NYT

A Pastor’s Provocative Attack on Islam

by on August 26, 2010 @ 10:00 am · 9 comments

in The Right, Vulgar Politics

The New York Times is reporting the story of  Terry Jones’ plan to commemorate the 9/11 attacks by burning 50 Qur’ans. While I find his actions repulsive, and needlessly offensive to me and every other Muslim, irrespective of our political views, I must say that he nonetheless has every right to burn his own property or that which is voluntarily donated to him. In a similar manner, a property owner may build a mosque on his own property. Perhaps all people can eventually learn to either ignore such actions, or use them as springboards for conversation rather than conflict.

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I Guess It’s the Singer, Not the Song

by on August 19, 2010 @ 12:35 pm · 2 comments

in Corporatism, Imperialism, Vulgar Politics, War

Newt Gingrich, self-appointed “teacher of civilization” and de facto leader of the neo-con lynch mob, in an op-ed piece he co-wrote for National Review:  “Far from defeating terrorism, today’s government-to-government foreign-aid system can actually incite it by propping up corrupt and repressive one-party states.”

The views of Imam Feisal Abdul-Rauf, alleged covert jihadist and anti-American radical, as summarized in a June 23, 2004 interview with Chris Hedges of the New York Times:

“On June 23, 2004, [Imam Feisal Abdul-] Rauf told Chris Hedges, then a writer for the New York Times: `Islamic terrorists do not come from another  moral universe … they arise from oppressive societies that … Washington had a hand in creating.’”

If  the view Rauf expressed makes him a fellow traveler with jihadis, wouldn’t this mean that “Mr. Newt” is an apologist for Islamic terrorism?

Of course, what’s really going on is that Newt is promoting a taxpayer-subsidized form of micro-colonialism called Free Cities. Through that “private” initiative (which would actually be a form of international corporatism), the blessings of free enterprise, “limited” government, and protection for individual rights would supposedly be extended to hapless foreigners by the same entity — the Regime in Washington — that is the most powerful enemy of the same.

Gingrich may be history’s purest specimen of cynical political opportunism. As a recent Esquire profile makes clear, he doesn’t really believe in anything, other than his qualifications to tutor the rest of us.

Like Lenin, Gingrich is adept at identifying and exploiting grievances — or creating them ex nihilo. He is many loathsome things, but “stupid” isn’t in that inventory. Gingrich knows that he’s spewing unfiltered nonsense about the “mosque at Ground Zero,” and that he’s engendering hatred toward a moderate, establishment-centered Muslim cleric whose “radical” views aren’t that different from his own.

It’s doubtful that those at the terminus of the human centipede-style GOP propaganda cloaca will recognize that fact.

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Imperial Doublespeak About Iraq

by on August 19, 2010 @ 8:59 am · 7 comments

in Imperialism, Language, Mercantilism, Vulgar Politics, War

In a series of Orwellian twists, the United States is pulling out (prematurely some say) “all” “combat” troops from Iraq but doubling down (for starters) on mercenaries.

The Obama Administration gets away with “fulfilling” Obama’s promise to end US combat operations in Iraq by removing the last (officially-labeled) combat brigade from the country, yet 50,000 troops will remain until (supposedly) 2011. These 50,000 troops make up 7 “Advise and Assist” Brigades, which are brigade combat teams like the one that just left but with special training, and 2 combat aviation brigades. “The troops are officially there to assist and advise the Iraqi government, but will carry weapons to defend themselves and will join Iraqi troops on missions if requested.”

After 2011, the “military” presence in Iraq is supposed to be “limited to several dozen to several hundred officers in an embassy office who would help the Iraqis purchase and field new American military equipment,” but military officers are saying that “5,000 to 10,000 troops might [still] be needed.”

Meanwhile, “the State Department is planning to more than double its private security guards, up to as many as 7,000.” Can we really still call security personnel ‘civilians’ or ‘private security’ anymore when they’re working for the state in foreign lands, particularly in a combat zone? They’re mercenaries, troops that are conveniently not part of the official US military. The NYT reporter couldn’t help calling them “a small army of contractors.”

The US is building military bases, fortified compounds, outposts, and the largest “embassy” in the world in Iraq. Iraqi politicians still haven’t been able to come to an agreement and form a government after the last elections, making Iraq vulnerable to a coup if the Iraqi military leadership get too frustrated by the ineffectual, in-fighting politicians. The US empire will not be completely out of there anytime soon.

But hey, “we” won…right?

~*~

Update: Less than a week after the official end of combat operations in Iraq, US troops were involved in a combat operation in Iraq. Go figure. 12 people died and dozens were wounded in an assault by heavily-armed militants against an Iraqi military headquarters, in the center of Baghdad no less.

~*~

Cross-posted at Is-Ought GAP.

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Erecting Entry-preneurial Barriers

by on July 31, 2010 @ 12:01 am · 0 comments

in Business, Protectionism, Victimless Crimes

The caption accompanying this NY Times article picture of a street vendor selling bottled-water reads “Many sidewalk peddlers are doing record business, though the city considers it against the law to sell water without a license.”

I think Brad Spangler’s timely Facebook status update expresses how one should react to this:

Note carefully that states will be glad to bust down doors, “sweep streets” and so on in order to combat the problem of child prostitution. What states will not do is stop making the only choice for many prostitution or starvation, by impoverishing the populace with taxes, regulation and the sclerotic choking off of economic opportunities other than prostitution.

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“Getting Past” Race

by on July 25, 2010 @ 11:54 am · 3 comments

in Racism, Vulgar Politics

NYTimes.com has an article about, the Obama election notwithstanding, Americans’ hysterical reactions to racial issues. There have been many articles and blog postings lately about whether or not this is “post-racial America.” I think the furor over Shirley Sherrod’s speech is a clear indication that race is as much a current issue as ever. This really should come as no surprise. Race has always been a government issue in the USA. From the state-sponsored slave trade through to affirmative action, in America, race and the state have always been intimately intertwined. Considering this, it is hardly a surprise that people “never get past it.” You might as well say “why haven’t we gotten past war?”

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