Month: January 2011

Booman wrote a post recently called A Doughboy Nation. The gist of it was that the U.S. relies on immigration to keep the working fires burning at home. He wrote:

Let’s face it. Our middle-class white youth are addicted to video games, lack ambition, are priced out of college (and will mostly squander their opportunities if they do go), and don’t have enough entrepreneurial spirit to lead this country forward. If we’re thinking that our low work-ethic kids, who are more interested in their piercings than making a buck, are going to compete with the Chinese, the Indians, and the Brazilians, we’re kidding ourselves. We don’t even make these kids fight in our wars. We’re soft. The only toughness we have left is from our immigrant population, and our urban and rural poor.

Now…he may have slightly overstated the case, but basically that is what I found when I left NYC and moved into a mostly white bedroom suburb around 1994 because the NYC school system simply wasn’t doing a good enough job for my 8 year-old son and I thought that he would be better off in a suburban school environment. We chose a town the school system of which had a very good reputation (Fool me once…), took the plunge and paid the necessary dues to live there.

Boy…were we surprised!!!

Booman’s statement “Our middle-class white youth are addicted to video games, lack ambition, are priced out of college (and will mostly squander their opportunities if they do go), and don’t have enough entrepreneurial spirit to lead this country forward” was totally backed up by our experience in that school system. Teachers who did not even have a thorough grasp of their subjects taught bored kids who rapidly became slacker kids in sheer self-defense. The whole experience gradually spiraled down until we pulled my son out in late high school and sent him to an experimental school that basically saved his mind and soul. (He’s thriving now, thankfully. An environmental biologist working in really high-level research.)

However, this morning I ran into an article that gives me real hope for the future.

Read on.
Race Remixed. Black? White? Asian? More Young Americans Choose All of the Above,

The crop of students moving through college right now includes the largest group of mixed-race people ever to come of age in the United States, and they are only the vanguard: the country is in the midst of a demographic shift driven by immigration and intermarriage.

One in seven new marriages is between spouses of different races or ethnicities, according to data from 2008 and 2009 that was analyzed by the Pew Research Center. Multiracial and multiethnic Americans (usually grouped together as “mixed race”) are one of the country’s fastest-growing demographic groups. And experts expect the racial results of the 2010 census, which will start to be released next month, to show the trend continuing or accelerating.

That’s right…”One in seven new marriages is between spouses of different races or ethnicities” in the U.S.

Hmmmmmm….the white supremacists’ worst nightmare; the single most important reason (although largely unspoken because people just didn’t talk out loud about about sex at the time) why segregation was instituted in the first place.

Miscegenation. The sin that dared not speak its action.

Wars have been fought over it. Empires have been founded on it. Millions…billions… have died because of it.

And when examined in the cold light of reason, it is the single most anti-evolutionary concept ever to arise in human experience.

Cole Porter knew.

Birds do it, bees do it

Even educated fleas do it

Let’s do it, let’s fall in love

Yup.

Do the birds, bees and fleas ask whether their chosen mate of the moment is from another colony or slightly different in coloring? Not often. If it gives off the right pheromones, it’s fuckable. End of story.

And evolution exists on earth because of that single reason. The mating of differences.

Lemme ask y’all…

Where on this great green earth (or this little ball of dust, depending on your point of view) is human evolution most rapidly progressing at this moment in time?

Answer?

In first place?  The Western Hemisphere.

A close second place? Western Europe.

Bet on it.

That’s right, folks.

In South/Central/Caribbean/North America and to some slightly lesser degree Western Europe, “miscegenation” is becoming not only allowable, but stylish!!!

Oh, the shame!!!

Or is it…

Oh, the glory!!!

You know my answer, if you know me at all.

I am primarily a latin and jazz musician… a Long Island Celt who somehow ended up playing with people like Charles Mingus and Tito Puente.

Go figure.

Musical miscegenation at its finest. Arguably the most potent musical force in the world over the last 100 years.

The real story of America.

And that evolutionary force is now happening in and to mainstream white (“Doughboy” in Booman’s phrase…nice one, Booman.) culture, to the point where it is happening sexually!

Sex is the real deal, folks. Once that barrier breaks down, all the rest of the shit just flies right out the window. It’s really hard to napalm people who look just like your son or daughter, know what I mean?

So when you start to get really down about America (I know, it sure as shit is tempting, ain’t it?) try taking the long view.

The dinosaurs are being backed into an evolutionary corner by new breeds. Mixed breeds. New strengths to meet new demands. Just as it has always been. My son went to a very good college and worked his butt off to become an environmental biologist. One day we were talking about his lab work and he said to me “You know who are the hardest and best workers in the labs?” When I came up (the middle/late `60s in Ithaca and Boston/Cambridge) the answer would have hands down been “Jews and Asians,” and that’s what I figured he’s say. But he didn’t. He said “The Mexicans.”

Hmmmm….

It ain’t just lawn workers, Ms. Palin.

Not anymore it isn’t.

It’s lab work. And bed work as well.

Y’all dinosaurs are so screwed!!!

Patience, folks. The gene sinks are busily at work in the doughboy world, sinking the evolutionary losers into the tarpits of history.

Patience.

We’re gonna make it through.

Hold the fuck on.

Watch.

Later…

AG

Because the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by a group of anti-Saudi Royal Family and anti-Mubarak terrorists, we felt like having any kind of introspection about the shortcomings of those regimes, or our relationships with them, would be tantamount to appeasing terrorists and rewarding al-Qaeda for their terrorism.

But the truth is that Saudi Arabia and Egypt are basically on “our team” (along with Jordan, Turkey, Israel, and the non-Shiite population of Lebanon) in a battle against Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the more virulent forms of political Islam. To see how weak and compromised our position has become, all we have to do is look at how difficult it is for anyone in Washington to defend Mubarak now that his regime is under pressure from people seeking democracy and basic human rights.

To be clear, it’s not that we’re on the wrong side and that our opponents are virtuous. But our policy has put us on the wrong side of history. The events of 9/11 could have served as a useful warning, like a canary in a coal mine. But we took what I think is the exact wrong lesson. We decided that “we are all Israelis now,” and that we must go fight terrorism wherever it exists and make no concessions to anyone. We should have realized that the Palestinian question had become so cancerous that it was forcing us to coddle dictators and oppose democracy in the region so that those dictators would continue to look the other way at the settlement activity in the Occupied Territories.

Israel has had its head in the sand, and we’ve been no better. Consider this piece from yesterday’s Haaretz.

Around the same time [1979], Egypt and Israel broke their cycle of conflict by signing a peace agreement. Egypt positioned itself on the side of Saudi Arabia, as head of the pro-American camp.

Mubarak inherited the peace agreement after President Anwar Sadat’s assassination. Mubarak was cold in his public relations with Israel, refusing to visit the country except for Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral, which decelerated normalization between the countries.

Relations between the Israel Defense Forces and the Egyptian army were conducted on a low level, with no joint exercises. Egyptian public opinion was openly hostile towards Israel and anti-Semitic terminaology was common. Civil relations between the countries were carried out by a handful of government workers and businessmen.

Despite all of this, the “cold peace” with Egypt was the most important strategic alliance Israel had in the Middle East. The security provided by the alliance gave Israel the chance to concentrate its forces on the northern front and around the settlements. Starting in 1985, peace with Egypt allowed for Israel to cut its defense budget, which greatly benefited the economy…

Mubarak became president while Israel was governed by Menachim Begin, and has worked with eight different Israeli leaders since then. He had close relations with Yitzhak Rabin and Benjamin Netanyahu. In the last two years, despite a stagnation in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians and worsening relations between Netanyahu and the Arab world, Mubarak has hosted the prime minister both in Cairo and in Sharm el-Sheikh.

The friendship between Mubarak and Netanyahu is based on a mutual fear over Iran’s strengthening and the rising power of Islamists, as well as over the weakening and distancing of the U.S. government with Barack Obama at its head.

Now, with Mubarak struggling over the survival of his government, Israel is left with two strategic allies in the region: Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. These two allies promise to strengthen Israel’s Eastern battlefront and are also working to stop terror attacks and slow down Hamas.

But Israel’s relationship with these two allies is complicated. Joint security exercises are modest and the relationship between the leaders is poor. Jordan’s King Abdullah refuses to meet Netanyahu, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is waging a diplomatic struggle against Israel’s right-wing government. It’s hard to tell how Jordan and the PA could fill the role that Egypt has played for Israel.

In this situation, Israel will be forced to seek out new allies. The natural candidates include Syria, which is striving to exploit Egypt’s weakness to claim a place among the key nations in the region.

The images from Cairo and Tunisia surely send chills down the backs of Syrian President Bashar Assad and his cronies, despite the achievement they achieved with the new Hezbollah-backed Lebanon government. As long as the Arab world is flooded with waves of angry anti-government protests, Assad and Netanyahu will be left to safeguard the old order of the Middle East.

Consider the irony. If Israel loses Mubarak, one of their two remaining allies in the region will be the Palestinian Authority!! How bad can things get? How bad do things have to get before they make the hard decision to abandon their experiment in occupation? Running to Bashar Assad for help seems like an almost delusional proposition. If the old order is collapsing, why try to shore it up? Why not get ahead of history?

All I know is that if Israel wakes up one day and finds that it no longer has a peace agreement with Egypt (and perhaps Jordan), they will know that they squandered the opportunity represented by the Camp David Accords. And we let them squander that opportunity. I really blame Reagan for that. Poppy Bush (or Mondale) probably would not have let the settlement ball get rolling. But it doesn’t matter now who was at fault.

Our immediate problem is that it’s poor form to throw someone on your own team under a bus the moment they run into some trouble. If we tell Mubarak to step down, we might as well do the same for the rest of our team: the King of Jordan, the House of Saud, various emirs…

But, if we do not tell him to step down, we may just compound our humiliation by being on the wrong side of a wave of democratic revolution.

The 9/11 attacks made us stupid, but it’s not so easy to be smart.

I’m glad I am not president.

I know that some people live in lily-white towns and villages, and they want things to stay that way, but America relies on immigration in so many ways:

Immigration invigorates the U.S. economy from top to bottom. Immigrants value education and economic innovation: In southeast Michigan, they are much more likely to have a college degree than non-immigrants. Immigrants help start around 25 percent of new high-tech American companies. As Austin puts it, “Slamming the door on immigrants pushes away the very talent and entrepreneurs the region’s metro areas need to remake their economies, and the ‘warm bodies’ needed to reverse decades of relative population decline and loss of political clout.” Bottom line: The Midwest can’t survive without immigrants.

The nation’s heartland can’t afford any more partisan gamesmanship on immigration policy. Millions of Midwestern jobs are at stake. Winning a better future, to paraphrase Obama’s speech, depends on policymakers taking the president’s call to action on illegal immigration seriously. So, too, might Midwestern politicians’ political futures, as attitudes about immigration inevitably change across the region.

Let’s face it. Our middle-class white youth are addicted to video games, lack ambition, are priced out of college (and will mostly squander their opportunities if they do go), and don’t have enough entrepreneurial spirit to lead this country forward. If we’re thinking that our low work-ethic kids, who are more interested in their piercings than making a buck, are going to compete with the Chinese, the Indians, and the Braziians, we’re kidding ourselves. We don’t even make these kids fight in our wars. We’re soft. The only toughness we have left is from our immigrant population, and our urban and rural poor.

Maybe that’s why so many people like to cling to their guns. They know a girl scout troop of Peruvians could conquer us as we lay bickering about our World of Warcraft games…if not for the underclass and our foreign-born citizens (and non-citizens).

.

Wael Abbas – Award Winning Journalist and Blogger

Amid these circumstances, there are wondering: Where paradise Abhamid???
about 4 hours ago via Mobile Web

I saw young people get, Molotov cocktails in the street in Dokki preparation if thugs attacked
about 4 hours ago via Mobile Web

took pics of tear gas canisters with made in usa on them! Dear americans this is where your taxes go!
about 4 hours ago via Mobile Web

6000 escape of prisoners from Abu Zaabal after flight Guard – Oasis de police who are working, we were black!!!
about 4 hours ago via Mobile Web

…
met a tunisian guy protesting with the egyptians in tahrir sq carrying a banner written in french and took hid pic
about 5 hours ago via Mobile Web

rumors : mubarak prepares to step down
about 5 hours ago via Mobile Web

a red shaheen car just opened machine gun fire at people protecting the streets in dokki and they returned fire
about 5 hours ago via Mobile Web

Wa7damasrya my Dad from Alexandria :   The Army asked ppl who protect streets to wear white shirt couse the army will start to shoot on thugs 😀 #jan25
about 5 hours ago via Mobile Web

Retweeted by waelabbas and 73 others .   the presidential guard has already been deployed in heliopolis – saw them myself earlier today in salah salem street
about 5 hours ago via Mobile Web

people fear the army troops might be replaced by the presidential guard
about 5 hours ago via Mobile Web

etc.

[some text Google translation from Arabic – Oui]

>> Chaos engulfs Cairo

Chaos Engulfs Cairo As Mubarak Points To Successor

CAIRO (AP) – With protests raging, Egypt’s president named his intelligence chief as his first-ever vice president on Saturday, setting the stage for a successor as chaos engulfed the capital. Soldiers stood by – a few even joining the demonstrators – and the death toll from five days of anti-government fury rose sharply to 74.

Saturday’s fast-moving developments across the north African nation marked a sharp turning point in President Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade rule of Egypt.

Residents and shopkeepers in affluent neighborhoods boarded up their houses and stores against looters, who roamed the streets with knives and sticks, stealing what they could and destroying cars, windows and street signs. Gunfire rang out in some neighborhoods.

Tanks and armored personnel carriers fanned out across the city of 18 million, guarding key government buildings, and major tourist and archaeological sites. Among those singled out for special protection was the Egyptian Museum, home to some of the country’s most treasured antiquities, and the Cabinet building. The military closed the pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo – Egypt’s premier tourist site.

…
As the army presence expanded in Cairo Saturday, police largely disappeared from the streets – possibly because their presence seemed only to fuel protesters’ anger. Egyptian police are hated for their brutality.

On Friday, 17 police stations throughout Cairo were torched, with protesters stealing firearms and ammunition and freeing some jailed suspects. They also burned dozens of police trucks in Cairo, Alexandria and Suez. On Saturday, protesters besieged a police station in the Giza neighborhood of Cairo, looted and pulled down Egyptian flags, then burned the building to the ground.

There were no clashes reported between protesters and the military at all, and many in the crowds showered soldiers with affection.

One army captain joined the demonstrators in Tahrir Square, who hoisted him on their shoulders while chanting slogans against Mubarak. The officer ripped apart a picture of the president.

“We don’t want him! We will go after him!” demonstrators shouted. They decried looting and sabotage, saying: “Those who love Egypt should not sabotage Egypt!”

Some 200 inmates escaped a jail on the outskirts of the city, starting a fire first to cover their breakout. Eight inmates were killed during the escape.

…
A leaked U.S. diplomatic memo said Gamal and his clique of ruling party stalwarts and businessmen were gaining confidence in 2007 about controlling power in Egypt and that they believed that Mubarak would eventually dump Suleiman, who was seen as a threat by Gamal and his coterie of aides.

Gamal launched his political career within the ranks of the ruling National Democratic Party, climbed over the past 10 years to become its de facto leader, dictating economic policies and bolstering his own political standing.

Gamal’s close aide and confidant, steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz, resigned from the party on Saturday, according to state television. Gamal and Ezz are suspected of orchestrating the rigging of the last parliamentary election in November, making sure the ruling party won all but a small fraction of the chamber’s 518 seats.

Nineteen private jets carrying families of wealthy Egyptian businessmen with ties to the Mubarak family left Cairo late Saturday, most of them bound for Dubai, an airport official.

…
The Internet appeared blocked for a second day to hamper protesters who use social networking sites to organize. And after cell phone service was cut for a day Friday, two of the country’s major providers were up and running Saturday.

In the capital on Friday night, hundreds of young men carted away televisions, fans and stereo equipment looted from the ruling National Democratic Party, near the Egyptian Museum.

Others around the city looted banks, smashed cars, tore down street signs and pelted armored riot police vehicles with paving stones torn from roadways.

Banks and the stock market will be closed on Sunday, the first day of the week, because of the turmoil.

William Burns at Inter-Agency Principals Meeting

Egypt transition scenarios, as intelligence chief sworn in as VP

National Security Advisor Tom Donilon convened the inter-agency principals committee meeting on Egypt at 9:30 AM Saturday, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Amb. to Egypt Margaret Scobey participated in the two-hour meeting by video conference, while attending the meeting in person were White House chief of staff Bill Daley, CIA chief Leon Panetta, Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy, the NSC’s Ben Rhodes, White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan, U.S. Amb. to the UN Susan Rice, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, and Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs Lael Brainard.

Obama will be briefed by his national security staff on further Egypt developments throughout the day, Vietor said.

Ambassador Burns is the author of Economic Aid and American Policy Toward Egypt  

See also my new diary – Post 9/11 Failed Bush Policy and Aging Dictators in ME

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

.

2008 – The Costs of Relying on Aging Dictators

(Middle-East Quarterly) – Almost as soon as it started, the democratization agenda that the Bush administration hoped would be the lodestar of its post 9-11 foreign policy has been all but shelved. The insurgency and sectarian bloodshed in Iraq, the regional threat posed by an expansionist Iran, and the Palestinian civil war have combined to help resurrect the U.S. embrace of regional stability as a foreign policy priority and have convinced President George W. Bush to reduce his emphasis on transformative diplomacy. Leaders such as Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Saudi King Abdullah bin Abd al-‘Aziz, whom many administration officials viewed as embarrassing allies during Bush’s first term, now enjoy a renaissance of U.S. support. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for example, said little as Mubarak crushed liberal dissidents, and shortly before Bush met the Saudi king, he parried questions after a Saudi court sentenced a 19-year-old rape victim to 200 lashes and six months in jail.

But even as U.S. policy once again organizes around the idea that strongmen bring stability, Washington will soon face the downside of such a strategy: Aging rulers die; replacement leaders are frequently weak, and transitions can be volatile. Instability is a looming threat in four Western-allied dictatorships that many in Washington currently embrace as bulwarks of stability: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Oman.

The leaders of these countries have ruled for a combined total of ninety-nine years. Together, they have presided over significant transformations. But, in recent years, each has struggled to enact economic reforms to accommodate growing populations, to contain Islamism, and to encourage their respective societies to reconcile tradition with constructive political and economic pursuits. Amidst dangerous internal and external challenges, and in the absence of transparent mechanisms of succession that enjoy public approval, the inevitable moment of succession risks provoking crises that will challenge new leaders to the fullest.  

>> Obama and Egypt transition scenarios

Egypt transition scenarios, as intelligence chief sworn in as VP

National Security Advisor Tom Donilon convened the inter-agency principals committee meeting on Egypt at 9:30 AM Saturday, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Amb. to Egypt Margaret Scobey participated in the two-hour meeting by video conference, while attending the meeting in person were White House chief of staff Bill Daley, CIA chief Leon Panetta, Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy, the NSC’s Ben Rhodes, White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan, U.S. Amb. to the UN Susan Rice, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, and Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs Lael Brainard.

Obama will be briefed by his national security staff on further Egypt developments throughout the day, Vietor said.

Ambassador Burns is the author of Economic Aid and American Policy Toward Egypt, 1955-1981

Egypt: Background and U.S. Relations [pdf download]

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

Maybe one of you could help explain why the overuse of antibiotics is related to the theory of evolution. Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia is clueless as the why anyone would make such a connection.

There are two things to note about the Republicans’ assignments for the Senate Appropriations Committee. It should be noted, first, that the Tea Party’s opposition to earmarking made it an enemy of most Republican members of the Appropriations Committee. Sen. Bob Bennett, a senior appropriator, lost his bid for renomination to the Senate. Appropriator Kay Bailey Hutchison went nowhere in her Texas gubernatorial bid and has announced her intention to retire from the Senate. As a result, a seat on the Appropriations Committee is no longer seen as a powerful position, but one that brings electoral peril. Senior Republicans (with the important exception of Lindsey Graham of South Carolina) did not line up to get any of the seven available seats. Under ordinary circumstances, freshmen wouldn’t even be given consideration to sit on the Appropriations Committee.

But, in this toxic anti-government environment, six freshmen were appointed to the committee. It is instructive to look at those freshmen.

GOP Sens. Mark Kirk (Ill.), Dan Coats (Ind.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Jerry Moran (Kan.), John Hoeven (N.D.) and Ron Johnson (Wis.) were named to the committee with jurisdiction over federal discretionary spending.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was also named to the panel.

Sens. Kirk, Blunt, and Moran are all coming over from the House of Representatives. They are not insurgents, nor are they in any way affiliated with the Tea Party Movement. They are part of the Establishment. Sen. Hoeven is a moderate. Sen. Coats is returning to the Senate after a hiatus, and he is a total Establishment figure. McConnell clearly did not want firebrands like Rand Paul, Mike Lee, or Marco Rubio sitting on the Appropriations Committee. Only Sen. Johnson of Wisconsin has Tea Party cred.

The Republicans talk a lot of trash, but the Establishment actually has to run, or help run, the federal government. And they don’t think that the federal government has no legitimate role in governing the country. The Appropriations Committee is where the federal government and its agencies and departments are funded, and it takes serious legislators to do that tough work. That’s why members of the Appropriations Committee tend to be among the most willing to work across party lines. McConnell understands this, and that’s why he staffed the committee the way he did. I mean, consider this nonsense:

Freshman Republican Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of three members of the Senate Tea Party Caucus, said Thursday he asked Senate leaders to name him chairman of an anti-appropriations panel. Paul told people who attended the group’s meeting Thursday that leaders informed him they had no plans to establish such a committee.

It’s evident that the GOP leadership wants to maintain some control over the ideological extremists in their midst, but only for the running of the government. As for the running of the courts? They put Sen. Mike Lee of Utah on the Judiciary Committee.

The American left’s ongoing credulity is never less than entertaining.

Here’s the deal, folks.

Several deals, actually.

A change of rulers is the joy of fools.- Romanian proverb

Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.-Leo Tolstoy

Revolution is not a dinner party, nor an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be advanced softly, gradually, carefully, considerately, respectfully, politely, plainly, and modestly. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.- Mao Zedong

Read on.

Do you really think that a primarily spontaneous, leaderless set of riots is going to seriously change the situation in Egypt for the better? Where is their Mao, their Long March? Where is their Castro? What are their strategic goals? Their real tactical plans?

This is a Facebook-inspired charge of the lightest brigade. A bloodied twittering of the desperate, nothing more. It will be co-opted before it even begins to be a “revolution.”

I got their “Castro.”

Right here!!!

Mark “Facebook Boy” Zuckerberg.

A revolution as real as digital sex.

Only much more expensive.

Mubarak will go down.

So?

He’s just another front man, really.

Someone else will be propped up in his place.

Token changes will be made and then business will continue as usual.

Any real change?

Only perhaps in terms of alliances, quite possibly to the detriment and ongoing consternation of the non-Muslim world.

And this particular set of riots…along with the ones in places like the Ukraine and Newark and Detroit and Watts…will eventually be remembered (and finally all but forgotten) as simply another fruitless flareup of violence among the permanently dispossessed.

A real pan-Arab/pan-North African/pan-Islamic change?

Don’t hold your breath.

There is not enough anger in the hearts of all men to overcome the truth of Tolstoy’s observation.

Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.-Leo Tolstoy

Not without careful tactical planning there isn’t.

Not without real leadership. And with “leadership” what else invariably appears?

Government.

They don’t call ’em “revolutions” fer nuthin’, folks. Sooner or later they wind up right back in the same place. Different song, same players.

I repeat:

A change of rulers is the joy of fools.- Romanian proverb

Rest assured…there will be another government. To paraphrase that ever-popular male catchphrase:

Governments.

Can’t live with ’em; can’t kill ’em.

Bet on it.

Our “government”…the PermaGov…is presently trying to figure out how best to spin this event to its subjects. It’s all been over the place with the idea, but seems to be settling on a position that sounds a lot like “Y’know…secretly we’ve been hoping all along that this will happen. Helping it along, actually.”

See the following lick from The Telegraph for more on that spin. (And yes, Virginia, British newspapers take part in our PermaGov’s web spinning, too.)

Egypt protests: America’s secret backing for rebel leaders behind uprising

The American government secretly backed leading figures behind the Egyptian uprising who have been planning “regime change” for the past three years, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

—snip—

Yeah, right.

It’s been said that the Lord giveth with one hand and taketh away with the other?

So does the PermaGov.

Bet on that as well.

The PermaGov has supported Mubarak’s violently repressive, totally corrupt regime for 30 years. Now that said regime has reached a state of incompetence that renders it useless? Why, the cry of “The King is dead!!! Long live the King!!!” echoes through the DC/Langley halls of power and out into the waiting ears of its sheeple.

Wake the fuck up.

Please.

Do not believe the news.

Any of it.

If it has anything to do with any subject that is more important than say the price of duck breasts in Brooklyn and it appears in the NY Times, The Washington Post and the Network News, it is a lie.

Station WTFU signing off.

With its seemingly eternally necessary catchphrase.

NEWSTRIKE!!!

MEDIASTRIKE!!!

CULTURESTRIKE!!!

VAYA!!!

Wake the fuck up.

AG

I wonder how different things might have been if back in 1979 the Washington Post had run editorials calling for the U.S. to break ties with the Shah of Iran. Would we have been condemned to thirty-two years of implacable hostility, mutual terrorism, and lack of trade? Would real democracy with respect for human rights have taken root in Teheran? If we had supported the legitimate aspirations of the Iranian people would they have turned to rule by clerics and adopted a policy of exporting terrorism and armed resistance to U.S. interests?

Or, would we have lacked the credibility to turn on a dime and disown our sponsorship and responsibility for the Shah’s police state?

These questions are unanswerable, but it is interesting to see how anxious and incoherent the reaction in Washington is to the developments in Egypt. Some, including John Kerry, are warning us that Egypt may come under the influence of the Muslim brotherhood. Meanwhile, the Center for American Progress is completely sanguine about such a possibility, as if the Muslim Brotherhood is a force for moderation that shouldn’t concern us at all. They may rue the day that were so dismissive. On the other hand, they may be completely vindicated. Personally, I think the only really stupid analysis in a situation like this is analysis that provides any strong degree of certainty.

If Mubarak’s regime falls, there is no telling what will replace it, or how long Egypt might experience instability and/or lawlessness. No one knows how the next government will position itself with its neighbors, Europe, or America. We don’t even know if they’ll actually win their human rights and a representative government. Or, if they do, whether or not it will erode into something as lame as Iranian democracy.

We may find that these revolutions will spread to other places, from U.S.-aligned emirates on the Persian Gulf to major client-states like Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

This could be a fantastic development and a birth of freedom reminiscent of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the emancipation of Eastern Europe. But we should neither assume such a happy outcome, nor think that we will find these new democracies to be natural allies.

Can the U.S. pivot from supporting stability and the status quo to supporting the legitimate aspirations of the Arab world, even when those aspirations are hostile to our interests?

Maybe we could do that with wise leadership and a loyal opposition. But can we do this in a country with a disloyal opposition that is rabidly anti-Muslim?

I’m pretty scared right now. I gotta tell ya.

.

Lieberman drafts own map of future Palestinian borders

(Haaretz) – Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has drafted a map of a Palestinian state in provisional borders. The map would essentially “freeze the existing situation in the territories, with minor changes,” a senior Foreign Ministry official said.

According to the official, Lieberman says Israel must take the diplomatic initiative by proposing a Palestinian state in provisional borders. This would preempt international recognition of such a state in the 1967 borders, reduce international pressure on Israel and transfer at least part of the state to the Palestinians.

“After a Palestinian state has been established in provisional borders, it would be possible to resume diplomatic negotiations and maybe reach agreements on transferring additional territory to the Palestinian state,” the official said.

The Foreign Ministry source said Lieberman’s map also includes a network of new roads linking the areas under Palestinian control. The map “provides territorial contiguity that would enable the Palestinian state in provisional borders to be viable,” he said.

Lieberman’s plan, which corresponds to the second stage of the 2003 U.S.-sponsored road map peace plan, would not involve evacuating settlements or transferring significant additional territory to the PA. Thus the new state’s provisional borders would comprise mainly the parts of the West Bank known as Areas A and B. The PA currently has full control over Area A, and civilian but not security control in Area B.

Together, these areas comprise some 42 percent of the West Bank. But a bit of additional territory might be thrown in to bring the new state up to 45 or 50 percent of the West Bank.  

The idea is already gaining support in the forum of seven key ministers. Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon, for instance, shares Lieberman’s view that Israel should consider establishing a Palestinian state with provisional borders, simultaneously bolstering the Palestinian Authority and reducing Israeli control over Palestinians’ lives.

And Lieberman was particularly pleased with Netanyahu’s statement on Channel 10 television a few weeks ago that an interim agreement is one possible outcome of the diplomatic process.

 « click to enlarge
(Map Wikipedia)  

Galant’s arrogance makes him perfect for IDF chief

(Haaretz) – You look at the house that Yoav Galant built and the picture is clear: He is suitable to be the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff.

The excessive size of the place, the open craving for space, the aggressiveness needed to get it done – these are precisely the basic qualifications for someone who’s supposed to lead an organization whose job is to implement long-term control over occupied territory and people who oppose it.

Galant’s house is, in many ways, a metaphor for the State of Israel. Take a look – at the lack of consideration for the neighbors, at the bureaucratic loopholes that allow for distasteful practices, at the obsession over expansion, at the takeover, at the facts on the ground. It’s primarily a self-ignorant symbol of a megalomania, of a force that doesn’t realize its ramifications.

…
What comes of all this is that it’s no surprise to learn that those close to Galant are arguing that he is being subjected to character assassination – just as the Europeans/leftists/bleeding hearts are instigating a character assassination of the State of Israel when it comes to anything related to appropriating land or being inconsiderate of our neighbors.

The State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss is currently looking into the matter, but his investigation is unnecessary. All we need to do is look at the villa in the jungle in order to realize that Yoav Galant is just the right pick for IDF chief of staff.

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‘Galant affair punishment for Gaza pullout’

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."