A few comments:
- I've never seen much evidence that Obama has any true respect for white feminists. He seems to see feminists as whiny me-too victims who try to hog the spotlight from the real victims: blacks. The Throw Grandma Under the Bus incident which he brought up this year to excuse Rev. Wright exemplifies this.
You'll notice that Obama had his wife spend the last half of the campaign year acting like a devoted homebody who could barely bear to be away from her children for minutes. Of course, that raises the question: if Michelle's priorities are so home-centric, what in the world was she getting paid $317,000 for in 2005? Was this money just intended as a payoff to Obama to protect the interests of a huge private hospital?
The reality is more mixed. Over the years, Michelle served Barack's political ambitions much like Hillary served Bill's: as his enabler. Thus, he got Michelle a job handing out NGO jobs to young lefties, which built the Obama brand name in Chicago. But while Bill Clinton felt compelled to attest over and over again to how his wife should really be co-President, Barack treated Michelle during the campaign about like how Ike treated Mamie Eisenhower.
- Does Aspergery Larry Summers really have the right personality for what's going to be in large part a salesman's job of reasurring the world that the End Is Not Nigh? I like Larry, but he's got "Staff, Not Line" written all over him.
- If Obama makes Summers his second pick, after Rahm Emmanuel, that's basically a message that the neos (neoliberals and neocons) are in the house and they ain't going anywhere. You'll recall that during the brouhaha after Larry's perfectly accurate remarks on why there aren't many women mechanical engineering professors at Harvard, only two Harvard professors behaved honorably: Steven Pinker defended Summers on the science, and mechanical engineering professor Frederick H. Abernethy attacked him for wasting a gigantic amount of Harvard's money defending his best friend, Harvard economist Andrei Schleifer, from federal charges for playing a corrupt role in the Rape of Russia in the 1990s.
Most of Summers' other defenders were hard-core neos. Fellow big name Harvard economist Edward Glaeser denounced prominent investigative journalist David McClintick's Institutional Investor report on Shleifer as "a potent piece of hate creation—not quite 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' but it's in that camp." Perhaps Summers' most vocal defender was Ruth R. Wisse, who is the Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature at Harvard (no, I'm not making that up).
- What does the appointment of Rahm Israel Emmanuel and the intense consideration of Larry Summers say about Obama? The assumption that he intended to wage some kind of idealistic foreign policy is silly. The crucial thing to remember about Obama is that he always played ball. That's how he got ahead in Chicago politics. He played ball with Richie Daley, with Tony Rezko, with the Black Muslims, with John Stroger, with Bill Ayers, with various Palestinian intellectuals in exile, with everybody. He's the opposite of his predecessor in that Illinois Senate Seat, Republican Peter Fitzgerald, who brought pit bull prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to Chicago to put corrupt Republican governor George Ryan in prison. (I'm proud that one of the few times I've ever voted for a Democrat was when I voted for Ryan's opponent in 1998 because Ryan was a crook who had taken campaign contributions/bribes to give truck drivers licenses to bad drivers, which got innocent motorists killed.) Sen. Peter Fitzgerald didn't play ball, so he was out out on his butt after one term and Obama took his place.
Obama plays ball. In Hyde Park in the 1980s and 1990s, he played ball with anti-Semites to help his radical street cred, but now he's playing ball in the biggest league of all, and those Palestinians and black nationalists aren't in this league at all. They're small time losers. Rahm Emmanuel, on the other hand, very much is.
One of Obama's favorite novelists is Philip Roth. Having reread Portnoy's Complaint recently, I must say that that book can help you develop a quite realistic understanding of aspects of the contemporary world, four decades after Roth wrote it. I suspect Obama drew similar lessons from it.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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91 comments:
I was surprised to see Larry Summers rehabilitated. It begs the question: who are Larry Summers' patrons? Which people are helping Larry Summers return to the public eye?
As a social conservative, I'm heartened by Michelle's domesticity and Barack's contempt for feminism. His extremism on abortion, however, is worrisome. I'm hoping he was playing ball back in Chicago on this issue. I'm no pollyanna and realize I'm grasping for a sliver of hope that it won't be that bad. I know he'll appoint Leftist judges, most of whom are on the wrong side on that issue. One thing that gives me hope is that I read a suggestion that Barack was so knee jerk on abortion trying to please the feminists, that he went overboard and unthinkingly once backed a measure that even Boxer, Clinton, and Kennedy opposed. He came out later and said he regretted it or some such.
Where is his heart on this? Is there hope for people like me that, in looking to find patriarchal judges for Blacks, his number one priority, that he'll nominate some who are patriarchal on social issues? I'm hoping that what went down in California, because of minorities that supported him, has had a chilling effect on Obama's social liberalism.
Steve,
This is off-topic, but I'm curious if you're aware of this. This article suggests that Obama's compulsory universal service idea originated with Rahm Emanuel. An excerpt from Emanuel's 2006 book called "The Plan: Big Ideas for America":
"It's time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service. ...
Here's how it would work. Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service. They'll be asked to report for three months of basic civil defense training in their state or community, where they will learn what to do in the event of biochemical, nuclear or conventional attack; how to assist others in an evacuation; how to respond when a levee breaks or we're hit by a natural disaster. These young people will be available to address their communities' most pressing needs."
Obama recently suggested something very, very similar.
Steven Pinker defended Obama on the science?
Maybe Steven Pinker defended Summers on the science?
"If Obama makes Summers his second pick, after Rahm Emmanuel, that's basically a message that the neos are in the house and they ain't going anywhere."
Perhaps it would help if you concisely defined "neocon". There seem to be a few different definitions floating around -- e.g., the former liberals (mostly Jews) who became conservative on domestic policy after seeing the failures of the Great Society; the PNAC advocates for the invasion of Iraq; Jews in government, etc. I can see how Emmanuel might fit the second (PNAC) definition, since he supported the war in Iraq.
What makes Summers a neocon in your mind though, other than him being a Jew? Are all Jews other than outright opponents of Israel such as Philip Weiss neocons by your definition?
- Fred
typos:
"Steven Pinker defended Obama on the science" (I think?)
"The End is not Night"
Ha, ha! Why am I not surprised about any of this...
Emmanual was also one of the strongest pro-Iraq War Democrats, and did his absolute best to prevent any anti-War Democrats from getting nominations, or speaking out. I often predicted that Obama will be promising to completely pull out of Iraq as one of his campaign pledges when he runs for re-election in 2012...
As for Summers, I strongly suspect he was a silent partner in his friend Shleifer's Russian financial swindles. That later allowed Shleifer then to blackmail him into spending millions of Harvard's money to keep Shleifer out of prison. Summers must have known he was risking his Harvard Presidency by taking that action, and I just don't think that "friendship" alone could explain such behavior.
More anti-Semitism from Steve. :)
"Rahm Israel Emmanuel and the intense consideration of Larry Summers say about Obama? The assumption that he intends to wage some kind of idealistic foreign policy is silly."
I don't understand the point of this post. If the Jewish Emmanuel and Summers are not being hired to influence foreign policy, then how could hiring them placate the neocons/Jews?
Both Emmanuel and Summers are good at what Obama wants to them to do.
Emmanuel was not hired because Obama is "playing ball" with the Neocons/Jews. Emmanuel is coming aboard the ship to act as the Rove/Atwater DC insider hatchet man. By all accounts, Emmanuel is skilled at this line of work.
And so what if Summers is friends with a few neocons at Harvard?
Summers is a knowledgeable wonk on economic policy. He is as qualified as anyone in America to be Treasury Secretary - regardless of whether you think he is being hired to placate neocon Jews.
The Neocons are funny folks. Here, Jonah Goldberg discovers that Rahm Emmanuel is Jewish.
Interesting Take [Jonah Goldberg]
From a longtime liberal reader:
His very first appointment? Rahm Emmanuel. Modern Orthodox, spoke Hebrew in his household growing up, wife converted before marriage, volunteered as a civilian for the IDF during the 1991 Gulf War. This guy has every bit the Jewish chops of a Joe Lieberman, an Alan Dershowitz, a Debbie Wasserman Schultz. He is Jewish and pro-Israel through and through and wears it on the outside for everyone to see.
I am hopeful that if, as and when Obama sends out conciliatory feelers to Fatah and even perhaps Hamas, they will get the point that they have in Obama no patsy.
Goldberg comments:
The Jewish angle completely escaped me, and I have to wonder whether it escaped Obama as well. I certainly think that if Emmanuel were an Epsicopalian but in all other ways the same guy, Obama would still want him. But, it's an interesting point
Your post bewildered me until I realised that you weren't talking about Larry Sinclair.
Man, the first 20 pages of Portnoy's Complaint are magic. Even funnier than the unintentional comedy of the Vietnam stuff from Human Stain that seemed lifted straight out of a Magnum PI flashback.
Mankind is still centuries away from creating a lever long enough for Roth to even budge Thomas Berger's manhood.
But, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how long the halo lasts.
Steve, you've called it exactly right in this post.
It oughta be grand fun to watch the feminists screeching over this one.
I'm gonna make some popcorn.
Far too sanguine Steve.
Emmanuel is there to keep herd on Pelosi. He's COS, not State or anything else. Of course Obama will conduct a naive and dangerous and weak foreign policy -- his whole base is that way, indeed the entire Dem party is that.
Dems believe, with all their might like little kids clapping for Tinkerbell, that if they are just nice enough to people abroad, doggone it they'll like em back!
Putin's experience: Beslan (and before that, non-stop attacks) before leveling Grozny, no attacks afterwards shows that's hogwash. Modern technology plus globalization plus tribal peoples beset by polygamy = instability and attacks on "weak" players, leaving "strong" ones alone.
Obama and his base don't understand that because they've never lived and don't study history. They actually BELIEVE the human race just transformed. It's why Obama reflexively, asked about what he'd do if a US city was nuked, answered hug the first responders.
If anything Obama's picks: Emmanuel to ride herd on Pelosi, and Summers possibly for Treasury, shows how thin his bench is and how outside his core backers he must go for people to run things. Also that he's focused on the economy. Which he must be, but too much focus on that leads to adventures to our disadvantage abroad.
Iran going nuclear and threatening the US forces there to get out of the Gulf entirely "or else?" Afghanistan falling apart, with no good options (supply goes through shaky Pakistan). Russia encouraging Iran to have "you and them (which is America) fight" and North Korea figuring it's no comeback to sell to anyone their spare nukes? Being weak abroad has a huge price.
Moreover, Obama's loyalty to Wright, Ayers, Khalidi, long after they'd become embarrassments points out another flaw which you yourself have focused on -- Obama's desire to prove himself "Black Enough" and embrace radicals at every turn as part of "being Black."
Why didn't he have a Sistah Souljah moment with these clowns? Because he fundamentally agrees with them and they fill a need for being "Black Enough."
Re Michelle. She's always cutting him down in public, not much love there, very angry, no doubt the alleged mistress showed her who the real power is ... much to her displeasure.
Eager to hear more about what "Portnoy's Complaint" has to teach us about the modern world! I re-read it fairly recently and it struck me as a brilliant standup comedy routine. But I'm sure Steve has some wonderfully Steve-ish things to say about the book.
What the heck is Portnoy's Complaint all about? How about a blurb on it? (Besides some Jewish guy drooling over corn-fed Aryan maidens...) Some of us hard science types never read novels.
Yeah, Obama brought in truckloads of campaign cash while McCain struggled because Obama plays ball. I'm relieved that he seems to be a typical politician--a very good typical politician.
OK, typos & word choice not typical of whomever writes Sailer's articles.
"I must say that that book can help you ..."
"...about like how Ike treated..."
repetition of "He played ball..." completely unSaileresque as well
I was going to give you a B- but this feature went too far afield, C - for it.
I'd say Rahm Emanuel is a liberal hawk rather than a neo-con (as with Peretz or the Dems that voted for the Iraq war). I don't know enough about Larry Summers' positions to even give him that label. Schleifer is still highly regarded by a lot of economists who are by no means neo-cons (but may not care very much about how many eggs got broken in Russia during the transition away from communism).
No bias here.
___
Like Lincoln and FDR, Obama faces nation in crisis AP
WASHINGTON - All presidents are tested. Few walk into the Oval Office when the nation is in the throes of multiple crises.
It befuddles me that he would be courting the neocons. You've noted, quite rightly, that he has no regard or interest in foreign countries that don't tie into his life story. And the neocons are the ones holding all of the cards in foreign policy circles. Yet it seems unusual that he would align himself with them, simply because he opposed the Iraq War from the very start.
Perhaps it was politically opportune to be anti-war in Chicago, 2002, and equally advantageous to be pro-intervention come 2008? Maybe I've confused this man for a principle one, but I still find it hard to swallow that anyone could stand against the Iraq War, only to turncoat for a worse conflict.
"Steven Pinker defended Obama on the science."
Did you mean to write Summers rather than Obama, here?
Best wishes,
Julian
It befuddles me that he would be courting the neocons
Well maybe you are looking at the power relationship upside down?
"Having reread Portnoy's Complaint recently, I must say that that book can help you develop a quite realistic understanding of aspects of the contemporary world"
Steve, could you expand on this comment?
What "aspects" specifically?
Culture cracking? Crypto-communism? Exterminationist fantasies? Making "subvert whitey" the guiding principle in your life? Setting the goal of having a shiksa in every state?
That is too funny that Obama's compulsory universal service idea "originated with Rahm Emanuel"...
Rahm is the guy who served in the Israel Defence Forces instead of the US Armed Forces.
Do as I say not as I do? Or do as I have done?
Meaning the compulsory service would not necessarily be performed for the USA...but instead just pick your preferred true patriotic homeland to defend overseas or next door in Mexico...whatever: Think globally.
Or maybe he means for everyone to do exactly as he as done? Compulsory universal service in the IDF for all Americans?
That would be the insane but logical conclusion of the recent trend in American politics.
Just come on out in the open with your real desires, boys. Hey, are we going to be switched over to the Jewish calendar soon?
Looking at Obama from the other side of the Atlantic, I don't see him in quite the same way Steve Sailer does.
My assumption is that Obama consciously chose to build a career using black radicalism and the Chicago Democratic machine. Growing up in the middle of nowhere in Hawaii, he selected Chicago as a base because of the opportunities it offered to an ambitious black politician. He then wrote a volume of autobiography which not-so-subtly misrepresented his early life in order to make his political choices appear more understandable (hardly the first politician to do that).
Since his elevation to public office, he has yet again reinvented himself as a kind of multi-racial messiah above politics.
It's not actually necessary to assume he ever really believed any of the racial stuff - it may well all have been simply a means to an end.
OMG, guys, of course the Neocons play both sides of the political fence. Ben Wattenberg is a classic Neocon, he worked for LBJ and he famously endorsed Bill Clinton for both of his runs for President.
Hell, Obama hammered Clinton in the primaries, his wife famously attacked Hillary for not “running her own house, so how can she run the White House.” And now Obama is filling up his administration with Clinton retreads.
That is how the game is played guys. And the Neocons, whether they pretend to be conservative Republicans or moderate Democrats (or even liberal ones) are basically in agreement on the major foreign policy and economic policy issues. Those policies include intervention on behalf of Israel, open borders on immigration and free trade. That is Steve’s Invade the World; Invite the World; In Hock to the World.
It appears Obama is willing to go along on most of the Neocon agenda in exchange not only for personal power but maybe to get some things done that he thinks will help on issues he cares about (e.g., for the black community).
I don't know all the names on the Obama economic transition panel, but the only black person I noticed was Time Warner CEO, Richard Parsons, who famously scored the highest on the New York Bar exam his year. I also just learned that he went to college in Hawaii. Does this mean he wants the highest quality black appointees who are not going to embarass themselves. By contrast he picked Mayor Villaraigosa to add to the latino representation. He's not the first person I'd think of when it comes to economic expertise.
Summers really have the right personality for what's going to be in large part a salesman's job of reasurring the world that the End Is Not Nigh?
steve's opinion of what the job entails might not be accurate at all here; maybe the powers that be don't give a damn about reassuring the world right now; maybe the opposite. maybe they are thinking a big new war is just what the doctor ordered; maybe domestic chaos is ok with them too sort of like 9/11; maybe they are thinking about a further paradigm shift.
Glaeser denounced prominent investigative journalist David McClintick's Institutional Investor report on Shleifer as "a potent piece of hate creation—not quite 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' but it's in that camp."
potent piece of hate creation?! that is some hilarious phrasing, sir. sort of like this:
'i, barack hussein obama, do solemnly swear...'
that will be a key moment. when we complete our journey from general george washington to the black liberation theology community organizer.
Like Lincoln and FDR, Obama faces nation in crisis AP
Like Jimmy Carter, Obama faces a nation in crisis.
Fixed.
I watched Rachel Maddow assess the prospect of a Summers appointment; no mention of the plunder of the former Soviet Union and how his appointment might play internationally, just that impenetrably smug smile as she noted his appointment might not play well domestically because he said that "girls can't do math."
Meet the new gloss.
We're led by the openly dishonest and informed by the willfully obtuse.
Did Steven Pinker defend James Watson on the science?
ISTM that choosing Biden as VP and maybe Summers as Treasury Secretary signals a change in the world in another way. Obama comes off looking like a sensible guy who ignores the point-and-sputter manufactured outrage sessions of the crazy fringe of the left. Although it's silly to make Obama or anyone else the spokesman for blacks in the US (he's got a big job ahead of him being spokesman for the whole US), that sort of thing sets a tone--it says "no, I'm not going to act on these silly manufactured outrage incidents, I'll judge people on more sensible things." That will have a big positive impact on the country. Any chance we can get him to appoint James Watson as his science advisor?
Why does this surprise you about the neocons?
After 8 years of a disastrous "screw you all" to the world (which helped achieve what?), they've realized they need someone "articulate" (not a remnant of an alcoholic who can't string two coherent sentences together) and someone the riffraff of the parts of the world they feign to have an aching desire to "transform" can identify with. (I saw video clips of total idiots in distant villages of some Muzzy lands sacrificing sheep for Obama thinking he's a Muslim; see, that was the reason for keeping that rumor alive.)
In the process, they've also managed to entirely discredit the GOP (and, along with it, American conservatism) in the eyes of pretty much everyone in the world.
During the period, they've also created a massive bubble that will, after it's "bailed out," not only transfer huge amounts of the wealth of middle class whites (impoverishing them further since real wages are stagnant) to the financial elite, but also cause the foreign doofuses who bought the junk used in creating that bubble (a significant portion of whom happen to be "Ay-rabs") suffer huge losses. Two birds with one stone.
Iraq is also still a mess, which is as it should be for the self-shadow-intimidated citizens of a little country down there to feel safe.
I say, the political ambitions of the neocons -- far from being dumped -- are still being worked through.
In fifty years, they've transformed America -- a country of immense cognitive prowess -- beyond all recognition. You think they won't be able to transform the rest of the world -- with their two-notches-above-boiled-cabbage level IQs ("differently-colored anti-semites," in neocon-speak since the whole universe is anti-semitic as it forms the complement set of Yahweh's Darlings) -- into something harmless? Come on, guys, be serious!
I'll put my money on this: despite pretenses and appearances, Obama is a crypto-neocon plant (although Bush would say "Plant? No no, he's human"). Their "intellectuals" loved harassing and belittling even Palin (who is way livelier than part-corpse McCain) while even Krauthammer switched to praise mode for Obama towards the end. Besides, they've never really worked hard for McCain, anyway. Why should they? B. "Hussein" (my ass) Obama is a perfect front for them. They'll drop armchair hawkism and revert to their time honored "by way of deception, you shall make war" doctrine.
Sayin' Nick-less
Who are Larry Summer's patrons?
Gee, how far will Larry and Rahm have to walk to AIPAC's offices?
Here's another clue: Read the Washington Times. It tends to say things it shouldn't, such as when Arnold de Borgrauve called Israel the 51st state. Or the the time it called Lieberman "hawkish" on the war.
OT (but on the topic of Obama) -- from Peter Hitchens:
The night we waved goodbye to America... our last best hope on Earth
I cannot believe it.
Larry Summers was forced to resign for a non PC comment. That girls like dolls or something like that.
Is he being re-habilitated? Is this the beginning of the end of the PC dictatorship?
Only a black President could do that. May be racial quotas will also be abolished.
There have been certain things on this website that, for the life of me, I can't understand. Some of them such as what evidence there is that Jeremiah Wright hates whitey, or how look at IQ results and accept the findings of blacks vis-a-vis whites but not the same of white vis-a-vis Asians, I am resigned to never getting an answer for.
Another one is, exactly how is retelling a (supposedly) true story from one's youth "throwing grandma under the bus?"
While we are at it maybe someone can take a logical crack at the centuries old "why white males with Asian wives are not considered race traitors" conundrum.
"I'd say Rahm Emanuel is a liberal hawk rather than a neo-con..."
Is this not analogous to choosing death by sledgehammer or machete
"...but the only black person I noticed was Time Warner CEO, Richard Parsons, who famously scored the highest on the New York Bar exam his year."
Parsons also drastically overpaid for AOL at the peak of the dot-com bubble.
- Fred
but may not care very much about how many eggs got broken in Russia during the transition away from communism)
Do they care if an omelet was even made?
Hey, are we going to be switched over to the Jewish calendar soon?
Last time I checked, Congress already had (more Jewish holidays than Christian); so much for the famous Jewish support of separation of Church and State.
Steve, you're off the rails on the Jew thing but that's fine, I'm enjoying the humor of watching you sputter madly on the subject much as I enjoyed the humor of watching a good portion of your commentors swearing on the cross that Obama was going to haul them off to re-education camps. Crazy is as crazy does and thanks for the laughs.
More importantly: You totally misunderstand Portnoy's Complaint. Look, whatever Jewishy subplot you want to obsess on is fine by me but what makes this work more accurate than the Bible is his portrayal of the maddening evil done to a good, smart Jewish boy by the insanity that was (on occasion) the Jewish mother. I'm not sure quite how you could have missed this.
And again, on the Jewish thing, thanks for the laughs. As a friend though, lemme offer you a bit of advice. You once mentioned the fact of your having been adopted and of your lack of clarity with regards to what "people" you might descend. You mentioned that in your youth you had hoped or assumed that it was from the Jews... well soon we Jews are going to stop pussyfooting around with the occasional Cabinet Ministry. With our undying fealty to each other (sub: super-brains and/or deal with the devil) we're going to take over the world in a rather blatant manner and subjugate all of the goyim to our will - the tiny tiny land of Israel. Yeah, we could conquer some more pliable Real Estate (Australia comes to mind) but we, powerful people that we are, are pretty tied to that little deserty area surrounded by half-brained savages. Where was I? Oh yeah, the coming subjugation.
So Steve, I'd recommend you get your genetic documents in order if you want to be accepted as a member of the master race and not face possible extermination or economic homicide.
Behold a Beloved of Yahweh has spoken!
mnuez
Side note. I'm not all too good at delegating but I think I'll give it a shot. The insanities that one occasionally finds in this sacred spot and the insanities that one occasionally finds at the left-wing blog A Tiny Revolution ought by all rights to cancel each other out. But they don't. You guys don't read them and they don't read you. So here: I'm delegating the task of having to deal with wretched logic to the both of you. Play among yourselves.
"Did Steven Pinker defend James Watson on the science?"
I've been watching Pinker, the foremost public figure explaining that genes matter, on this. When it comes to race, he flinches.
Janine Wedel wrote a good book, Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of Western Age to Eastern Europe, 1990-1997, about how Russia was screwed up by the Harvard "clique" (I prefer the term "Yankee carpetbaggers")after the collapse of the Soviet regime. I guess we know now who Obama's taken his orders from.
Is this some sort of way of sticking it to Hillary?
Heads up: I'm seeing a lot of pro-eugenics comments at left wing blogs lately relating to Palin and Prop 8 running along the lines of "we need to prevent stupid people from breeding". Did we just trick the left into supporting hardcore eugenics *and* genetic determinism?
just that impenetrably smug smile...
Thank you, Dennis Dale, for capturing Rachel Maddow in a phrase.
Don't neglect The Onion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3_95F5e-Ac
Yet it seems unusual that he would align himself with them, simply because he opposed the Iraq War from the very start.
That's not unusual at all. His constituency at the time was overwhelmingly against the war. What would have been shocking is support for the war on Obama's part.
I think Steve is probably on track with regard to Obama's dismissal of the feminists. Obama immune to their pressure, as any criticism from that quarter will be labeled racism. Of all national politicians he may be the only one who can get away with it.
One thing I found very interesting about the recent dust-up over proposition 8 in California is the realization while white liberals put the black civil rights movement in the context of the civil rights movements of women and gays, black people do not. So white feminists, who just assumed they would have a friend in the White House because he's black are in for some disappointment. He'll throw them a bone on occasion, but he won't make any sacrifices in their interests.
I'm actually strongly pro-Israel and couldn't give less of a damn about the Palestinians. I care about our borders and would be happy to let Israel do whatever it feels it needs to do so long as we could also preserve our territorial integrity.
But it is frankly hilarious that the usual suspects here are denying that Rahm Emmanuel is going to have an enormous influence over foreign policy. I'm amazed no one has yet posted this priceless quote:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1225910047157&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
In an interview with Ma'ariv, Emanuel's father, Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, said he was convinced that his son's appointment would be good for Israel. "Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel," he was quoted as saying. "Why wouldn't he be? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House."
The first paragraph could have been rewritten as "Obama is not beholden to feminist ideologues."
Just to make a general observation, you seem to do this all the time: take a fairly positive idea or factoid and impute ridiculously negative connotations to it.
Take this post about the Toyota Prius. http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/07/toyota-prius-v-pontiac-aztek.html
Basically, the Toyota Prius is both environmentally friendly AND fashionable. Which is fantastic!
But instead you mostly snark about how liberals buy it just to get laid.
I suspect that Obama never came to terms with his mother abandoning him. He seems to actively dislike leftist white women such as Hillary Clinton - his refusal to mend bridges with the white feminists after winning the primaries certainly cost him some votes.
Sailer's underestimation of the neocons' durability is typical and par for the course for the non-Left. About 99.9999% of people who oppose the Left do not actually bother to comprehend leftist psychology. Instead they dismiss leftist ideas as a form of nonsense which will logically pass like a tacky fad. And that is a fatal mistake.
Dennis Dale hit the nail on the head. Summers is being appointed to reassure the crooks on Wall Street. No one is going to jail over a little looting and plundering--at least not if they have the right political connections.
Another very revealing thread is up at View From the Right:
Why blacks are happy
Check out the extreme racial militancy on display among the wealthy New York art patron crowd as related by the commenter "Sebastian"...
Only clueless Conservatives and Libertarians could be surprised at this late date to see how many non-whites (rich and poor alike) are ready to depose The Man.
"as I enjoyed the humor of watching a good portion of your commentors swearing on the cross that Obama was going to haul them off to re-education camps."
Links, quotes, names and examples (more than one preferably), or it didn't happen.
Obama is not a Neocon. Neoconism, boiled down to it's essentials, has a strong military intervening in threatening states to stop threats before they get too large. This is called common sense.
There are fairly idiotic utopian ideas attached at the edges, such as consensual democratic states (impossible given polygamy in Islam) being better than dictatorships, and so on. Which is driven by PC on both the left and the right (it's the Polygamy stupid to paraphrase Clinton).
But Neocon Obama is not. He's cutting the defense budget to the bone, ditching missile defense, killing Military R&D (so we have no advantages over possible enemies) and betting it all on his ability to Kumbayah everyone into adopting him as the transracial, transnational, transformational God-King.
God help us.
Summers just shows how thin his bench is. Summers really was just a victim of the PC show trials, nothing he said was objectionable. That being said, however, the hard-left idiot brigade is going to cause Obama much heartache because they are mutually exclusive in so many issues and have unrealistic expectations.
Take Prop 8. Gays are now calling Blacks the N word. Seriously, it was posted on Instapundit. Blacks are threatening back. It's a PC-Multicultural paradise. And it will only get worse. OF COURSE Obama can muscle through Summers, but his feminist idiot enemies will howl and scream, and their enablers in the media will amplify that, even though they are few in number.
In fact, a more Machiavellian GOP would encourage as much infighting among Obama's coalition who all hate each other as much as they do Straight White Guys without lots of money/status/power, by egging on the Feminists against Obama's Summers pick. Or stirring up the Gays vs. Blacks drama in LA and SF.
Obama's whole Presidency will to validate the PC fantasy that does not work. Neoconism at it's heart says that PC and Multiculturalism does not work, only military force and THAT is best applied early not late.
Check out Obama's Big Bang... no soft bigotry of low expectations for him! He's also a Leftist absolutist so taxpayer funded abortions for us and the world! Plus, get ready to pay at the pump and more inflation!
No surprise to the steveosphere to see that what people earnestly believe, they'll earnestly put into practice. How so many libertarians and liberal Republicans could convince themselves that Obama must think like them because *he's smart* and can't really believe what he says is the height of arrogance.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3496c848-ae91-11dd-b621-000077b07658.html
Tackling the meltdown would not entail delays in plans for far-reaching energy, healthcare and education reforms when all three were also in crisis, he said. “These are crises you can no longer afford to postpone [addressing].”
Economists have estimated the US budget deficit could more than double next year to almost $1,000bn, raising concerns about whether Mr Obama could deliver on expensive campaign promises including $150bn in investments in alternative energy over the next decade and a $60bn-$110bn plan to provide universal health insurance for Americans.
"Our prejudices are insidious..."
Inspired by Barack Obama, the French first lady and other leading figures say it's high time for France to stamp out racism and shake up a white political and social elite that smacks of colonial times.
A manifesto published Sunday — subtitled "Oui, nous pouvons!", the French translation of Obama's campaign slogan "Yes, we can!" — urges affirmative action-like policies and other steps to turn French ideals of equality into reality for millions of blacks, Arabs and other alienated minorities.
"Our prejudices are insidious," Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, a singer and wife of President Nicolas Sarkozy, said in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche newspaper, which published the manifesto. She said she hoped the "Obama effect" would reshape French society.
Nations across Europe rejoiced over Obama's victory, seeing it as a triumph for American democracy and a world weary of President George W. Bush. But Obama's election also illustrated an uncomfortable truth: how far European countries with big minority populations have to go getting nonwhites into positions of power. (...)
"What a lesson!" it went on. "We French ... should listen to it well."
The manifesto was written by Yazid Sabeg, a French self-made millionaire whose parents were Algerian immigrants, and signed by politicians from the left and right and other public figures.
The Italian-born first lady exhibited optimism in her adopted land, saying Sarkozy's ethnically mixed background is a sign that France is open to change.
"My husband is not Obama. But the French voted for the son of a Hungarian immigrant, whose father has an accent, whose mother is of Jewish origin. (Sarkozy) has always considered himself as a bit of a Frenchman from elsewhere," Bruni-Sarkozy is quoted as saying.
She also took a dig at the prime minister of her native Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, for saying last week that Obama is "tanned." The often impolitic and suntanned Berlusconi defended it as a compliment, but Bruni-Sarkozy saw the situation differently.
"I'm very glad to have become French," she said.
http://galliawatch.blogspot.com/
"There have been certain things on this website that, for the life of me, I can't understand. Some of them such as what evidence there is that Jeremiah Wright hates whitey, or how look at IQ results and accept the findings of blacks vis-a-vis whites but not the same of white vis-a-vis Asians, "
Are you talking about actual people on this site or people in your imagination? I haven't seen anybody say Asians didn't have IQs, some of us just don't think that replacting whites with them is a good thing. See the other thread.
"Obama's whole Presidency will to validate the PC fantasy that does not work. Neoconism at it's heart says that PC and Multiculturalism does not work, "
Yea, that's why Neo-Cons like Bush, McCain and National Review are fighting tooth and nail to stop the Mexicanization of the country.
I enjoyed the humor of watching a good portion of your commentors swearing on the cross that Obama was going to haul them off to re-education camps.
testing99/evil neocon has told us explicitly that he expected to be taken off for re-education if Obama won. I for one will mourn the day, as he provides us with so many entertaining paranoid rants. The Moroccan speedboat invasion of Spain was one of the funniest ever.
Anyway, Larry Summers never fell out of favor in Democratic policy circles at all. The feminist/humanities types exercise no power at all in the major league policy world, they are seen as hysterics. Summers has been up in DC testifying in front of the Democratic Congress seemingly every other week, and he several times met privately with Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Democratic leadership to advise them on economic stimulus.
I'm not sure it will be Summers -- could be Tim Geithner instead, or else dark horse candidate Sheila Bair (a woman and a Republican, head of the FDIC).
Like Steve, I'm also glad that I voted for George Ryan's Democratic opponent in 1998, Glenn Poshard. Poshard was a conservative Democrat, an almost extinct species, and ran to Ryan's right. To add to Ryan's sleaziness, Republican operatives used technicalities to keep the Libertarian and Constitution party candidates off the ballot. Ain't democracy grand?!
I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure it out:
obama has never cared much for Foriegn policy - he has probably cut a back room deal with the Jewish elite - you let us run things in the mid east - including bombing iran - and we'll give you what you want domestically - reparations or something similar - and amnesty - so blacks and minorities will be happy, the jewish elite will be happy and we will be 'anti semites' and 'racists' for opposing it.
Don't expect any liberals to see the light - you can reason someone out of what they didn't reason themselves into.
I'm not sure why anyone thinks Israel is going to attack Iran. They don't have the capability to make more than a symbolic attack unless they break out the nukes. That they will not do without provocation.
"I'm not sure why anyone thinks Israel is going to attack Iran."
We're just girding our loins.
Seems to be alotta 'speculation' and presumptuousness going on 'round these pages these days!
Sad. And so soon after the world has seen exactly what that kinda crap can do to even 'pristine entites' like Wall Street.
Tsk, tsk...the fact remains that for (at least) the next four years, your every waking (and sleeping) moments will be ladened with an OBAMA PRESIDENCY. (Whereby, btw, HE calls the shots!)
I wonder if Mr. Sailor will yet continue to 'allow' certain personalities to 'stick around the blog' ....just for entertainment purposes?
Hmm. Cause I for one, am extremely entertained!!
HA!
Basically, the Toyota Prius is both environmentally friendly AND fashionable. Which is fantastic!
Anyone who thinks that the Prius is environmentally friendly hasn't got a clue.
(Hint, the environmental cost of those batteries is currently very large indeed, and they need to be replaced every five years or so.)
and we'll give you what you want domestically - reparations or something similar - and amnesty - so blacks and minorities will be happy
Specifically, you'd have to give blacks reparations for any amnesty! Who do you think will be most hurt by it?
I thought Obama's support for illegals was a contraindication of the "Black Enough" business. But almost all black Congressmen voted for it. Evidently, stabbing your own race in the back is something black officeholders do. And Obama is black enough there!
"Truth said...
There have been certain things on this website that, for the life of me, I can't understand. Some of them such as what evidence there is that Jeremiah Wright hates whitey,..."
Jeremiah Wright has said that whites created AIDS for the purpose of exterminating blacks. I.e., he has accused whites of attempted genocide. This is a blood-libel, no different than the blood-libel that used to be leveled against the jews (and in some quarters, still is) that jews kill gentile children in order to use their blood for making passover matzoh. So yeah, I think it's rational on my part to conclude that Wright hates whites.
"Another one is, exactly how is retelling a (supposedly) true story from one's youth "throwing grandma under the bus?""
Obama took the side of an unknown bum against his very own grandmother - the woman who raised him. That's what is meant by the throwing-under-the-bus tag, at least that's my understanding of it, but I'm just a "typical white person" as our President elect might say.
"testing99 said...
Neoconism, boiled down to it's essentials, has a strong military intervening in threatening states to stop threats before they get too large. This is called common sense."
This is a willful misstatement of history. Neocons were disaffected liberals, who became slightly more conservative. Some of them were Kennedy liberals (many of them Catholic) and the nucleus were jewish liberals, who went from being disaffected Trotskyists who embraced liberalism to disaffected liberals who embraced "neo conservatism", itself a moniker created by the catholic socialist Michael Harrington. You mean to tell me you've never read anything by Jonah Goldberg? He's summarized the taxonomy pretty well.
The term now seems to simply mean: Americans who embrace caesarism and empire.
And really, in hindsight, how has the world become safer since Saddam Hussein was removed (I mean for either us, or Israel)? Hussein was exactly the kind of guy you want as an enemy: ruthlessly competent at keeping his own people in line, and haplessly incompetent at invading his neighbors.
"Anonymous said...
I'm actually strongly pro-Israel and couldn't give less of a damn about the Palestinians. I care about our borders and would be happy to let Israel do whatever it feels it needs to do so long as we could also preserve our territorial integrity."
I believe much the same. I don't give a damn about the Palestinians (none of their Arab neighbors do either, for that matter). I believe Israel has every right to defend itself, I just don't think that they have the right to expect that we will defend it. I'm happy for the U.S. to sell them weapons (and we should not sell them to Arab countries).
And yet, it seems impossible to question the motives of some american jews with regard to their seemingly greater allegiance to Israel than to the U.S., without being labeled an anti-semite.
Also, I'd like to know what Israeli government officials think about all that is done in the name of helping Israel (whether stated or not). They must realize that toppling Saddam Hussein, and thereby removing a counterweight to Iran, was a bad idea and bad for Israel. Can't some of these guys tell neoconservatives like Feith, Halperin, Wolfowitz, Kristol, and Emmanuel to cool it - for the good of the old country?
Jews are known for often asking themselves "is it good for the jews"? They're good at asking the question, but not so good at answering it.
"Sad. And so soon after the world has seen exactly what that kinda crap can do to even 'pristine entites' like Wall Street."
Do you actually think that anyone who comments here believes or believed that Wall Street is "pristine?" Sad indeed.
Jeremiah Wright has said that whites created AIDS for the purpose of exterminating blacks. I.e., he has accused whites of attempted genocide. This is a blood-libel... -- Mr Anon
Change "AIDS" to "abortion", and the blood libel becomes understatement.
I've never heard anyone claim the National Socialists killed more than six million Jews.* But about twice as many black lives were taken in American clinics as Jewish ones in German gas chambers, or whatever.
*Though don't forget, they got 14 million goys, too, per Robert Rummel.
"Jews are known for often asking themselves "is it good for the jews"? They're good at asking the question, but not prepared to answer it in the company of goyim."
There, fixed it for you.
"Specifically, you'd have to give blacks reparations for any amnesty! Who do you think will be most hurt by it?" - Reg C
I'm curious. To me the whole Aunt Z scandal was staged so that when Obama does enact an Amnesty he'll weave her story into the narrative justifying it. I don't think there were any accidents in the later stages of the Obama campaign.
I also discern a larger pattern of staging which could just be evidence of my urge to detect conspiracies where Sailer would see networks. Biden is an older white man with a history of aneurysms who makes loopy statements. McCain is an older white man who uses the spotlight as a forum for telling about his glory days in Viet Nam, repeating the story until it was painfully obvious it was no longer relevant to a 2008 bid for president.
The consideration of Larry Summers for a post in the Obama cabinet probably won't materialize. His comments on gender differences make him a lovable, harmless old fart who is part of the "old way" of doing things and typifies the sort of thinking (according to Obama) that got us into this mess in the first place. So Obama won't make the mistake of throwing the aging white folks under the bus again. Instead, he will trivialize them.
Don't be surprised if Joe "pull my finger" Biden doesn't continue to act like a senior on the verge of dementia.
Neoconism, boiled down to it's essentials, has a strong military intervening in threatening states to stop threats before they get too large. This is called common sense."
ummm, uh...not sure where to start with this one. "Threatening" states is anyone in a strategic part of the world who isn't a client state. So neo-conism, boiled down to its essential, has a strong military attacking in any nation that isn't a client state before they develop too many nukes to be able to bully. This is called insanity, not common sense.
"as I enjoyed the humor of watching a good portion of your commentors swearing on the cross that Obama was going to haul them off to re-education camps."
Black Jesus is only president-elect at present. He doesn't get into office until late January. Give him 3 months after that, then then come back. If there is any place to come back to.
Do you actually think that anyone who comments here believes or believed that Wall Street is "pristine?" Sad indeed.
'Anonymous?'
Yeeeeeeoooooouuuuuunnnnnd!!
(insert sound of jet...hmm...maybe AIRFORCE ONE.)
See what I mean? Straight over their heads!!
Damm!
"Jeremiah Wright has said that whites created AIDS for the purpose of exterminating blacks. I.e., he has accused whites of attempted genocide."
This is a fairly well-accepted theory seconded by a lot of intelligent whites such as:
Dr Alan cantwell
Dr. Boyd Graves (MD, JD)
Dr Robert Strecker (MD, PHD Pharmacology)
Dr. William Campbell Douglass (Dr. of the year National Health Federation)
Dr. Eva Sneed (Research proved a link between Polio Vaccines and leukemia)
Dr. Dougalss McArthur (Defense dept. Biological research administrator)
Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz
Dr. Earl Traub (biologist hired by the US Navy)
Dr. Robert Gallo
Jakob Segal (biology professor Humbolt University, Germany)
Edward Hooper (Brittish journalist)
Dr. Gary Glum
Etc.
http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/aids_origin.htm
http://www.boydgraves.com/timeline/
http://whatsthecrack.net/AIDS-origin-is-Man-Made
And the 'genocide' thing has been done before in history, even, believe it or not by whites. The Nazi's the Turks (have we figured out if they are white yet), the Serbs, the Americans who came to this country, etc.
"Obama took the side of an unknown bum against his very own grandmother"
The teenaged Obama did not 'take anyone's side.' What he did was to make a judgement of a situation. This, Mr. Anon, is the aspect that seperates us from all others in the animal kingdom. Were Obama older, he may have made a different judgement, this is what gaining age and experience is all about.
I don't know about you but Ioved my grandmother yet I did not agree with everything she said and did. If Obama 'took the side of an unknown bum', one can only surmise that he would have attended his funeral last week; not hers.
"The teenaged Obama did not 'take anyone's side.' What he did was to make a judgement of a situation."
Yes, but the adult Obama wrote about the incident in the book, which made his grandfather look like a deadbeat. And, then, the adult Obama revived the incident during his speech on race, and, once again, brought it in a radio interview, referring to his grandmother as a "typical white person."
Amd what does he in is first press conference as president-elect? He jokes about Nancy Reagan holding seances in the White House. IMO, he can be rather ungentlemenly at times. I'm sure he'll get more polished as he gains experience apologizing.
"Truth said...
This is a fairly well-accepted theory seconded by a lot of intelligent whites such as:"
No, it is a theory which is fairly well accepted by crackpots. And I don't believe that Robert Gallo has really said anything to place himself on your list.
Discussion with you is like a session at an argument clinic in that old Monty Python episode (No it isn't. Yes, it is. etc.) It's not worth responding to you, Truth, and in future, I won't bother.
un"Yes, but the adult Obama wrote about the incident in the book, which made his grandfather look like a deadbeat."
His grandfather was, by most accounts, a deadbeat.
"Discussion with you is like a session at an argument clinic in that old Monty Python episode (No it isn't. Yes, it is. etc.)"
Hey, it was good enough for the two candidates for US president; what are you some Pinko Commie?!
I've been watching Pinker, the foremost public figure explaining that genes matter, on this. When it comes to race, he flinches.
And when it comes to his own race, he goes berserk. His attack on MacDonald for studying Jewry demonstrated that he's just another S.J. Gould at heart.
Yet it seems unusual that he would align himself with them, simply because he opposed the Iraq War from the very start.
Obama has never opposed the "war".
Opposing the "war" means explicitly stating, at every opportunity, that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, that Iraq posed no threat to the US, that the plan to invade Iraq was hatched by a cabal of foreign agents for the pourpose of benefitting a foreign state, and that what the US government did is the same thing that the US government hanged Nazi leaders for doing at Nuremberg.
Perhaps you meant that Obama disagreed with the decision to invade Iraq?
The Gallia Watch article said it best: "The slavish imitation of America by France is nothing new. They hate us, but they imitate our defects and revile our virtues. They have completely lost their way this time."
They absorbed anti-Americanism from the US and changed the style to disguise the source. They adopted PC and replaced anti-white spin with an anti-religious spin. Plenty of Frenchmen would say "America is lousy with racism". How many would say "America is wonderful because it where we learned to reject European civilization as too racist/sexist/religiously bigoted"? None, probably.
But support for Obama shows that a certain sort of American President can enjoy support among Euro leftists. This will evaporate the instant he takes military action anywhere, for any reason.
There's no way HIV was created by anyone, just given the state of the art in biotech, immunology, and virology when it would have had to be created. Suppose you started your program to develop it in 1975 (there are tissue samples dating from much earlier with HIV). What's a CD4 molecule, and what cells carry it? Who knew enough about retroviruses? My amateur take on this is that such a project done in 1970-1980, say, would have been either impossible or Manhattan-project-like in difficulty and scope. (I wonder what Greg Cochran or Razib think.)
My take is that it's possible someone found HIV in the wild and somehow tried to spread it. But it would have been damned hard to isolate and understand it. Remember how long it took from when the whole gay bathhouse scene in the US melted down into a whole bunch of guys dying really bad deaths, until the virus was isolated? And how much longer until anyone worked out what the hell it was doing?
Also, for those of us who aren't into the racial identity thing (Wright clearly is), it's useful to distinguish *which* whites are alleged to have created HIV. South Africa had a pretty well-developed bioweapons program, and might have had the ideological desire (neither the US nor USSR did). But I think what they actually did was use existing pathogens as assassination agents, so the irritating anti-Apartheid leader could die tragically of TB or pneumonia instead of being shot 119 times while resisting arrest. Is there any evidence that they were developing new viruses? Or harvesting unknown viruses from the African countryside, isolating them faster than the best doctors in the world could a decade or two later, and spreading them without worrying about the disease catching up with whites in South Africa?
The whole conspiracy theory is nuts. It's natural (everyone wants to see some actor behind some horrible thing like millions of people dying awful deaths), it's more-or-less a known bug in our programming, but it's still nuts.
"The whole conspiracy theory is nuts...."
Yes, or one could believe that people have sex with chimpanzees.
Ask youself five simple questions:
1) Do governments create weapons?
2) Do Governments test those weapons?
3) Do Governments create biological weapons?
4) Would the most logical place to test weapons be amongst a people 'no one would miss'?
5) I lab created AIDS a possibility?
"Truth said...
"The whole conspiracy theory is nuts...."
Yes, or one could believe that people have sex with chimpanzees."
Or, simply that people ate infected bush meat. People in Africa do eat bush meat. But why let a simple fact stand in the way of your favorite conspiracy theory.
"Ask youself five simple questions:
"1) Do governments create weapons?
"2) Do Governments test those weapons?
"3) Do Governments create biological weapons?
"4) Would the most logical place to test weapons be amongst a people 'no one would miss'?"
"5) I lab created AIDS a possibility?"
1.) Yes
2.) Yes
3.) No. All biological weapons have only been adapted from existing pathogens. They weren't even genetically engineered using the new methods. They were just refined and weaponized.
4.) Irrelevant
5.) No. Beyond the state of the are of micro-biology then, or now.
But you just go on thinking you're one of the few cognoscenti to know some secret truth, Truth. After all, that's what makes you important.
That plus my unusually large tallywhacker; but you guys can't see that over the internet can you?
The problem with Summers is that the Clinton era bailouts he was involved in were a moral hazard that, in part, led to the mess we're in now. If investment banks were allowed to fail during the LTCM crisis it would have introduced some discipline to the system. Banks would not have continued to take on more leverage, and the derivitives problem would have been dealt with when it was significantly smaller.
(As Herbert Spencer said "The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.")
Here's a good article on Summers and Obama's other advisors-
"No change, no hope: Obama’s Transition Economic Advisory Board
They are the unalluring faces of past failures! Roel Campos and William Donaldson served on the SEC when this organisation aided and abetted the excesses of the investment banks that contributed so much to the financial and economic crisis now facing us. Robert Rubin has been a life-long leading light in the banking system that has just imploded and is dragging the real economy with it. William Daley is Robert Rubin lite. Both Rubin and Summers were deeply involved in the Clinton era bail-outs in emerging markets. Both exhibited the characteristic myopia and inability to make credible commitments that turned many of these bail-outs into moral hazard incubators. Larry Summers in particular has never seen a bail-out he did not like and never one so large that he did not want to boost its size further. He will have a field day in the current crisis."
http://blogs.ft.com/maverecon/2008/11/no-change-no-hope-obamas-transition-economic-advisory-board/#more-358
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