COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Saturday, September 10, 2011

An Arab Spring or a Western Fall?

Do you share in  the breathless excitement for the Arab Spring?

Are you awe struck by the nobility of a rising wave of democracy lifting the Islamic world? Or has the Neocon vision which predicted the inevitable democratic change been blinded by wishful thinking? I was amused yesterday for having been reminded that I am more angry than I used to be, as if I did not know that. I am angry. I am very angry at the optimistic stupidity that has commandeered US foreign policy.

Recall the optimism of Johnson and Viet Nam. We were always 50,000 troops closer to a glorious ending.  Reagan and Afghanistan and the glorious Mujaheddin, Clinton on Kosovo and the noble Albanian Muslims yearning to be free, All of them about a benign China, that would be lined up to greet American businessmen and buy everything being made in America.  Bush in Iraq, Bush in Afghanistan, All of them about Turkey, Obama about Egypt, Libya and now Syria. All of them from Johnson to Obama convinced that the spread of democracy was inevitable and would be an American triumph. All with the solid conviction that they were right, so right, so convicted.  Bush looked into Putin's soul and received confirmation of his righteousness.

Have they been right? Do events in Egypt and Turkey reassure you?

We are seeing the creative destruction of a fractured despotic Arab World. We are witnessing an Arab Spring for certain, but we will not be happy with the outcome, no more than we are with all those Chinese buying "Made in USA".

This Guy Says I Have it All Wrong:
_____________________________________


Country must get behind Arab Spring

You can't blame the American public for its indifference to the events in the Middle East and North Africa. Although the news from Egypt, Libya and Syria has been awe-inspiring and historic, it's no surprise that the Arab Spring scarcely registers on a typical American's radar. Our economic hangover, a result of our past profligacy and compounded by a venal Congress and an ineffective White House, has focused our attention on the problems in our own backyard. Despite this, however, what is happening in Cairo, Tripoli and Homs offers us a unique teaching moment regarding our relationship with the Arab World. Conflict is about competing narratives, needs and visions. 

Since the end of western colonialism, Arab nations have unsuccessfully wrestled with a variety political visions that have included Pan-Arab Nationalism, Soviet-inspired Socialism and Monarchism. The result has been a near universal rise of brutal autocracies often aided and abetted by a myopic U.S. foreign policy. The latest competing vision to arrive on the scene has been Wahhabi-inspired religious fundamentalism, of which al-Qaida is the most malignant example. Since the attacks of 9/11, we have convinced ourselves that the "Arab Street" and religious extremism are one of the same. In our quest for clarity at all costs, we have painted the Arab world with broad brush strokes. In doing so, we have neglected that region's intricate nuances whose rich diversity and history we barely understand. The Arab revolts, largely fought by educated, blue jeans-wearing and iPod-toting young people, debunks the stereotype that characterizes the region as backward, deeply anti-Western and religiously fanatical. 

The young protesters in Tahrir Square and the freedom fighters besieging Sirte have been motivated by neither the desire to establish a new Caliphate nor the need to destroy western civilization. The uprisings were motivated by those most human of desires: the right to self-determination, respect for civil rights and greater social and economic mobility. It is all straight out of the same enlightenment playbook that motivated our forefathers to resist British tyranny. Our national leadership's reaction to the revolts has been both dissonant and uninspired. Responses have ranged from Sen. John McCain's call for aggressive intervention (been there, done that in Iraq!) to the naïve isolationism of Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann. Somewhere in the middle was President Obama's often-frustrating policy of selective engagement. In Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, this appears to have succeeded and allowed the Arabs to take full ownership of their own liberation at no cost in U.S. lives. 

The administration, on the other hand, chose to ignore the call for freedom in Bahrain and Yemen where oil politics and global strategic concerns precluded any sympathetic intervention. The Arab revolts are still a work in progress. They could very well degenerate into chaos and the inevitable return to totalitarianism. What is encouraging, however, is that this was a grass roots uprising that categorically rejected the medieval insanity of religious extremism. The hope is that the Arab Spring will give way to a stable political culture dedicated to free expression, attentive governance and universal suffrage.

We need to encourage the rise to a new Arab enlightenment. It fosters healthier and mutually beneficial relationships across the globe.


Email local columnist Mike Radoiu at radoiu@hotmail.com.

101 comments:

  1. Do you share in the breathless excitement for the Arab Spring?

    Nope.

    Personally I just got up to take a piss and look at the Dipper.

    There is something new.

    An Arab Spring?

    It's like thinking your own extended family is special, and would never ever go through an eight year lawsuit over gramps assets. We had Christmases together, right?

    It's like thinking your own marriage is so special, there will be no arguments.

    There is learning. You get so you feel finally you know something of life and what you are doing, and what is important, and what to live for,and how to do it, and how simple it is or can be, but it's damn hard to teach what little knowledge you might have to your children.

    And that's living, being unburdened by the koran, and poverty, and illiteracy.

    An Arab spring?

    Don't count on it.

    risky

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh well, ok.

    In our Bard, there is this long long rhythm of the passing of the generations. Very little ever changes, except names and places. Upshot Spring pushes out Aging Winter. The endless story goes on and what wisdom is gained is the wisdom of how to negotiate one's way through it. If one can.

    That's the histories and tragedies.

    At the end though, in the last couple plays, there is this wonderful lightening of the mood, and things work out, by themselves almost, as if that other stuff had no meaning, and seen from a higher point of view, I don't know, it's like spring and fall might be the same thing, if one knows how to look at it.

    But don't expect much from any Arab spring. They are burdened by the koran, and have not the feminine influence of a queen or princess, to take the tension away, nor even any sense of equality between the sexes, nor the Jewish sense of an evolving culture. Nor my own sense of a northern culture, when we were all princes, in our own way, going our own way, even if you had to fight the family every generation.

    Don't expect nothing, you will not be disappointed.

    risky

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  3. We got lots of problems. What happens in Egypt, or Syria ain't two of them.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I still don't understand all I know about the Libya thing.

    We haves our hunches; but we'll have to wait for the final chapter, I suppose.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think they have not the sense of
    Ariel's Song.

    Ruf is right, flee from them anyway we can.

    ah, nothing like an early morning piss, and the Dipper.

    risky

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think you were right, Rufus, when you said the Europeans wanted to secure the oil from the Chinese influence.

    Actually, I'm for that.

    What other explanation is there?

    risky

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  7. That's the only one that makes much sense, Bob.

    But, we know that in the Real World that oil is going to go to the highest bidder, no matter who pumps it. (or, at least, we "think" we know this.)

    I think some of it just might be a touch above our pay grade.

    Then again, maybe not.

    Those genii have come up with some pretty stupid ideas from time to time.


    shrugs shoulders

    walks away

    ReplyDelete
  8. I know one thing; having 1.6 Million bbl of oil/day go missing from the World's Markets didn't help many of us very much.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I had the tv on CNBC, yesterday morning, and the volume on Mute, and I'll tell you, it looked to me like everyone was scared to death.

    And, that was before the market really started tanking.

    ReplyDelete
  10. It's like, they can keep the fear out of their voice, but Not out of their eyes.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Mute might be best.

    And Sightlessness, both, even better.

    :)

    risky

    ReplyDelete
  12. The geese always fly around here this time of year, Rufus, one can count on that.

    They get a little drunk on the grain, in the fields, fermenting, and are wonderful to watch.

    Pissless now, I go back to bed.

    Risky

    ReplyDelete
  13. From the ol' BC:

    2. Fletcher Christian: IMHO the condition for moving on, at a minimum, is that their sanctum sanctorum should become a glass-lined hole that glows in the dark.

    Your opinion is so humble, in fact, that it neglects the fact that there are innocent women and children living in apartment buildings and shopping for food right across the street from the very Kaaba that you would nuke. Habu doesn’t care about them, and Pork Rinds for Allah thinks the fireball of a suitcase nuke would be sufficiently small enough to nuke the rock while leaving the nearby agoras and insulas unharmed (which is an erroneous view), but in any event there is the matter of fallout and groundwater contamination.

    There is also the matter of breaking the nuclear taboo that has been intact since Nagasaki. If you execute a policy of nuking a major world city just because fifteen of the nineteen guys who sucker-punched you with boxcutters and smooth lies were from the same country, you lower the threshold dramatically. Accidentally kill 43 women and children with a Predator drone and Pakistan might nuke the US base in Qatar in return.

    And finally there is the example of history: The Jewish temple was destroyed twice, by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC, and Titus in 70 AD. All this did was metastasize Judaism, not destroy it. They simply reinterpreted the mitzvot that pertained to the temple to mean the local synagogues. In the absence of Mecca, Islam would become an underground movement, like Christianity in Pagan Rome or Communist China. The more you control, the more you have to control, and that way lies chaos.

    ReplyDelete
  14. In a controlled test, Annie Duke, a top female poker player, outperformed a polygraph at picking up on lies.

    The voice can be cultivated, but a thousand little involuntary facial tics can't be.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Just always bet on red and even.

    risky

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  16. Risky: But don't expect much from any Arab spring. They are burdened by the koran, and have not the feminine influence of a queen or princess, to take the tension away, nor even any sense of equality between the sexes...

    I beg to differ.

    How a group of teenage believers could reshape the Israeli-Palestinian struggle.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Or, do what I did, and "play, drunk." :)

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hope you are right, anon.

    risky

    ReplyDelete
  19. If such a thing can spring up among the Jewish hardliners, a parallel thing can spring up among the Muslim ones, and that is the only way out for both sides.

    ReplyDelete
  20. a parallel thing can spring up among the Muslim ones

    That is where I disagree.

    They got the koran.

    Enslaved by it.

    risky

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  21. But, one can hope.

    risky

    ReplyDelete
  22. That is where I disagree.

    They got the koran.

    Enslaved by it.


    It's not the book per se that enslaves them, because the Old Testament has the same sort of eye-for-eye crap in it. Kill witches, stone homosexuals. No, it's the attitudes around the book, and that can change.

    ReplyDelete
  23. it aint an arab spring...

    its going to be an arab winter....

    hundreds of millions of islamic nut cases will sweep the few blue jean wide eyed ipod
    modernists" in a flash...

    as for those that think it doesnt concern us?

    nonsense...

    it aint las vegas, what happens in damascus doesnt stay there

    there are "colonies" of arabs across the globe with jihadist populations ranging from 5 - 20 percent of the total.

    that may not SOUND like much?

    but an aggravated and violent minority can and does control the majority, especially when the culture of the people has been TRAINED to be submissive.

    The arab spring is a clusterfuck.

    America by qe1 & qe2 has on purpose devalued the dollar, thus 2x ing the price of fuel and food to the world's poor.

    egypt IMPORTS 60% of it's food. (take one example)

    we have traded strong armed bad guys for strong armed islamists, the same isalmists we are "fighting" in afghanistan.

    America is already having discussions with and FUNDING hezbollah and hamas.

    Doent like funding Israel? Well folks we fund the islamists around the world to the tune of 100 times that amount and not a peep...

    Samuel Huntington called all of this...

    It's a clash of Civilizations and currently America and the West dont seem to care about survival as much as the islamists care to spread islam by the sword.

    Think that this shit is confined to the Middle east?

    LOL

    too fuckin funny....

    Detroit, Newark, Salt lake, New York, Columbus, Toledo, Minneapolis and on and on...

    Arabs, Yemenese, Somolians, Pakistanis, Palestinians and more and more...

    Where ever the fever for the old Mo shows his ugly head?

    You got trouble.

    In America? dont forget the PRISON SYSTEM.....

    Yep there is one solution to TRY...

    Laser, nuke, kidnap the black rock of mecca and shoot it to the moon.

    Killing millions of the islamists WILL NOT WORK, they are ZOMBIES, they do not care about body counts, as they believe that the next life is the better place to be.

    Time to Bury the islamic war dead in pig suits....

    or dont...

    and get used to being a "dhimmi"

    think I am kidding?

    learn from my people's history...

    You know WHY the ARAB hate Israel so much?

    BECAUSE for centuries Jews were forced to be "dhimmi" and now they DARE not BOW their head at the superior "arabs"...

    Arabs supported Hitler during WW@ and NEVER have had to repudiate that relationship.

    Japan and Germany? they SURRENDERED and had to admit defeat and their error of ways...

    Not so for the OIl soaked arab world....

    ReplyDelete
  24. From the BC again:

    Wretchard: We have no right to forgive. We have no right to forget. We have no right to move on until this final condition is met.

    That is why Yeshua of Nazareth called the path to the Banquet of God a very narrow one. It requires something so radical that very few people are able to do it, and none are able to do it on their own merit, only through being open with faith to the gift of God’s grace. Jesus showed us the way when he begged his father to completely forgive the same men, both Jewish and Roman, who nailed him to a tree to slowly die in agony and shame.

    The very blood that the scribes and elders and Pharisees who condemned Jesus swore to “be on our own heads” is the blood that cleanses of all sin.

    The unforgiving spirit of retribution is the default condition of mankind. From the very beginning it has been so. The road of implacable vengeance is an eight lane superhighway, and those who follow it do not attain to the Second Life. And that is actually a mercy. A person like that simply would not belong in eternity with the Prince of Peace and the Author of Life. Such a one would be like a stone smuggled into a nest of living eggs.

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  25. .

    They get a little drunk on the grain, in the fields, fermenting, and are wonderful to watch.



    Reminds me of something I saw the other day.

    Drunken Swedish Elk (?) in Tree

    The story says elk although it looks like a moose to me. Either way, goes to show none of those Swedes can hold their liquor.


    .

    ReplyDelete
  26. "Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property." (Leviticus 25:44-45)

    Books don't change, but theology changes.

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  27. 7. Morton Doodslag: Until we root our the fools, liars, and all the loathsome abettors of Islam, the Muslims will continue to rape our decency, and we will be victims. That too is a huge part of terror’s effectiveness – the presence of Muslims in the West already has robbed us of part of our decency – most of us just don’t know it yet.

    Compare this wisdom to the writings of that other paragon of decency, Martin Luther:

    "I wish and I ask that our rulers who have Jewish subjects exercise a sharp mercy toward these wretched people, as suggested above, to see whether this might not help (though it is doubtful). They must act like a good physician who, when gangrene has set proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone, and marrow. Such a procedure must also be followed in this instance. Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them, as Moses did in the wilderness, slaying three thousand lest the whole people perish."

    Perhaps ol' Martin was shocked by the writings of the Jews, that surely are as harsh in some places as certain parts of the Koran are today.

    "Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property." (Leviticus 25:44-45)

    Books don't change, be they Torahs or Korans or New Testaments. But theology changes. Reformations and Enlightenments intervene.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Sat Sep 10, 10:10:00 AM EDT


    son bitch

    risky :)

    ReplyDelete
  29. .

    It seems apples do more to elk than ending up in trees

    And people complain about wolves. It's obviously the species-baiting by the elks that drive the wolves over the edge.

    Ban the Elk!


    .

    ReplyDelete
  30. It all came from the apple, and
    Eve!

    I'm heading to the store for the paper and hopefully some good news about dead wolves!!

    :)

    risky

    ReplyDelete
  31. The idea that the trouble with Northern Africa, the Middle East and Southwest Asia are driven by modern religions, well ...

    That flies in the face of history.

    Persia, Carthage and Egypt were all in the fight with Europe, well before Jesus was a gleam in his father's eye.

    Well before Mohammed ever rode a goat and before any Israeli tribe was ever lost.

    The Arab States posed only a minor threat to the US flagged shipping in the Med, in the past. If not for the global addiction to their go juice, why, they'd be a minor irritant now, too.

    The solution is not to attempt to manage or change the historical enemy to Europe, but to end the US addiction to THEIR go juice.

    An easy solution, for US, if we choose to pursue it.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Nuke the Kaaba

    Nuke the Dome of the Rock



    Rebuild the Temple
    On the Mount

    ReplyDelete
  33. 16. Annoy mouse: I personally am not encumbered by your conflicting religious mores. I am a Christian by culture, not by faith...

    There is no such thing as a single Christian culture. In the Great Commission, Jesus told his followers to teach the gospel to all nations, peoples, kindreds, and tongues.

    In the gospels, Jesus declares that it is not enough to say "Lord, Lord" and call yourself his follower, unless you do what he commands. And when dealing with people outside of the Church he commands unconditional forgiveness.

    Mark 11:25-26 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.

    For brethren inside the Church there is an escalating procedure whereby grievances are attempted to be worked out one-on-one, then with witnesses, and ultimately by the entire Church. Such internal offenses would require conditional forgiveness.

    18. Josh: Islam is not going to surrender. Is not going to apologize. Some may try to disown the deed, but until and unless the Koran is expurgated, that has no credibility

    The Hebrews pronounced a curse against their enemy Babylon thus:

    Psalms 137:9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

    The New Testament says it was better a man was never born than he should ever harm a child.

    Luke 17:2 It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.

    The Koran has no command to kill infants or toddlers at all. That's progress, I suppose.

    ReplyDelete
  34. A ten year program that would make the Americas energy independent from Arabia and Africa.

    Which when combined with minting the interest upon the debt would leave the United States, in a decade, energy and financially independent.

    Which is, we must admit, the antithesis of the current goal of our governing elites.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Ms. Snorensonn Kills Wolf With Pitchfork

    from the Daily News

    Ideatta Snorensonn was awakened early yesterday by loud noises in her pig sty.

    While her husband Eril Snorensonn snored away, she excited the home and strode manfully towards the sty.

    Where upon she she was confronted with twelve shining eyes in the night light.

    Manfully, she called aloud, by the Order of Thor, begone.

    Only two eyes remaining, she put the pitchfork in the last wolf, and, pulled pig ribs from the mouth of the deceased.

    Eril and Ideatta enjoyed wolf liver for breakfast, it is here reported.

    r

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  36. That is at the core, Ms T, of the attempts to dehumanize the opponent.

    By slander, libel and ad hominem.

    Never admitting to the core value of human equality expressed in the inalienable rights of life, liberty and pursuit of property.

    ReplyDelete
  37. And so this brings me to a serious question about capitalism, consumption and economics and culture.

    Why is it that the farmers no longer have swine around?

    It's not the economics.

    It is much easier and cheaper to feed and slaughter your own swine.

    But disgusting.

    Proving Marx entirely wrong.

    Economics don't rule, culture does.

    Allah Bless The Feed Lots

    risky

    ReplyDelete
  38. Never admitting to the core value of human equality expressed in the inalienable rights of life, liberty and pursuit of property.

    Like the folks in
    Gaza.

    Give it up, Rat, no one, but no one, takes you seriously anymore.

    risky

    ReplyDelete
  39. And why don't you leave your occupied Arizona??????

    Your occupied Phoenix?????

    Moral paragon that you are?????

    risky

    ReplyDelete
  40. Damn the Jews, he thinks, as he drives to Shopco in Occupied Arizona, in Occupied Phoenix.

    risky

    ReplyDelete
  41. The people in Gaza have been exploited by politicos, internationally and in the Levant for over 40 years.

    That they have become unreasonable, being denied their inalienable rights for generations, understandable.

    But of no concern to the national interests of the United States of America.

    America is not Arabia.
    I do know, though, that your data sets always been geographically challenged.

    Even before you relapsed.

    ReplyDelete
  42. I meet your Jewish lawyer there, for coffee, boobie.

    Then we cruise by Sarah's for a little jerky.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Damn the Jews, he thinks, as he drives to Shopco in Occupied Arizona, in Occupied Phoenix.

    That's kind of how the Original Inhabitants of North America felt, round about 1492.

    ReplyDelete
  44. All boob's heroes, they've moved to Arizona. Envy is evident.

    ReplyDelete
  45. boob is always categorizing his friends, associates and fellow travelers by their race, religion and ethnic origin.

    Quite Un-American, that.

    Going to have him up before The House Committee on Un-American Activities.

    Oh, wait, we decided that The House Committee on Un-American Activities, was Un-American.

    Funny how things change.

    ReplyDelete
  46. rat is frustrated, as usual....

    You can always tell, in the name calling....


    Take thyself back to Italy, from your Occupied Arizona, from your Occupied Phoenix.

    risky

    (the noble horses don't know where they came from, and don't care)

    ReplyDelete
  47. boob is always categorizing his friends, associates and fellow travelers by their race, religion and ethnic origin.

    Which is of course what I have never ever done.


    No one reads, much less cares, about your shit no more, rat.

    risky

    ReplyDelete
  48. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Really, rat, what right from
    God (G-D) have you to squat there in your Occupied Phoenix???

    That is my question.

    ?????

    Answer, please.

    What Right?????????????????

    risky

    ReplyDelete
  50. You're a Swede, boob.

    A Lutheran that believes good Catholics visit cat houses.

    Your Jewish lawyer, believed in you and loaned you money, when all others deserted you. Because of that, Jews are to be considered God sent.

    You think abortion is bad, except in the case of Blacks.

    Of course you care, or you'd stop responding. If you thought no one else read it, you'd not respond.

    Which, while you often promise to do that, you continually fail to perform.

    Proving that you care, deeply, and most everyone reads the posts, because they're succinct.

    Then both you and Story cut & paste them into the thread again, time after time.

    That's Entertainment!

    ReplyDelete
  51. By the rights provided by the United States of America, boob.

    Obvious, to one and all.

    Do you claim the United States of America to be an illegitimate Nation-State?

    ReplyDelete
  52. Did not answer my question.

    Just more vile.

    You stink, like a dead rat.

    What the hell are you doing in Occupied Phoenix???????

    Why are you there???????????

    ANSWER

    risky

    ReplyDelete
  53. Cause you made up some winners rights??????

    Tell me.

    Anyone can write a Constitution.

    And some assholes think it is a blank check to kill.

    So tell me asshole, what gives you the right to squat in Occupied Arizona, in Occupied Phoenix?????

    TELL ME

    You piece of Italian shit.

    risky

    ReplyDelete
  54. You ask by what right, boobie.

    Why?

    It's nicer than either New York or Pennsylvania

    Winters are mellow

    We demand that Jews and Muslims be integrated at our shopping malls

    ReplyDelete
  55. You certainly do seem to care, boob.

    I've never been to Italy.

    So, certainly I am not Italian.

    Were you born in Sweden?

    Why do you so hate the US?
    So much so that you deny yout US nationalism after being born here. Claiming your national home to be Sweden, instead?

    ReplyDelete
  56. Even after the people of the United States land granted that farm to your family, it pains you to admit Federal welfare made you property poor.

    ReplyDelete
  57. Leave Asshole, if you are moral

    We demand that Jews and Muslims be integrated at our shopping malls

    heh

    As they are in Israel.

    By the way, they aren't your shopping malls

    You shit head had nothing to do with the building of the country, other than taking some orders from some corp that did shit for Unca Sam.

    As you have admitted.

    GO BACK TO ITALY

    risky

    ReplyDelete
  58. Only a selfish soul would think that returning 15% of the capital gain on the sale of a Federal welfare land grant to be an excessive tax on inflation.

    Without the Federal grant, there would have been no asset which could have been inflated.

    A post sale 15% fee, considered to high a price to pay, for the property granted by the Federals to private ownership, without cost but the occupation of the land, for a limited time.

    ReplyDelete
  59. :):):):)
    Sweden?????

    Of course I've never done that.


    The Idaho back country is better.

    Why o why are you here rathole, being so o so much against OCCUPATION as you are

    ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

    ?

    risky

    ReplyDelete
  60. Leave?
    Me?

    You must have relapsed further than previously indicated.

    I'll not leave.

    Not today, nor on the 'morow.

    ReplyDelete
  61. You're not Swedish, now, aye?

    Find a professional diagnostician.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Damn, Satidy Night starts early in Ideehoe, don't it?

    ReplyDelete
  63. The Story is a pornographer that advocates for mass murder, for a religious cause.

    While attempting to dehumanize over a billion souls.

    He excuses Israel of all excess, often when no excuse is viable.
    Sometimes the Israeli government is guilty of immorality, even criminality.

    As are most all governments.
    That Story's primary loyalty is not to the United States, while he enjoys the fruit of her bounty, part of the cause, tambien.

    ReplyDelete
  64. That and he is just plain rude, who seems to thinks he can be a bully.

    ReplyDelete
  65. desert rat said...
    The Story is a pornographer that advocates for mass murder, for a religious cause.

    While attempting to dehumanize over a billion souls.

    He excuses Israel of all excess, often when no excuse is viable.
    Sometimes the Israeli government is guilty of immorality, even criminality.

    As are most all governments.
    That Story's primary loyalty is not to the United States, while he enjoys the fruit of her bounty, part of the cause, tambien.



    This coming from someone who never stops calling names, libeling people and doing exactly what he claims others do...

    Rules for Radicals....

    rat is what is...

    an antisemite, jew hater, and israel and zionism hater..

    if you notice his schtick is always the same, blame others for exactly what he does....

    there is no argument with him. there is no point.

    just recognize what he is and understand pure soulless evil when you see it...

    do not argue with it...

    rat is not worth the spit...

    ReplyDelete
  66. Rat in a Hat both desert rat and designer rat like their hats, are italian, don't like israel and like......



    pizza??

    ReplyDelete
  67. I'd follow the advise of the Jew, Alinsky, all day long.

    So much for me being labeled anti-Juda.

    Story of "o" is another that claims not to care, but always cuts and pastes the words.

    His postings, not often succinct.

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  68. I enjoy Alinsky's use of humor, one of his finer points.

    I'll certainly admit to challenges the US has faced and surmounted.
    I'll also admit to those challenges we face, while still avoiding the climb.

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  69. But Islam, is not a challenge to the United States.

    Not at all.

    Every modern President has told US so.

    States that sponsor terror, or commit it themselves, there is the challenge of this current century.

    The Islamic States are in turmoil, they are not sponsoring anyone.

    Whether by accident or design, that turmoil is a good thing, in the historical viewpoint.

    There is no Islamic Army in the West, non outside their Arc of Influence.

    There are Western Armies in the Islamic Arc.

    Western commercialism saturates their societies, to varied degrees, bringing cultural change along with it.

    Little wonder than that the Fundamentalists are outraged.

    Often to the point of violence and property damaged.

    They are getting their ass kicked, daily.
    Across the board.

    Even the most wealthy of Sheikdoms are using military force to remain in power, exemplified in Bahrain.

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  70. The case of Colonel Q stands as the prime example of the level of security success the "West" has attained.

    It was within memory that the Colonel sponsored terror bombings across the length and breadth of Europe. Often targeting US citizens.

    Now, with his regime under NATO assault for months upon end, there was not one reported terror attack in Europe in that time frame.

    Save the Christian shooter in Norway.

    He certainly not sponsored by the Colonel, nor any other Islamic State.

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  71. With NATO troops in Afghanistan for almost a decade, there have been very few counter strikes, in Europe.

    Some bombings in England and Spain, years ago, with minimal casualties. Nothing of note, lately.

    If it is a "War" then by any standard the West is certainly not falling.

    Arabia is.

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  72. And we can seal the deal by moving away from the central banks and oligarchy of energy, towards a financially balanced Federal government and homegrown energy from the Americas.

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  73. Great analysis from someone who understands the mindset. Should be required reading for all the liberal idealists writing crap about the "Arab Spring", or as I like to call it, the "Arab Fall".
    ------------------

    Now, I am going to tell you the truth about the so-called "Arab Spring," and about the Middle East generally right now.

    First, the "Arab Spring" as a force for democracy, human rights and peace in Egypt seems to me to be a fraud.

    The dictator and his entourage who were kicked out in Egypt were pro-West, a bit restrained on Israel, open to free enterprise, and resistant to Iranian-sponsored terror.

    Egypt is now rapidly becoming anti-Israel, pro-Iran, pro the Iranian-sponsored terrorist group Hamas, and very far from being pro-human rights. They are arresting businessmen right and left in Egypt just for the crime of being successful. They have arrested Mubarak's sons, and have said they plan to try Mubarak.

    The most potent of the political forces in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, hates the United States, loathes Israel, condemns the killing of bin Laden (whom they praised as a martyr), and have been wedded to terror for their entire existence.

    Oh, P.S, they are closely connected with Adolph Hitler.

    They will probably take over Egypt completely sooner or later.

    As the terrorist government of Syria cracks down on its own people, the U.N. Security Council does exactly nothing about it.

    Has anyone noticed that the common denominator of all the successful Arab street movements is that they are sympathetic to Iran? When the dust settles, Iran is going to own the Middle East - except for maybe Saudi Arabia, if we have the guts to help them (which I very much doubt).

    We are going to lose our pals in Bahrain - not nice guys, but pals of the U.S.A. anyway - and we are going to lose our pals in Yemen, and it will possibly have an actual al Qaeda government.

    There is a gigantic regional coup by Iran taking place. We are doing very little, if anything, to stop it.

    We are going to regret helping the Egyptians kick out Mubarak as much as we regret helping Khomeini force out the Shah.

    You can call it "Arab Spring" if you want. But with Iran now the regional superpower, it is a lot more like an extremely bleak Mideast winter.

    You heard it here first.

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  74. Today, mild shvitzing.

    Tomorrow, so hot you'll plotz.

    Five-day forecast - feh

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  75. desert rat said...

    Only a selfish soul would think that returning 15% of the capital gain on the sale of a Federal welfare land grant to be an excessive tax on inflation.

    Without the Federal grant, there would have been no asset which could have been inflated.

    A post sale 15% fee, considered to high a price to pay, for the property granted by the Federals to private ownership, without cost but the occupation of the land, for a limited time.

    Sat Sep 10, 02:01:00 PM EDT



    I just laugh my ass off at this non sense, neither does it fit my case, nor come anywhere close to describing my condition, nor what I and my ancestors did to get what I am glad I've got, nor is it even closely correct about tax bracket.



    Rat, you are going to have a heart attack - I've seen this happen, was preached about in our church one Sunday - you are going to have a heart attack if you keep on hating.

    By the way, I BOUGHT my little farm from my aunt over 25 YEARS.

    Look to her tax returns!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    risky alibi

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  76. rat, you have convinced me to apply for the Centennial Farm category here in Ideeehooo.

    Name on the plaque, and special license plate.

    That is a farm that has been farmed by the same blood line/marriage line for one hundred (100) years.

    My group is now into it for around 130.

    And my kids are getting it now.

    Before that, nothing.

    Not even digging sticks, like on the Camus Prairie.

    What did my ancestors do? Farmed, and helped build the law school.

    risky

    (rat is a shit head, if you didn't know already)

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  77. rat - A professional slanderer, just like Allen.

    Same M.O., same wicked outlook.

    risky

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  78. rat - (kindly, gently, with the best of intentions) -- you need to be taking an anti-depressant like maybe citalopram (sp?) or something.

    Really, it might help

    I have a friend that is on it, lifted her mood remarkably.

    risky

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  79. Same goes for
    Allen.

    risky

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  80. It's the hormones, or the seratonin level or something, it might just help.

    risky

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  81. I posted this at Robert Rapier's Blog. I'm going to repost it here:


    The amazing thing is that Germany is getting 3.5% of its electricity from Solar. Berlin at 52 N latitude is just a touch North of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, at 51 Degrees North.

    Wait till Des Moines, Iowa (about the same latitude as Rome, Italy at 41 Degrees N finds out that in addition to getting 20% (aiming at 30%) of their electricity from Wind, they can install Solar Farms for the projected $2.00/Watt (and, soon thereafter, probably less.)

    Then you have Texas, with an amazing Wind Resource, and a Monstrous Sun Resource. And, even a, soon to be developed, Huge "Offshore Wind" Resource.

    Even Oklahoma is catching on, as well as Kansas, and Arizon/Colorado, New Mexico. Memphis is the same latitude as the Mojave Desert.

    Tourists at the New Jersey Casinos are requesting rooms with a view of the Wind Turbines.

    It's the 21st Century, folks. Don't get caught in 20th Century thinking.

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  82. “I’m going to go for the cockpit,” Sasseville said.

    She replied without hesitating.

    “I’ll take the tail.”

    It was a plan. And a pact.

    ‘Let’s go!’

    Penney had never scrambled a jet before. Normally the pre-flight is a half-hour or so of methodical checks. She automatically started going down the list.

    “Lucky, what are you doing? Get your butt up there and let’s go!” Sasseville shouted.

    She climbed in, rushed to power up the engines, screamed for her ground crew to pull the chocks. The crew chief still had his headphones plugged into the fuselage as she nudged the throttle forward. He ran along pulling safety pins from the jet as it moved forward.

    She muttered a fighter pilot’s prayer — “God, don’t let me [expletive] up” — and followed Sasse­ville into the sky.

    They screamed over the smoldering Pentagon, heading northwest at more than 400 mph, flying low and scanning the clear horizon. Her commander had time to think about the best place to hit the enemy.

    “We don’t train to bring down airliners,” said Sasseville, now stationed at the Pentagon. “If you just hit the engine, it could still glide and you could guide it to a target. My thought was the cockpit or the wing.”

    He also thought about his ejection seat. Would there be an instant just before impact?

    “I was hoping to do both at the same time,” he says. “It probably wasn’t going to work, but that’s what I was hoping.”

    Penney worried about missing the target if she tried to bail out.

    “If you eject and your jet soars through without impact . . .” she trails off, the thought of failing more dreadful than the thought of dying.

    But she didn’t have to die. She didn’t have to knock down an airliner full of kids and salesmen and girlfriends. They did that themselves.

    It would be hours before Penney and Sasseville learned that United 93 had already gone down in Pennsylvania, an insurrection by hostages willing to do just what the two Guard pilots had been willing to do: Anything. And everything.

    “The real heroes are the passengers on Flight 93 who were willing to sacrifice themselves,” Penney says. “I was just an accidental witness to history.”

    She and Sasseville flew the rest of the day, clearing the airspace, escorting the president, looking down onto a city that would soon be sending them to war.

    She’s a single mom of two girls now. She still loves to fly. And she still thinks often of that extraordinary ride down the runway a decade ago.

    “I genuinely believed that was going to be the last time I took off,” she says. “If we did it right, this would be it.”

    Where do we find them?

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  83. For all their myriad faults, the governments of Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein were not medieval islamic theocracies, such as is Iran. They were at least the devil that we knew. When these dictatorships are disbanded they might then become, as did Iran, anti West theocracies and the lot of their people, christians, jews and women will be appreciably worse than the status quo.

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  84. Fin has it right.

    The idea that the 'enlightenment' is coming to the mo's is off the wall

    "Be carefull what you wish for, you might get it."

    r

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  85. doesnt sound like soccer players.


    “Egypt is not going toward democracy but toward Islamicization,” said Eli Shaked, a former Israeli ambassador to Cairo who reflected the government’s view. “It is the same in Turkey and in Gaza. It is just like what happened in Iran in 1979.”

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  86. Egypt's had it. Their oil is running out, and if they start screwing up we'll quit sending them their monthly stipend.

    Whataya wanta bet that every one of those American M1-A1 Tanks doesn't have a "kill switch" somewhere in the computer?

    Remember how the Syrian Radars all "shut down" when their nuke plant got "no-mored?"

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  87. And, how all Pakistani electronics in the region went dead during the Bin Dead raid?

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  88. rufus: Remember how the Syrian Radars all "shut down" when their nuke plant got "no-mored?"


    ah yes, when Israel, against the bush admin, did what it had to do against the axis of evil's syrian connection...

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  89. but now B Hussein is president..

    and hates Israel and loves the arab world...

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  90. it wasnt soccer players, but rather rat's relatives...

    a hoard of 40,000 islamic vultures...



    Some 40,000 rioters sack Israeli embassy
    In first new disclosures on the storming of Israel's Cairo embassy which started Friday night, Sept. 9, DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources reveal that the mob was led by the terrorist Jama'a al-Islamiya, the Egyptian founding branch of Al Qaeda, and two other radical Egyptian Islamist groups.
    The February 1993 car bombing of the World Trade Center of New York, which was the forerunner of the Sept. 11, 2001 atrocities, was an early Jama'a operation under the al Qaeda label.
    Closely linked to Osama bin Laden's successor, Ayman al Zawahri, Jama'a al-Islamiya is now running for election in post-Mubarak Egypt.
    Its mentor is the "blind sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman, who is serving a life sentence for masterminding the first World Trade Center bombing. Jama'a adherents stormed the Israeli embassy Friday night along with activists of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Students April 6 Movement.
    DEBKAfile's intelligence sources also reveal that Egyptian security forces delayed for eight hours before tackling the mob smashing into the embassy building and rampaging inside – even after US Ambassador Anne Patterson interceded on behalf of the six Israel security officers barricaded in the embassy's security room as the rabble battered on its steel door.
    She acted to save their lives on direct orders from President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after Ambassador Yitzhak Levanon and 80 members of staff and families had been collected from their homes and lifted out of Egypt by two Israeli military planes.
    The Egyptian authorities only tackled the mob when violent groups broke into police headquarters in the upscale Giza district, stripped the gunroom and shared the weapons among themselves before returning to the street. Before that, the local police stood by and watched them sacking and burning the embassy without moving.
    Scared of the rioters, the Egyptian commandos ordered to rescue the six Israelis under threat of lynch, discarded their uniforms and mingled with the crowd. When they reached the locked room, they were unable to open the steel door. The head of Egyptian unit had to find the Israeli Shin Bet director Yoram Cohen, who was in urgent conference with Israel's national leaders in the situation room, to obtain the code.
    They then dressed the six Israelis like typical Egyptians and hustled them to safety past a throng of 40,000 howling for Israeli blood.


    Maybe it's time to start shooting these thugs?

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  91. He won't be Pres for long.

    His days is numbered.

    He is finished.

    Blessed Be Allah.

    risky

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  92. The point is: whoever threw the switch on the Syrian Radars (most likely, the Israelis, themselves) will also have the keys to the Egyptian tanks.

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  93. You know, the ones that wrote the viral present for the Iranian nukes?

    You worry too much.

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  94. Don't bet on it, Bob. The Bully Pulpit is powerful.

    He outdrew the Green Bay Packers, and the New Orleans Saints thursday night.

    He can (should) be beaten; but it's not a foregone conclusion. Incumbents win a lot of races they "should" lose.

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  95. Rufus II said...
    You know, the ones that wrote the viral present for the Iranian nukes?

    You worry too much.


    the germans?

    ReplyDelete
  96. Muslims, Arabs and indeed many around the globe believe Israel is unjustly occupying Palestinian territories, and they are furious at Israel for it. And although some Israelis pointed fingers at Islamicization as the cause of the violence, Egyptians noted Saturday that Islamist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, distanced themselves from Friday’s protests and did not attend, while legions of secular-minded soccer fans were at the forefront of the embassy attacks.

    “The world is tired of this conflict and angry at us because we are viewed as conquerors, ruling over another people,” said Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a Labor Party member of Parliament and a former defense minister. “If I were Bibi Netanyahu, I would recognize a Palestinian state. We would then negotiate borders and security. Instead nothing is happening. We are left with one ally, America, and that relationship is strained, too.”


    Benjamin Netanyahu is “ungrateful” offering America little in return for many favors. The New York Times has run a story on an FBI Hebrew translator who was jailed for leaking information gleaned by American espionage about Israeli efforts to influence the American political system. There was a saying among American spies operating in Moscow that “once is an accident, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.” Given the sensitivity and care with which America manages its relationship with the Levantine power, we can likely lower our standards of evidence–this is a coordinated, deliberate action.

    The Obama administration has taken great measures to guarantee Israel’s security — access to top- quality weapons, assistance developing missile-defense systems and high-level intelligence sharing The U.S. has received nothing in return, particularly with regard to the peace process.

    Netanyahu is not only ungrateful, but also endangeringIsrael by refusing to grapple with Israel’s growing isolation.

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  97. Some here simply do not get it. They are in total denial about all the US has done for Israel. Some here do not recognize that there has been a change and people are sick and tired of Israeli intransigence. As usual the American zionists are more to the right than the Israelis themselves. This will not end well for Israel. Keep the screed. Cat and paste, No one reads it anyway.

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