From the Arlington (VA) Sun-News:
If the United States wants to claw its way back to economic self-determination, it should look not at China for the route forward, but at Germany.
Such was the prescription issued Dec. 10 by U.S. Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), speaking at the Arlington Chamber of Commerce’s annual meeting.
Webb noted that Germany, while having a population just 8 percent of China’s, had a higher trade surplus, and is the world’s biggest exporter.
“They produce quality products that people want, they take care of their workforce - they are doing something right,” Webb said of the Germans, during a speech before about 320 Arlington business, political and civic leaders at the Sheraton National Hotel.
Webb’s politics long have been all but impossible to pigeon-hole ...
Webb has written enough books explaining where he's coming from, such as Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. In short, he's a romantic but realistic Scots-Irish ethnocentric American patriot. In Webb's view, his Scots-Irish kin aren't, on the whole, the smartest or richest or most exclusive Americans; they're just the most American Americans. So, what's good for America is good for the Scots-Irish and what's good for the Scots-Irish is good for America.
From that flows a number of positions that sound contradictory to everybody else in Washington, such as being for the military and against war (because his kin will do more of the dying than anybody else) and being for industry and for labor (because his kin want high wage factory jobs).
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121 comments:
He makes sense. Germany shows you can have high wages and still be competitive.
I wonder what's driving down wages in the USA?
Hey, we're as smart as any other European ethnies! :)
Germany's big manufacturing advantage over its European competitors seems to lie at the management level. Here in Britain we just don't get talented people going into those kind of careers. Everyone wants to do something faffy and non-productive, like journalism or law.
God bless Jim Webb. I'm with him.
Will our resident Scoth-Irish Whiskey finally give us some insight into his people? He's been so busy defending Israel's actions and bemoaning the WASP's liberal brainwashing of otherwise patriotic Jews (and turning them into SWPLs) to talk about his heritage.
He may be all about ethnics but all I'm all about class and I agree with him. I also happen to think that you (Steve) and your readers are way too ethnic obsessed to see that socioeconomic class is a more accurate way of viewing the world.
For example, I'm Jewish but of the working class and so are most of my friends (Jewish and not) so I want to see a world where I and the people I care about can work 35 hour weeks and live a comfortable life. As such I want single-payer health care, $13 minimum wage, the end of all anti-white bias (yes, Jews suffer from it too), less free trade, etc. I want the criminal class to have a nice and easy option out of a life of crime and then to be crushed without mercy shoulsd they persist in that life. I want the inheritance tax reinstated and incentives offered to capitalists who do their business at home rather than abroad, etc, etc.
All of this is rather obvious to anyone who hasn't been brainwashed by Reagan's voodoo economics and the misleading talk of the millionaire right-wing spokesmen. What makes it LESS obvious is the ethnicitization of the Democratic party, why then do you persist in this same ethnicitizing and so continue to provide the wealthy with every little thing they want? It's time to proudly say that while we may not be interested in class warfare, class warfare is interested in us. The rich have been successfully waging a war of annihilation against us and WE DO OURSELVES NO FAVORS BY DISTRACTING OURSELVES WITH MEANINGLESS RACE OBSESSIONS! Yes, non-negligable percentages of various ethnicities are guilty of supporting policies that harm the working class and lower to middle, middle class but ALMOST ALL of the upper class and rich class harm the interests of the rest of us. Why not stand up for our own and decxlarew class warfare? I stand for intelligent lower to middle class people who aren't criminally minded and I wish some of my brethren would have the balls and the brains to stand with me.
So what does Germany do exactly?
1.) Keep immigration really low. In fact, Germany is experiencing negative immigration, especially of Turks. Immigration is kept low by a consensus between the rightists, who fear demographic change, and leftists, who don't like immigrants competing in the labor market. Low immigration means high wages and greater national cohesion. This policy seems to be working well in Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. Let's do it here.
2.) Put up high trade barriers to keep domestic and infant industries strong, enabling a high wage.
3.) Have pro-union policies. I know most of us are conservatives, but German unions have played a major role in keeping up immigration and trade barriers.
4.) Encourage less academic kids to go to vocational school. Which is why Germany makes superb manufactured products. Germany is not a super educated country, and doesn't push a huge percentage of youth to college, but its companies remain competitive.
Germany needs to do something about the birthrate, but otherwise it is a success story. Not super dynamic, but capable of giving its citizens the standard of living they want.
I usually don't vote Democrat, but I'd vote Webb if he keeps talking this way.
Reasonable indeed. Our ethnic group usually produces a lot of blowhards. He seems to be a measured fellow.
Steve loves the German system. Yet he can't explain why America has a higher standard of living by any measure, despite being held back by NAMs, anti-discrimination laws and a monstrous war budget.
Labor unions are an economic and moral cancer.
http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2010/12/13/why-does-quota-foe-jim-webb-support-the-dream-act-when-85-of-illegals-could-get-affirmative-action/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+vdareblog+%28VDARE.com%3A+Blog+Articles%29
Steve, read VDARE at all?
Simon said "Germany's big manufacturing advantage over its European competitors seems to lie at the management level. Here in Britain we just don't get talented people going into those kind of careers."
My post faux manufacturing nostalgia deals with these cultural issues...written from a US perspective but also I think fairly applicable to Britain.
@Simon; few bright British boys used to go into industrial management because it meant working with British unionised labour. That's no way to spend your life.
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He has a Vietnamese wife and mixed race child.
Does anyone take a politicians seriously when he claims that the U.S. can be like a 90% white country while he is taking to the local leaders in a county where the public schools are about 1/3 white.
The last thing placed like Arlington County Virginia can be is like Germany. They also cannot be like China for the very same reason. Senator Webb should be looking at Indonesia, India, Brazi for examples of what Arlington County Virginia will be capable of.
Also, considering his third wife is Asian, I doubt if Senator Webb gives a damn about his Scots-Irish relatives. He probably cares much about the ability of his in-laws to scam on their taxes and labor laws.
> they are doing something right
Yeah, other than having a TFR of like 1.2 - that's for the country, so I'm sure the figure for actual Germans is lower. I wonder whether having so few kids gives them an economic leg up over, say, Scandinavia, or over US Whites, both of whom have significantly higher TFRs. I'm sure the effect is small if any, but they must have extra energy after not taking care of many kids. Obviously the long term effects are not so magnificent.
Thilo Sarrazin ought to have like 40 children - that would really help the country.
And he's talking about the actual, real Scots-Irish.
I always think that all of the right-left or liberal vs conservative stuff in our politics is just BS. I think that that is where Jim Webb is coming from.
“They produce quality products that people want, they take care of their workforce - they are doing something right,” Webb said of the Germans
Let's just make sure we know what it is they're "doing right" before we start trying to copy them.
Have you seen his wife?
He does not walk the talk...
In many ways I regret the extermination of German identity and culture in the USA due to WWI and WWII.
A good summary of German attitudes at the peak of their power and influence in Wisconsin (about 1912) can be found in a short book called "The Wisconsin Idea", which should really have been titled "The German Idea in America".
This book recognized the debt to the German peoples and charts a very Germanic direction for the State of Wisconsin.
Perhaps the best chapter in the book is "The Reason For It".
If you have any interest in the Germans as a model for a hard-working, self-sufficient America, you really should read it.
With bankers raging rampant around the world, "The Reason For It" sounds like it was written just yesterday.
Regrettably, "Heal the world" (tikkun olam)ideologues have infected the state with their millenialist utopian dreams.
As a result, Wisconsin culture and the Wisconsin people have lost that combination of practicality and hard-headedness tempered with social-mindedness that is so typical of Germany.
In my formative years I lived among the hillbillies (Scots-Irish) in the Ozarks and the Germans in Wisconsin.
Although I love the hillbillies for their hard work, independence, free spirit and pugnacious nature, I would rather my posterity be raised and cultured among the Germans of Wisconsin as they used to be 100 years ago.
Some Democrat is going to move to the right of Republicans on immigration and globalization and be successful at getting enough of his own party on board. Hillary Clinton seemed to be trying that path in the primary debates of 2004, complaining about illegal immigration undermining the competitiveness of law-abiding small businesses.
Words of self-evident truths are cheap.
But how does Webb vote on the issues that help keep America more like Germany than China?
As a mainstream Republicrat, I suspect that his voting record is not so good on the the issue of gutting this nations' workforce, middle class and financial system.
Didn't he marry an asian? It seems weird for a guy who's so gung-ho about "his people" to marry the absolute opposite of them.
True dat...and German-Americans have been central to the establishment of technology-based industry and design in this country, from the Kentucky long rifle to Boeing. America needs to reinforce and extend her Germanic character and presence.
A tip of the hat to our Scots-Irish countrymen like Sen. Webb! No German-American politician has ever said anything like this, at least not in public.
I think it's more at the craft level. I have chess books from 100 years ago and the German ones are much more attractive, better presented and laid out than the English or American ones. The Germans have made better cars than the British or the Americans have for a century.
In World War II German manufacturing were very inefficient compared to the British, Americans and Soviets, but they made amazing machines.
By the way, any idea whether Webb is planning to run for the nomination in 2012?
Great idea but unfortunately the portion of Germans in the US is pretty small. Webb's own ethnic group doesn't produce anything anybody wants except bourbon.
How does this translate into him possibly supporting the DREAM Act, as he did back in 2007 and might this week?
Jack might say "God bless Jim Webb." I say, "Actions speak louder than words." You cannot have German-quality engineering with a Mexican-level population. In the last decade many of the old Mexican maquiladoras have uprooted and moved to China. Why would anyone pay higher wages for a Mexican IQ workforce, when they can pay lower wages for a Chinese IQ workforce? And why oh why would they pay American level wages for a Mexican IQ workforce?
A possible advantage of the Germans is that they don't have the same high quality entertainment industry constantly treating manufacturing occupations derogatorily. When's the last time a guy in a tv show or movie was a manufacturing engineer or factory worker? Lawyers, doctors, architects, ad execs - those are the protagonists of most English-speaking movies and tv shows.
Also, when your very smartest people are going into high finance because they can earn 7-figure salaries and bonuses within 10 years of graduation, you're not going to get enough good people going into crucial occupations like manufacturing. The share of Fortune 500 profits earned by financial companies has increased over 150% since the 70s, from 15% of all profits back then to over 40% today. There's just too much damn money to be made on Wall Street, most of it off the backs of other Americans. German industry is making its profits off the backs of the rest of the world. High finance has distorted the entire economy, not to mention our politics.
Ulster-Scots would more clearly identify the ethnic origin of the Scots-Irish.
goatweed
What a breath of fresh air after that idiot Tom Friedman.
Is Webb too smart to be president?
Jim Webb is my favorite senator, even though I wouldn't vote for him since he's terrible on immigration. Still a man among boys.
If you've read it, I think you'll agree that it's hard to believe Born Fighting was written by a Democrat.
I wish Obama would take Webb on as his running mate in 2012. That probably won't happen, but it is hard to imagine any other way we will get a President who will take to heart Bernie Sanders great speech before Congress last Saturday.
On the other hand, if you read Trevelyan's history of England from the age of Wycliff through the Stuarts (my current reading project) you can't help but be struck by the many unexpected twists and turns -- the cunning of history I think Hegel called it -- by which the liberal commonwealth triumphs in the end.
We've seen the same perils-of-Pauline narrative here in the U.S. before too, during the American Revolution and the Civil War, for example, and in the unlikely careers of Jackson and Roosevelt. So maybe it will happen again. As I told my 22 year-old-daughter on Saturday, this is going to be her life and her battle because I won't be here to see it.
I've also been reading Augustine's City of God, which makes me realize how central was that old Hebraic narrative, and the religious faith it inspired in our ancestors, to the triumph of the weak over the strong (or whatever you want to call it.
We need a new "clerical" class in this country to reinterpret these traditions for a new generation of American citizens. I'd like a lot of Jewish talent to get involved -- put that together with the Scots-Irish fighting spirit and we might have a winning combination.
In an ideal world, Webb would be the leader of a post-partisan Patriotic third party that seriously contends for votes.
And Mormons are the second most American Americans.
Look up his citation for the silver star on wikipedia. Jim Webb is an impressive man.
"Webb noted that Germany, while having a population just 8 percent of China’s, had a higher trade surplus, and is the world’s biggest exporter.
'They produce quality products that people want, they take care of their workforce - they are doing something right,'”
Webb isn't saying anything new. In fact, many people have been saying this.
The whole idea of free trade is that a poor backward nation like China should manufacture and sell cheapie stuff while an advanced nation like the US should produce and sell high quality cutting-edge technology stuff. EVERYONE has been saying this. Rush Limbaugh has said stuff like 'we shouldn't look back to the days when we made can openers. Let Chicoms do that; let us concentrate on selling jumbo jets, cutting edge software, etc.' And this is pretty much the view of both Dems and Repubs on the hill. There are some commentators like Pat Buchanan who wants us to making can openers again, but most economists think China should make the cheapie stuff while we make the higher-end stuff. Almost NO ONE is saying we should emulate China. Some are saying we should put tariffs on Chinese goods, but that's a different issue.
The problem with what Webb says is this. He can't mention the 800 gorillian in the room. DEMOGRAPHICS. Though the future of German demographics is pretty scary, Germany is still a land of Germans. The workforce is mostly German, and there is a shared cultural value system. Even Germans who don't do so well in school are brought up in a culture that values thoroughness, hardwork, dedication, and discipline. Even simple machine tool workers go through grueling training that lasts yrs. If Germany had a different culture--lazy like Poles or corrupt like Italians--, this wouldn't be possible. So, Germany is Germany because of its culture and demographics(whatever it may be in the future).
Now, look at America. We have too many blacks on welfare. Too many uneducated illegal aliens who are only good for mowing lawns. Too many "leave us alone" white peckerwoods in places like W. Virigina who are only good for making moonshine and shooting squirrels. Too many young people into "I wanna rock n roll all night and party everyday".
Though Germans have been into self-hatred since end of WWII, something like pride in GERMAN workmanship has lasted and survived. In other words, German nationalism, though not political, is invested in their work.
Well, why can't we have economic nationalism in the US. Other than the fact that we have too many black, brown, white peckerwood, and young boneheads, it's because the elite of this nation, the Jews, are allergic to a nationalist sense among its white population. Jews believe that a sense of economic nationalism may lead to political nationalism among goyim(against globalist Jews). And in a way, the two are related. This is why many Jews fear Buchanan's economic ideas. It's not just the economics that they oppose but the political baggage that comes along with it.
When Japanese felt economic pride in the 80s, they also began to go into nationalist mode, producing books like JAPAN THAT SAY HO.
Resurgence of national economics had led to rise of nationalism in Russia. Chinese were humble in the 80s but grew more nationalistic as its economy surged and took on a political coloring in the 90s.
Webb is an okay guy but as long as he's committed to the de-whitization of the US, his Germanist policy is hopeless. If Germanism is simply a policy that can be adopted by any people, it would work in Mexico and Zimbabwe too. No, Germanism will only work under certain demographic and cultural conditions. You can't plant a cucumber patch in the middle of a desert.
PS. What should really worry us is HOW LONG BEFORE CHINA BECOMES A GERMANY? If Chinese play their cards right, they will making both low-end AND high-end goods. A lot of smart people over there.
Regardless of what he says, Webb has voted down the line for the left-wing agenda. He's going to vote for the DREAM act amnesty bill. His politics are all too easy to pigeon-hole.
Just read 'Born Fighting' last week. all of you 'Scots-Irish' betas would benefit from it.
OT/ Evanston high school eliminates tracking:
http://www.pioneerlocal.com/evanston/news/2965160,evanston-detrack-121410-s1.article
Two things: first, there's no way the U.S. is ever going to have a trade surplus as long as there are other countries like Germany, Chaina, and Japan that are trying to accumulate dollars. Our trade deficit is not caused by the rest of the world not wanting to buy our stuff, it is caused by them wanting our dollars more than our stuff.
Second, this is not a problem. If we had imposed conditions on Germany and Japan that forced them to send us millions of cars and other manufactured goods in exchange for nothing, it would have been considered inhumane reparations. Yet that is what they have been doing, for decades, voluntarily - and they (and we) seem to think they're winning! We have a higher real standard of living, and all they get is floating exchange dollars that don't guarantee that they will be able to buy anything in particular at any point in the future.
The only problem for us is the demand drain that the trade deficit causes - but that could be easily dealt with (if we understood how the monetary system worked, which virtually no one in authority does) by running enough of a fiscal deficit to make up for it and provide for full employment.
Well the Germans have been smart enough to ignore the bullshit driven agenda pushed by the WSJ and 'The Economist' and actually realize that the only driver of wealth is - and always has been - the actual physical production of articles useful and commodious to man.
The damage that those two evil twins (beloved by politicians wishing to 'appear smart'), the WSJ and 'The Economist' have wrought is massive and incalculable
Seriously, I think only the oil shock of 1973 has done more to destroy wealth and living standards than those bastards.
Anonymous said...
"I wonder what's driving down wages in the USA?"
The same thing that is keeping them down in all other third world nations!
His fiction is wonderful, too. "A Sense of Honor" is my favorite. Yep, I'm glad we have him.
I 100% agree with Webb. Its clear. By the way, I wonder if Obama would be in as much trouble if he had chosen Webb as his VP.
I wonder what's driving down wages in the USA?
Forcing American workers, who make on average $18/hr, to compete with Chinese workers, who make less than $1/hr, means American capital is sent to China to hire Chinese labor, creating Chinese jobs.
The lower labor costs imply greater profits for the businesses which move their capital to China, since the costs of production are lower.
This flight of capital to China forces Americans to compete with Chinese workers. In many cases, American workers can't compete with the Chinese, and so they go into jobs that are not easily moved to China. These jobs typically pay lower wages.
I don't think it is exactly right to say that Jim Webb is anti-war.
If there were never any wars, then the military would shrink down to nothing, and then none of his kin could get military jobs.
It would be more accurate to say that Jim Webb favors short, successful, and fairly infrequent military conflicts where Americans go in and kick someone's butt, and then leave quickly, with very few of our soldiers getting killed.
Models for that would be Andy Jackson kicking British butt at the Battle of New Orleans, and Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait in 1991.
Long, drawn-out, no-win conflicts, such as Vietnam and Afghanistan, tend to discredit the military, who are then viewed as not being able to get the job done. (War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!)
"They produce quality products that people want".
This insight is the key point that American industrialists have taken a long time to learn.
Jim Webb betrayed the military and his country when he joined the party of Jane Fonda.
Let him rot. To paraphrase him, I would gladly walk across the street to watch him slit his traitorous wrists.
Why Germany, not China? That's easy, Tom Geoghegan hasn't written a book about China. Geoghegan, a Chicago labor lawyer, recently published a book, "Were You Born On The Wrong Continent"that touts the German economy.
High-wage Germany, which offers the most bottom-up worker control of any European country, nearly ties with China as the leading exporter in the world, well ahead of the United States...
http://tomgeoghegan.com/books/
I like Geoghegan. He, Webb and Michael Lind get that its the very bread and butter economic issues that turn off the Democrats' social liberal/economic conservative donor class are the very issues that win back blue collar voters from the Republicans. Geoghegan's 10 point agenda for Democrats is liberal, but not crazy liberal.
http://www.thenation.com/print/article/154607/ten-things-dems-could-do-win
Also note that Jim Webb is an outspoken opponent of the over-incarceration of blacks and considers it a scandalous state of affairs. He is a big proponent of prison and sentencing reform.
"They produce quality products that people want".
This insight is the key point that American industrialists have taken a long time to learn. --Red Fox
If Americans want quality products, then why are Walmart, Disney, Microsoft and "reality" television at the top of our shopping lists?
"Yet he can't explain why America has a higher standard of living by any measure, despite being held back by NAMs, anti-discrimination laws and a monstrous war budget."
I think that Hitler chap figured it out a long time ago - America has a lot more land. A working class slob in New Hampshire or Wisconsin can still have room to breathe, a snowmobile, an ATV, and go hunting or fishing in his spare time without needing to make a huge salary. The quality of most day-to-day things in Germany - health care, education, public transport, food - is much better than in the US, but living in a crowded country carries a huge cost.
American manufacturing is squeezed between the east Asians on the low end and the Germans on the high end, and the middle is never the place you want to be in any market.
But the problem with the idea of "we should be like Germany" as a strategy is there can be only one Germany, and by that I mean only one one country that has the very top end of the manufacturing sector. We couldn't be successful without displacing the Germans.
I'm not sure it's possible for cultural reasons. The Germans don't treat people with manufacturing jobs like they're only making things because they can't do anything else, which means German manufacturing picks up the odd guy who's capable of being a cubicle drone but would rather not. I'm sure that happens in the US as well, but the US worker will pay a much bigger prices, both in money and in social status.
"Steve loves the German system. Yet he can't explain why America has a higher standard of living by any measure, despite being held back by NAMs, anti-discrimination laws and a monstrous war budget."
You sure we have a higher standard of living than the Germans? Do you have six weeks of paid vacations? Free college for your kids? High quality public infrastructure? No?
"Labor unions are an economic and moral cancer."
Labor unions in Europe aren't like AFSCME or the UAW.
"Also, considering his third wife is Asian, I doubt if Senator Webb gives a damn about his Scots-Irish relatives."
What does one thing have to do with the other? How are his Scots-Irish relatives hurt by him having an Asian wife?
"Yeah, other than having a TFR of like 1.2 - that's for the country, so I'm sure the figure for actual Germans is lower."
So what? Germany is a crowded and expensive country; having one kid per couple makes perfect sense right now. It makes even more sense when you consider that trends in automation mean fewer workers will be needed in the future to produce the same output. It doesn't mean that their population will decline to zero. The next generation might decide to have more kids based on economic conditions in the future.
"If you've read it, I think you'll agree that it's hard to believe Born Fighting was written by a Democrat."
Webb's only been a Democrat for a few years. He was Reagan's Navy Secretary.
"If Chinese play their cards right, they will making both low-end AND high-end goods."
They already are, thanks in part to Western companies (including German ones) giving the Chinese their intellectual property in return for contracts in China.
"If there were never any wars, then the military would shrink down to nothing, and then none of his kin could get military jobs."
Yes.
@RAH, would you please elaborate as to how our living standard in the U.S. should be seen as superior to Germany's? I could agree if this were still 1985. But in Germany today, would one generally encounter ugly architecture, graffiti, crowded and late buses, generally dangerous youth, public agencies staffed by indifferent or angry clerks, a clogged court system in which it's impossible to resolve any dispute at reasonable cost or inside 3 yrs., and private sector management personnel with carte blanche to act vindictively against employees? I'd genuinely like to hear your remarks.
Regretfully, rank and file Americans don't care much about quality in their purchases. Any car mechanic could have told you that any time in the last 70 years.
Kaiser, Studebaker, Packard and Hudson went broke under the delusion that Americans wanted a well made car. They wanted style and conformity which is why the '57 Chevy is the most popular car of its era today at any car show or rod run.
The success of many other American iconic products is an indication of that too. People buy them even though they don't work very well and then spend time and effort to fix them. Harley Davidson motorcycles, Fender guitars and of course the mother of all technology Microsoft Windows.
After growing up around Harley riders I bought my first BMW motorcycle in the late eighties. I remember what a huge oddity it seemed to have a bike that didn't leak oil, always started and that when you needed a part the dealer always had it and knew the right one first time out. Yes, the parts were expensive, but they lasted a long time and the bike was a lot better riding.
I later figured out the reason that Harley Davidson can not seem to build a good motorcycle: They make too much money from selling the logo on everything imaginable under license. If they made a good all around motorcycle that competed on its own instead of appealing only to bikers and those who want to act like them, the brand would lose its mystique value.
german doctor gero hutter, the only person to have ever cured somebody of HIV, has published his new research into broadly curing HIV.
http://bloodjournal.hematologylibrary.org/cgi/content/abstract/blood-2010-09-309591v1
i'm not sure how this is possible according to some of the HBD crowd, since germans are not all that smart, not being ashkenazi jews nor east asians, and certainly not smart enough to attend "real" universities and medical schools in the US, which are "correctly" becoming all asian, since they're "smarter". this must be some 1 in a million medical miracle, becaue it doesn't make sense that all those millions of chinese medical students and doctors did not come up with this stuff decades ago. they do have, supposedly, a gigantic intelligence advantage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gero_H%C3%BCtter
i guess german universities are a little better than what the rankings of some magazine say.
in 2006 german doctors were also the first to do a beating heart transplant, which will probably become the way heart transplants are done in the future, since a beating heart can be kept alive in a box for weeks, instead of the 4 hours inside a cooler like they are now. this turns an emergency procedure with a time window of hours, into a scheduled procedure, with a time window of a week. this also greatly increases the distance between where where the donor and recipient live. now instead of it being absolutely required that they both just happen to live in the same city, they can live across the continent, completely changing the dynamics of heart transplant waiting lists. no more dying while on the list, waiting for the right donor. instead, fly to some other city in a few days to get a suitable heart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_transplantation
National economic self-sufficiency? Don't tell the IMF or the Federal Reserve that's your goal. They will crush you.
A world system in which all nations are hopelessly in debt to them is their purpose.
Who, really, wants national economic self-sufficiency except radicals, fascists, isolationists, racists, antisemities, ignoramuses, crackpots, and enemies of global justice and multi-billion-dollar profits for a few families everywhere?
Jim Webb: "They produce quality products that people want".
Red Fox: This insight is the key point that American industrialists have taken a long time to learn.
Reg Caesar: If Americans want quality products, then why are Walmart, Disney, Microsoft and "reality" television at the top of our shopping lists?
Red Fox: Wal-Mart is only popular among low income shoppers. People with money avoid that place like the plague.
The point is American manufacturers need to make an attractive product in order to compete in the international marketplace. Getting Americans to think internationally is a chore in and of itself, but we are slowly improving in this country. Exports are rising and the pendulum is swinging back from consumption to production.
"Steve loves the German system. Yet he can't explain why America has a higher standard of living by any measure, despite being held back by NAMs, anti-discrimination laws and a monstrous war budget.
Labor unions are an economic and moral cancer."
The issue isn't unions or no unions, big government or small government. The real secret is demographics and cultural values. While radical stuff like communism is bad everywhere, both social-democratism and free marketism will work for a nation with sound demographics and culture.
A good example of this is Hong Kong vs Singapore. When we look at South Korea vs North Korea(or Taiwan vs Mao's China), it's obvious that capitalism is better than communism. But when we compare free market capitalism with social democracy, it's not so b/w. Both Hong Kong and Singapore are capitalist, but HK is freewheeling whereas Singapore is a social-democracy of sorts(minus the leftist poltically correct ideology). Both can be said to be success stories. Why? HK has Chinese, and Singapore has mostly Chinese--and Indians are pretty good at business too.
So, the secret to German success or failure is not so much unions. Of course, too much union power is bad, but some degree of unionism can be good for worker morale. The main reason for German success is Germanity.
Greeks can have all the unions they want, but would Greeks ever run a clean government or be disciplined and hardworking enough to build stuff that the rest of the world wants to buy?
"When's the last time a guy in a tv show or movie was a manufacturing engineer or factory worker?"
The "Flintstones." If you include chicks, "Laverne & Shirley."
Arg. When will you people ever listen to your betters?
I'm a real American patriot. My only loyalty is to America.
It's obvious that America would be much better off if we disintegrated every American citizen and replaced them with the 300 million smartest people in China. Wouldn't help China much, but let the Chinese patriots worry about that.
Similarly, I'm with the Israeli patriots who know full well that Israel would be much better off if we disintegrated all those pesky Israelis and replaced them with 7 million of the smartest people in China, or India.
Get with the program people!
"In many cases, American workers can't compete with the Chinese, and so they go into jobs that are not easily moved to China. These jobs typically pay lower wages."
That's why California is broke. Manufacturing has fled, and all the little people are running into the embrace of the public sector. Now the economy is sucking general obligation bond fumes.
"They produce quality products that people want".
Henry Ford figured out that industry must not only produce quality products people want but also pay workers enough so that they could afford to buy them.
Webb is correct, but you can't be Dem (against Scots-Irish) and for the Black/Mexican/Elite White alliance that is Obama-Dems.
When it comes down to it, Webb chose the comfortable moneyed interests over the Scots-Irish (who yes are the most American of Americans).
Webb's problem is guilt over Slavery and Segregation. It is probably those guilty (Scots-Irish) and WASPs (guilt over racial oppression) that helps feed racial replacement (America into Amexica). Jews do not feel guilt over a system they had nothing to do with.
1/ Merkel has no kids
Her predecessor Schroeder has no kids (but had lots of wives)
Germany has a Minister of Families. She has no kids.
Enjoy Germany while you can.
2/ Quality products? Consumer Reports doesn't seem to agree at least when it comes to cars and their reliability.
3/ Webb must have voted for Obamacare. Can anyone name a major Dem bill he opposed?
I agree with Webb. Germany and Canada reveal the conservative lie about the inexorable forces of globalization being responsible for the decline of unions and manufacturing. In the US these were political decisions, starting with Reagan and continuing through Obama, to transfer wealth upwards.
It's too late for all of us to become Germans, so skip the fantasy. The main thing now is to avoid becoming like China.
Ulster-Scots would more clearly identify the ethnic origin of the Scots-Irish.
Y'all need to hear-tell of this place, name of Dál Riata.
If all nations acted like Germany--export and limit imports--, none would be Germany.
If US acted like Germany and put high tariffs on German goods, Germans would sell far less stuff to us.
Didn't he marry an asian? It seems weird for a guy who's so gung-ho about "his people" to marry the absolute opposite of them.
He married someone from the Asian ethnicity closest to the Scots-Irish - the Vietnamese. Scotsmen fought for less than 1000 years to stay independent of the English. The Vietnamese have been been fighting the Chinese for just under 2000 years.
Ulster-Scots would more clearly identify the ethnic origin of the Scots-Irish.
There seems to be a lot of dispute over this. According to David Hackett Fischer in Albion's Seed, the Scots-Irish are neither Scots nor Irish. Or at least that's his meaning of the term. He says that the "Scots-Irish" in America are actually the descendants of Englishmen from the Scottish border region. So they're not really from Ulster either.
I'm not sure I completely buy it, but that is one view that's out there.
Jews do not feel guilt over a system they had nothing to do with.
They had more to do with the trans-Atlantic slave trade than your average European American of Greek, Slavic, Hungarian or Finnish background, to name a few. Yet the latter get wrapped up into the collective white guilt over slavery and segregation while the former do not.
The Germans invented the car, computer, television, printing, V2 rocket, X-ray, jet engine, diesel engine, modern medicine, and the modern university including the PhD. They're an astoundingly accomplished people, arguably the most substantially accomplished of any group. If it wasn't for that nasty little civilization break, around 1933, we would damn near worship the Germans.
Check out this great book on the subject of German achievement: http://www.amazon.com/German-Genius-Renaissance-Scientific-Revolution/dp/0060760222/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1
Greeks can have all the unions they want, but would Greeks ever run a clean government or be disciplined and hardworking enough to build stuff that the rest of the world wants to buy?
The example of Greece should be noticed by the Western nations before it is too late. It should serve as a lesson in having your nation overrun with different cultures.
Twenty-four hundred years ago, Greeks were at the pinnacle. However, after years of migrations, invasions and occupations, does anyone really believe that the Greeks of today closely resemble the ancient Greeks genetically?
Think about this. It has been 234 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In another 66 years we will reach the 300th anniversary. By that time the majority of the people of the USA will have become unrecognizable to our founding stock. This will all take place in a period of 300 years, 1/8th the amount of time since ancient Greece, and without any foreign armies invading or occupying our land.
If the people of the USA can change this much genetically, what chance is it that the Greeks even remotely resemble the ancients? My guess is Greeks are more closely related to Turks than they are to Aristotle. In fact we probably shouldn't refer to them as Greeks, but rather as Hellenized Turks.
A funny thing about economic crises is that they make sclerotic economies look good for a short while. Which is why, at this point in time, Belarus looks better than Estonia and Germany looks better than US.
A real German strength may be a kind of mutualism.
In some nations, class relations tend to be antagonistic than mutualist. If workers and employers don't trust one another, each sie will try to maximize its own advantage regardless of what may be 'good for both sides'. With both sides acting in selfish bad faith, the workers(through unions)make impossible demands while employers lobby government to import cheaper immigrant labor and expand 'free trade' so companies can locate overseas.
The lack of trust between employers and employees could be the result of diversity. If bosses are of one color while workers of another color, there's likely to be less trust. But even with homogenous populations, cultural or political attitudes can lead to much hostility and distrust between the classes. Proletarian consciousness was bigger in Ireland and France than in Germany.
It seems Germans have more of a mutualist culture where both employers and employees understand one another and keep their end of the bargain to arrive at a larger mutual bargain. Workers feel they have a duty to work hard, not cheat the system, pay taxes, etc.
Unionism is to serve workers, not shirkers. And employers also feel they must treat workers with the respect they deserve.
In postwar Britain, the working class took a more vengeful attutide to the capitalists. The idea was the proles didn't have to work too hard, all the while demanding more and more stuff from the capitalists(through skyhigh taxes and nationalization and union politics).
And the problem of the US is the culture of indivdualism where every side believes in working for maximum self-interest instead of meeting the other side halfway on the table. American auto workers on Detroit demanded EVERYTHING while shirking off more and more. And American capitalists tend to be more individualistic than mutualisitc. If they can make billions by building factories in China, no problem.
"Second, this is not a problem. If we had imposed conditions on Germany and Japan that forced them to send us millions of cars and other manufactured goods in exchange for nothing, it would have been considered inhumane reparations. Yet that is what they have been doing, for decades, voluntarily - and they (and we) seem to think they're winning! We have a higher real standard of living, and all they get is floating exchange dollars that don't guarantee that they will be able to buy anything in particular at any point in the future."
It is amazing, the sort of thing they teach in economics classes. Back in the real world, I would first have to at least call into question the "voluntary" nature of our trade relationship with any country where we have 4 air bases and 13 army bases. Of course that probably qualifies as a "conspiracy theory." So much for Germany; now China's trade surplus is something they've undoubtably pursued on their own initiative, but as I recall exports in China are 5% of GDP - a rather small price for destroying your rival's manufacturing industry.
You see building, maintaining and upgrading a manufacturing infrastructure takes a huge amount of time and money. If German and Chinese economic planners "think they're winning", it's because they know that we've gutted our manufacturing base, and when the dollar ceases to be the world's reserve currency (in about 15 minutes, the way things are going) the resulting situation will call to mind the fable of the grasshopper and the ant. Hint: things go badly for the grasshopper. We're the grasshopper.
"adfadsfasdfadsf said...
Even simple machine tool workers go through grueling training that lasts yrs."
Have you ever made something with a lathe or an endmill? It isn't so simple.
"Anonymous said...
Well the Germans have been smart enough to ignore the bullshit driven agenda pushed by the WSJ and 'The Economist' and actually realize that the only driver of wealth is - and always has been - the actual physical production of articles useful and commodious to man.
The damage that those two evil twins (beloved by politicians wishing to 'appear smart'), the WSJ and 'The Economist' have wrought is massive and incalculable
Seriously, I think only the oil shock of 1973 has done more to destroy wealth and living standards than those bastards."
Well said.
""They produce quality products that people want".
This insight is the key point that American industrialists have taken a long time to learn."
Not necessarily. They often produce goods of indiscernable quality, then make people BELIVE that they want them.
A Honda is a better car than a Mercedes, was 30 years ago and probably will be 30 years from now.
"The same thing that is keeping them down in all other third world nations!"
Yeah, and Santa Clause delivers presents to all of the world's good boys and girls too.
"Jim Webb betrayed the military and his country when he joined the party of Jane Fonda."
You are aware that that war is over, right? I think Jane has great grandkids.
"I think that Hitler chap figured it out a long time ago - America has a lot more land."
Great, then why haven't Canada and Australia surpassed us?
"You sure we have a higher standard of living than the Germans?"
I don't know about him, but I am. I've been there; an upper middle class German is like a middle class American, a middle class GERman is like a working class American, unemployment seems stuck at 20%, everyone is an alcoholic, there are practically NO personal rights, everyone is tracked to the point that if he hasn't done it by the age of 16, there are very few options for the future and a chicken IN A SUPERMARKET costs $25 American.
I would venture to say that the majority of Germans would immigrate to America TOMORROW had they the opportunity.
"Webb's problem is guilt over Slavery and Segregation."
You're either lying of uniformed. In Born Fighting, Webb said absolutely nothing that would imply guilt over slavery. As a matter of fact he quite eloquently explained that "his people" did not have the resources to own slaves (I got the feeling that he almost considers the Ulster Scots a different race).
He also wrote that there was much abuse of blacks at the hands of Scots-Irish during and after reconstruction, but it was just misdirected anger at the WASP establishment.
"RAH said...
Steve loves the German system. Yet he can't explain why America has a higher standard of living by any measure, despite being held back by NAMs, anti-discrimination laws and a monstrous war budget."
In what way does the U.S. have a higher standard of living than Germany? Per capita consumption? Balderdash. Per capita consumption includes the consumption of Bill Gates, Nicholas Cage, and Paris Hilton, none of whom have ever bought me a damned thing. Needless to say, it includes that of many other rich people too, from Rappers who buy themselves gold teeth to investment fund managers who buy there daughters 200 thousand dollar weddings.
The notion that northern Europe has a lower standard of living than the U.S. is the sort of ignorant and/or mendacious crap that Rush Limbaugh and his ilk have pushed on a radio listening public that has never been to Europe, and knows next to nothing about it. There is more to standard-of-living than the ability to watch wrestling on your big screen TV or buy a $1,000 hamburger in Vegas. Like, for example, having high quality food sold even in convenience stores, being able to use a public conveyance that does not smell like piss, having attractive surroundings to look at instead of nothing but blank big-box store fronts at instantly-seedy strip-malls, being able to regularly attend the symphony even as a student, not being mugged by feral "youths" while walking through a park, etc.
Americans have bigger houses? So what, germans have houses that are better designed and better constructed.
The Anglo-Americans were the first to industralize, and it made them so arrogant that they thought they could "post-industrialize" and become a finance, service economy.
Except one thing - there may not be anything after industrialization, but meaningless entertainment and asset bubbles. There's no "there there."
Germany and Japan have made the right move to keep industry, and China is making the right move in industrializing. Sure there will be mishaps along the way, but the general direction is forward.
The U.K. and North America have a long way to fall and the pace is accelerating.
Long run, North American prospects should be good, but we'll be so poor by then, we won't believe it.
Germany has a Minister of Families [Kristina Schroder]. She has no kids.
She is only 33, and got married within the past year, so it's entirely possible that she will have children before long.
Peter
I don't think any politicians who actually believed in looking after the best interest of Scotch-Irish Americans would belong to a party that looks only after the ineterests of racial minorities, Jews, elites, and government bureaucrats. Webb will keep talking one way so long as it allows him to continue voting another, and the color of his wife has nothing to do with it.
Steve loves the German system. Yet he can't explain why America has a higher standard of living by any measure"
Land is cheaper, we have more natural resources per capita, and the American economy is heavily subsidized by massive amounts of government borrowing. That's three reasons we have a higher standard of living than Germany, and probably the only reasons we do.
America will never develop a strong vocational school system like Germany because it entails pushing kids who aren't academically capable away from college and into trades. In America that means racially disparate impact. 95% of African-Americans would be pushed into trades, 80% of Asians would go to college, and that's simply considered unacceptable.
"Great, then why haven't Canada and Australia surpassed us?" - Truth
You ever bother to look at a map, Truth?
Most of Australia is arid, near-desert, and virtually every square mile of Canada is north of Minnesota. Ever been to northern Minnesota in January?
Oh and, by the way, Australians and Canadians still manage to maintain pretty decent standards of living, in part because of the low population density, and in part because their countries are full of Australians and Canadians.
@Mr. Anon,
Your comments illustrate why one should differentiate between "standard of living" and "quality of life." Neither term is absolutely precise, but of the two, "standard of living" is the more quantifable, and "quality of life" the more subjective.
That Americans have a higher standard of living (most easily, though crudely, measured as per capital GDP) isn't really in dispute. Quality of life is largely a matter of taste. Some people will prefer life in Germany to that in America, others will prefer life Italy to that in Germany. Some will prefer life in Argentina to either of the two. Nevertheless, Argentina does not have a higher standard of living.
Greeks are hard working, as evidenced by their success in this country. Their problem is that they aren't civic minded, so they won't work hard for the good of society. They need a profit motive to get their work done.
This is why they run successful restaurants, but their government and unions are a mess.
When you have a culture that's based on only helping yourself and your own family, you get dynamic entrapranuers and an overall crappy society. Same deal with Italy and a lot of other countries.
"Have you ever made something with a lathe or an endmill? It isn't so simple."
No, but I unmade lots of stuff with it.
"Red Fox: Wal-Mart is only popular among low income shoppers. People with money avoid that place like the plague. "
But SWPLers in US & UK go crazy for IKEA, which also sells low-cost, low-quality products, just tailored to a different demographic.
BTW Webb voted against cloture on the 2007 amnesty bill, helping to kill it.
Truth:
"a chicken IN A SUPERMARKET costs $25 American."
Maybe they charged YOU $25, Truth. >:)
I've shopped in German supermarkets and they are very cheap, cheaper than the UK. I've also shopped in US supermarkets, inc Walmart, and US food prices are similar to the UK or slightly higher (we don't charge VAT on food). US clothing etc prices are far lower though.
Although German prices are low, however, Germans are not rich, because of enormous income taxes. My sister worked for years as a lecturer in Cologne and she was always dirt-poor, because of the tax. I was surprised to learn that Germans also pay lots for medical insurance on top of their general taxation.
It's a great place to holiday and shop, though.
adfadsfasdfadsf said:
"If the people of the USA can change this much genetically, what chance is it that the Greeks even remotely resemble the ancients? My guess is Greeks are more closely related to Turks than they are to Aristotle. In fact we probably shouldn't refer to them as Greeks, but rather as Hellenized Turks."
Your guess is fatuous and you're an idiot who knows nothing about history - the opposite is in fact the case. It's the contemporary population of Anatolia whose ancestors shed their original ethnic identity to change from Byzantine Greeks into Muslim Turks. Just look at the geneaologies of late-Ottoman sultans - their mothers had been Greek, Armenian or otherwise for generations, and they looked nothing like the founding conquerors who swept down from the steppe.
If Greek's of the modern-day Greek nation-state were to share a pronounced genetic affinity with any other non-Greek population, it would be either the Slavs or any Balkans population group, the former because of their intrusion into the area in the first millenium of the common era, and the latter because they partake of the same substrate of indigenous, pre-Indo-European ancestry.
It's worth nothing that when idealistic 19th-century Phi-Hellenes found themselves grossly disappointed by the contemporary Greeks, they imputed the change in population to Slavic intrusion - I recall some remark made by a superciliious Brit about how today's Greeks were not true descendents of the fair and flaxen-haired Dorians of antiquity, but instead the descendents of squat, swarthy slavs. Which is idiotic, because Slavs are some of the fairest blondest people I've seen.
adfadsfasdfadsf, you just make it too easy at times pal.
@Jeff, above.
Sie haben recht! I, too, am a Jacksonian, and yes I own a copy of "Albion's Seed."
Better a short sharp ass-kicking if you have to go to war, than the loathesome murderous attrition.
The USMC is willing to suffer lots of casualties per minute, but they try to arrange things so that the fight won't go on for very many minutes, thus reducing the absolute number of casualties.
The USMC, of which Senator Webb is a proud member, is a very Jacksonian organization.
Somebody needs to re-read Albion's Seed. It says the Scotch-Irish were descended from the borderers, people from both sides of the English/Scottish border. They were very similar in race and culture, including being clannish and being involved in cross-border raiding.
J. Huston
Jews do not feel guilt over a system they had nothing to do with. @Whiskey (WHO ELSE?)
Mr. Anon said...
Americans have bigger houses? So what, germans have houses that are better designed and better constructed.
Not only that, the Germans, and most all other Europeans, don't have egregious, sky-high mortgages that put many Americans, especially those in major metropolitan areas, in debt up to their eyeballs.
"Jews do not feel guilt over a system they had nothing to do with."
I thought they run the system, or at least have their mitts on some of the most crucial levers. Either we -- or they -- are in denial about this.
Didn't Steve recently criticize them for being machers totally lacking in the noblesse oblige of the defunct WASP power elite?
Simon in London said,
"I've shopped in German supermarkets and they are very cheap, cheaper than the UK. I've also shopped in US supermarkets, inc Walmart, and US food prices are similar to the UK or slightly higher (we don't charge VAT on food). US clothing etc prices are far lower though."
Aldi. They've been sprouting up in Florida over the last two years. The first time you shop there for groceries, you will be surprised at the lack of choice. After a couple of times, you won't miss it and will wonder why you ever paid upwards of 50% more over your new grocery bill average for basic needs. Ditto for farmer's markets. Sometimes the prices are higher like at organic hippy ones, but even then I always pay less overall because there are few luxury and junk items to buy.
Truth,
Don't quote Webb on the Scots-Irish; Whiskey is the expert around here. I'm a red-head of Scots-Irish descent and I've learned from him just how little I knew about some of my people.
Well jody, Dr. David Ho did develop the anti AIDS cocktail which has prevented millions of HIV patients from dying.
All high IQ peoples will be contributing to HIV and other medical research, so I don't know where your German superiority agenda is coming from.
"Think about this. It has been 234 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In another 66 years we will reach the 300th anniversary. By that time the majority of the people of the USA will have become unrecognizable to our founding stock."
Yes, and the Supreme Court will be packed with wise Latinas with eighth grade reading skills. Long before that the Constitution will have ceased to operate because nobody in power will have sufficient intelligence or English skills to understand it.
"Twenty-four hundred years ago, Greeks were at the pinnacle. However, after years of migrations, invasions and occupations, does anyone really believe that the Greeks of today closely resemble the ancient Greeks genetically?"
Genetically, I think they do. Many Greeks still have that 'classic look'. But we shouldn't exaggerate the greatness of Ancient Greece though very great it was. Greeks stopped thinking great thoughts even before the Roman invasion.
Also, it wasn't so much that Greeks were better than everyone else but more like other peoples, especially Northern Europeans, were primitive by comparison.
And all those migrations and invasions were a bonus as well as a minus to the development of Greek culture. Ancient Greece was advantaged over Northern Europe because it was geographically situated to conquer, be conquered, trade, and exchange ideas with other advanced civilizations, especially in the Near East and North Africa. Without this contact with non-Europeans, ancient Greeks might have been as backward as Northern Europeans.
But it is also true that people who make the first breakthroughs are not necessarily best suited to excel at them naturally.
East Asians came up with cool martial arts stuff, but a big white guy who learns karate can kick a runty Japanese guy's ass. White people developed basketball and football, but blacks are best at them. Gentile whites developed modern science, but Jews are best at it.
So, people who are best at something don't necessarily create or invent it. And how something gets invented is often a matter of chance and million other factors. It may well have been the case that Northern Europeans were smarter than Greeks even 1000s of yrs ago, but Greeks came up with great inventions first because of their promixity to other high-culture civilizations.
"Most of Australia is arid, near-desert..."
So is Texas.
"and virtually every square mile of Canada is north of Minnesota."
So is England.
Red Fox: Wal-Mart is only popular among low income shoppers. People with money avoid that place like the plague.
Simon in London: But SWPLers in US & UK go crazy for IKEA, which also sells low-cost, low-quality products, just tailored to a different demographic.
Red Fox: While I agree with your point that there is a portion of the population that has been sucked into the IKEA trend, your implicit assumption is that any one in the United States who has some money is a SWPLer. I live in the Industrial Heartland of the United States and there are plenty of non-SWPLers who dislike Wal-Mart. Heck the vast majority of people in this region of the country don't even know what SWPL is.
I stand by my earlier comment that people will buy quality products at a fair price. Japanese car companies overtook their American counterparts for precisely that reason.
@Barry Wong - I once had two Greek female students in my class, both quite bright. One was "squat and swarthy" and could have been Bulgarian. The other had classical Hellenic looks straight off a 450 BC amphora, with that particular nose shape you only see on Greek women.
My view is that Greeks today are by and large the same Greeks as 450 BC; it's the culture that changed. And their arch-enemies in Istanbul and across the Bosphorus are also mostly Greek, as you say.
Your guess is fatuous and you're an idiot who knows nothing about history - the opposite is in fact the case. It's the contemporary population of Anatolia whose ancestors shed their original ethnic identity to change from Byzantine Greeks into Muslim Turks. Just look at the geneaologies of late-Ottoman sultans - their mothers had been Greek, Armenian or otherwise for generations, and they looked nothing like the founding conquerors who swept down from the steppe.
I don't think the original comment you replied to referred to Byzantine Greeks, who came several centuries after the ancient Greeks. By the time of the Byzantine Greeks, Greece had already undergone invasions and conquest. So I don't think the Byzantine Greeks would have been a close resemblance to ancient Greeks. The original comment suggested that the ancient Greeks of 2400 years ago are different from the modern Greeks. Byzantine Greeks are just a midpoint in this journey.
I recall some remark made by a superciliious Brit about how today's Greeks were not true descendents of the fair and flaxen-haired Dorians of antiquity, but instead the descendents of squat, swarthy slavs. Which is idiotic, because Slavs are some of the fairest blondest people I've seen.
Ok Mr Wong, if you assert Turks are in fact Byzantine Greeks and Slavs are fair, then what population group caused this change from a fair to swarthy population?
The ancient Greek-looking girl also had "flaxen" (dark blonde) hair BTW, but it was the nose shape that was really distinctive.
My view is that Greeks today are by and large the same Greeks as 450 BC; it's the culture that changed. And their arch-enemies in Istanbul and across the Bosphorus are also mostly Greek, as you say.
Simon in London, isn't the probability high that the Greeks of today are different from the Greeks of 450BC because of both the amount of time between them and the fact the Mediterranean has historically been a volatile place? Just look at the demographics changes taking place in the US. Just look at the news that whites will be a minority in Britain by 2066. Both of these demographic changes are occurring right before our eyes in a period of about 50 years. I can't even imagine what types of changes could occur in 2500 years.
"Maybe they charged YOU $25, Truth. >:)"
I guess I imagined thise $8 cups of coffee in Switzerland also?
"Simon in London, isn't the probability high that the Greeks of today are different from the Greeks of 450BC because of both the amount of time between them and the fact the Mediterranean has historically been a volatile place?"
One thing for sure, Greeks today are noisy as ancient Greeks. How do I know ancient Greeks were noisy? They invented drama.
One thing I noticed about Greeks, many suffer from laughitis. Once a Greek begins to laugh, he or she can't stop.
Why did Greeks fall so badly? Maybe it's because they had a very proud culture. Spiritually, politically, culturally, and individualistically, it's difficult to think of another people or culture as pride-oriented as that of Ancient Greeks. When such a people are defeated, something within them could become wounded permanently.
Jews were more attuned to the culture of defeat and survival than the Greeks. So, when Jews got clobbered over and over, they managed to maintain their own kind of pride which wasn't as dramatic and arrogant--and worldly--as that of Greeks.
"Ok Mr Wong, if you assert Turks are in fact Byzantine Greeks and Slavs are fair, then what population group caused this change from a fair to swarthy population?"
I didn't - you didn't read my post. I'd guess that Byzantine Greeks look much like the current population of Anatolia, or depicitions of human beings in traditional Byzantine Art and iconography - olive-complexioned and dark-haired. Personally it's an appearance type I find preferrable - the terms "squat and swarthy" were loosely paraphrased from the scornful remarks of a pre-modern bigot.
My general guess would be that the proto-Indo Europeans were pale-skinned and blonde/red-haired, and that the native, non-IE populations of the Mediterranean were olive-skinned with dark hair - recall the pride with which Athenians claimed to be truly indigenous.
Interesting guy. I know that he spoke out against affirmative action as well.
But three wives? With the last being of a different race? Children by all three.
"Maybe they charged YOU $25, Truth. >:)"
I guess I imagined thise $8 cups of coffee in Switzerland also?
--
I think Truth is on to something here - since a single (and dainty-sized, mind you) cup of hot cocoa at the Berliner Hotel Adlon on Unter den Linden right next to the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) was (the equivalent) of $10 AMERIKAN PESOS!
I still love der Vaterland - but it most definately is not cheap.
America will never be germany because america kicks its engineers in the teeth by importing millions of indians with fake degrees on the H-1B visa to take away our engineering jobs
In 2008 and 2009 they imported 490,000 of them, at a time american jobs were being CUT not created.
Whiskey said:
Webb's problem is guilt over Slavery and Segregation. It is probably those guilty (Scots-Irish) and WASPs (guilt over racial oppression) that helps feed racial replacement (America into Amexica). Jews do not feel guilt over a system they had nothing to do with.
This kind of slanderous misleading must make jews despair of how their achievements are slighted and played down by anti-semites such as Whiskey.
One can only hope that sometime soon Jewish Organizations make a concerted educational push to emphasize that without Jewish input, in trading slaves, in financial backing, and in pure fighting in the Confederate Armies as soldiers, the Southern Way of Life and the Confederate States of America would have collapsed like a hand of cards held by a dumb hick on a Mississippi riverboat.
It's not as if the Confederate Congress were known for outstanding financial skills of their own...
And that doesn't take into account the peerless ability of Judah P. Benjamin, Secretary of War, Secretary of State, and 'The Brains of the Confederacy'.
Please don't lump all us Jews into some "top" economic/cultural position in America! You may hear about Bernanke, Emmanual and whomever, but MOST of us are middle class Americans who value Western civilization, appreciate hard work and fair play, and do not want America to become Mexico or China.
"Truth said...
""and virtually every square mile of Canada is north of Minnesota."
So is England."
But England is in a different continent. The Gulf Stream, Sport. Look it up. It's rather important.
"Anonymous said...
Please don't lump all us Jews into some "top" economic/cultural position in America! You may hear about Bernanke, Emmanual and whomever, but MOST of us are middle class Americans who value Western civilization, appreciate hard work and fair play, and do not want America to become Mexico or China."
Yes, this seems to be forgotten by a lot of people here. Many powerful people in finance, law, and the media are jews. But most jews are not powerful financiers, lawyers, and opinion makers. One ought to take note.
"Black Sea said...
@Mr. Anon,
Your comments illustrate why one should differentiate between "standard of living" and "quality of life." Neither term is absolutely precise, but of the two, "standard of living" is the more quantifable, and "quality of life" the more subjective."
Than the term "Standard of Living" is not very useful. GDP can be quantified, but that does not necessarily make it an objective measure of anything real. Quatar has a higher per capita GDP than does Switzerland. Puerto Rico's is higher than the Czech republic. But I have no problem assigning Switzerland and Czecho a higher standard of living than I would Quatar or Puerto Rico.
As I mentioned, GDP can be distorted by extreme disparities in wealth between classes of people - by oil sheiks who buy themselves golden crappers, and entertainers who spend thier fantastic incomes on giraffes, home carnival rides, oxygen chambers, and multiple plastic surgeries. Median income would probably be a better measure of the overall economic well-being of a nation.
On Turks and Greeks:
This is kind of an interesting comparison of Turkish and Greek faces:
http://www.faceoftomorrow.com/nicosia_b.asp?no_id=1
Surprisingly close, but the Turks do have rather that (slightly unflattering) look I tend to associate with Turks as opposed to Greeks (eyebrows, mouth and nose).
On the other hand, Cypriot Greeks are slightly "south" of other Greeks.
Which is idiotic, because Slavs are some of the fairest blondest people I've seen.
I think the assumption on the part of that "Brit" is that they are descended from Thracians and proximal peoples who were acultured to Slavic culture during the expansions (Southern Slavs), not that they descend from Poles. I don't know how possible this is, though I know some prominent Athenian figures of antiquity (e.g. Themistocles) had recent Thracian descent.
"If the United States wants to claw its way back to economic self-determination, it should look not at China for the route forward, but at Germany."
Webb voted FOR the DREAM act. So apparently the country he really wants us to emulate is Mexico.
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