So Clinton who has made a living by standing on his hind-legs at te pulpi, giving verbose, windy speeches about how the WTO 'will make every global citizen a multi-millionaire' (remember that tripe a decade or so before the meltdown?), deep down , at bottom moans about Apple not making a damn thing in the USA or an LA rail contract employing foreigners instead of Americans. 'All politicians are liars' - a moral lesson that all intelligent persons should have intuited as children along with other horrible realities such as murder (ie warfare) is lauded and celebrated as being good, when politicians say it is good.
Most American Presidents, at least since Nixon, have been Davos men- Obama basically sees himself as the leader of the trans-nationalist global elite (I prefer your term "Davos Men"). The problem is, if you ever have a chance to actually meet and talk with these people (as I have) you will be ABSOLUTELY SHOCKED at their provincialism. Most of the native English speakers in the group don't even speak another language, and their exposure to other cultures is mostly from meeting fellow elites at conferences, or at college. (Needless to say, the college students they met are themselves extremely elite). A lot of their agenda is driven by a resentment at being second tier players to the U.S. (not to worry- that won't last another 50 years). They have never done business in another country, except perhaps working overseas for a multinational firm- hardly the same as really dealing with another culture. I remember a discussion I once had, 20 years ago, with the head of a European country's Telephone network. I argued that the Euro was a fantasy, doomed to failure- he argued that it was the only way to prevent another suicidal intra-European war. He agreed that the targeted figures for each country's deficits to join the Euro were likely falsified, but felt that the benefits outweighed the risks. Sadly, I was right, it appears. I see this same attitude among American elites. If you ever go to a dinner party in Manhattan with these people, their worldview is so myopic, it will astound you. It's as if a European went to New York, saw Fifth avenue, and concluded that all the U.S. is like that. Or going to St. Barts and thinking it is representative of the Caribbean. Mark Steyn refers to "meeting a hot Bahraini babe, and thinking she's just like an American. Then she starts talking about Jews having horns, and you realize you're dealing with a very different animal" (no offense to animals intended). That's what our elites are like- they meet a handful of international people, and think they're representative of the nations they're from. They literally have no clue about the rest of the world. Heck, they've never even spent a day speaking with an American plumber, electrician, carpenter, tile-setter, or assembly line worker. I've been on trips with some of these people and watched them go into restaurants and act like jackasses because the locals don't speak English. (I'm the guy apologising for my fellow American's assholery). ANd everyone plays along, and tells them how sophisticated they are. Steve, I think I remember an article you wrote a few years ago about how Shirley McClaine was a "Three week Sinologist". That's pretty much the level of international understanding among our elite.
I've mentioned it before, but I'll do it again. Watch this video- James Goldsmith on the perils of Globalization. Unfortunately, the west didn't listen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQrz8F0dBI
He also warned us about the dangers of derivatives. Heck, he only made a few billion dollars after he dropped out of secondary school at 16, so what could he possibly know about anything? Yale or Jail!
@Charlesz Martel - wow thanks - "It will unleash an unemployment that will attack economies around the world" - and that's before James Goldsmith even starts talking.
The former Prime Minister of the UK, the big fat, useless, hopeless Gordon Brown ('there must be no retreat from globalization!'), was fond of uttering this little gem wherever he went 'A British job for very British worker!'.Notwithstanding that this was a National Front slogan of the 1970s, Gordon Brown presided over the largest influx of foreign workers into the UK since the Dark Ages.Furthermore whilst under his watch the number of foreign born workers increased massively, the numbe of native British workers fell substantially.Of course bullsh*t Brown should have known better - under EU rules he or any other Briton cannot make any distinction whatsoever between a British worker or a worker from any other EU state.
I wonder if all the Davos men are equally de-nationalized. I suspect the Japanese members are still looking out for Japan. My fear is that it is mainly the US and Europeans that are wiling to sell their own people out.
Also, I wonder if most of the "intellectuals" who attend are basically bought-and-paid for hacks? The men who write books promoting the glories of globalism don't strike me as honest scholars, but as eager members of the royal court - who wish to remain so.
"Yet because Clinton's prose style is so non-magisterial, it's hard to feel much confidence that he's really thought through all these issues himself, rather than just becoming excited by some self-promoters' ideas that he heard about at Davos or Aspen."
The idea that tone is content works better in understanding Clinton's success, not what you perceive as failure. his ability to connect with people, whether in a discursive or extemporaneous manner, does not mean he's a man that is lacking in thought, or that the many thoughts he puts forward are shallow.
The biggest mistake that so many of your articles make -- or at least the protective cover you take in policy analysis married to public figures -- is to assume that NWO talking points are automatically shallow simply because they're illogical or damaging; in fact, those factors are the point for these people.
So you open the article on the attack -- which I agree with -- that Clinton is a "servant" of 'Davos Man', only to, then, go into detailing this background/fundamental characteristic as an echo chamber accident of poor policy-think.
The irony is in just how facile your reading of the situation is.
This isn't an issue where one-worlders make damaging policy arguments because they misunderstand the damage their cause will, you know, cause to nation-states and their autonomy, but *because* they know this.
So Clinton, in the face of an economy that is little more than its own consumption, demands more visas and an amnesty. He doesn't do this because he's a shallow thinker, but because of his servitude -- thus the opening statement you provide is on the money (in more ways than...), even as much of your writing undermines it by pretending that it's Clinton's lack of deep thought or sourcing causing him to make reductive and damaging arguments as to the US's future.
But then, so far as shallow thinking, I remain impressed by your own self-congratulatory tone in mocking the intellectual capacity of others while ignoring obvious intent. I realixe that Dr. Phil-level dime store psychology is today's rage, but that's a compounding point rather than defense of what you do.
As for Clinton? Well, could be worse. He could have written a poorly-sourced deconstruction of Obama that was really -- because of that same poor-sourcing (I like to call it 'Dreams From My Father') -- about Bill Ayers, without even realizing it. And to pander for Bill Simmons-level pop cultural schlock audience, the rotten fruit on top that would be something like, hmm, the title 'America's Half-Blood Prince'.
Now that? That would be truly shallow thinking 101. The wrong side of self-satisfaction and style-as-substance.
Point is, you like to style your articles, and bask in your own intellect through that. Well, how could someone with those aims not respect a Master like Bill Clinton?
Clinton's true genius is not his act as policy wonk or humanitarian. No, the point for Clinton is to, simply, benefit Clinton. Thus, his arguments aren't misleading because he doesn't think them through, but just the opposite: instead of a tribalist line, like "is it good for the Jews?", Bill Clinton exists for Bill Clinton.
He might be a sociopath, but does that make him a shallow intellect?
Pop culture reference? Bill Clinton is Adrian Pasdar's Jim Profit.
Which is far more impressive than George W's run as Deputy Dawg.
Here's a link to Goldsmith's argument, not a transcript but in his own words:
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/25a/004.html
Basically he predicts that GATT sets up incentives to integrate ~4 billion people (India, China, USSR and Eastern Europe, plus a bunch of other Asian nations) into the world economy in a dislocating fashion, because it reduces barriers on imports while keeping barriers on capital relatively high.
His (implicit) solution is high tariffs on imports, but few restrictions on capital. As a financier, he would say that, wouldn't he?
But to consider the argument: to export into the US, he proposes that a Japanese company should have to set up in the US, build a plant here, and employ American workers. Sort of like the Reagan provisions in the 80s which our host Steve loved so much.
Conversely, for us to sell into the Chinese market, he contends that we should not be sending over finished exports, but rather setting up shop in China and employing Chinese. It is important to note that this was basically China's policy for a long time: welcome FDI, but require that a foreign company do a joint venture with a Chinese national. (Nowadays you can set up a WFOE, wholly foreign owned enterprise).
It's interesting to note that we've got almost exactly the opposite policy regime today. That is, it's very cheap to import stuff, but a huge pain to move capital around the world due to various Patriot Act provisions. Try opening a foreign bank account and see how many hoops you need to jump through.
---
Now, as a bona-fide real-life executive at an evil multinational corporation, one who loves what America was and understands HBD, here are some thoughts.
1. First, Goldsmith does give a nod to what appears to many of us to be the real problem:
Q: Some would say that Europe's employment problem is not GATT, but just the result of the old-fashioned diseases that one finds in uncompetitive, inflexible and spoiled societies. The welfare state is out of control; social costs borne by employers discourage the creation of new jobs; high government expenditure and taxation stifle the economy; state intervention is paralyzing; corporatism blocks remedial action, etc. Is that not true?
It is partially true, and those diseases must be treated forcefully. But even if the treatment is successful, it will not solve the problems created by global free trade. Imagine that we were able to reduce at a stroke social charges and taxation so as to diminish the cost of labour by a full third. All it would mean is that instead of being able to employ forty-seven Vietnamese or forty- seven Filipinos for the price of one Frenchman, you could employ only thirty-one.
See also: http://foseti.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/on-government-employment/
However, Goldsmith really does understate the cost of regulation. For a business to decide to move production overseas, into a foreign country with people speaking a different language, splitting your operations across timezones and dealing with multiple legal systems, the ROI has to be enormous.
Unfortunately, US regulations and labor laws have made the ROI effectively infinite. There are certain things you simply cannot make in Europe and the US due to all these extraordinarily expensive laws. Even conservatives are suckers for anything called a "health" or "safety" or "labor" provision, all while OSHA blows $200k on an iPhone app that is nothing more than a glorified thermometer (http://gun.io/blog/the-governments-200000-useless-android-application/).
Enticing as that may be, it won’t be easy get those keys if the FDA has its way. Last summer, the agency indicated that it wants to classify the work of any company that helps you decipher your genome as a medical test that must be regulated accordingly. But over the last year, the agency’s lack of continued communication has left companies that would interpret genetic information—which are simply offering information—confused as to where they stand. This lack of clarity and direction could ultimately mean ceding leadership in this field to overseas competitors who are not similarly constrained.
"Confused" is not really the right term. Frightened to death is the right term. The FDA can (and does) instantly execute companies, ordering fines, seizures, and raids. Or they can just point at your throat and throttle you in the media, Darth Vader style, like so:
Stories like this should give some idea of why executives are moving stuff overseas. When our companies are threatened with death (at worst) or arbitrary taxes and regulation (at best) by the US government, what's the alternative? Asian nations that want to attract businesses are doing all the right things, so we head there, head for the exits.
The current US government will never stop its spending and its war on businesses unless it goes out of business itself. Unfortunately, exit from the US is the only vote that really counts.
3. One last issue that looms very large is the question of mutual respect.
In one worldview, workers/activists hate execs/entrepreneurs. Demagogues like Andy Stern rouse them to attack management with labor laws, regulations, and taxes, often sawing off the branch that the workers themselves sit on (see: American auto companies). Execs retaliate by playing hardball, moving into right-to-work states (see: NRLB/Boeing case), at which point the workers/activists cry out in astonished rage at the thought that their target might leave them. CEOs are caricatured as golf-club wielding idiots and constantly attacked by the press and the tax system, and they retaliate by arranging huge pay packages to compensate for the stress.
In another worldview, workers recognize that execs/entrepreneurs are *better than them* at inventing new things. They realize that it is VERY hard to create a job -- let alone manage a business -- which actually produces more profit than it costs in payroll. Execs are celebrated and given nonmaterial rewards, including the all-important admiration of the press and pop culture, such that they don't need huge pay packages. In return, execs practice noblesse oblige, treating workers well. Lower regulations and taxes mean that there is more of a pie to divide among all employees, and execs count on workers to turn on Saul Alinsky-type troublemakers and show them the door.
Everyone talks about executive pay because it is measurable, but no one talks about government power or press influence. You've seen countless movie and TV shows with evil companies, but zero with evil professors, journalists, or regulators.
That adds up over time. The fables a society tells affect people's worldviews. You're programmed to know how execs can turn evil, and to suspect execs of evil. But you're not programmed to know that most people aren't capable of being execs, any more than most people can dunk.
Anyway. A lot of execs would take a deal in which they got the non-monetary props afforded a Jonas Salk or a Steve Jobs, along with lower regulations, taxes, and demagoguery. In return, they'd be able to keep jobs in the US and wouldn't see the need for FU money to anywhere near the same extent.
Our cultural priorities are out of whack when we don't care about actors, singers, and sports stars becoming millionaires, but begrudge people who are creating business and jobs. When we teach our kids to pay respects to politicians and demagogues (JFK and Martin Luther King) rather than inventors and entrepreneurs (Edison and Ford).
Those are the causes. The symptom is outsourcing, but those are the causes.
Clinton was on the globalist bandwagon a long time ago. I recall one of his sidekicks, Strobe Talbott, often lecturing to those who would listen that national borders were rapidly becoming a thing of the past. It all sounded like some sort of Gene Roddenberry inspired philosophy. At bottom however I think Clinton is really in it only for Clinton.
It is amazing how vapid and shallow all these solutions by the most elite portion of our society are.
Not really. If there are certain things that your brain is just not allowed to think then, to the extent those things (that you're not allowed to think) are an important aspect of reality, you're going to sound pretty vapid.
Basically, you have vast segments of "the elite" who are just telling the lies they need to tell (or think they need to tell). For business elites, who were probably never very profound thinkers to begin with, it's pretty straightforward (what comes out is just a bunch of self-serving "wisdom of the markets" happy-talk). The thinking elites are another matter. They have to know, at some level, that the things they are saying are, in effect, lies. Their intentions may not be evil (unlikely to be, imo), but the things they say have so little correspondence with reality that they really do amount to falsehoods. That's what happens when you decide that there are some things you simply will not think about.
Take race. They look at race and tell themselves, no way in hell am I going to think systematically about race. No way. You might think that because, to a very large degree, to exist as a human is to exist racially (to exist with a set of inherited/heritable traits that include you in some groups and set you apart from others) there might be an endless amount of interesting viewpoints put forward about race. Not to the 21st century intellectual though. He prefers to believe race is so boring it may as well not even exist. In fact, for him, it doesn't exist -- nor does anything else that he doesn't like. That's one reason why 21st century intellectuals are so thoroughly uninteresting. "So you think you're noticing reality, do you? Jokes on you, 'cos you're not! Period!" That about sums them up.
A tip for reading articles on the distractingly ugly VDare site--choose the printer friendly version which dumps the colors and graphics.
I had not known that "Bush tried to reproduce his minimalist success in Texas, where he had run on just four issues: limited government, local control of schools, 'family values,' and individual responsibility."
"Limited government" and "local control of the schools" sure don't jibe with the agenda he pushed through! As far as the other two, those are just meaningless catch phrases.
"...America at its core is an idea - the idea that no matter who you are or where you're from, if you work hard and play by the rules, you'll have the freedom and opportunity to pursue your own dreams and leave your kids a country where they can chase theirs."
Meanwhile, back on Planet Reality:
Is Chelsea Clinton putting career before kids? Husband Marc Mezvinsky 'has to schedule appointment just to see her' By Daily Mail Reporter 23rd November 2011 dailymail.co.uk
Now most demographers believe that you need a total fertility rate of about 2.10 to sustain a population.
So given any single biological pair of {Man} X {Woman}, such as, oh, say, a young, circa 1975-ish
{William Jefferson Blythe Clinton} X {Hillary Diane Rodham},
for replacement level purposes, you need to see its line procreating as follows:
2.10 children 2.10 X 2.10 = 4.41 grandchildren 2.10 X 2.10 X 2.10 = 9.261 great-grandchildren etc etc etc
And does anyone here seriously believe that, circa 2100, we will be seeing 9 or more GGCren in this line?
My honest guess is that by 2075 [the centennial of their marriage], and maybe even as early as 2050, it will have become abundantly obvious that the line of {Bill} X {Hill} is effectively dead - that any surviving females will have barren wombs, and that any surviving males will be either hermits or sodomites or both.
And the more I think about it, the more I wonder whether the best strategy for us palecons to embrace is simply to hunker down, keep making babies [by the boatload], homeschool them [obviously], and just wait patiently for these nihilists to un-breed themselves right out of existence.
Hey, how about a government job for everyone at $100,000 a year? I'll bet even conservatives will be for government if Democrats offer that to everyone.
"Incredible: So Clinton who has made a living by standing on his hind-legs at te pulpi, giving verbose, windy speeches about how the WTO 'will make every global citizen a multi-millionaire' (remember that tripe a decade or so before the meltdown?), deep down , at bottom moans about Apple not making a damn thing in the USA or an LA rail contract employing foreigners instead of Americans."
Is it any different from Rush Limbaugh making 100s of millions by sitting on his fat arse as he berates Chicoms in the same breath that he praises Walmart?
"LA rail contract employing foreigners instead of Americans."
Maybe they figure since Chinese did such a great job of building the railroad in the 19th century, Chinese of the 21st century should build the trains too. Chinese work cheaper and better than Mexicans in LA and California.
Being pro-immigration in the name of economic good isn't such a hurdle for us. It can be disproved and politically opposed. There is no moral-political price to pay for saying 'more immigrants means less economic stability for most Americans.'
The real hurdle is the notion that massive non-white immigration is a moral necessity to reverse the centuries-old 'racist' practice of favoring white immigrants over non-white ones. Since US immigration policy had been 'racist' until 1965, there's a sense that US must be open to non-whites to compensate for its past evil. This is a toughie because people are frightened of being called 'racist' or 'xenophobic'.
Another problem is actually circular. Some leftists say US(and EU)must open their doors to the Third World since Third World poverty was caused by imperialism/globalism. Since Western influence led to economic disparities, dislocations, and shocks in the Third World, all those teeming masses of desperate people must be allowed into the West(that has prospered at the expense of the Third World--in the past by naked imperialism and in the present through unequal globalism; more recently, all the disasters in Africa have been blamed on greenhouse gases emittd by the West and China, and so it's argued starving Africans must be let into Europe). If globalism is the culprit, then the thing to do is end it. But the Left doesn't call for an end to globalism since globalist elites fill its coffers. Also, some leftists, even while seeing globalism as exploitative, value it as a historical process ordained by Karl Marx that will finally bring down capitalism.
Well, it certainly means 'back to work' for Clinton. Everytime he makes speeches spouting nonsense like this, rich people hire him all around the globe.
But the 'back' he'd really like to 'work' is probably that of some woman.
Italy replaced its pM.. or should say the EU global elite replaced its PM with a non-parliment member /former goldman sachs advisor. ditto Greece ditto the EU central bank.
How much clearer does it have to be?
Globalism/communism (the kind where some animals are more equal) is on the march. The only 'western' state that remains fervently nationalist is israel. Hmmm.
Upon taking office his first two urgent issues were gays-in-the-military and NAFTA. He doesn't seem to have evolved much since then except maybe he's shifted from sex to money addiction. He and his spouse have been the ultimate power sleaze duo of all time. Now, back to the future, the burning issue of 2012: Obama vs the Republican stooge of the moment. Exciting prospect, eh?
"Is it any different from Rush Limbaugh making 100s of millions by sitting on his fat arse as he berates Chicoms in the same breath that he praises Walmart?"
"I wonder if all the Davos men are equally de-nationalized."
A local talk radio host once commented that agreeing to globalization is akin to bringing your gorgeous wife to an orgy while all of the other men go stag.
“41. Keep pushing for comprehensive immigration reform, and in the meantime grant more H-1B visas to immigrants in STEM fields until we have enough qualified citizens to fill the openings."
Clinton has most likely received hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in speaking fees from those who stand to benefit from H-1B expansion. Indeed, STEMS have been forced to put up with record level unemployment for the last decade as a result of Clinton signing in to law massive increases in H_1B visas in 1998 and again in 2000.
From the VDare review: "You have to give Clinton this much credit: he does not bore easily. Bush and Clinton were both born in 1946, but Bush has retired, while Clinton is still out there on the conference circuit sitting through Powerpoint presentations. He gives the impression that he's actually interested..."
That's like complimenting a whore because she doesn't fall asleep while her john getting busy. He's being paid to look interested, as the article mentions further down:
"A lot of rich interests have handed Clinton a lot of cash since he left office...Last year, he was paid $10.7 million for giving 52 speeches."
You could just as easily revise the preceding quotation to read:
"You have to give Bush this much credit: he does not bore easily. Bush and Clinton were both born in 1946, but Clinton is still working, while Bush is out there in Texas, sitting around and keeping a low profile. He gives the impression that he's actually interested in being merely a former POTUS who's now officially retired."
I loathe that habit ex-presidents now have of popping up to make policy pronouncements with unseemly frequency. It's like Grandma refusing to accept that she has had her day and Mom is now in charge--full of pride but completely lacking in dignity.
Unfortunately, I can foresee the future former president Obama taking this to the nth degree, judging by the presidential-looking podium he had when he was merely Candidate Obama. He apparently saw himself as president before he was ever sworn in; I doubt he'll ever think of himself as anything but The President for the rest of his days.
I recall one of his sidekicks, Strobe Talbott, often lecturing to those who would listen that national borders were rapidly becoming a thing of the past. It all sounded like some sort of Gene Roddenberry inspired philosophy.
You aren't cutting on my beloved Saint of Star Trek are you? Seriously though, Trek has always been Super Duper respectful of differences of cultures, albeit so Super Duper it's heavy-handed. Then again maybe you mean everybody *visiting* every other nation/planet all the time. (Or maybe the races making the babies with each other, which, yeah. There's some of that.)
Well, it certainly means 'back to work' for Clinton. ... But the 'back' he'd really like to 'work' is probably that of some woman.
Politicians bopping too many women are the least worrying kind. Just not my wallet. Or little boys. Or the federal/state/local boundaries.
Hey, George, go easy on Strobe Talbott. He was essential to ending the Cold War. All Ronald Reagan had to do was read Talbott's recommendations in Time every week, do the exact opposite, and, presto, the Cold War ended.
Britain's god-awful New Labour government of 1997-2010 abandoned any pretence at being a red, raw socialist and workers party and degenerated into a neutered milquetoast version of the Tories - with a bit of subsidized chidcare thrown in to appease the dominant women's faction. The silly bastards who led the party (and led Briatin to economic catastrophe), went the whole hog for sub WSJ and Economist dogmatic bullcrap , clapped their effete uncalloused hands together and said to themselves 'what smart little boys we are'. The biggest manifestation was immigration policy.The bastards were actually dumb enough to take the printed flatulations of the morons at The Economist seriously and abolish - yes abolish - all British immigration controls whatsoever.But the cowardly sneaks that they are, the did secretly, like sneak thieves, behind the nation's back. But, alas they were discovered.
If Britain's economy doesn't perk up a violent backlash resulting in sub civil war might well happen.
Israel is not nationalist. It cannot even keep African refugees from turning Tel Aviv into "White Flight." Just wait twenty years, it will be filled with nothing but Africans and Filipinos (who dominate there already in service work). The days of Zionism are long dead.
Who was it that reflexively defended Clinton and his worldview? Who defended him from any charge relating to Monica Lewinsky? Why, White professional women. Who gain, very much so, opportunity wise and personally, from globalism.
Globalism destroys nationalism, patriotism, the military, all things that tend to reduce White professional female power, and enhances NGOs, liberal think tanks, nanny-state government, and the like, all things that enhance White professional female power. Globalism provides cheap nannies and housekeepers and the like, and displaces those icky White beta males. It makes any successful, dominant White guy an easy identifier as Alpha, because he succeeds in a society of a few princes and many serfs, the preferred social organization of White professional women who consume a steady diet of celebrities and fake royalty, and prefer that fantasy (Mr. Big in Sex and the City). Nearly all media-tainment is built around female consumerism, and that accounts for Clinton's popularity. He's the Alpha male (different rules for him in sexual harassment than ordinary guys) and recognized the path to political power was playing professional female voters handily.
Globalization in every Western nation creates a phalanx of White professional female winners, for the most part, which is why it is successful politically.
I heard Clinton speak in LA at an E-Learning conference. He was booked for 1 hour and spoke for 30 minutes. Didn't find it remarkable, the content or the delivery.
"...instead of a tribalist line, like "is it good for the Jews?", Bill Clinton exists for Bill Clinton."
That can be seen as shallow, short-term thinking. A tribalist approach would have been more long-term (multi-generational). For someone with Clinton's talents the tribalist approach would also have had to involve delayed gratification. He wouldn't have become rich in this life if he followed the tribalist line, but his heirs might have benefited from it.
The road towards longer-term thinking, towards greater delaying of gratification is a road away from shallowness, no?
Perhaps Steve thinks that individual selfishness and hedonism are always shallow. I'm not going to disagree with that.
The irony is in just how facile your reading of the situation is.
This isn't an issue where one-worlders make damaging policy arguments because they misunderstand the damage their cause will, you know, cause to nation-states and their autonomy, but *because* they know this.
You're not wrong, but you need to realize that it's more effective to attack them at the level of 'stupidity' rather than 'evil.'
They can defend themselves against 'evil' by claiming you are evil. They've got this wonderful utopian dream of freedom and love and diversity and blah blah blah and you, you nazi, want to return to patriotism, borders, isolation, (even racism!) etc. (Their job is made much easier by the existence of groups who, minor, ineffectual and generally ignored though they are, do in fact stand for "hardcore" versions of the latter propositions.)
On the other hand, it's psychologically much more stressful to have to defend yourself against charges of stupidity. "Just another clueless liberal nitwit" -- if that ever takes off in a big way it's game over for white liberals. Liberals' great coup has been in managing to portray themselves as the enlightened ones. I have to agree with Whiskey that this is enormously appealing to females (in general, but especially moral crusader white females), since females are so much more easily upset by facts of reality that are not to their liking than men are, and are also much more comfortable maintaining logically/factually contradictory views in their minds.
But the 'back' he'd really like to 'work' is probably that of some woman.
You know, I was thinking about the greater Clinton harem, as we have watched it evolve over the years, and a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation suddenly popped into my head:
Jim McDougal once said that "the Clinton’s were like a tornado that destroyed everything in their path" [or words to that effect], but I'd say that dating Bill Clinton was like being on the receiving end of an asteroid-induced ELE when it came to a woman's fertility.
Silver: it's more effective to attack them at the level of 'stupidity' rather than 'evil.'
Yes, this is exactly correct.
First, almost nobody thinks of himself as being "evil," at least by his own values. So you're really just accusing him of having different values than yourself, which he'd freely admit. It's a little like the sheep attempting to shame the wolf as being "evil" for eating sheep. Doesn't really work. Values are relative.
On the other hand, being stupid/ignorant/crazy is a much more objective condition, and hence a more effective accusation. Everyone with even a trace of self-awareness recognizes that he might be wrong about something, and if he's wrong about enough important things, well, maybe he starts to think he's kind of stupid, which can be pretty demoralizing. And in general, people who are obviously very stupid and ignorant tend not to be very popular or have many devoted followers...outside of Republican presidential primaries, that is...
Wes:I wonder if all the Davos men are equally de-nationalized. I suspect the Japanese members are still looking out for Japan.
Steve - if you will allow me to indulge myself just one more time - Mark Steyn has been screaming at the top of his lungs [to anyone who'll listen] about the dire demographic situation in Japan, but it looks like, if anything, the Japanese are ACCELERATING their head-first [kamikaze?] dive into extinction:
Record 61% of unmarried Japanese men 18-34 have no girlfriend: survey November 26, 2011 mdn.mainichi.jp
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A record-high 61.4 percent of unmarried Japanese men aged between 18 and 34 have no girlfriend, up 9.2 percentage points from 2005, a survey by a research body showed Friday.
The percentage of unmarried women with no boyfriend in the same age group also hit a record high of 49.5 percent, up 4.8 percentage points, while nearly half the respondents of both genders said they do not want to date anyone, the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research said...
Perhaps the Big Creep is doing more than merely racking up some easy graft. Perhaps he is positioning himself for another run at the oval office. He could offer himself as the savior of the Democratic party, if Obama's chances start to look really dicey. Most of the Democrats I know think that Bill Clinton was the greatest President of all time - to them he's George Washington, Elvis, and Chuck Norris all wrapped up in one package.
"..it's more effective to attack them at the level of 'stupidity' rather than 'evil.'
Usually, the allegations that hurt the most are the ones that happen to be true. If a leftist actually happens to be stupid, then calling him stupid can be effective. If he's smart, this accusation can backfire. The most effective way to attack SJ Gould, for example, is as a liar, not as a moron. I've read a bit of his stuff and it's obvious to me that he was bright.
There's TV culture and then there's bookish culture. The people who lead the bookish side of almost every conceivable ideology on both right and left tend to be bright. Calling guys like Krugman or Hitchens stupid can make one seem bitter. Finding their lies and hypocrisies and then calling them liars and hypocrites - THAT can be effective. 'Cause it's true. The truth has value.
Recap: when a dimwitted Hollywood actor says something leftist, one should attack him as stupid. When a NYT columnist says something leftist, one should look for specific lies and hypocrisies in what he said, and then attack him as a liar.
"but I'd say that dating Bill Clinton was like being on the receiving end of an asteroid-induced ELE when it came to a woman's fertility."
Family-oriented women don't sleep with maried men. Perhaps women angling for a paternity suit do, but perhaps Clinton may have been careful. See his relationship with that woman, Miss Lewinsky, ,for more on that.
"Most of the Democrats I know think that Bill Clinton was the greatest President of all time - to them he's George Washington, Elvis, and Chuck Norris all wrapped up in one package."
That's because he's the only recent Democrat who didn't frack things up while in office. The last Democrat who managed to do reasonably was in office all of 2 years, 10 months and they made a fracking god out of him.
Barack Obama will be deified anyway, even if he lets in Arab terrorists with 80 suitcase nukes. Because he's black...
Steve - if you will allow me to indulge myself just one more time - Mark Steyn has been screaming at the top of his lungs [to anyone who'll listen] about the dire demographic situation in Japan, but it looks like, if anything, the Japanese are ACCELERATING their head-first [kamikaze?] dive into extinction:
Who cares what Mark Steyn thinks? The only reason Steyn sounds halfway insightful is because of the existing taboos. Take those taboos away and Steyn's just another babbler.
Anyway, Steyn here is wrong if he thinks falling birth rates alone signal impending extinction. He's dead wrong if he thinks that. It's easy to demonstrate how wrong he is. Falling birth rates can be reversed. There. Done.
What will, on the other hand, ensure Japanese extinction is falling birth rates in combination with racially unlike immigration in combination with interracial copulation with that racially unlike immigration to any significant degree. At some point the people being born will no longer be identifiably Japanese (by any reasonable standard). But don't wait for Steyn to tell you that.
(And if Steyn disagrees, let him debate his naysayers for once in his life.)
Calling guys like Krugman or Hitchens stupid can make one seem bitter. Finding their lies and hypocrisies and then calling them liars and hypocrites - THAT can be effective. 'Cause it's true. The truth has value.
Truth has value to people who value truth. My impression is that people are more interested in plausibility than truth. If something sounds halfway true or believable, that's good enough for them and they won't think too much more about it. (How do you think religion survives?) The number of people who care about truth for its own sake is probably quite small, and the number of people who are interested in truth when that truth is unwelcome is smaller still.
Calling people like Hitchens or Gould liars can work if it's obvious to people how those lies hurt their interests. One problem is that it is not really obvious to most people (white and non-white alike) that those lies hurt their interests. Gould was a liar, but he told lies that many people wanted to believe. Of course, calling Gould a liar in the appropriate venue is effective.
Hypocrisy's different. Most people are very averse to hypocrites. That's another good angle to attack from. Unfortunately, people also tend to be cynical, so they have inbuilt expectation that the big wigs are going to be hypocritical to an extent, which has the effect of blunting the charge a bit.
In calling obviously intelligent people 'stupid' one doesn't mean that they really are stupid (in toto); one means that they are stupid for believing that some issue, or some important aspect of some issue, can be ignored or downplayed at no cost. Calling them 'liars' (what was Clinton 'lying' about in this latest book? risks seeing them retreat into 'values.' Even if some headway can be made in the values debate, it's not as effective as charging people on that side of the debate as being stupid.
Israel is not nationalist. It cannot even keep African refugees from turning Tel Aviv into "White Flight." Just wait twenty years, it will be filled with nothing but Africans and Filipinos (who dominate there already in service work). The days of Zionism are long dead.
Israel's easily more nationalist than any western white country.
Which western country's immigration minister attempts to make international deals to unload its unwanted Africans elsewhere the way Israel's immigration minister did? http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=227332
Silver: My impression is that people are more interested in plausibility than truth...Calling people like Hitchens or Gould liars can work if it's obvious to people how those lies hurt their interests.
Yes, though I think that charges of "lying" or "hypocrisy" can often be most effectively combined with claims of "stupidity" or "incompetence."
It's best to accuse someone not merely of being a "liar" but of being a "stupid liar," namely someone whose lies are so obvious and transparent that they'd never manage to fool anyone with half a brain. By pointing out the ridiculous nature of the lies (or the blatant nature of the hypocrisy), you're putting a bit of pressure on third-party observers to also denounce the lies and the liar, lest they reveal themselves as being just too stupid to have noticed anything. People really don't like to get laughed at, especially if they think the ridicule is probably deserved, so they'll probably also get angry at the liars who got them into the fix.
Incidentally, Gould was actually a very mediocre scientist, none of whose major theories were ever taken seriously by his fellow academics (as opposed to the gullible popular media), sort of being the Malcolm Gladwell of his era. Except that Gould's popular writings were also laced with massive scientific fraud...
By pointing out the ridiculous nature of the lies (or the blatant nature of the hypocrisy), you're putting a bit of pressure on third-party observers to also denounce the lies and the liar, lest they reveal themselves as being just too stupid to have noticed anything. People really don't like to get laughed at, especially if they think the ridicule is probably deserved, so they'll probably also get angry at the liars who got them into the fix.
That's how I see it. People are more comfortable being thought of as liars than as stupid/ridiculous. They can excuse their mendacity as being in support of a good cause ("I had to lie [or I had to go along with the lies] -- look at what I was fending off"), so there's no psychological cost attached to lying. Being considered ignorant or ridiculous is much more personal and harder to explain away (to yourself or others). As you say, people taking out their anger at being made to look ridiculous on those who got them into the fix really would have the beginnings of a virtuous circle. You know those "highly white" types who love to parade around their exquisite tolerance? Imagine the looks on their faces as it dawns on them what morons on they're really thought of as. The best thing about Sailer's articles is that they achieve that effect without having to call anyone anything.
"Globalization in every Western nation creates a phalanx of White professional female winners, for the most part, which is why it is successful politically."
And it doesn't require those White professional female winners to acknowledge that the socio/technological safety net provided by white males is a big contributing factor in their winning.
I share your disinterest in Bill Clinton speeches. He's a blowhard spewing platitudes. This is a case of the emperor having no clothes. It's important to remember his first important speech to the 1988 Democratic National Convention when most folks didn't know who he was. The audience booed him and erupted in wild applause when he said "And so in closing..." They hated him. Once he became powerful then he was suddenly transformed into a deep political thinker. Go figure.
As far as I can tell, Clinton was an enormously better president than his two successors so far. Looking at the apparent choices for 2012, I expect he'll continue his streak for the next president--either the economy will tank and we'll get Romney (best of a bad lot) or someone worse, or it won't and we'll get four more years of Obama.
My bet is, the economy will tank. I claim no deep expertise, but the Euro debt crisis looks to me like a unattended bonfire in the middle of the goddamn fireworks tent. I just can't see how this isn't going to end badly, for Europe and for us by extension.
Israel is not nationalist. It cannot even keep African refugees from turning Tel Aviv into "White Flight." Just wait twenty years, it will be filled with nothing but Africans and Filipinos (who dominate there already in service work). The days of Zionism are long dead.
You're so full of it you're almost cute. Your "Japan will go multiracial and open-borders" and "Israel will go multiracial and open-borders" stuff is so precious.
Like we're all idiots, or something. Is it projection?
Bill Clinton will come in on a white horse. After the next two terms of Clinton, Amerika will "elect" Jeb Bush in 2020. Cheslea gets her turn in the 2030s.
Incredible:
ReplyDeleteSo Clinton who has made a living by standing on his hind-legs at te pulpi, giving verbose, windy speeches about how the WTO 'will make every global citizen a multi-millionaire' (remember that tripe a decade or so before the meltdown?), deep down , at bottom moans about Apple not making a damn thing in the USA or an LA rail contract employing foreigners instead of Americans.
'All politicians are liars' - a moral lesson that all intelligent persons should have intuited as children along with other horrible realities such as murder (ie warfare) is lauded and celebrated as being good, when politicians say it is good.
It is amazing how vapid and shallow all these solutions by the most elite portion of our society are.
ReplyDeleteMost American Presidents, at least since Nixon, have been Davos men- Obama basically sees himself as the leader of the trans-nationalist global elite (I prefer your term "Davos Men"). The problem is, if you ever have a chance to actually meet and talk with these people (as I have) you will be ABSOLUTELY SHOCKED at their provincialism. Most of the native English speakers in the group don't even speak another language, and their exposure to other cultures is mostly from meeting fellow elites at conferences, or at college. (Needless to say, the college students they met are themselves extremely elite). A lot of their agenda is driven by a resentment at being second tier players to the U.S. (not to worry- that won't last another 50 years). They have never done business in another country, except perhaps working overseas for a multinational firm- hardly the same as really dealing with another culture.
ReplyDeleteI remember a discussion I once had, 20 years ago, with the head of a European country's Telephone network. I argued that the Euro was a fantasy, doomed to failure- he argued that it was the only way to prevent another suicidal intra-European war. He agreed that the targeted figures for each country's deficits to join the Euro were likely falsified, but felt that the benefits outweighed the risks. Sadly, I was right, it appears.
I see this same attitude among American elites. If you ever go to a dinner party in Manhattan with these people, their worldview is so myopic, it will astound you. It's as if a European went to New York, saw Fifth avenue, and concluded that all the U.S. is like that. Or going to St. Barts and thinking it is representative of the Caribbean.
Mark Steyn refers to "meeting a hot Bahraini babe, and thinking she's just like an American. Then she starts talking about Jews having horns, and you realize you're dealing with a very different animal" (no offense to animals intended). That's what our elites are like- they meet a handful of international people, and think they're representative of the nations they're from. They literally have no clue about the rest of the world. Heck, they've never even spent a day speaking with an American plumber, electrician, carpenter, tile-setter, or assembly line worker. I've been on trips with some of these people and watched them go into restaurants and act like jackasses because the locals don't speak English. (I'm the guy apologising for my fellow American's assholery). ANd everyone plays along, and tells them how sophisticated they are. Steve, I think I remember an article you wrote a few years ago about how Shirley McClaine was a "Three week Sinologist". That's pretty much the level of international understanding among our elite.
I've mentioned it before, but I'll do it again. Watch this video- James Goldsmith on the perils of Globalization. Unfortunately, the west didn't listen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQrz8F0dBI
He also warned us about the dangers of derivatives. Heck, he only made a few billion dollars after he dropped out of secondary school at 16, so what could he possibly know about anything? Yale or Jail!
@Charlesz Martel - wow thanks - "It will unleash an unemployment that will attack economies around the world" - and that's before James Goldsmith even starts talking.
ReplyDeleteThat youtube link again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQrz8F0dBI
That reminds me:
ReplyDeleteThe former Prime Minister of the UK, the big fat, useless, hopeless Gordon Brown ('there must be no retreat from globalization!'), was fond of uttering this little gem wherever he went 'A British job for very British worker!'.Notwithstanding that this was a National Front slogan of the 1970s, Gordon Brown presided over the largest influx of foreign workers into the UK since the Dark Ages.Furthermore whilst under his watch the number of foreign born workers increased massively, the numbe of native British workers fell substantially.Of course bullsh*t Brown should have known better - under EU rules he or any other Briton cannot make any distinction whatsoever between a British worker or a worker from any other EU state.
I wonder if all the Davos men are equally de-nationalized. I suspect the Japanese members are still looking out for Japan. My fear is that it is mainly the US and Europeans that are wiling to sell their own people out.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I wonder if most of the "intellectuals" who attend are basically bought-and-paid for hacks? The men who write books promoting the glories of globalism don't strike me as honest scholars, but as eager members of the royal court - who wish to remain so.
"Yet because Clinton's prose style is so non-magisterial, it's hard to feel much confidence that he's really thought through all these issues himself, rather than just becoming excited by some self-promoters' ideas that he heard about at Davos or Aspen."
ReplyDeleteThe idea that tone is content works better in understanding Clinton's success, not what you perceive as failure. his ability to connect with people, whether in a discursive or extemporaneous manner, does not mean he's a man that is lacking in thought, or that the many thoughts he puts forward are shallow.
The biggest mistake that so many of your articles make -- or at least the protective cover you take in policy analysis married to public figures -- is to assume that NWO talking points are automatically shallow simply because they're illogical or damaging; in fact, those factors are the point for these people.
So you open the article on the attack -- which I agree with -- that Clinton is a "servant" of 'Davos Man', only to, then, go into detailing this background/fundamental characteristic as an echo chamber accident of poor policy-think.
The irony is in just how facile your reading of the situation is.
This isn't an issue where one-worlders make damaging policy arguments because they misunderstand the damage their cause will, you know, cause to nation-states and their autonomy, but *because* they know this.
So Clinton, in the face of an economy that is little more than its own consumption, demands more visas and an amnesty. He doesn't do this because he's a shallow thinker, but because of his servitude -- thus the opening statement you provide is on the money (in more ways than...), even as much of your writing undermines it by pretending that it's Clinton's lack of deep thought or sourcing causing him to make reductive and damaging arguments as to the US's future.
But then, so far as shallow thinking, I remain impressed by your own self-congratulatory tone in mocking the intellectual capacity of others while ignoring obvious intent. I realixe that Dr. Phil-level dime store psychology is today's rage, but that's a compounding point rather than defense of what you do.
As for Clinton? Well, could be worse. He could have written a poorly-sourced deconstruction of Obama that was really -- because of that same poor-sourcing (I like to call it 'Dreams From My Father') -- about Bill Ayers, without even realizing it. And to pander for Bill Simmons-level pop cultural schlock audience, the rotten fruit on top that would be something like, hmm, the title 'America's Half-Blood Prince'.
Now that? That would be truly shallow thinking 101. The wrong side of self-satisfaction and style-as-substance.
Point is, you like to style your articles, and bask in your own intellect through that. Well, how could someone with those aims not respect a Master like Bill Clinton?
Clinton's true genius is not his act as policy wonk or humanitarian. No, the point for Clinton is to, simply, benefit Clinton. Thus, his arguments aren't misleading because he doesn't think them through, but just the opposite: instead of a tribalist line, like "is it good for the Jews?", Bill Clinton exists for Bill Clinton.
He might be a sociopath, but does that make him a shallow intellect?
Pop culture reference? Bill Clinton is Adrian Pasdar's Jim Profit.
Which is far more impressive than George W's run as Deputy Dawg.
-kidk
Here's a link to Goldsmith's argument, not a transcript but in his own words:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/25a/004.html
Basically he predicts that GATT sets up incentives to integrate ~4 billion people (India, China, USSR and Eastern Europe, plus a bunch of other Asian nations) into the world economy in a dislocating fashion, because it reduces barriers on imports while keeping barriers on capital relatively high.
His (implicit) solution is high tariffs on imports, but few restrictions on capital. As a financier, he would say that, wouldn't he?
But to consider the argument: to export into the US, he proposes that a Japanese company should have to set up in the US, build a plant here, and employ American workers. Sort of like the Reagan provisions in the 80s which our host Steve loved so much.
Conversely, for us to sell into the Chinese market, he contends that we should not be sending over finished exports, but rather setting up shop in China and employing Chinese. It is important to note that this was basically China's policy for a long time: welcome FDI, but require that a foreign company do a joint venture with a Chinese national. (Nowadays you can set up a WFOE, wholly foreign owned enterprise).
It's interesting to note that we've got almost exactly the opposite policy regime today. That is, it's very cheap to import stuff, but a huge pain to move capital around the world due to various Patriot Act provisions. Try opening a foreign bank account and see how many hoops you need to jump through.
---
Now, as a bona-fide real-life executive at an evil multinational corporation, one who loves what America was and understands HBD, here are some thoughts.
1. First, Goldsmith does give a nod to what appears to many of us to be the real problem:
Q: Some would say that Europe's employment problem is not GATT, but just the result of the old-fashioned diseases that one finds in uncompetitive, inflexible and spoiled societies. The welfare state is out of control; social costs borne by employers discourage the creation of new jobs; high government expenditure and taxation stifle the economy; state intervention is paralyzing; corporatism blocks remedial action, etc. Is that not true?
It is partially true, and those diseases must be treated forcefully. But even if the treatment is successful, it will not solve the problems created by global free trade. Imagine that we were able to reduce at a stroke social charges and taxation so as to diminish the cost of labour by a full third. All it would mean is that instead of being able to employ forty-seven Vietnamese or forty- seven Filipinos for the price of one Frenchman, you could employ only thirty-one.
See also: http://foseti.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/on-government-employment/
However, Goldsmith really does understate the cost of regulation. For a business to decide to move production overseas, into a foreign country with people speaking a different language, splitting your operations across timezones and dealing with multiple legal systems, the ROI has to be enormous.
Unfortunately, US regulations and labor laws have made the ROI effectively infinite. There are certain things you simply cannot make in Europe and the US due to all these extraordinarily expensive laws. Even conservatives are suckers for anything called a "health" or "safety" or "labor" provision, all while OSHA blows $200k on an iPhone app that is nothing more than a glorified thermometer (http://gun.io/blog/the-governments-200000-useless-android-application/).
2. As a concrete example, due to the combined efforts of Obama's FDA and various state regulations, the genome is going to be completely offshored:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fdablog.org/2010/08/fda-offensive-drives-genomics.html
http://www.genomesunzipped.org/2010/07/a-sad-day-for-personal-genomics.php
Even Slate, bastion of conventional wisdom, has come around to this view:
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2011/11/genetic_testing_in_the_united_states_may_be_hurt_by_the_fda_s_confusing_policies_.html
Enticing as that may be, it won’t be easy get those keys if the FDA has its way. Last summer, the agency indicated that it wants to classify the work of any company that helps you decipher your genome as a medical test that must be regulated accordingly. But over the last year, the agency’s lack of continued communication has left companies that would interpret genetic information—which are simply offering information—confused as to where they stand. This lack of clarity and direction could ultimately mean ceding leadership in this field to overseas competitors who are not similarly constrained.
"Confused" is not really the right term. Frightened to death is the right term. The FDA can (and does) instantly execute companies, ordering fines, seizures, and raids. Or they can just point at your throat and throttle you in the media, Darth Vader style, like so:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2011-09-08/At-speech-Boehner-aims-spotlight-on-job-creation-barriers/50328564/1
Here's the real story on what happened to that company, among others:
http://www.fdablog.org/2011/03/controversy-grows-around-fdas-shuren.html
Stories like this should give some idea of why executives are moving stuff overseas. When our companies are threatened with death (at worst) or arbitrary taxes and regulation (at best) by the US government, what's the alternative? Asian nations that want to attract businesses are doing all the right things, so we head there, head for the exits.
The current US government will never stop its spending and its war on businesses unless it goes out of business itself. Unfortunately, exit from the US is the only vote that really counts.
3. One last issue that looms very large is the question of mutual respect.
ReplyDeleteIn one worldview, workers/activists hate execs/entrepreneurs. Demagogues like Andy Stern rouse them to attack management with labor laws, regulations, and taxes, often sawing off the branch that the workers themselves sit on (see: American auto companies). Execs retaliate by playing hardball, moving into right-to-work states (see: NRLB/Boeing case), at which point the workers/activists cry out in astonished rage at the thought that their target might leave them. CEOs are caricatured as golf-club wielding idiots and constantly attacked by the press and the tax system, and they retaliate by arranging huge pay packages to compensate for the stress.
In another worldview, workers recognize that execs/entrepreneurs are *better than them* at inventing new things. They realize that it is VERY hard to create a job -- let alone manage a business -- which actually produces more profit than it costs in payroll. Execs are celebrated and given nonmaterial rewards, including the all-important admiration of the press and pop culture, such that they don't need huge pay packages. In return, execs practice noblesse oblige, treating workers well. Lower regulations and taxes mean that there is more of a pie to divide among all employees, and execs count on workers to turn on Saul Alinsky-type troublemakers and show them the door.
Everyone talks about executive pay because it is measurable, but no one talks about government power or press influence. You've seen countless movie and TV shows with evil companies, but zero with evil professors, journalists, or regulators.
That adds up over time. The fables a society tells affect people's worldviews. You're programmed to know how execs can turn evil, and to suspect execs of evil. But you're not programmed to know that most people aren't capable of being execs, any more than most people can dunk.
Anyway. A lot of execs would take a deal in which they got the non-monetary props afforded a Jonas Salk or a Steve Jobs, along with lower regulations, taxes, and demagoguery. In return, they'd be able to keep jobs in the US and wouldn't see the need for FU money to anywhere near the same extent.
Our cultural priorities are out of whack when we don't care about actors, singers, and sports stars becoming millionaires, but begrudge people who are creating business and jobs. When we teach our kids to pay respects to politicians and demagogues (JFK and Martin Luther King) rather than inventors and entrepreneurs (Edison and Ford).
Those are the causes. The symptom is outsourcing, but those are the causes.
Clinton was on the globalist bandwagon a long time ago. I recall one of his sidekicks, Strobe Talbott, often lecturing to those who would listen that national borders were rapidly becoming a thing of the past. It all sounded like some sort of Gene Roddenberry inspired philosophy. At bottom however I think Clinton is really in it only for Clinton.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing how vapid and shallow all these solutions by the most elite portion of our society are.
ReplyDeleteNot really. If there are certain things that your brain is just not allowed to think then, to the extent those things (that you're not allowed to think) are an important aspect of reality, you're going to sound pretty vapid.
Basically, you have vast segments of "the elite" who are just telling the lies they need to tell (or think they need to tell). For business elites, who were probably never very profound thinkers to begin with, it's pretty straightforward (what comes out is just a bunch of self-serving "wisdom of the markets" happy-talk). The thinking elites are another matter. They have to know, at some level, that the things they are saying are, in effect, lies. Their intentions may not be evil (unlikely to be, imo), but the things they say have so little correspondence with reality that they really do amount to falsehoods. That's what happens when you decide that there are some things you simply will not think about.
Take race. They look at race and tell themselves, no way in hell am I going to think systematically about race. No way. You might think that because, to a very large degree, to exist as a human is to exist racially (to exist with a set of inherited/heritable traits that include you in some groups and set you apart from others) there might be an endless amount of interesting viewpoints put forward about race. Not to the 21st century intellectual though. He prefers to believe race is so boring it may as well not even exist. In fact, for him, it doesn't exist -- nor does anything else that he doesn't like. That's one reason why 21st century intellectuals are so thoroughly uninteresting. "So you think you're noticing reality, do you? Jokes on you, 'cos you're not! Period!" That about sums them up.
Silver
A tip for reading articles on the distractingly ugly VDare site--choose the printer friendly version which dumps the colors and graphics.
ReplyDeleteI had not known that "Bush tried to reproduce his minimalist success in Texas, where he had run on just four issues: limited government, local control of schools, 'family values,' and individual responsibility."
"Limited government" and "local control of the schools" sure don't jibe with the agenda he pushed through! As far as the other two, those are just meaningless catch phrases.
"...America at its core is an idea - the idea that no matter who you are or where you're from, if you work hard and play by the rules, you'll have the freedom and opportunity to pursue your own dreams and leave your kids a country where they can chase theirs."
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, back on Planet Reality:
Is Chelsea Clinton putting career before kids? Husband Marc Mezvinsky 'has to schedule appointment just to see her'
By Daily Mail Reporter
23rd November 2011
dailymail.co.uk
Now most demographers believe that you need a total fertility rate of about 2.10 to sustain a population.
So given any single biological pair of {Man} X {Woman}, such as, oh, say, a young, circa 1975-ish
{William Jefferson Blythe Clinton} X {Hillary Diane Rodham},
for replacement level purposes, you need to see its line procreating as follows:
2.10 children
2.10 X 2.10 = 4.41 grandchildren
2.10 X 2.10 X 2.10 = 9.261 great-grandchildren
etc etc etc
And does anyone here seriously believe that, circa 2100, we will be seeing 9 or more GGCren in this line?
My honest guess is that by 2075 [the centennial of their marriage], and maybe even as early as 2050, it will have become abundantly obvious that the line of {Bill} X {Hill} is effectively dead - that any surviving females will have barren wombs, and that any surviving males will be either hermits or sodomites or both.
And the more I think about it, the more I wonder whether the best strategy for us palecons to embrace is simply to hunker down, keep making babies [by the boatload], homeschool them [obviously], and just wait patiently for these nihilists to un-breed themselves right out of existence.
It's more Babelism than globalism. Bubble economy, Babel politics, and Baby culture.
ReplyDeleteBlack to work, now that is a challenge.
ReplyDeleteHey, how about a government job for everyone at $100,000 a year? I'll bet even conservatives will be for government if Democrats offer that to everyone.
ReplyDelete"Incredible:
ReplyDeleteSo Clinton who has made a living by standing on his hind-legs at te pulpi, giving verbose, windy speeches about how the WTO 'will make every global citizen a multi-millionaire' (remember that tripe a decade or so before the meltdown?), deep down , at bottom moans about Apple not making a damn thing in the USA or an LA rail contract employing foreigners instead of Americans."
Is it any different from Rush Limbaugh making 100s of millions by sitting on his fat arse as he berates Chicoms in the same breath that he praises Walmart?
"LA rail contract employing foreigners instead of Americans."
ReplyDeleteMaybe they figure since Chinese did such a great job of building the railroad in the 19th century, Chinese of the 21st century should build the trains too. Chinese work cheaper and better than Mexicans in LA and California.
Being pro-immigration in the name of economic good isn't such a hurdle for us. It can be disproved and politically opposed. There is no moral-political price to pay for saying 'more immigrants means less economic stability for most Americans.'
ReplyDeleteThe real hurdle is the notion that massive non-white immigration is a moral necessity to reverse the centuries-old 'racist' practice of favoring white immigrants over non-white ones. Since US immigration policy had been 'racist' until 1965, there's a sense that US must be open to non-whites to compensate for its past evil. This is a toughie because people are frightened of being called 'racist' or 'xenophobic'.
Another problem is actually circular. Some leftists say US(and EU)must open their doors to the Third World since Third World poverty was caused by imperialism/globalism. Since Western influence led to economic disparities, dislocations, and shocks in the Third World, all those teeming masses of desperate people must be allowed into the West(that has prospered at the expense of the Third World--in the past by naked imperialism and in the present through unequal globalism; more recently, all the disasters in Africa have been blamed on greenhouse gases emittd by the West and China, and so it's argued starving Africans must be let into Europe).
If globalism is the culprit, then the thing to do is end it. But the Left doesn't call for an end to globalism since globalist elites fill its coffers. Also, some leftists, even while seeing globalism as exploitative, value it as a historical process ordained by Karl Marx that will finally bring down capitalism.
Well, it certainly means 'back to work' for Clinton. Everytime he makes speeches spouting nonsense like this, rich people hire him all around the globe.
ReplyDeleteBut the 'back' he'd really like to 'work' is probably that of some woman.
Incredible. An article on Africa's boom but no mention of investment in the dark continent by China(which even sends its own people to build infrastructure) and India(whose merchants are back in force all across Africa).
ReplyDeleteItaly replaced its pM.. or should say the EU global elite replaced its PM with a non-parliment member /former goldman sachs advisor.
ReplyDeleteditto Greece
ditto the EU central bank.
How much clearer does it have to be?
Globalism/communism (the kind where some animals are more equal) is on the march. The only 'western' state that remains fervently nationalist is israel. Hmmm.
Upon taking office his first two urgent issues were gays-in-the-military and NAFTA. He doesn't seem to have evolved much since then except maybe he's shifted from sex to money addiction. He and his spouse have been the ultimate power sleaze duo of all time.
ReplyDeleteNow, back to the future, the burning issue of 2012: Obama vs the Republican stooge of the moment. Exciting prospect, eh?
"Is it any different from Rush Limbaugh making 100s of millions by sitting on his fat arse as he berates Chicoms in the same breath that he praises Walmart?"
ReplyDeleteHe praises Walmart?
"I wonder if all the Davos men are equally de-nationalized."
ReplyDeleteA local talk radio host once commented that agreeing to globalization is akin to bringing your gorgeous wife to an orgy while all of the other men go stag.
“41. Keep pushing for comprehensive immigration reform, and in the meantime grant more H-1B visas to immigrants in STEM fields until we have enough qualified citizens to fill the openings."
ReplyDeleteClinton has most likely received hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in speaking fees from those who stand to benefit from H-1B expansion. Indeed, STEMS have been forced to put up with record level unemployment for the last decade as a result of Clinton signing in to law massive increases in H_1B visas in 1998 and again in 2000.
From the VDare review:
ReplyDelete"You have to give Clinton this much credit: he does not bore easily. Bush and Clinton were both born in 1946, but Bush has retired, while Clinton is still out there on the conference circuit sitting through Powerpoint presentations. He gives the impression that he's actually interested..."
That's like complimenting a whore because she doesn't fall asleep while her john getting busy. He's being paid to look interested, as the article mentions further down:
"A lot of rich interests have handed Clinton a lot of cash since he left office...Last year, he was paid $10.7 million for giving 52 speeches."
You could just as easily revise the preceding quotation to read:
"You have to give Bush this much credit: he does not bore easily. Bush and Clinton were both born in 1946, but Clinton is still working, while Bush is out there in Texas, sitting around and keeping a low profile. He gives the impression that he's actually interested in being merely a former POTUS who's now officially retired."
I loathe that habit ex-presidents now have of popping up to make policy pronouncements with unseemly frequency. It's like Grandma refusing to accept that she has had her day and Mom is now in charge--full of pride but completely lacking in dignity.
Unfortunately, I can foresee the future former president Obama taking this to the nth degree, judging by the presidential-looking podium he had when he was merely Candidate Obama. He apparently saw himself as president before he was ever sworn in; I doubt he'll ever think of himself as anything but The President for the rest of his days.
Bill Clinton feels our pain.
ReplyDeleteI recall one of his sidekicks, Strobe Talbott, often lecturing to those who would listen that national borders were rapidly becoming a thing of the past. It all sounded like some sort of Gene Roddenberry inspired philosophy.
ReplyDeleteYou aren't cutting on my beloved Saint of Star Trek are you? Seriously though, Trek has always been Super Duper respectful of differences of cultures, albeit so Super Duper it's heavy-handed. Then again maybe you mean everybody *visiting* every other nation/planet all the time. (Or maybe the races making the babies with each other, which, yeah. There's some of that.)
Well, it certainly means 'back to work' for Clinton. ... But the 'back' he'd really like to 'work' is probably that of some woman.
Politicians bopping too many women are the least worrying kind. Just not my wallet. Or little boys. Or the federal/state/local boundaries.
Hey, George, go easy on Strobe Talbott. He was essential to ending the Cold War. All Ronald Reagan had to do was read Talbott's recommendations in Time every week, do the exact opposite, and, presto, the Cold War ended.
ReplyDeleteBritain's god-awful New Labour government of 1997-2010 abandoned any pretence at being a red, raw socialist and workers party and degenerated into a neutered milquetoast version of the Tories - with a bit of subsidized chidcare thrown in to appease the dominant women's faction.
ReplyDeleteThe silly bastards who led the party (and led Briatin to economic catastrophe), went the whole hog for sub WSJ and Economist dogmatic bullcrap , clapped their effete uncalloused hands together and said to themselves 'what smart little boys we are'.
The biggest manifestation was immigration policy.The bastards were actually dumb enough to take the printed flatulations of the morons at The Economist seriously and abolish - yes abolish - all British immigration controls whatsoever.But the cowardly sneaks that they are, the did secretly, like sneak thieves, behind the nation's back.
But, alas they were discovered.
If Britain's economy doesn't perk up a violent backlash resulting in sub civil war might well happen.
Israel is not nationalist. It cannot even keep African refugees from turning Tel Aviv into "White Flight." Just wait twenty years, it will be filled with nothing but Africans and Filipinos (who dominate there already in service work). The days of Zionism are long dead.
ReplyDeleteWho was it that reflexively defended Clinton and his worldview? Who defended him from any charge relating to Monica Lewinsky? Why, White professional women. Who gain, very much so, opportunity wise and personally, from globalism.
Globalism destroys nationalism, patriotism, the military, all things that tend to reduce White professional female power, and enhances NGOs, liberal think tanks, nanny-state government, and the like, all things that enhance White professional female power. Globalism provides cheap nannies and housekeepers and the like, and displaces those icky White beta males. It makes any successful, dominant White guy an easy identifier as Alpha, because he succeeds in a society of a few princes and many serfs, the preferred social organization of White professional women who consume a steady diet of celebrities and fake royalty, and prefer that fantasy (Mr. Big in Sex and the City). Nearly all media-tainment is built around female consumerism, and that accounts for Clinton's popularity. He's the Alpha male (different rules for him in sexual harassment than ordinary guys) and recognized the path to political power was playing professional female voters handily.
Globalization in every Western nation creates a phalanx of White professional female winners, for the most part, which is why it is successful politically.
"... you'll have the freedom and opportunity to pursue your own dreams and leave your kids in a country where they can chase theirs."
ReplyDeleteFIFY - see if you can find how. ;-)
Well, THAT was worth waiting for. Yes, Bill Clinton is both very intelligent and very shallow. Ex-Army plugs hell out of this post HERE.
ReplyDeleteI heard Clinton speak in LA at an E-Learning conference. He was booked for 1 hour and spoke for 30 minutes.
ReplyDeleteDidn't find it remarkable, the content or the delivery.
his priority #12: "At least paint the roofs white."
ReplyDeleteBill Clinton's home. Six black vehicles, no windmills, no solar panels, and no white roofs.
Clinton keeps speaking and attending conferences because it's the only way to collect checks, keep his name in the papers, and meet cute young tail.
Can't we just promise to give every ex-president $50 million on leaving office if they agree never to accept another dime?
ReplyDeleteConsidering the federal budget is now provides $3.8 trillion in opportunities for graft it sounds like it would be cheaper.
"...instead of a tribalist line, like "is it good for the Jews?", Bill Clinton exists for Bill Clinton."
ReplyDeleteThat can be seen as shallow, short-term thinking. A tribalist approach would have been more long-term (multi-generational). For someone with Clinton's talents the tribalist approach would also have had to involve delayed gratification. He wouldn't have become rich in this life if he followed the tribalist line, but his heirs might have benefited from it.
The road towards longer-term thinking, towards greater delaying of gratification is a road away from shallowness, no?
Perhaps Steve thinks that individual selfishness and hedonism are always shallow. I'm not going to disagree with that.
kidk,
ReplyDeleteThe irony is in just how facile your reading of the situation is.
This isn't an issue where one-worlders make damaging policy arguments because they misunderstand the damage their cause will, you know, cause to nation-states and their autonomy, but *because* they know this.
You're not wrong, but you need to realize that it's more effective to attack them at the level of 'stupidity' rather than 'evil.'
They can defend themselves against 'evil' by claiming you are evil. They've got this wonderful utopian dream of freedom and love and diversity and blah blah blah and you, you nazi, want to return to patriotism, borders, isolation, (even racism!) etc. (Their job is made much easier by the existence of groups who, minor, ineffectual and generally ignored though they are, do in fact stand for "hardcore" versions of the latter propositions.)
On the other hand, it's psychologically much more stressful to have to defend yourself against charges of stupidity. "Just another clueless liberal nitwit" -- if that ever takes off in a big way it's game over for white liberals. Liberals' great coup has been in managing to portray themselves as the enlightened ones. I have to agree with Whiskey that this is enormously appealing to females (in general, but especially moral crusader white females), since females are so much more easily upset by facts of reality that are not to their liking than men are, and are also much more comfortable maintaining logically/factually contradictory views in their minds.
Silver
But the 'back' he'd really like to 'work' is probably that of some woman.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I was thinking about the greater Clinton harem, as we have watched it evolve over the years, and a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation suddenly popped into my head:
Hillary Diane Rodham
1 biological child
Marsha Scott
["Bill's hippie girlfriend"]
??? 0 biological children ???
Dolly Kyle Browning
??? 1 biological child ???
Gennifer Flowers
??? 0 biological children ???
Eleanor Mondale
[deceased]
??? 0 biological children ???
Monica Lewinsky
??? 0 biological children ???
Belinda Stronach
2 biological children
Anyway, as a best approximation, I'm getting
[1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 2] / 7
= 4 / 7
= 0.5714
as a Total Fertility Rate for the Clinton gals.
Jim McDougal once said that "the Clinton’s were like a tornado that destroyed everything in their path" [or words to that effect], but I'd say that dating Bill Clinton was like being on the receiving end of an asteroid-induced ELE when it came to a woman's fertility.
Silver: it's more effective to attack them at the level of 'stupidity' rather than 'evil.'
ReplyDeleteYes, this is exactly correct.
First, almost nobody thinks of himself as being "evil," at least by his own values. So you're really just accusing him of having different values than yourself, which he'd freely admit. It's a little like the sheep attempting to shame the wolf as being "evil" for eating sheep. Doesn't really work. Values are relative.
On the other hand, being stupid/ignorant/crazy is a much more objective condition, and hence a more effective accusation. Everyone with even a trace of self-awareness recognizes that he might be wrong about something, and if he's wrong about enough important things, well, maybe he starts to think he's kind of stupid, which can be pretty demoralizing. And in general, people who are obviously very stupid and ignorant tend not to be very popular or have many devoted followers...outside of Republican presidential primaries, that is...
Wes: I wonder if all the Davos men are equally de-nationalized. I suspect the Japanese members are still looking out for Japan.
ReplyDeleteSteve - if you will allow me to indulge myself just one more time - Mark Steyn has been screaming at the top of his lungs [to anyone who'll listen] about the dire demographic situation in Japan, but it looks like, if anything, the Japanese are ACCELERATING their head-first [kamikaze?] dive into extinction:
Record 61% of unmarried Japanese men 18-34 have no girlfriend: survey
November 26, 2011
mdn.mainichi.jp
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A record-high 61.4 percent of unmarried Japanese men aged between 18 and 34 have no girlfriend, up 9.2 percentage points from 2005, a survey by a research body showed Friday.
The percentage of unmarried women with no boyfriend in the same age group also hit a record high of 49.5 percent, up 4.8 percentage points, while nearly half the respondents of both genders said they do not want to date anyone, the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research said...
Perhaps the Big Creep is doing more than merely racking up some easy graft. Perhaps he is positioning himself for another run at the oval office. He could offer himself as the savior of the Democratic party, if Obama's chances start to look really dicey. Most of the Democrats I know think that Bill Clinton was the greatest President of all time - to them he's George Washington, Elvis, and Chuck Norris all wrapped up in one package.
ReplyDelete"..it's more effective to attack them at the level of 'stupidity' rather than 'evil.'
ReplyDeleteUsually, the allegations that hurt the most are the ones that happen to be true. If a leftist actually happens to be stupid, then calling him stupid can be effective. If he's smart, this accusation can backfire. The most effective way to attack SJ Gould, for example, is as a liar, not as a moron. I've read a bit of his stuff and it's obvious to me that he was bright.
There's TV culture and then there's bookish culture. The people who lead the bookish side of almost every conceivable ideology on both right and left tend to be bright. Calling guys like Krugman or Hitchens stupid can make one seem bitter. Finding their lies and hypocrisies and then calling them liars and hypocrites - THAT can be effective. 'Cause it's true. The truth has value.
Recap: when a dimwitted Hollywood actor says something leftist, one should attack him as stupid. When a NYT columnist says something leftist, one should look for specific lies and hypocrisies in what he said, and then attack him as a liar.
"but I'd say that dating Bill Clinton was like being on the receiving end of an asteroid-induced ELE when it came to a woman's fertility."
ReplyDeleteFamily-oriented women don't sleep with maried men. Perhaps women angling for a paternity suit do, but perhaps Clinton may have been careful. See his relationship with that woman, Miss Lewinsky, ,for more on that.
"Most of the Democrats I know think that Bill Clinton was the greatest President of all time - to them he's George Washington, Elvis, and Chuck Norris all wrapped up in one package."
That's because he's the only recent Democrat who didn't frack things up while in office. The last Democrat who managed to do reasonably was in office all of 2 years, 10 months and they made a fracking god out of him.
Barack Obama will be deified anyway, even if he lets in Arab terrorists with 80 suitcase nukes. Because he's black...
Steve - if you will allow me to indulge myself just one more time - Mark Steyn has been screaming at the top of his lungs [to anyone who'll listen] about the dire demographic situation in Japan, but it looks like, if anything, the Japanese are ACCELERATING their head-first [kamikaze?] dive into extinction:
ReplyDeleteWho cares what Mark Steyn thinks? The only reason Steyn sounds halfway insightful is because of the existing taboos. Take those taboos away and Steyn's just another babbler.
Anyway, Steyn here is wrong if he thinks falling birth rates alone signal impending extinction. He's dead wrong if he thinks that. It's easy to demonstrate how wrong he is. Falling birth rates can be reversed. There. Done.
What will, on the other hand, ensure Japanese extinction is falling birth rates in combination with racially unlike immigration in combination with interracial copulation with that racially unlike immigration to any significant degree. At some point the people being born will no longer be identifiably Japanese (by any reasonable standard). But don't wait for Steyn to tell you that.
(And if Steyn disagrees, let him debate his naysayers for once in his life.)
Silver
Calling guys like Krugman or Hitchens stupid can make one seem bitter. Finding their lies and hypocrisies and then calling them liars and hypocrites - THAT can be effective. 'Cause it's true. The truth has value.
ReplyDeleteTruth has value to people who value truth. My impression is that people are more interested in plausibility than truth. If something sounds halfway true or believable, that's good enough for them and they won't think too much more about it. (How do you think religion survives?) The number of people who care about truth for its own sake is probably quite small, and the number of people who are interested in truth when that truth is unwelcome is smaller still.
Calling people like Hitchens or Gould liars can work if it's obvious to people how those lies hurt their interests. One problem is that it is not really obvious to most people (white and non-white alike) that those lies hurt their interests. Gould was a liar, but he told lies that many people wanted to believe. Of course, calling Gould a liar in the appropriate venue is effective.
Hypocrisy's different. Most people are very averse to hypocrites. That's another good angle to attack from. Unfortunately, people also tend to be cynical, so they have inbuilt expectation that the big wigs are going to be hypocritical to an extent, which has the effect of blunting the charge a bit.
In calling obviously intelligent people 'stupid' one doesn't mean that they really are stupid (in toto); one means that they are stupid for believing that some issue, or some important aspect of some issue, can be ignored or downplayed at no cost. Calling them 'liars' (what was Clinton 'lying' about in this latest book? risks seeing them retreat into 'values.' Even if some headway can be made in the values debate, it's not as effective as charging people on that side of the debate as being stupid.
Silver
Israel is not nationalist. It cannot even keep African refugees from turning Tel Aviv into "White Flight." Just wait twenty years, it will be filled with nothing but Africans and Filipinos (who dominate there already in service work). The days of Zionism are long dead.
ReplyDeleteIsrael's easily more nationalist than any western white country.
Which western country's immigration minister attempts to make international deals to unload its unwanted Africans elsewhere the way Israel's immigration minister did? http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=227332
Silver
Silver: My impression is that people are more interested in plausibility than truth...Calling people like Hitchens or Gould liars can work if it's obvious to people how those lies hurt their interests.
ReplyDeleteYes, though I think that charges of "lying" or "hypocrisy" can often be most effectively combined with claims of "stupidity" or "incompetence."
It's best to accuse someone not merely of being a "liar" but of being a "stupid liar," namely someone whose lies are so obvious and transparent that they'd never manage to fool anyone with half a brain. By pointing out the ridiculous nature of the lies (or the blatant nature of the hypocrisy), you're putting a bit of pressure on third-party observers to also denounce the lies and the liar, lest they reveal themselves as being just too stupid to have noticed anything. People really don't like to get laughed at, especially if they think the ridicule is probably deserved, so they'll probably also get angry at the liars who got them into the fix.
Incidentally, Gould was actually a very mediocre scientist, none of whose major theories were ever taken seriously by his fellow academics (as opposed to the gullible popular media), sort of being the Malcolm Gladwell of his era. Except that Gould's popular writings were also laced with massive scientific fraud...
By pointing out the ridiculous nature of the lies (or the blatant nature of the hypocrisy), you're putting a bit of pressure on third-party observers to also denounce the lies and the liar, lest they reveal themselves as being just too stupid to have noticed anything. People really don't like to get laughed at, especially if they think the ridicule is probably deserved, so they'll probably also get angry at the liars who got them into the fix.
ReplyDeleteThat's how I see it. People are more comfortable being thought of as liars than as stupid/ridiculous. They can excuse their mendacity as being in support of a good cause ("I had to lie [or I had to go along with the lies] -- look at what I was fending off"), so there's no psychological cost attached to lying. Being considered ignorant or ridiculous is much more personal and harder to explain away (to yourself or others). As you say, people taking out their anger at being made to look ridiculous on those who got them into the fix really would have the beginnings of a virtuous circle. You know those "highly white" types who love to parade around their exquisite tolerance? Imagine the looks on their faces as it dawns on them what morons on they're really thought of as. The best thing about Sailer's articles is that they achieve that effect without having to call anyone anything.
Silver
"Globalization in every Western nation creates a phalanx of White professional female winners, for the most part, which is why it is successful politically."
ReplyDeleteAnd it doesn't require those White professional female winners to acknowledge that the socio/technological safety net provided by white males is a big contributing factor in their winning.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteI share your disinterest in Bill Clinton speeches. He's a blowhard spewing platitudes. This is a case of the emperor having no clothes. It's important to remember his first important speech to the 1988 Democratic National Convention when most folks didn't know who he was. The audience booed him and erupted in wild applause when he said "And so in closing..." They hated him. Once he became powerful then he was suddenly transformed into a deep political thinker. Go figure.
Captain Jack:
ReplyDeleteAs far as I can tell, Clinton was an enormously better president than his two successors so far. Looking at the apparent choices for 2012, I expect he'll continue his streak for the next president--either the economy will tank and we'll get Romney (best of a bad lot) or someone worse, or it won't and we'll get four more years of Obama.
My bet is, the economy will tank. I claim no deep expertise, but the Euro debt crisis looks to me like a unattended bonfire in the middle of the goddamn fireworks tent. I just can't see how this isn't going to end badly, for Europe and for us by extension.
Israel is not nationalist. It cannot even keep African refugees from turning Tel Aviv into "White Flight." Just wait twenty years, it will be filled with nothing but Africans and Filipinos (who dominate there already in service work). The days of Zionism are long dead.
ReplyDeleteYou're so full of it you're almost cute. Your "Japan will go multiracial and open-borders" and "Israel will go multiracial and open-borders" stuff is so precious.
Like we're all idiots, or something. Is it projection?
What are the numbers involved in this African immigration anyway?
ReplyDeleteAhahahaha! You just asked Whiskey a question, like you expect an answer! Bwahahahaha!
Oh, wait, you asked Whiskey for numbers, like you expect an answer!
Bwwaaaaa haaaa haaaa haaaa haaaa....
Bill Clinton will come in on a white horse. After the next two terms of Clinton, Amerika will "elect" Jeb Bush in 2020. Cheslea gets her turn in the 2030s.
ReplyDelete