Bush Redux: The Obama Doctrine

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Glenn Greenwald on the Obama Doctrine:

“Indeed, Obama insisted upon what he called the “right” to wage wars “unilaterally”; articulated a wide array of circumstances in which war is supposedly “just” far beyond being attacked or facing imminent attack by another country; explicitly rejected the non-violence espoused by King and Gandhi as too narrow and insufficiently pragmatic for a Commander-in-Chief like Obama to embrace; endowed us with the mission to use war as a means of combating “evil”; and hailed the U.S. for underwriting global security for the last six decades (without mentioning how our heroic efforts affected, say, the people of Vietnam, or Iraq, or Central America, or Gaza, and so many other places where “security” is not exactly what our wars “underwrote”).  So it’s not difficult to see why Rovian conservatives are embracing his speech; so much of it was devoted to an affirmation of their core beliefs.

The more difficult question to answer is why – given what Drum described – so many liberals found the speech so inspiring and agreeable?  Is that what liberals were hoping for when they elected Obama:  someone who would march right into Oslo and proudly announce to the world that we have a unilateral right to wage war when we want and to sing the virtues of war as a key instrument for peace?  As Tom Friedman put it on CNN yesterday: “He got into their faces . . . I’m for getting into the Europeans’ face.”  Is that what we needed more of?”

From Anti-War to Anti-Warm

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An insightful blog post by Richard Cummings on Lew Rockwell, on where the antiwar movement went:

“Your piece on global warming and the left is spot on. As they used to say in the Soviet Union (if you will forgive my invocation of them), it is “no accident” that Gore has diverted the left  from its anti-war position. This has been the tactic of Establishment liberalism for ages.   Earth Day itself was an attempt to divert the anti-war movement away from the Vietnam War.  As a person, Gore is dishonest.  I know this from personal experience.

Naive liberals have never understood the insidious nature of the liberal Establishment, which shares none of their goals.  It is totally cynical. The inner circle is hugely rich and lives incredibly well.  They buy stocks in defense companies and look down on blacks. They fear the downtrodden will rise up and take away their wealth and privilege, so they toss them crumbs from the state to keep them docile and pretend to identify with them.  The epicenter of these phonies is Goldman Sachs, a parasitic firm that got  bailed out by the government.  It plays both major parties for its own ends.”

Facebook´s Misleading Privacy Tools

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Update: I deactivated my facebook account, following the fracas over the facebook friends page.  I´m still on Twitter. I will also – probably in a few months – change the format of this blog to make some part of it private,  partly to avoid plagiarism and partly for security.

According to this report, privacy advocates are outraged by Facebook´s new settings (that went into effect on Wednesday):

“The Facebook privacy transition tool is clearly designed to push users to share much more of their Facebook info with everyone, a worrisome development that will likely cause a major shift in privacy level for most of Facebook’s users, whether intentionally or inadvertently.”

Prior to the change, Facebook users could keep everything but their names and networks private.

Maybe that throws light on this.

On inquiring, Deep Capture says the inclusion of some of the names initially was an accident and has removed them. It also point out here that the characterization of the list as hacked is libelous…

Other users might want to double-check their settings.

Ilana Mercer On Subverting Natural Law

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“Oblivious to the cameras – or perhaps for them – Amanda Knox, 22, and Raffaele Sollecito, 25, exchanged a slow, sensual kiss in full view of world media. Not far from where the two kissed lay the body of Meredith Kercher, the English girl with whom Knox had shared student accommodation in Perugia, Italy. Her throat slit, Meredith had expired in slow agony.”

I´m sure that opening, from a piece by the always incisive Ilana Mercer, got your attention.

Mercer writes here about an American “media mafia” baying in full-throated support of the murderous Amanda, as an innocent abroad, caught in the toils of  Italy´s provincial justice system.

Now, we can always be counted on to get interested in anything at which media mobs bay…and this case proves to be interesting on other counts as well.

For one thing, I have  a long-standing interest, nourished by the late William Roughhead, in true crime….but this go round, it´s not the murder itself that strikes me, but this passage in Mercer´s piece:

“In American (positive) law, procedural violations can get evidence of guilt – a bloodied knife or a smoking gun – barred from being presented at trial. More often than not, such procedural defaults are used to suppress immutable physical facts, thus serving to subvert the spirit of the (natural) law and justice.”

Mercer, I suppose, means that sometimes technical details of  “how” trip up the more important objective of the law..which, she says, is to do justice. I´m tempted to quote Oliver Wendell Holmes to her (that it´s not the business of the law to do justice..however one construes that), but I´ll pass….

Instead, I´ll ask another question:

By distinguishing between procedural niceties of law and the ends of justice they ought to serve, isn´t Ms Mercer making a rather good argument for the use of extra-legal methods in conducting war….

And wouldn´t that allow for some tactics I am sure she´d condemn ,if they were taken up by one of her most frequent targets, Islamic terrorists?

The Post-Theft Society

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Having stolen the family heirlooms, robbed the vault,  emptied the bank accounts, and stripped the house, the thieves have declared a post-theft society….

How can there be thieves, if  theft no longer exists?

Having played race against race, religion against religion, group against group, the victors have declared a post-racial society.

How can there be racists, if race no longer exists?

Rick Ackerman On the Deflationary Argument

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From Rick Ackerman:

“Our grasp of deflation’s logic began with the 1976 book, The Coming Deflation, by the late C.V. Myers, and continued with Davidson and Rees-Mogg’s The Great Reckoning. Although Myers’ work was obviously premature, the concepts it emphasized are timeless, particularly this one: “Ultimately, every penny of very debt must be paid – if not by the borrower, than by the lender.”  This is the crux of the inflation vs. deflation debate, and because of the way Myers framed it, we’ve never had any doubt that the U.S. would eventually experience a catastrophic deflation. We were early in thinking the financial system would topple as a result of the allegedly “mild” recession of 1990-91 and its S&L crisis. In retrospect, it’s clear that we lacked the imagination to see that the huge amounts of Third World debt that threatened the global economy at the time were relative chump change compared to the galactic sums that Bush, Obama and the Federal Reserve have put into play in the last three years in hopes of saving the system.”

My Comment

I posted this to support my reiterated position that the recession  cannot possibly be corrected as simply as advocates of the stimulus programs like to argue.  It´s been in the making for more than a quarter of a century. Can a few months change everything so fast? I could be mistaken, but I don´t think so,…

I also posted the Ackerman piece to counter the establishment media spin that Nouriel Roubini was so much “ahead” of others in predicting the recession.

I call Roubini an establishment figure because of several things, including the fact that he does business with Larry Summers.  Here is Roubini warning about housing in 2006...

He himself said the earliest he predicted the housing crash was in July and August 2006.

But by then, even a layman, like yours truly had already done that, and done it earlier – July 2005

And I was, at least in part, drawing on my reading of Mises. org, Lew Rockwell, and The Daily Reckoning, when I wrote the piece…which is where they spotted me on the web, and offered me a gig.

(As I said, I´m always walking into synchronicities in my life..)

Compare that with what other experts were saying in 2005, which is,  there´s no housing bubble. That´s Ritholtz, by the way, who writes the excellent blog, The Big Picture (At least, Ritholtz also did say that housing was extended).

But then, in that same piece,  Ritholtz  also predicted that 2008 would be a good time to reenter the housing market. Oops. [Dec 12. On second thoughts,  maybe oops isn´t really warranted. Housing may not have bottomed out everywhere, but I´ll bet you could have picked up good bargains in a few places in 2008]

That shows that you can have very good number-crunching skills, but then miss some of the…..dare I say it?…big picture.…because the big picture has nothing to do with number-crunching but with perspective

And that takes a knowledge of history…. and not simply economic history either. It takes a broader knowledge of the world than professional money-managers usually have.

Meanwhile, compared to Austro-libertarians (see those cited above in Ackerman´s post), Roubini was some twenty-five years late in his analysis.

Yet the media studiously ignores Austrian theory and Austrian theorists (Mark Thornton, for example, called the housing bubble exactly on time and called gold $1200 back in 2005) and stamps approval on people who were either late or wrong…and turns to them for solutions.

Why is all that important? Because it shows the intellectual dishonesty that is at the heart of the corruption of the system.  Fraud and force go together, and for political and financial fraud to succeed, they need intellectual and academic fraud to cover their sins… and prep the soil.

Deep lack of trust of anyone who adheres to a rival political theory (or to a rival political party)…. and the arrogance of power…lead the establishment media to rewrite history…. and this intellectual dishonesty is the rag behind which the emperor (the state) hides his moral nudity.

The Conscience Of A Speculator

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December 20, 1998: an exchange between George Soros and Steve Kroft on “60 Minutes”:

“Kroft: “You’re a Hungarian Jew …”
Soros: “Mm-hmm.”……

Kroft: “My understanding is that you went … went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews.”

Soros: “Yes, that’s right. Yes.”

Kroft: “I mean, that’s—that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?”

Soros: “Not, not at all. Not at all. Maybe as a child you don’t … you don’t see the connection. But it was—it created no—no problem at all.”

Kroft: “No feeling of guilt?”

Soros: “No.”

Kroft: “For example, that, ‘I’m Jewish, and here I am, watching these people go. I could just as easily be these, I should be there.’ None of that?”

Soros: “Well, of course, … I could be on the other side or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away. But there was no sense that I shouldn’t be there, because that was—well, actually, in a funny way, it’s just like in the markets—that is I weren’t there—of course, I wasn’t doing it, but somebody else would—would—would be taking it away anyhow. And it was the—whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator, the property was being taken away. So the—I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.”

Government Democide: The Power That Kills…

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R. J. Rummel on democide:

“This is a report of the statistical results from a project on comparative genocide and mass-murder in this century. Most probably near 170,000,000 people have been murdered in cold-blood by governments, well over three-quarters by absolutist regimes. The most such killing was done by the Soviet Union (near 62,000,000 people), the communist government of China is second (near 35,000,000), followed by Nazi Germany (almost 21,000,000), and Nationalist China (some 10,000,000). Lesser megamurderers include WWII Japan, Khmer Rouge Cambodia, WWI Turkey, communist Vietnam, post-WWII Poland, Pakistan, and communist Yugoslavia. The most intense democide was carried out by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, where they killed over 30 percent of their subjects in less than four years. The best predictor of this killing is regime power. The more arbitrary power a regime has, the less democratic it is, the more likely it will kill its subjects or foreigners. The conclusion is that power kills, absolute power kills absolutely.“

Five-Minute Guide To Propaganda On The Web

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I´m noticing some hilarious (to me) propaganda efforts on the web. Unfortunately, newbie media watchers are liable to be misled quite easily by them.

Here, I offer a quick and handy guide to spotting a propaganda effort, especially one emanating from Wall Street.

1. Predominance of name-calling.  Does the writer offer arguments or name-calling? A few ripe names here and there are one thing. But if a piece is entirely devoid of reasoning and simply includes a list of epithets, such as, freak, weird, bizarre, crazy, loon, circus, tin-foil hat..it´s propaganda.

2. False Equivalence. Your man is caught committing an axe murder to which he ´fesses up on tape.  He´s also an embezzler, a pathological liar, and kicks his dog.  Their guy is an upstanding citizen on all counts, successful, philanthropic, intellectual, but he likes to party .. and got into a couple of fights once.  No equivalence.

Trying to make false equivalences is the hall-mark of propaganda. A kid´s theft of a five dollar trinket is not the same offense as the monumental thieving that got us into this financial crisis. Anyone who makes these kinds of equivalences isn´t smart enough or honest enough to be trusted.

3.  Talking points. When you hear the same set phrases tripping off the lips of everyone – then it´s propaganda. This doesn´t mean that a catchy phrase can´t be repeated quite innocuously. I´m also not talking about people who stay on message and keep repeating some thing to get it through to the public. I am talking about spinning things by choosing certain phrases. I´m talking about guilt by association. Say, you don´t have reason or evidence on your side. What do you do? You take a picture of  Ted Bundy (or Hitler, or any one else), and then try to associate your enemy with that person.

4. Same old, same old. Watch out for the same faces showing up all over again. Propaganda is usually spun by a few favorites and any sidekicks and newbies whom they can con into joining their team.  When you´re worried about someone´s honesty, try google. Go back and read the stuff they wrote. See when they wrote it. Do they have a consistent philosophy (changing your mind on a subject is a different thing). Do they have understandable positions..and a coherent intellectual frame work?

5. Separate the name-calling from the facts. Because some supposedly authoritative figure calls something a conspiracy, lies, or anything else doesn´t make it so. We´ve just seen from climate-gate how biased the peer review process is. Well, wiki is manipulated too. And some blogs, including this one, can show you hard evidence that publishing and the media are pretty much manipulated as well.

6. Look at the person´s record. There are a lot of late-comers to the scene claiming credit for things they didn´t discover, happen upon, or explain first. Revisionist history is all over the place. Look to see if the person credits  sources – including opponents, enemies, people on the opposite side of the political spectrum, and obscure sources. That´s the hall mark of intellectual honesty. If they aren´t intellectually honest, they´re unlikely to be honest in other ways. If they repeatedly misattribute and twist history (remember, partial truths are the worst lies), watch out.

7. Look at the level of emotion and reason. Emotion..even passion..is good. But emotion without the ability to retract, qualify, substantiate, source, question, analyze, synthesize, and accurately assess, is pointless, dangerous and a possible sign of propaganda, or, at least, sound and fury minus substance. How polite is the person if contradicted? Do they answer criticism? (I´m talking about legitimate criticism, not flaming or obstructionism).

8. Beware of accusations whose significance you can´t assess. Do you know enough about business, accounting, law, and history to judge which mistake is serious and which isn´t? If you don´t, consult people who do. Don´t consult one person. Talk to several experts and get a feel for the issue.

9. Beware of innuendo that lacks relevance. Having a drunk-driving violation doesn´t disqualify you from discussing subsidies for the auto industry.  Someone´s hairstyle, body type, love life, and hobbies are irrelevant. Anyone who harps on the personal stuff doesn´t have a case….unless the personal stuff is inextricable from their public professions. Even so, be wary of it.

10. Get to know the history of the players and the issues. Often, the same set of opponents go at each other over years. Don´t show up in year 10 and hope to figure out what´s going on.

11.  Research the subject yourself, reading both sides (and any other side, as well). Talk to professionals and experts, but also talk to people on the outside. Sometimes, as with Wall Street, professionals can´t see something because they´re steeped in the ideology of their job.

12. Ethnic and religious solidarity, professional ideology, provincialism, racism, gender bias, nationalism, imperialism…it´s taboo to check for these.  I do. When the advocates of a position all look a like, I ask myelf why. It´s not automatic that they´re therefore biased, but it could well be that they all see things the same way because they have in common the same life experience. Someone might use lofty arguments, but the real reason he picks on Greenspan, and not someone else, is because Greenspan is Jewish. And conversely, a Jewish person might pick on someone because he´s Catholic, and not for the reason he professes in public. This might be unconscious. Or it could be quite self-conscious but hidden under disingenous professions of transparence.

No one, especially not people in power, should be believed to be “above” this sort of bias. Major print, TV and online media are part of that power.

13. Money.

This, of course, should be number one on the list. Is the person being paid to say what they´re saying. If so, how much, by whom, and with what degree of disclosure. If they´re upfront, it might not be a problem. After all university professors are paid..but not all of them take positions in politics that have anything to do with their universities´positions. Also, there are many dishonest shills, friends, networks, and fellow travelers, who don´t get paid but still churn out reliable propaganda or PR on behalf of their favorite cause or person. I don´t mean that one should discount the testimony of friendly networks. Not at all. But if  a groupie or fellow traveler can´t show evidence and reasoning for their support, then their statement is no more than a testimonial.

Ultimately, all this boils down to  one thing. Skip the emotion and invective, and look for the evidence and logic. And don´t be intimidated by celebrity, “authoritative” sources,  the popularity of a position or anything else.

Example: A journalist attacks naked short-selling. The industry defends itself by saying short selling is a good thing. Duh.

No one´s objecting to short selling..so why the strawman? Maybe because an attack on short selling would be easier to knock down than one on naked short selling?

Example: Critics of anthropogenic global warming are often criticized for attacking global warming, or climate change. But AGW is not any of these things. And critics aren´t usually denying the existence of anthropogenic global warming. What they´re objecting to is the claim that AGW is large enough to be a problem and the idea that, if so, there´s something human beings could do about it in the way of policies and economic interventions. That´s an entirely different kettle of fish. But climatistas won´t ever spell that out..