well educated and oh, so much smarter than us knuckle-dragging teabaggers.  That’s where we get it from.  Ms. Powers, a little clue for ya from the dummies:  people who hang people for being gay and stone women to death because they were raped are unlikely to have an attack of conscience over gassing people.  Its just not that likely, ya see?  In fact, people who do that sort of thing might even be in favor of gassing people…I know, shocking; but there it is.  Some people are just like that.

Update:

Now anti-war Hollywood chimes in with the most unintelligent reason for not opposing action in Syria:

Ed Asner: “They don’t want to feel Anti-Black”

Wow.  Now I have heard it all.  I am 100% positive if the President was a African-American Republican, Hollywood would have no problem “feeling Anti-Black” in that case.  Again according to the left, if you criticize the pResident you are a racist…. a bigot…. a hater.

UPDATE III, by Mark Noonan:

In between bouts of blaming Bush, I guess someone over at Team Obama realized that Team Bush could at least drum up and sustain support for war – even when things got really rough.  And, so, Team Obama sent some former Bush people to lobby House GOPers:

Top Bush administration officials have mobilized to sway a skeptical Republican party to authorize military intervention in Syria. As National Review Online reported, former national security adviser Stephen Hadley and former undersecretary of defense for policy Eric Edelman this week led a briefing on Capitol Hill for Republican legislative directors and chiefs of staff…

…Their argument: If you hope to have a negotiated settlement with Iran, they only way you are going to get there is if the Iranians actually believe the use of force lies behind America’s efforts to negotiate. Hamstringing the president’s effort to use force against Syria now will “absolutely cripple and destroy” the chance to reach a diplomatic settlement with Iran…

The idea is that if we fail to sustain Obama on Syria, then when he does go to talk to the Iranians about their nuclear program, the Iranians will know in advance that there is no credible threat of US action if Iran refuses to forgo nuclear weapons.  Its a nice theory, but it is based upon a premise that to this moment Iran believes that we’ll do something about their nuclear program.  If they do, then they are too stupid to figure out how to build an atomic bomb…or even a firecracker, for that matter.

Obama’s credibility will not be destroyed by failure to sustain him on Syria – Obama’s credibility has been destroyed for ages.  If the Assad government did use chemical weapons it is because they were convinced that no great punishment would be meted out if they did.  And, they’re right – even if we sustain Obama, he’s just going to lob a few missiles in to Syria.  Twenty or thirty more large explosions added to the scores of large explosions happening there every day.  Not exactly the sort of thing to convince a bloodthirsty dictator fighting for his life that he’s in trouble.  No war in Syria – not now; not while Obama is President.

The Answer to the Syrian Question is “Lebanon”

Mark Noonan16 Comments

First off, Russia has released a report claiming that Syrian rebels used poison gas on March 19th. Whether or not the report is true, it does cast doubt on the Administration’s “Assad rat bastard against Freedom Fighters” narrative.  The Russian report, if proved correct, just adds one more bit of evidence that the rebels in Syria are just as nasty and inhuman as the Assad forces.  And this, in turn, makes it less and less wise for us to intervene in Syria.  But, there is a course of action the United States can take during this crisis which will help us, help our allies, weaken our enemies and leave us in a better position no matter who wins the Syrian Civil War – and that is to concentrate our efforts on Lebanon.

What is important is not necessarily what is in the newspapers.  In fact, what is making the headlines is as often as not the last thing we should be paying attention to.  This is because most reporters and editors are ignorant of things like history, strategy, military issues and such.  They are in the news business not to keep the citizenry informed, but to make bags of money and get rich and famous.  This Onion parody of why the MSM reported on Miley Cyrus actually explains the motivation of the  news business correctly.  Read it for the truth – and for the laughs, as its quite funny (language warning).  While reports showing the horrors of war and dead bodies will get people to tune it (especially if their are explosions!), what you’re seeing there isn’t what is at issue…it is the result of an issue.  The issue going on in the Muslim world right now is who gets to be in charge…all the battling and civil war and revolution and repression is all about who gets to be top dog.  Our leaders might think this, that or the other thing but the people there causing the trouble simply want power and are willing to go to horrific, anti-human lengths to obtain it.

Given this, we can be certain that whomever ruthlessly climbs to the top over a mountain of corpses probably won’t be a paragon of virtue.  In other words, whomever wins will be an enemy – actual or in prospect – of all we hold dear.  We can’t intervene on either side because both sides are simply after the same thing – ruthless, absolute power in order to perpetuate themselves (though, truth be told, the least dangerous outcome for us is an Assad victory…he doesn’t appear to have dreams of a global caliphate, as do many of the rebels).  So, our task then is to ensure that at the end of the bloody war, we and our allies are in the best possible position.  To me, this makes me turn to Lebanon.

Lebanon was wracked by civil war for years and then, essentially, came under Syrian and proxy-Iranian rule (the Iranian proxies are Hezbollah).  While this has made for peace in the sense of nobody immediately shooting each other, it has made for a lot of oppression as neither the Syrians nor Hezbollah are interested in the rights and desires of the people of Lebanon.  With Syria now locked in a death match and Iran expending energy keeping her ally Assad in power, the time is ripe for us to try and leverage Syria and Hezbollah (Iran) out of Lebanon.  The people there probably don’t like Syrian/Hezbollah rule, even if they don’t particularly like us, either.  There’s not much Syria can do if we decided to apply a little political pressure backed by covert military pressure to help the Lebanese push out the Syrians and then turn on Hezbollah. If we can get Syria/Hezbollah out of Lebanon then at the end of the Syrian Civil War we’ll have a weaker Syria, a weaker Iran, a free Lebanon and a more secure Israel – and if our efforts fail, we’ll be no worse off than we are now and we won’t have gotten ourselves involved in a Syrian Civil War which can do no good for us.

I don’t at all expect Obama to do anything like this.  He’s even more ignorant than a news reporter.  But I thought it worthwhile to demonstrate that there is an alternate policy for us to support – and thus put to rest the concept that some how or another because Obama screwed up and Assad is a bastard that we have to get directly involved.  The world doesn’t work like a machine – its run by human beings and thus can be quite confusing and the real issue can be off to the side while everyone is looking at the shiny object.  A true sense of our power and what our interests are clears things up a lot – pity that hardly anyone in a position of authority has any idea of either thing.

Secession is the Answer Update

Mark Noonan2 Comments

Yet another move to bring rationality to American politics:

The Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 this afternoon to pursue seceding from California.

More than 100 people packed the supervisors’ chambers late this morning for a discussion on whether the county should issue a declaration that it wants to secede from the state. Nearly all those in attendance appeared to be for the move…

Siskiyou County is a rural county in northern California which has zero effective representation in both the California legislature and the United States Senate…both places merely representing coastal/urban California with no thought to the rest of the State.  The country is burdened by taxes and regulations written by the coastal/urban areas which bear little relation to the needs and aspirations of the people of Siskiyou.  The only way these people can get representation is to have their own State and send their own Senators to DC.

More and more of this is what we need.

It is Time for a Conservative Anti-War Movement

Mark Noonan38 Comments

As the Ruling Class circles the wagons around Obama and determines upon war in Syria to pull Obama’s bacon out of the fire, the question becomes: what can we do?  My answer:  start an anti-war movement.

To be sure, the anti-war movement in the United States has heretofore been the province of leftists – and very often the most kooky of leftists.  The left’s anti-war activity has tended towards being anti-American in effect – and more commonly anti-GOP, because we see how invisible it is now that a liberal Democrat is proposing war.  But just because leftists kooks have been anti-war that doesn’t mean that being anti-war is wrong, provided your being anti-war for sensible reasons.

War is a terrible, cruel and nasty business and should be avoided if at all possible.  Some times it is, however, necessary.  War will come when it comes – and there may even come times when it is necessary for us to start the war.  But what we have here in Syria is a war that isn’t coming to us and which we have no need to start.  The United States is not threatened.  US allies are not threatened.  The two sides in the Syrian civil war are equally bad – think of it like the Spanish civil war of the 1930’s where communists and fascists battled it out.  What possible good would US intervention have done back then – we’d have either midwifed a communist or fascist dictatorship.  In Syria, we can back Assad’s hideous regime, or back the al-Qaeda-like rebels.  No good.

The problem we have today started a long time ago – when Truman criminally hurled us in to the Korean War without obtaining Congressional approval.  That is when the war-making powers of Congress first began to atrophy.  These days, we have plenty of people – including some who are not at all dumb – saying that the President has authority to launch military action in Syria based upon his powers as Commander in Chief.  That is an absurd reading of the Constitution – but it is entirely in line with practice over the past 63 years.  A conservative anti-war movement must have as its goal the reform of this pernicious doctrine – we must return war-declaring power to the Congress.

While getting 100,000 people in to DC by Monday next might short-circuit this war in Syria, I doubt much that such a crowd can be gathered on such short notice.  Looking for the longer term, we should be seeking a law which will specifically prohibit the expenditure of defense funds on offensive actions not authorized by Congress (it is the power of the purse which gives Congress its actual power).  No money can be drawn from the Treasury without Congressional authorization, so all military expenditures would be covered by a law which says that the money can’t be used for offensive operations until Congress declares war (and it is preferred that it be an actual declaration of war – not an authorization to use force). This would still allow the President to use military force to defend – to defend the United States and our allies.  But it would not allow the Syrian strike (nor would it have allowed the Libyan war…and for you liberals out there if you want a piece of this, it would have prevented Panama in 1989 and Grenada in 1983) unless Obama obtains a declaration of war against Syria, first.

This all fits in with the broader, conservative desire to reform government by re-limiting its powers as intended by the Founders.  Only a limited government is a free government – and if we don’t stop this sort of thing, we will find ourselves living in an unfree nation very shortly.

Obama Tosses Syria Ball to Congress – Congress Should Vote it Down

Mark Noonan24 Comments

Obama found out this last week that just setting a foreign policy isn’t the same as carrying it out.  Obama long ago said that use of chemical weapons by Syria would be a “red line” – and then he did precisely nothing to garner domestic and international support for a course of action should Syria cross that red line.  When it became alleged that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons (something I’m not at all convinced about – though, of course, the rat bastards who govern Syria are fully capable of such savagery), Obama found himself all alone.  After blustering a bit about how we can go it alone and he doesn’t need Congressional authorization, Obama backed down – and passed the buck to Congress.

On the left this is being lauded as a brilliant move – it puts the onus, so it is claimed, on Congress.  The idea is that Congress must authorize action – thus getting Obama off the hook for taking an ill-advised action – or bear the blame for refusing to act while Syria’s government murders children with poison gas (amazing how our liberals will still say its all “for the children” while they continue to back abortion which kills millions of children).  In the liberal mind, either way this works out for Obama – we’ll either get the military action and Obama is a hero, or the Congress will look like heartless bastards, and the Democrats will put full blame on the GOP for being the leading heartless bastards. I don’t see it that way.

What Obama is asking for is permission to pointlessly lob a few missiles at sites which will be long-since cleared out of valuable targets by the time we act.  Such strikes will not alter the course of the Syrian civil war, they will not stop the Syrian government from using chemical weapons and, indeed, will probably encourage further use (nothing encourages aggressors more than a weak response to aggression) and such strikes will do nothing to convince the world that America is a power to be feared.  I’d rather take the alleged heat for being a heartless bastard for not acting than bear the odium of participating in a perfectly useless action.  The Congressional GOP should vote this down.

If we vote for anything it should be an act which instructs the President to seek an international coalition for dealing with the Syrian crisis with a mind towards thwarting Iranian and al-Qaeda aims in Syria.  In short, pass a resolution which calls for a rational foreign policy.  In this resolution should be a general authority to use force in defense of the United States and our allies.  Throw the ball right back in Obama’s court – he’s the one who made this foreign policy failure, and he should be stuck with trying to clean it up.

UPDATE:  The case for war is made here – astonishingly at First Things, usually a place where first-rate thinking is displayed.  You can read it, if you like, but the nutshell is that we’d better get a-killing Syrians lest President Obama be shown to be completely ineffectual.  Heretofore, I had always rated The War of Jenkin’s Ear to be the most misbegotten war in human history, but this would displace it:  we’re to go to war to make the world safe for poltroonery.  Because Obama is afraid to lead and at his wit’s end (its a short walk, under the best of circumstances), we’re to send our best and bravest out to kill Syrians in an effort which is to be geared merely to avoid global mockery of Obama.

Sorry, ain’t buying – a great power can survive idiots being in charge, but we can’t survive going to war to cover up for an idiot.

Tell Us Something We Didn’t Already Know!

tiredoflibbs10 Comments

Another proggy myth disproven! Of course, the proggy politicians already knew this.

Really all you had to do was look where gun control was in place and see the crime statistics!

Gun Control Reduces Violent Crimes

The proggy drones will be out in force regurgitating the mindless talking points. (Since this posting, they have not – I guess they did not get their marching orders).

In short, as we defenders of the 2nd Amendment have long known, the observable facts simply will not support the strictly emotional arguments of the aping gun grabbers regarding both violent crime and suicide. Interestingly, the study also relates a survey of incarcerated felons that confirms that a criminal’s greatest fear is that his victim may be armed. That certainly makesthe case for a well-armed citizenry regardless of the definition of militia. The fact that the most recent acts of gun violence were conducted in gun free zones (by mentally troubled individuals who should have been in an institution – another leftist barrier), also shows the folly of the left’s mindless arguments.

Regarding “Hate” Crimes

Leo Pusateri113 Comments
I don’t believe in the concept of “hate crimes.”

There are precious few crimes, especially murders, that are “love criimes.” 

In my opinion, the psychological intent or the mind state of the person committing the murder is already summed up in degrees (first degree, second degree, manslaughter, etc). 

The reasons for premeditation are immaterial. If the person intended with forethought to visit bodily harm resulting in the death of an innocent person for reasons not related to self defense, that perpetrator committed murder. Period. It is immaterial whether the perp is a racist or whether the perp is Mother Teresa. 

To assign an instance of the wanton deprivation of another’s life as more or less severe simply because the perp was a racist or did it out of racial spite is superfluous. Premeditated murder is premeditated murder. 

When society assigns the gravity of premeditated murder as dependent on the mind state of the perpetrator, you are now jumping into the realm of THOUGHT CRIMES. 

Do we really want to go there? 

Unfortunately, there are many on the left who do. 

As the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case clearly illustrated, those on the left are more than happy to fall all over themselves in immediately assigning motives of racism and “hate crime” (read: THOUGHT CRIME) status when a fellow-traveller is on the receiving end and a white person (even a ginned-up “White Hispanic” person) is on the giving end. 

When one or more of their own is on the giving end, however, not so much. Rare indeed is the case when black on white violence ends up being prosecuted as a “hate crime.” 

Which leads me to believe that to a critical mass of our population (not at all exclusively black, mind you, but exclusively “progressive” at any rate), the whole concept of “hate crime” is not borne out of a thirst for blind justice; rather, the concept of “hate crime” seems to serve as a tool to exact revenge on those progressives identify as enemies of their ideology at worst, or as tools to advance their sense of ideology and/or personal political agendae at best.

 
It looks as though the thugs who murdered Delbert Belton will not be charged with a hate crime. 
 
I’m sure there was nothing but bored love in their hearts as they beat him senseless and took his life.
 
 

The Petro Currency System

Cluster23 Comments

The reserve currency issue is an issue that should transcend partisan politics, as leaders of both parties have ignored this issue over the years to our country’s possible peril.  I want everyone to really think about this issue, because the financial storm that would ensue following the end of our reserve currency status and the eventual collapse of the dollar would make the 2008 housing crisis look like a spring shower. Here’s an excerpt from a 2011 article from CNBC warning of the prospects of losing reserve currency status:

“I think you could see a 25 percent reduction in the standard of living in this country if the US dollar was no longer the world’s reserve currency. That’s how valuable it is.”

That was a comment made back in 2011, and since then we have added a few more trillion dollars of debt, and printed a few more trillion dollars of QE (quantitative easing), “stimulus” money. For those of you unfamiliar with QE – this is a policy that started in 2009 wherein the federal reserve is literally printing and pumping into the economy approximately $80 billion a month, and the mere mention from Bernanke that he was going to slow down the printing presses made the DOW tumble a few hundred points. He quickly backed off that statement. QE is not only used to prime the DOW but it is also used to keep inflation and interest rates in check. In the article, it is mentioned that if the CPI were adjusted for actual economic realities, we would see 5% – 7% inflation on food and energy prices.

Fast forward to 2013. Recent international economic signals do not bode well for the continuance of our reserve currency status:

– China’s subtle dumping of the dollar — using bilateral trade agreements with other developing nations and, more recently, major economic powers like Germany and Japan

– The massive gold-buying spree undertaken by China and Russia — even in the face of extreme market manipulation by JPMorgan Chase and Co. and CME Group Inc.

– The dumping of long-term U.S. Treasuries by foreign creditors in exchange for short-term Treasuries that can be liquidated at a moment’s notice.

– The fact that bonds now are supported almost entirely by Fed stimulus. When the stimulus ends, America’s ability to honor foreign debts will end and faith in the dollar will crumble.

–  Blatant statements by the International Monetary Fund calling for the end of the dollar’s world reserve status and the institution of special drawing rights (SDRs) as a replacement.

These bullet points were taken from another excellent article on this issue found here, (hat tip to Spook for sending me this article) and it is a must read. Why the loss of faith in the US dollar? The fact that our government spends approx. $1 trillion more than it brings in, the fact that our government does not work within a defined budget and funds the government from continuing resolution to continuing resolution (CR’s), the fact that our debt to GDP ratio is now 101%, and the fact that there are no imminent signs of financial discipline or restraint by our federal government. This year our federal government is expected to bring in approx. $2.5 trillion in revenue, which would equal an historical high, yet they are spending $3.6 trillion and they say they need more. So the next time you hear a politician say that we need more money for education, and/or more “investment” in infrastructure, know that they are pushing us closer to the brink of financial collapse.

In spite of all of this, I remain the eternal optimist. We can avoid the loss of reserve currency status and the eventual collapse of the dollar but it will require that our elected officials define our nations priorities, put in place a budget that reflects those priorities and operate within it. It will also require that we aggressively act upon the impending economic boom of the 21st century and that is – energy. We must tap into our domestic crude oil and natural gas reserves to not only fuel our current society, but also to become a net exporter of these resources. That will generate the money necessary to put our country back on sound financial footing, but will also fuel the eventual transition to a new, greener, more sustainable energy platform.