Body Parts

The Question About Israel in the Struggle with Iran

I have beat the drum on the Iranian-Israeli confrontation for years, with rising alarm. Always, it seems to me, the American debate over what to do about the impending Iranian nuclear bomb has failed to address the ultimate issue. For the Iranian revolutionary state and for Israel, their confrontation clearly is existential. The Iranian state needs the bomb to protect its revolution (of Muslim factionalism Shiite v. Sunni, of Persian v. Arab, and margin v. center of Islam) . We have no evidence that the majority of the Iranian citizenry does not support national possession of a bomb. Israel must prevent Iran from having a nuclear bomb, because Iran has sworn to eradicate Israel and all its Jews (without mentioning the million Arab-Israelis who would die also). While the US has traditionally supported Israel, and Obama professes maintaining this legacy alliance, Obama has gone out of his way to identify Israel as the source of Middle East problems and to affiliate himself with Israel's enemies. So the ultimate question about this conflict between Iran and Israel is masked in deliberate obsfucation by Obama.

What is the ultimate question? It is this: will we be the generation of Americans who permitted Iran to complete Hitler's grand goal of the Jew's universal Holocaust? For that is what is at stake. If Israel is destroyed, only the US will harbor a significant portion of the Jews who were left after 1945. Are we willing to live with that infamy? Obama obviously is. I am not. Are you?

Miscalculations About Iran's Nuclear Weapon Program

Every analysis I have read about Iran's nuclear weapon program is based, I believe, on a mistaken assumption. We can best view this mistake by referring to analyses of a related issue, which is whether Israel is likely unilaterally and by itself to attack Iran's nuclear weapons production sites in an effort to destroy or set back the program. Analysts correctly state that that Israel's perspective on the issue is "existential"; that is, that for Israel, Israel's national existence, as well as existence of a significant portion of the world's Jews, who live in Israel, is at stake. Iran has consistently said it wishes to destroy the Jewish state and Jews along with it. Iran has stated this goal in credible terms.

When analysts turn to American-led efforts to compel Iran by sanctions to abandon its nuclear weapon's program, analysts explain Iran's program in practical - not existential - terms. They think Iran could abandon its program in order, e.g., to maintain certain international relations the sanctions curtail. The analysts do not speak of Iran as perceiving its nuclear weapons program as an existential issue for the Iranian state. That is a mistake. The Iranian state is the political manifestation of a religious regime in perpetual political and social revolution. By "revolution", I mean that the Muslim state sponsors continual change and alternation, in the name of a radical religious ideology, of the historical, social, political, and religious relations of its citizens and of Iranian relations with other states. That religious revolution is the essence of the state. It is also the source of existential enmity between Iran and its Muslim neighbors, Western democracies, and Israel.

Without the ongoing revolution, the Iranian state would transform into a static, administrative state, exposed to political reformism (evidence of which we saw in the recent Iranian reform uprising). For the Iranian state, the purpose of possession of a nuclear weapon is protect the existence of the revolution and the state that sponsors it. Possessing a nuclear arsenal would successfully deter other nations from attacking Iran, leaving the state free to perpetuate its revolution.

Iran and Israel have equal stakes in their horrific struggle. For both, the issue is existential. They are in a death struggle. This death struggle can only be ended by the complete destruction of Iran's nuclear weapons program and the transformation of the Iranian state. It would not end should Iran destroy Israel, for the revolution would be extended against other Muslim states and against democratic societies outself the Middle East, including the US.  Military action must be taken, as soon as possible against the Iranian weapons sites.

Bye, Hitch.

I'll miss ya.

Couldn't We Just Leave Lindsay Lohan Alone?

Really, what is the point of the in and out of custody, the hearings, the sentencings, the probation, the breaking of probation, the legal hoopla? Is Lindsay some kind of a bad person?  Is she a danger to society? Really, is there any social necessity for the prosecution of this young and beautiful actress? When does prosecution turn into persecution?

How does she compare to the real business and the hugely funded false business of the legal system? We have a whole legal industry and special interest cotillion singing about the necessity to release millions of dangerous fellons from jail because of their race or color, a huge collection of young male losers, stoners, and druggies funded by rich fools lobbying to decriminalize marijuana and "recreational" abuse of more serious drugs, federal judges ruling that prisons aren't sufficiently comfortable for hardcore violent criminals, federal prosecutors working overtime to convict white collar criminals who have swindled or illegally obtained millions and millions of investor money, a federal attorney general whose illegally pursues a political agenda, a president who refuses to enforce the nation's laws over immigration -- if you wish to talk about really bad people running around loose in society. Beside this mountain range of criminals and bad persons, Lindsay Lohan's minor troubles are a waste of legal time. Maybe it's just because a largely white legal system wishes to meet this famous beauty. I suggest we declare the war against Lindsay Lohan is won, withdraw our troops, and leave her alone.

Why Is Poverty So High and Income Gap So Wide? Look To Government's Role.

As the Great Society got underway, esteemed liberal and Democratic economist and policy advisor, Alice Rivlin, explained, once government policy is established to deal with a problem, such as poverty, it becomes part of the problem. Policy becomes so intertwined with the social phenomenon it addresses that it becomes part of the phenomenon itself. Economics become political economics, forever until policy is ended and withdrawn. So it should be a straight forward matter, when evaluating a social phenomenon like poverty that is intertwined with policy, to ask, at the outset, how has government contributed to the problem.

When we ask that question, we change the paradigm for thinking about poverty. Poverty has been, for a generation, created as much by government efforts to ameloriate poverty as by the social-economic circumstances of poor people.  We know that government policy creates poverty from empirical evidence. When welfare reform was instituted in the mid-1990s, welfare was limited in duration. After being forced off welfare, former welfare holders took jobs. The jobs most of them held paid more than government subsidized poverty and they were better off economically. And surveys showed, they were better off emotionally, in self esteem, and in personal relationships.

The follow-up question we must ask is, how does government policy to soften or end poverty create poverty? Government subsidy to poor people, over a long-enough time, de-motivates them. They build up a pattern of life that is difficult for them to break out of. Demotivation is reinforced by government policies don't reward getting jobs (as by graduated drawn-down of subsidy). Security - even the security  of minimal income - breeds timidity. They don't try to improve their lives by personal striving, they look for improvements by asking for more handouts.

The phenomenon of demotivation helps to explain the income gap between top and bottom. Because of demotivation, governmental subsidy to the poor holds the poor back, preventing them from reducing the income gap with other social classes. The motivations of the well-off classes, on the other hand, are reinforced by their success in obtaining social and economic mobility. Success increases motivation, motivation in turn increases success.

I have not said that governmental aid to poor is never appropriate, only that it has to be limited and brief.

Our Approaching Munich Moment

Since the end of the Cold War in the mid-1990s, the US has systematically reduced its military capabilities. The reduction has been based on the assumption that we will not again face a major power showdown as we did in the twentieth century -- US v Japan, US v Germany, US v Soviet  Union. In addition, with the US as the only great military power left, even the requirements of being the world's policeman are diminished. The billy club we swing needn't be huge to mash flies, and, gosh and by golly (per Obama) the UN should take over the role of international policeman anyway. The new power assessment is 9/11:  new conflicts are likely to be asymmetrical, as in the US v non-state terrorists.

But hidden inside this assessment is a fatal intellectual flaw. The policy will be self-fulfilling. It sets up the conditions so that it cannot be disproved. That is, there won't be a big power showdown, because we reduce our military capability so that we couldn't win a big power showdown, so we will avoid big power showdowns, and big power showdowns won't happen. And this flaw will be proved shortly, within a decade. China will assert its military control of the South China sea. It will provoke a crisis, daring the US to intervene. The US, with a diminished Navy and Air Force, will not take the bait. Whatever President is around will have to sue for peace. There will be a big international conference. The President will emerge waving a signed agreement and talk about peace in our time.Taiwan will fall. Or South Korea will fall. Or China will impose trade control over countries to its south.

The South China Sea is not the only flash point. The Middle East is obviously a candidate for a dramatic showdown. It should be clear now, as it has been to some of us all along, that the "Arab Spring" will bring a hard winter of Islamist totalitarian regimes, imposing anti-semitic and anti-Christian policies domestically and aggressively advancing such anti-semitic and anti-Christian foreign policies. Israel will be isolated and attacked. With the effective mobile force of the US Marines reduced, the US will not have the tactical ability to enter the conflict in time to save Israel. The US will sue for peace, against the pleas of remnant Israeli forces, to end fighting begging that the remaining Jews are not killed. The victorious Muslims will agree to allow a few Jews to live submissively in a Muslim Palestine. Most surviving Israeli Jews will be evacuated to the US. Peace will come to the Middle East, as to South Asia, at the cost of millions of lives and of freedom.

The fallacy of our current military policies is that it makes our Munich moment inevitable.

Obama Wags His Dog: Uganda Policeman

Prior to the 2010 Congressional election losses for the Democratic Party, Obama's foreign policy strategy was to replace Pax Americana with a United National Harmonium. That strategy required him to end the US's role as the world policeman, dramatically reduce US military capability so as to make the role of policeman unworkable, build the UN's role in fostering world piece, build Muslim self esteem so presumably Muslims wouldn't attack others out of psychological insecurity, hector and plead world conflicts into disappearing, end the military effort destroy terrorism's bases in Iraq and Afghanistan -- the familiar ideology of the Stalinist sponsored Leftist agenda during the Cold War applied to the post-Cold War era. It hasn't worked of course. Wishful thinking crashes in front of reality.  Obama is left with egg on his face, revealed as generally ineffectual and foolish in foreign policy and international security.

But he has had several minor political successes in foreign policy: the killing of Osama and the adventure in Libya. The Osama killing was good fortune, for which Obama's role was not screwing up something for which he wasn't responsible. Libya was a different matter. Following Clinton's Bosnia script, he succeeded in ridding the world of a murderous vermin using air power and suffering no ground combat casualties (at least as far as we know -- we haven't been informed about secret US advisers to Libya's "rebels" and whether there were casualties among them).

Why did Obama engage in the Libyan adventure? He was reluctant, and let Europe take the lead, but eventually he engaged. Why? Domestic electoral politics. He wanted to show he could be a decisive leader, exercise power, and not walk the US into foreign combat quagmires. That was a neat little boost for Obama. It was a classic exercise in being the world's policeman, even if leading from behind and co-opting other nations to do most of the heavy lifting.  

Now Obama had send "advisors" into Uganda to help that nation rid itself of a violent war lord. It's billed as a humanitarian gesture, but humanitarian for whom? Mostly and importantly for Obama himself. If successful, quickly and without US casualties, the police action would give a little Libyian boost in this presidential election. The scenario is called wagging the dog. The embarrassment from which this adventure rescues Obama is not a possible sexual scandal (not to say that the US press would investigate rumors of his girl friend anyway). It is the complete failure and unpopularity of all of his policies since he was elected. He has no record to run on.

Woof, woof, Mr. President.

When Is The Eye of God the Blind Maggot?

When the Eye of God is a federal government multi-billion dollar computer system built to monitor stock trading in real time. The purpose: to create real-time audit trails so its builder and manager, the SEC, can detect fraud.  What is wrong with this SEC proposal?

Oh, first, let's ask about the success of other federal government computerization projects, such as the Social Security system and the FBI. Both the SS and FBI systems have been rolling disasters and vast wastes of taxpayer dollars. Lets not forget the Pentagon's data integrated battlefield computer system which was to tie soldiers and commanders and weapons systems on the battle field via satellites to theater-wide assets and regional command centers. Guess what happened with that science fiction fantasy. Un, huh, more taxpayer dollars down the toilet. 

Second, presuming that the machine gets build and works, let's ask about the ability of the computer system to stay abreast of rapidly changing private trading technologies. Trading technologies are changing all the time, from software to hardware to analysis ware. The SEC's computer system will be obsolete within a year of its inauguration.Is the SEC to require that all home traders register their personal computers with the SEC, since distributed computing is the answer to centralized computer?  And if they require registration of computers, will they next require microchips embedded in the registered home traders? Just where are those blokes going when they're not at their computers in their pajamas? Is the SEC then to build another multi-billion dollar system to catch up to yesterday's trades? Will the SEC have to monitor all internet transactions on Google's or Microsoft's "clouds"?

Or more likely, third, will the SEC get Congress to pass a law prohibiting trading systems from changing? Ah, certainly, the latter; in which case, let Congress and the SEC stand on the New York City docks to wave goodbye to another American industry as it sails to a foreign land where free enterprise is accepted.

Fourth, what's wrong with concerns about fraudulent trade being initiated by traders and clients who are parties to trades?

The SEC's computer project is a cousin to the Medicare's plan for 140,000 medical codes to monitor and track all conceivable medical cases. The goal: total medical management in the name of public health.

The SEC's computer project, like the Medicare's computer coding project, approach big government totalitarianism. Why would anyone interested in freedom support such projects?

For a world designed by blind maggots to work, we'll all have to be rotting corpses.

I've Warned Repeatedly that a Real Recovery Was Not Underway

Click the article category Economy and Finance. Skim over the articles of the past several years. You'll see that my caution about growth and recovery were justified. Look at my suggestions why.

Obama and the New Deal Myth of Public Works Construction

In his not-eagerly-awaited speech on creating jobs in America, Obama will try to accomplish three well-work socialist goals: (1) Blame the lack of new jobs on the Republicans, (2) to expand the power of the federal government, and (3) propose public works infrastructure projects.

The first and second tactics require no explanation. The only question is the precise nature of the lies and name-calling he will employ. The third objective is worth looking at. Public works infrastructure projects are hoary tradition in progressivist, socialist, and communist societies. We can easily think of the Italian and German fascists of the 1920s and 1930s making the trains run on time and the Russian communists building the Moscow subways. In the US, building Hoover Dam and other dams in the Midwest are often held up as great New Deal projects and the National Defense Highway system of the 1950s (continuing) is held up as a project everybody agreed upon. Obama, like all progressive liberals and socialists, drools over public works projects. The political payoff for such projects is irresistible: posters, news video footage, and photo ops in hard hards in front of CGI renderings of big train stations with shiny trains, towering dams, big yellow Caterpillar tractors, airports with big jet liners, all providing the illusion that something wonderful is coming to the voter from the "Government" at someone else's expense.

So why would anyone object to Obama proposing infrastructure projects today? Well, it's all in the details.

What is to be solved by the infrastructure projects? If the goal is to generate jobs and draw the unemployed labor back into the employed labor force quickly, say within several years, then infrastructure project cannot meet those goals. They simply cannot.

Infrastructure projects today are performed within a huge, multi-layered, federal and state regulatory context. There was no such thing as "shovel-ready" construction projects in 2008, there are none today. Why? Because decisions and review and approval take an enormous amount of time -- years. There are no fast tracks. There is never enough money to go around, so political processes must be invoked to decide which projects to pursue and how to schedule them. State and federal reviews must be conducted before any construction can be dones -- state and federal Environmental Impact and EPA reviews, labor reviews, construction plan review. Competitive bidding must be conducted. Rules must be set for winning bids, as to labor force composition, where women contractors are given a fair shot at winning bids, etc.  Land and construction rights must be obtained. Political process of public hearing  review of plans and review of reviews must be conducted, followed by inevitable law suits. Eminent domain proceedings must be engaged. Losers along the way will sue and also engage in politics to prevent projects from proceeding. Look at how far along the famous rapid rail projects of California have come in more than three years. Exactly no where.  Construction projects will not employ a single person for years, certainly not in time to prevent our economy from falling off the cliff of a second "Great Recession".

Obama is also expected to endorse a National (i.e., Federal) Infrastructure Bank to assist financing of infrastructure projects. Well, this should work out just swell. Such a bank would add an another agency and its review to the list of reviews above. And can we really trust such a bank not to screw up construction? Remember the federally insured mortgage banks that created the financial crisis of the Great Recession by granting millions of mortgages to poor credit risks, all in the name of social objectives? And why do you think a federal infrastructure bank would be any better? It's not needed and would only add a level of political mischief to already politically corrupt process of public works infrastructure construction. Construction companies feed fees to the public coffers and contributions to re-election campaigns, then receive construction contracts in return for projects, paid out of tax monies, of questionable value. Think of the famous rail line connecting New York City to JFK. Think hundreds of millions of dollars wasted.

Conclusion: Public works infrastructure projects would add trillions to the national debt, requiring increase in taxes to pay for the debt, not employ a single person for years, and intensify the political corruption of publicly funded public works construction.