A Level Gaze

A Level Gaze

"What effect must it have on a nation if it learns no foreign languages? Probably much the same as that which a total withdrawal from society has upon an individual."
--G.C. Lichtenberg

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Shameless

How can Bush say:

"I thank those of you who have re-enlisted in an hour when your country needs you. And to those watching tonight who are considering a military career, there is no higher calling than service in our Armed Forces. We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves. Those who serve today are taking their rightful place among the greatest generations that have worn our Nation's uniform. When the history of this period is written, the liberation of Afghanistan and the liberation of Iraq will be remembered as great turning points in the story of freedom."

when he was a draft-dodger? He got bumped to the front of the get-out-of-Vietnam line, demonstrably because he didn't want to go to war. He didn't join the Texas National Guard because he wanted to serve in the Texas National Guard (not to mention the fact that he didn't even bother to show up for duty).

How can he look military families in the face as he thanks them for shouldering the burdens of defending America? He gives them the clumsy sleight of hand where he turns Iraqis into Al Qaeda, and then he tells them that the clusterfuck in Iraq is going according to the plan that he lied to them to implement.

If one of my kids had died in Iraq, I'd want to want to slap that look off his face with the dress-uniformed corpse of my dead child. "Look, this is real *smack!* This is what you've done with your war of choice! My son *smack!* is dead! Now stop the platitudes and give me the real story, or I'll stuff this corpse down your throat."

posted by David at 6/29/2005 12:29:00 AM ::

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Sigh

Well, George, which is it? What you told Tony Blair earlier this month at your summit meeting, or what you're going to say tonight in your big speech?

To Blair:

Tony Blair was warned that war-torn Iraq remains on the brink of disaster - more than two years after the removal of Saddam Hussein - during his summit with President Bush in Washington earlier this month.

To the American people:

Tomorrow, the President will also talk about the strategy for success. He will talk in a very specific way about the way forward. There is a clear path to victory. It is a two-track strategy: there is the military and political track. On the military front, it's important to continue training and equipping the Iraqi security forces so that they're able to defend themselves, and then our troops can return home with the honor that they deserve. And then there is the political track. The Iraqi people are showing that they're determined to build a free and democratic and peaceful future, and we must continue to do all we can to support them as they build a lasting democracy.

The terrorists are failing...

And every step of the way, these terrorists have failed to stop the progress on the political front. They have failed to stop the Iraqi people from moving forward on holding elections and electing a representative government. They have failed to stop the Iraqi people from signing up to serve in the security forces. And they failed to stop the transfer of sovereignty just one year ago, as well, on the time schedule that was outlined.

...so we're negotiating with them

Last night it was revealed that American officials have held secret face-to-face talks with Iraqi insurgents in a bid to diffuse the violent opposition in the country.

Why does Bush think he can keep throwing our boys into the wood-chipper without even bothering to keep his story straight and without any pretense that he knows what he's doing? Why does he think the British can handle the truth but we can't?

Links via Juan Cole

posted by David at 6/28/2005 09:33:00 AM ::

Saturday, June 04, 2005

Decent Living Standards Are So 20th Century

As the economic security of the American middle class grows more and more tenuous, some people have been saying that living standards in Europe are better than ours. Europeans take six weeks off a year and don't have to worry about going bankrupt when they get sick. If they lose their jobs, they don't wind up homeless. When they retire, they get guaranteed pensions they can actually live on.

Oh yeah? Well David Brooks says their system is failing, and they'll all be broke and disillusioned before long. Who do they think they are, anyway?

Thomas Friedman laughs at the stupid French voters who don't want to give up their living standards. They should have approved the EU constitution and started to take their medicine.

Knuckle down, Europe. Quit your whining. You're going to have to work longer hours, give up your vacations, your medical care, and retirement benefits. The Chinese and Indians can do your jobs better and cheaper, and Capital is going to drop you like a warm bag of shit. Ha ha, stupid Europeans. Get over yourselves. You have no human dignity.

Ok, fellas, just keep telling the proles that. I'm sure you'll convince a lot of them. As things get worse and worse, they'll just bend over and take it, like the good little sheep they are. They won't vote this whole crowd out on their asses. They won't demonstrate. They won't put restrictions on the corporations they themselves built taking their money out of their countries. Nope, nothing like that has ever happened.

Oh, wait, it's always happened. When people's livelihoods are threatened, they take action.

Jesus, how stupid do these two think people are? Europeans know that the Indians and Chinese earn barely a fifth as much as they do. Even if they give up all of their perks, labor in the developing world is still going to be much cheaper than theirs. Brooks and Friedman tell them that this is what's coming, and that nothing can, will, or should be done about it. Great message, guys.

And all this talk about how Europe is living a pipe dream doesn't really do much to advance the unstated but obvious premise that everything's hunky-dory here in the good ol' US of A. It's not going to take Americans very long to figure out that, even with our expensive* and for shit medical system, our piss-poor minimum wage, our inadequate and precarious pensions, our near-total absence of labor protections, and our long working hours, even we're way more expensive than Chinese and Indian labor. Looks like we're going to have to work a lot harder, too, and at the end of the day, we'll be making a lot less money, no matter what.

Nowhere in any of this pedantic blather is there any mention of anything we should be doing to increase the value of our labor and protect our standard of living. Nope, in Washington, we're busy cutting government investment in research and education, two of the main reasons we had an advantage over other countries in the first place. Unfettered capital, and its complete disregard for social welfare, has to have its way. Um, and we need smaller government.

If this is the new Republican talking point, I say let them run with it. They're doing our work for us.

*Hey David, how well do we stack up against Europe per capita GDP-wise after you take into account how much more we spend on medical care than they do? How about after you put a value on all of those extra days off? I'm just saying.

Update: Avedon Carol at The Sideshow got there first.

posted by David at 6/04/2005 01:28:00 PM ::

Friday, June 03, 2005

Two Analogies

I saw these over at Steve Gilliard's, in the comments to this post. They deserve an (ever so slightly) wider audience.

Steve:

This war has been as bad, if not worse, than we predicted.

Mainly because most of [the war supporters] still try to find the diamond in the turd and there is none. Just more shit.

And this utter gem from BrianOC:

A good analogy is if you and a buddy set out at your buddy's instigation to "beat the living crap" out of someone. However when you've both got the guy down and are pummelling your victim, your buddy pulls out a gun and finishes him off.

The buddy is Bush, you are the Pro War Democrat, and you are *both* going down for murder. (And all your whiny excuses about how your buddy told you it was just going to be an honest beating aren't going to save you)

In the post itself, Steve makes a point that all concerned would do well to think about: We can't save Iraq, and we can't salvage our involvement there. I'm not sure I agree with his pick-up-and-get-out-now recommendation, but the idea that we're accomplishing something worthwhile there is ludicrous.

We invaded the country based on a series of lies. We killed a lot of innocent people there. We tortured and sexually abused a bunch more. Through lack of planning and follow-through, we caused their infrastructure to be ravaged and their national treasures plundered. We are damaged goods, and we look worse to the Iraqis every day this clusterfuck of an occupation drags on.

We tell the Iraqis that we're working towards a day when we'll leave and they can take care of themselves and everything will be wonderful. They must think we're crazy. As soon as we leave, there will be a civil war, and quite possibly a war war if Turkey and Iran decide they don't like the way things are going.

Why are we so proud of what we have in America? Because our founders reinvented government, and through two hard centuries of slow progress, which included a civil war that nearly destroyed us, we made this nation into something to be admired and emulated. We had an advantage, though: we started from scratch.* With the possible exception of Egypt, Iraq has more millenia of brutal precedent and built-up grudges than anywhere else in the world. It's not going to change overnight.

Saddam is an unrepentant thug who visited unspeakable suffering upon his people. Now there is more suffering, and it is our doing. There is the almost inevitable prospect of much worse to come.

We've been irresponsibly meddling in Iraq's affairs since 1990, when Reagan-Bush I Iraq ambassador April Glaspie thoughtlessly said to Saddam " We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait." Nothing we've done there since has done a damned bit of good, for the Iraqis** or for us.

Maybe it's time we finally learned our lesson.

*Even we began with a healthy dose of ~~genocide~~ ethnic cleansing, though...

**Excepting the Iraqi Kurds, to whom we have given the most heartbreaking gift of all, false hope. Once we leave, Turkey will crush them utterly.

posted by David at 6/03/2005 09:55:00 PM ::

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Toil and Trouble

Garance Franke-Ruta really misses the point about the housing bubble:

There's been plenty of talk over the past week about "froth" in the real-estate market, much of it very general and a lot of it irrelevant to most local markets, which tend to more closely resemble middling Tampa or Phoenix than super-hot spots like San Francisco or West Palm Beach. Consequently, all this bubble talk can't be taken too seriously -- what really matters are the regional fundamentals, which too few people pay attention to.

Yes, some markets are more overheated than others, but everyone should be very concerned about what is happening in the housing market, and not just because of those who are currently having problems. Franke-Ruta's focus is completely wide of the main issues.

Let's pay attention to who's really getting hurt in this market, eh? As Richard Yamarone, director of economic research at Argus Research, told The New York Times, "What does it matter if a 'professional home flipper' gets burned in a housing downturn?'

Well, it matters, because all the non-flippers will also get burned, and will, in many cases find their outstanding debt far outstrips the real value of their homes. It matters because financial institutions will tighten credit restrictions beyond recognition, making loans of all kinds much more difficult to come by (and, not incidentally, shrinking the pool of potential homebuyers, further reducing prices). It matters because everyone across the homeowning spectrum will be and feel poorer, which will dampen the consumer spending that has kept the American economy afloat for the past several years. It matters because of the huge pressure that will be brought to bear on the government to bail out profligate lenders and unlucky (ill-informed) homeowners with higher taxes at the same time as the economy is stagnating or worse. It matters because a rapid enough popping of the bubble has the potential to push the U.S. (and world) economy into a full-blown depression.

Finally, any discussion of "the [real estate] fundamentals" that doesn't take into account the cheap money made available through historically low interest rates and absurdly lax lending controls isn't going to explain anything. If foreclosures are at record levels now, while rates are at rock-bottom and prices continue to rise, what's going to happen when conditions go south?

(For those interested, a thorough overview of the U.S. real estate situation is available here.)

posted by David at 6/01/2005 11:01:00 AM ::

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