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• At TLD we always do our best to reinforce the mood, no doubt familiar to you by now, of waking nightmare. Thus, this dispatch by Rowan Philp at the Times of London: "Immigration sparks white exodus from UK." To me, the single most nightmarish detail was the revelation that London's "immigrant" (i.e., colored alien) population is already at
40 percent! (I hope I am misreading a carelessly crafted phrase, and that Philp meant to write "will jump 40% to 60% in just 12 years" instead of "will jump from 40% to 60% in just 12 years.")Ronn Neff, for his part, wonders where in the world all the fleeing whites will go. And he asks, "What will they do when they get there?"
December 1, 2006
• Meanwhile, here at home, the AP's Kasie Hunt has this charming news to pass along: "1 in 32 Americans in jails, on parole."
December 1, 2006
• At Asia Times, Jim Lobe and Michael Flynn take on "The rise and decline of the neo-cons."
Here's what we old journalistas call the "nut 'graf":
This essay examines the rise and decline of the neo-conservatives and their post-Cold War agenda. We conclude that although the neo-conservatives and their allied aggressive nationalists, such as Vice President Dick Cheney, retain sufficient weight to hamper efforts to push through major reversals in U.S. foreign policy, the increasing isolation of this political faction coupled with recent political events in the United States point to the potential emergence of a more cautious, realist-inspired agenda during the final two years of the Bush presidency.December 1, 2006
• William L. Anderson's latest commentary on the rape-accusation scandal at Duke University starts this way:
Over the past four years, I have written (or co-written with Candice E. Jackson) a number of articles dealing with the dishonesty of prosecutors in this country. The Duke Non-Rape case, as I see it, is a logical extension to a pattern that is so egregious that all we can do now is damage control. Justice pretty much is dead in the United States."Post-Modern Prosecutions" is posted at the Rockwell site. Here's another relevant posting by Anderson at Rockwell, from mid October: "Duke and Deceit: Brodhead's Folly."
December 1, 2006
• Without meaning to turn TLD into the Rockwell Referral Service, I've got to alert you to another strong piece at that site, "America's Temple to Political Plunder," by Thomas J. DiLorenzo. If you thought that DiLorenzo was going to stop writing about America's Great Satan any time soon, you were happily mistaken. And that's not all. This essay also features powerful and condign ridicule of Bill Moyers and the infantile liberalism he represents.
December 1, 2006
• I highly recommend this big, protein-rich essay by Roderick T. Long, posted at Mises: "What Empire Does to a Culture."
Surveying history, Long furnishes a clear perspective for lovers of freedom and justice who get a little uncomfortable reading accounts of Roman law and order versus barbarian chaos. And surveying current imperial behavior, he reminds us that "the problem with imposing liberal values by means of military force is that it tends to associate liberal values in the minds of the population with invasion and oppression. One is unlikely to be won over to the cause of women's rights when those preaching on behalf of that cause have stolen your farm, shot your brother, and blown your children's hands off with a land mine...."
November 22, 2006
• A little while ago I referred to a class of newspaper headline that called for a macro so that the copy-editor wouldn't have to type it over and over again. This certainly qualifies: "Schools Slow in Closing Gaps between Races." Sound familiar? The piece, by Sam Dillon, is at the New York Times.
Dillon writes: "Despite concerted efforts by educators, the test-score gaps are so large that, on average, African-American and Hispanic students in high school can read and do arithmetic at only the average level of whites in junior high school." It appears that the System's officials are still engaging in the same old wheel-spinning in an effort to solve the mystery of the racial gap. The racial realist who tipped me to the story commented, "No spokesperson for a more parsimonious explanation ... is cited in the article." Naturally.
November 22, 2006
• Ronn Neff and I recently found ourselves talking about the Zebra killings, a spate of serial murders in the 1970s that for some reason never really made it all the way onto my radar. Neff reminded me why that was, and if you're in the same state of amnesia as I, this commentary by R.J. Elliott at Blog Critics, posted in 2005, should serve to remind you: "The Zebra Killings: A Forgotten Hate Crime."
November 22, 2006
• While we're on the subject of reminders, here's a piece at TheDenverChannel.com that will remind all of us that the totalitarian mentality isn't found just among those who hold formal political power: "HOA Rule Forbids Couple To Smoke in Their Own Home: Judge Upholds Homeowners' Association Order." I'm pretty sure condo-dwellers will require no such reminder, but even they might find this story interesting, if only as a warning about what else they may have to put up with.
November 22, 2006
• From across the water comes this dispatch by BBC News: "Christians threaten legal action." It begins: "Exeter University's Guild of Students says the Christian Union ... is not open to all — because members must sign a form saying they follow Christ." My response to the fellow who sent me the link was, "Christians?! In England?!"
November 22, 2006
• More on MacDonald. In the
November 14 update I included a link to a piece about the inquisition against ethnic researcher and analyst Kevin MacDonald (see below). Thanks to a tip from a friend of TLD, I can now alert you to MacDonald's comments on the developing assault: "Heidi Does Long Beach: The SPLC vs. Academic Freedom." They're posted at VDare.I offer two comments of my own. First, this particular kind of attack on free expression doesn't depend overmuch on government power, even though MacDonald is a California government employee and leviathan smiles kindly on the SPLC. It depends much more on the existence of a critical mass of terrified white Westerners who, at the mere approach of the unofficial Thought Police, can be relied upon to hop into the tall grass and shiver there like the contemptible little rabbits they are, leaving more leonine Westerners to be slaughtered at will by the enemies of civilization.
Second, white Westerners who wish to express themselves freely in our darkening time must take more care in establishing the material basis of their existence. At the moment I'm not criticizing dissidents for going to work for government entities and other entities under the thumb of the ruling class; I'm just delivering a pretty obvious warning. If you don't want to get hit by a train, it's probably not a good idea to keep standing on the tracks.
November 15, 2006
• Kaput. This news may not come as that much of a surprise to those who have been monitoring the Western demographic implosion, but it is interesting that a European government is now officially recognizing the catastrophe: "German Population Plunge 'Irreversible,' Federal Stats Office Admits," by Gudrun Schultz. Subtitle: "Expected that one third of all European children will be born to Muslim families by 2025." How soon will it be, one may wonder, until the welfare states of Europe just collapse? The onrushing Muslims certainly won't want to support old, sick, or needy Europeans! This posting is at LifeSiteNews.com.
November 14, 2006
• If Arnaud de Borchgrave can be trusted, this report by him at the Washington Times is just amazing: "No cakewalk in the park?" The neocons, undaunted, are still pressing for a bombing campaign against Iran. Richard Perle seems to be the goblin who has come up with the latest "cakewalk" fantasy, which he, of course, cannot himself believe. Make sure to catch Borchgrave's last two paragraphs.
November 14, 2006
• Vaporize crimethinker doublespeedwise. Kevin MacDonald, author of A People That Shall Dwell Alone, Separation and Its Discontents, and The Culture of Critique, is coming under new attack, this time by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and it's plain that they're aiming to get him in trouble with his employer, Cal State Long Beach: "Civil rights group investigates professor," by MaryJane O'Brien. "Civil rights" group: isn't that priceless? This posting is at the Daily 49er.
November 14, 2006
• The left-wing site Alternet has posted an excerpt from Patrick Cockburn's The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq (Verso, 2006): "Iraq: 'The Greatest Strategic Disaster in American History.'" Cockburn's account of U.S. failure is persuasive (and informative), though he doesn't mention the men and the country for whom Bush's adventure has been a success.
November 4, 2006
• Now, this NYT dispatch by Ian Urbina, excerpted at American Renaissance, is just hilarious: "Democrats Fear Disillusionment in Black Voters." As you'll see, amid all their exhibitionistic wailing and whining the Red Guards may have shot themselves in the foot. (The NYT's own posting has now subsided into the pay archives, but here's where to head if you're interested in ponying up for the full text.)
November 4, 2006
• As far as I'm concerned, there's just no such thing as too much savaging of America's Great Satan, and there won't be as long as almost all my countrymen continue to regard him as our political Christ. That said, here's Tom DiLorenzo's latest assault, posted at the Rockwell site: "Lincoln Unmasked." DiLorenzo is the author of The Real Lincoln and the recently published Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know about Dishonest Abe.
November 4, 2006
• At Power and Interest News Report, Julian Madsen updates us on what the world's rising empire is up to in a region of special interest to the world's declining empire: "China's Policy in the Gulf Region: From Neglect to Necessity."
A related piece from September 2005: "The Modernization of the Chinese Navy," by Giuseppe Anzera.November 4, 2006
• I first heard of the comic character "Borat" — a make-believe Kazakh — only about a week ago, but I needed no more than ten seconds' exposure to his ruthless Muslim-satirizing schtick to make an informed guess about his actual ethnicity. The Muslim-hating, crypto-named Andrew Dice Clay (born Andrew Clay Silverstein) misled me once; I didn't intend to be misled again about the agenda of one of these funnymen. In any case, here's an admiring account of "Borat" by Steven Rosen at JewishJournal.com: "If Borat has offended ... then he's done his job."
November 4, 2006
• Once the divorce epidemic had ravaged the American family, it was only a matter of time, and now the time has come: "For first time, unmarried households reign in U.S.," by Maxim Kniazkov of Agence France Presse.
October 25, 2006
• In a dispatch from France, Charles Bremner of the London Times attempts to explain "Why 112 cars are burning every day." Subtitle: "A year after the Paris riots violence and despair continue to grip the immigrant suburbs."
The answer, basically, seems to be "no jobs." No doubt the actual French population of France will be enchanted to learn that young Muslims don't like living on the dole, despite all the opportunities it offers for recreational arson.
October 25, 2006
• Meanwhile, one EU outfit has officially recognized Europe's ongoing demographic implosion, as well as some other gloomy developments, according to this report at EUbusiness: "European Defence Agency paints grim picture of future."
October 25, 2006
• The good Anthony Gregory has a valuable piece at the Rockwell site — one that addresses a theme that I've often hammered away at, namely, the crucial distinction between the country and the nation-state: "On Loving the Country."
Gregory doesn't perfectly observe the distinction between America the Beautiful and the hideous United State — but then the distinction is inherently imperfect. There are important aspects of America herself, and of Americans, that aren't so beautiful. How could it be otherwise, since she, and they, birthed the United State?
October 25, 2006
What all is going on here, do you suppose?
"L'Affaire Judt Rattles ADL; High-Brows Snub Foxman," by Larry Cohler-Esses of the Jewish WeekOne thing I suppose is that we need to guard against rash optimism. Still, it is good to know that at the moment it may not be fatal for New York "high-brows" to offend the ADL.
October 25, 2006
• Those 655,000 Iraqi deaths that are said to have resulted so far from Bush's Iraq adventure have provoked this powerful essay by Paul Craig Roberts, posted at CounterPunch: "Can We Call It Genocide Now?" I had already heard about the 655,000 figure, naturally, but I was shocked at Roberts's report of the number of Americans who have "served" in the current war and the number of those who are receiving disability payments as a result. Roberts is a former cabinet minister and a believer in the state, so we must not be too disappointed to see him ask, either naively or disingenuously, "What kind of government would destroy the lives through death or disability of over one million people for no valid reason?" My answer, informed by a little reading of history, is: "The government kind of government!"
October 19, 2006
• According to this Financial Times dispatch, Prof. Robert Putnam, "one of the world's most influential political scientists," has come up with results obnoxious to him and all other anti-Western people-mixers: "Harvard study paints bleak picture of ethnic diversity." A sample: "His research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone — from their next-door neighbor to the mayor." That business about distrusting the mayor is the saving grace here, of course. But see what you think of Putnam's proposed "solution," quoted in the final paragraph.
October 19, 2006
• At Power and Interest News Report, Dr. Harsh V. Pant offers a calm and sober account of "The Demise of the Global Arms Control Regime." A taste: "For long, major powers have deftly used various arms-control provisions to constrain the strategic autonomy of other states in the international system. India's nuclear tests were the first direct challenge to the great powers, and the result has been a complete overhaul of the international security environment."
October 19, 2006
• We should not overinterpret these survey results, but they're probably worth knowing: "Poll: Forty percent of American voters believe the Israel Lobby has been a key factor in going to war in Iraq and now confronting Iran." The brief report appears at the Council for the National Interest Foundation, which commissioned the Zogby organization to conduct the poll. As an example of overinterpretation I cite this, from the Council's report: "A significant number of Americans are wary of the power of the Israel lobby." Awareness is not the same thing as wariness.
October 19, 2006
• This report, too, is interesting but vulnerable to overinterpretation: "Pentagon Monitoring Peace Activists' E-Mails," by Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive. The piece is posted at AlterNet. It appears that the police spies are deriving their intelligence not by satellite snooping or other arcane methods but merely by asking to be placed on various mailing lists. That's still disturbing, of course, however old-school it may be.
October 19, 2006
• Further out on the technological frontier is the spying campaign described by Chris Floyd in this piece at the Rockwell site: "Academia Signs Up to Track Down Dissent." This enormity is being perpetrated not by the War Ministry but by Homeland Security. Those who are old enough may remember that, several decades ago, not just students but also many professors and even university administrations rose in revolt against the security and war-crime apparatus run by Lyndon B. Satan. The climate is a little different today.
October 19, 2006
• At the Washington Times, the honorable leftist Nat Hentoff, indefatigable defender of those liberties known as "civil," trenchantly criticizes the "Habeas corpus sellout."
October 11, 2006
• I don't know whether to take this seriously or not. I'm hoping it's just a blip: "More U.S. Hispanics drawn to Islam," by Amy Green at the Christian Science Monitor. Subtitle: "Marriage, post-9/11 curiosity, and a shared interest in issues such as immigration are key reasons."
Our senior editor says, "I don't get it. If Ferdinand and Isabella were so mean as to deprive these Hispanics (who by the way never lived in Spain) of their Muslim heritage, didn't they also deprive them of their Jewish heritage?
"How come they don't want to become Jews?"
Of course only one answer is possible: anti-Semitism!
October 11, 2006
• Powerless. According to an
October 9 report by Michael Powell at the Washington Post, "Two major American Jewish organizations helped block a prominent New York University historian from speaking at the Polish consulate [in New York] last week, saying the academic was too critical of Israel and American Jewry.""In N.Y., Sparks Fly over Israel Criticism"The historian is Tony Judt, who is both Jewish and a defender of the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis.
October 11, 2006
• Speaking of Mearsheimer and Walt, I find this forceful analysis by Stephen Walt at the Boston Globe: "Misreading the tea leaves: U.S. missteps on foreign policy." Walt begins: "Just when you think that U.S. foreign policy couldn't possibly get worse, the Bush administration manages to take it down another notch."
October 11, 2006
• As the Yankee Colossus staggers and stumbles in Iraq, Iran and China are doing important geopolitical business, according to this piece by Dario Cristiani at Power and Interest News Report: "China and Iran Strengthen Their Bilateral Relationship." An excerpt:
Beijing perceives Tehran as a geopolitical instrument to combat U.S. influence in the Middle East.... Beijing's calls to avoid U.N. sanctions against Tehran's nuclear program and the selling of Chinese weapons and military technology to Iran are two clear examples of the deeper relationship between the two countries.October 11, 2006Moreover, Iran joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as an observer; the organization is largely a Sino-Russian instrument for containing the U.S. presence in Central Asia.
• At the Mises Institute, George Reisman presents a highly useful tour d'horizon celebrating the 125th anniversary of the birth of the genius and champion, Ludwig von Mises: "Mises: Defender of Freedom." If everyone would only meditate for a moment on this insight, many mental clouds would dissipate: "Mises demonstrated that capitalism is an economic system rationally planned by the combined, self-interested efforts of all who participate in it. The failure of socialism, he showed, results from the fact that it represents not economic planning, but the destruction of economic planning, which exists only under capitalism and the price system."
September 29, 2006
• "Jobs for Americans!" Our countrymen manufactured most of these deadly devices, and I've no doubt that some amoral whore in Congress ran for re-election on his success in having them made in his district: "In Lebanon, a War's Lethal Harvest: Threat of Unexploded Bombs Paralyzes the South," by Anthony Shadid at the Washington Post. Nemesis watches; Nemesis remembers.
September 29, 2006
• Department of Hearts and Minds. Also at the Washington Post is this piece by Amit R. Paley, reporting the results of polling by the State Department and independent researchers: "Most Iraqis Favor Immediate U.S. Pullout, Polls Show / Leaders' Views Out of Step with Public." I try to be skeptical of all polling, but sometimes it rings with the deafening clamor of truth, doesn't it?
September 29, 2006
• This August piece is a little old for our purposes here, and it contains some regrettably categorical movie-bashing, but though I've just done my best to do so I hope you won't let me discourage you from taking a look at Tom Fleming's "Mel, Poor Mel," posted at Chronicles. Here's a dangerous nugget: "Most serious Christians, as a matter of preference and conviction, would rather spend time with other Christians. There would be something wrong with them if they did not — much as there is something [wrong] with a husband who prefers to spend time with women other than his wife. It is hard enough for Baptists to tolerate Lutherans and a bit too much to insist that they become matey with Jews who often despise their religion and their way of life."
September 29, 2006
• At Antiwar.com I find this valuable account, by Jon Basil Utley, of some recent analysis: "Why We Can't Win against Guerrillas." I forgive that "We" in the title. (Utley operates Americans against World Empire, an extensive link-site.)
September 29, 2006
• It's time for some more reflections on America's Great Satan and his party, and Clyde Wilson most ably provides them in this speech, the text of which appears at the Rockwell site: "The Republican Charade: Lincoln and His Party." Prof. Wilson examines their antecedents, too. And along the way he declares, accurately, that "the very name of the Republican party is a lie."
September 22, 2006
• At Future of Freedom, Sheldon Richman reminds us that "Marx did not originate class analysis or the idea of class conflict. These things have their roots in radical liberalism, or libertarianism, predating Marx's writings." With the possible exception of J.B. Say, all the writers Richman cites have now sunk into historical obscurity (thanks in part to the larceny and treachery of our socialist friends), but we shouldn't let their tradition continue to slumber.
"Libertarian Class Analysis"September 22, 2006
• Here's a long essay you can really get your intellectual teeth into, posted at Mises: "The Justice and Prudence of War: Toward A Libertarian Analysis," by Roderick Long. He makes it clear early on that "a consistent libertarian theory of warfare must apply the same prohibitions and permissions to governments and private individuals alike. In this respect it will be radically different from nonlibertarian theories, which typically grant government actors more latitude in the use of violence than private actors."
I've always been struck by how difficult that particular insight of libertarianism is for most people. Roy Childs wrote that "government does not consist of men who have powers of epistemological elitism; that is, they have no means of knowledge not available to other men." As he understood, men in government have no powers of moral elitism, either.
September 22, 2006
• What a crazy world. That's about all the commentary I can come up with for this story, found at USA Today: "School gets lesson in 'give and take,'" by Charisse Jones.
September 22, 2006
• Finally someone has knocked down the nonsense on stilts that the Bush regime is trying to sell on the subject of torture. That someone happens to be the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times: "Tortured logic." Last week ABC's "Nightline" aired a graphic demonstration of the "alternate procedure" known as waterboarding, on the same day Bush denied that the empire used torture. The juxtaposition was stunning, and it finally convinced me that the Wee Emperor isn't so much a liar as a man who lives in an entirely separate, and strange, mental world.
September 15, 2006
• At the Rockwell site, Ira Chernus argues that "The Day That Changed Everything Wasn't 9/11." Tom Engelhardt of TomDispatch.com provides an introduction, and the whole package is titled "Cornered Empire and the Legacy of 9/11." Chernus recognizes our rulers' traditional self-interested search for a Great Enemy but at the same time contends that the current gang's "unilateralism and militarism accelerated to near warp speed the decline of U.S. power and influence around the world."
September 15, 2006
• Richard Cohen, a columnist of the consensus world and non-Likudnik, explains "Bin Laden's Victory" in this posting at the Washington Post. While hard-hitting, this account reflects the premise that the Bushites have been seeking to advance U.S. national interests and deduces therefrom that they are incompetent. That is certainly true of Bush himself, and of Rice, and it may be true of Cheney and Rumsfeld; but we have a right to be skeptical about the incompetence of certain other officials who are less America-oriented.
September 15, 2006
• A broader and more radical — even libertarian-tending — account is on offer from Doug Thompson at Capitol Hill Blue: "It's the system, stupid." Even he, though, attributes too much importance to the figure of Bush himself and his personal incompetence.
September 15, 2006
• You needn't agree with all of Max Shpak's analysis of the empire's "Defenders of 'Western Civilization'" to find this essay gripping. Here's an excerpt: "Those who once championed Muslims in the name of 'diversity' now tell us that Muslims are the enemy because they don't respect 'diversity' themselves — in other words, Muslims are evil not because they are alien but because they are too conservative." The piece is at Original Dissent.
September 15, 2006
• Power and Interest News Report offers this pessimistic assessment of the Empire's continuing, and worsening, difficulty in one of its new provincial democracies: "Intelligence Brief: N.A.T.O.'s Troubles in Afghanistan Will Persist."
September 15, 2006
• Paul Harris of The Observer opens his report on the "homeland security" pork-barrel scandal with some not-so-funny comedy from my Hoosier Heimat: "How U.S. merchants of fear sparked a $130bn bonanza."
September 11, 2006
• "Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein rejected pleas for assistance from Osama bin Laden and tried to capture terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi when he was in Iraq, a Senate Intelligence Committee report released [September 8] found, casting further doubt on the Bush administration's rationale for invading Iraq." That's how Warren P. Strobel and Margaret Talev of McClatchy Newspapers begin this dispatch posted at Mercury News: "Senate reports say Saddam rejected cooperating with terrorists." (You may be able to access this only once without setting up an account.)
September 11, 2006
• At his Website, Lew Rockwell pens this worthwhile (though insufficiently radical) attack on the "party of principle" and its latest platform: "The LP's Turkish Delight."
September 11, 2006
• At Alarab Online (quick: call the secret police!), John Mueller asks "Is There Still a Terrorist Threat?" He's talking about a threat to Americans here at home — and he's skeptical. Mueller is a professor of political science at Ohio State.
September 11, 2006
• In his new book Resurgence of the Warfare State: The Crisis since 9/11, Robert Higgs "subjects the 'humanitarian' case for the Iraq War, unfortunately professed by some self-styled libertarians, to withering scrutiny," according to David Gordon in this review at Mises: "Liberty and the Warfare State."
September 5, 2006
• The cognitive vanity of the American imperialists would seem to be on display in this AP story, posted at CNN: "Afghan opium production soars to new high." But that's assuming that this is an unintended consequence and that any of the Bush neocons care.
September 5, 2006
• Our supervisors, and theirs, will detect a certain lack of repentance in the comments of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt on the latest war in Lebanon, as reported by the Chicago Tribune's Frank James: "Two scholars say pro-Israel lobby has warped U.S. policy." This posting is at the Mercury News.
September 5, 2006
• Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Some white Rhodesians are apparently unfamiliar with that rule, according to this story at BBC News: "Zimbabwe 'asks farmers to return.'" You guessed it: some of the expropriated farmers have already applied to be tossed back in the pot. And here I thought American whites were the world's dumbest.
September 5, 2006
• At VDare, Steve Sailer provides one of the very few reviews you'll ever see of a very important book: "Sam Francis' Race and the American Prospect: Thoughtfully Scandalous."
September 5, 2006
• How dare they!? At the New York Times, John Kifner reports on another sickening explosion of anti-Semitism, even worse than Mel Gibson's: "Human Rights Group Accuses Israel of War Crimes."
August 29, 2006
• Those inclined to take the consensus world's scientific pronouncements at face value should put this report from the ultimate consensus wire service in their hat and smoke it: "Ozone-Friendly Chemicals Cause Warming," by John Heilprin of the Associated Press. As for you, well, you may derive a bitter chuckle or two, as I did, at this latest challenge to the omniscience of our statesgods.
August 29, 2006
• Did you know this? I certainly didn't. It's a challenge to another variety of statesgod omniscience — the imperialist kind: "U.S. built major Iranian nuclear facility," by Sam Roe, posted at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. I must say, those chuckles are starting to stick in my throat.
August 29, 2006
• Antiwar.com has posted an eyebrow-raiser by Stephen Zunes, of all people: "How Washington Goaded Israel Into War." Zunes writes of "Washington" without giving us much context about those in that city who purportedly "goaded" Israel, or why they did the goading. I'd better not say anything else, in case a certain other TLD writer wishes to chime in — one who has previously given us an illuminating assessment of the thought of Stephen Zunes.
August 29, 2006
• More worthwhile Liquid-Bomb Revisionism is on offer, this time by James Petras at Dissident Voice: "The Liquid Bomb Hoax: The Larger Implications."
August 29, 2006
• In a posting at Future of Freedom, Jacob G. Hornberger writes of "A Democratic Dictatorship," naming the dictator as none other than George W. Bush. Dictator! But how — our mainstreamer friends would ask — can a ruler be a dictator if he doesn't cancel elections? You already have a pretty good idea, but Hornberger provides us some highly useful chapter and verse, focusing on the domestic-surveillance scandal.
August 29, 2006
• Will Grigg of The New American has a new blog, Pro Libertate, which I recommend to your attention. At the top of the page today are trenchant comments on some Americans who in other circumstances might strike us as ordinarily rational but who are actually state-crazed. Look for "The Madness That Is 'War Patriotism.'"
August 24, 2006
• I expected some revisionism to emerge about the Great Liquid-Bomb Terror Plot, and I was hoping that some of it would be sober and credible. I've found two pieces that qualify:
¶ "Mass murder in the skies: was the plot feasible?" by Thomas C. Greene, posted at The Register.August 24, 2006¶ "Hitting a nerve," by Craig Murray, posted at his own site.
• Whether the latest terror plot was the work of private or state terrorists, people are certainly terrorized. At the Daily Mail I find this report on the air-passenger revolt of
August 20: "Mutiny as passengers refuse to fly until Asians are removed." All properly educated progressives in Britain are reeling in shock, but I find the passengers' revolt (and by the way it's a revolt, by customers, not a "mutiny") to be a benign thing, overall. According to the story, some of the passengers demanded "police action," and that's unfortunate. But others just practiced their freedom of association: by voting with their feet they adopted a completely libertarian tactic for dealing with dodgy aliens in their midst.Voluntary shunning is a critical aspect of social action, but it is illegal for whites in most contexts in most Western countries — when nonwhites are on the receiving end, that is. Widespread shunning would encourage the aliens among us to "dress like Christians," to use a pregnant phrase that was popular during a time of sound Western morale, and it would discourage those unable or unwilling to "dress like Christians" from coming among us at all. Instead the state forces us to associate with the unwelcome and the alien, on their terms.
Imperialism drives us into their midst, which is bad enough, but it also exerts on them a magnetic pull into our midst. If Holland, Britain, Russia, France, and America had not operated empires, we would see many fewer Indonesians in Amsterdam, Jamaicans and Pakistanis in London, Chechens in Moscow, Africans in Paris, and south Asians all across America.
At View from the Right, Lawrence Auster offers some comment on the passengers' revolt: "British passengers refuse to get on plane until Muslims are removed." Auster, of course, is a proponent of state action and jumps impermissibly from social action to state action, but he does write with commendable frankness.
August 24, 2006
• In this dispatch, the Associated Press delivers what all properly educated Americans will consider delightful news: "'Explosion of diversity' sweeps U.S., census shows." "Diversity" here does not refer to diversity of opinion. The story is posted at CNN.
August 24, 2006
• At Truth Out, William Rivers Pitt assesses a document TLD readers will have heard of — "A Clean Break" — in the context of the recent war in Lebanon: "Everything Old Is New."
August 24, 2006
• In light of current events in the Levant, your neo-Objectivist editor was glad to be tipped to this piece at ARI Watch: "'The Moral Case for Supporting Israel' Reviewed." The man whose work mainly comes in for review here is Yaron Brook, director of the Ayn Rand Institute — and a former Israeli intelligence agent. But the egregious Harry Binswanger receives a little punishment, too.
August 14, 2006• At the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh investigates the background of the latest war from the standpoint of the imperial capital: "Watching Lebanon: Washington's interests in Israel's war."
August 14, 2006
• N. Joseph Potts illustrates how the politics of academe can affect official truth, in this ingenious essay posted at Mises: "How to Achieve Scientific 'Consensus.'" It's a real treat.
August 14, 2006
• This dispatch from the anti-religious Left actually reminds me of a much more Christian-friendly column I once wrote. The current piece, by Courtney E. Martin, is posted at AlterNet: "Megachurches Court Cool to Attract Teens." An illuminating quote from one of these hipster Christians: "God, you are so awesome!" The posting includes a video interview.
My column, from January 2002, is "What a boyfriend we have in Jesus."
August 12, 2006
• This is nice to know, assuming it's true, but it would be a mercy if one time — just one time — Americans would resist their rulers' adventuristic, criminal wars early enough for their resistance to do some good: "Antiwar Wackadoos Are Winning: Opposing the war in Iraq is no longer fringe — it's American," by Rosa Brooks at the Los Angeles Times.
August 12, 2006
• But socialism works in Sweden! — or so we free-marketeers have been told, over the past forty years, whenever we've tried to insist on the general application of our principles. Writing at Mises, Stefan Karlsson endeavors finally to put to rest "The Sweden Myth." Along the way you may want to take note of this: "Among non-Western immigrants [to Sweden], the real unemployment rate is higher than 50%."
August 12, 2006
• Just how far-out are the neocons? This piece by Jim Lobe will give you an idea: "Hard-line Neo-Cons Assail Israel for Timidity," posted at Inter Press Service News Agency. According to the story, even Abe Foxman thinks the wild men have gone too far!
August 12, 2006
• Read and shudder at this Newsday piece by Mohamad Bazzi: "'A thousand new bin Ladens': Experts say the Israel-Hezbollah battle may motivate Islamic militants to attack U.S. targets again." Writing from Beirut, Bazzi begins: "On the eve of the U.S. presidential elections in 2004, Osama bin Laden finally explained why he attacked the World Trade Center.
"And his reason surprised even experts on al-Qaida: He was motivated by the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982."
August 5, 2006
• Joe Sobran's publisher has lifted the embargo on Joe's column for
August 3 and posted it. I'd suggest you head that way: "Gibson's Offense."
August 5, 2006
• The Rockwell site has posted another piece by Gary North that I predict you'll really be able to get your teeth into: "When Conspiracy Theories Induce Paralysis." North quotes this valuable observation by his father-in-law, R.J. Rushdoony: "If tomorrow the secrecy were stripped from all conspiracies, and their goals revealed, most people would merely say, 'Well, isn't that what we all believe?' and go on with their daily lives."
August 5, 2006
• The audacity of these people cannot be overestimated and should not be underestimated: "White House Proposal Would Expand Authority of Military Courts," by R. Jeffrey Smith at the Washington Post.
August 5, 2006
• At Antiwar.com, Jon Utley takes on an exasperating bunch of Israel-dupes: "'Dual Covenant' Christians: Christian Zionists and the strangest alliance in history." One hopes that these "useful idiots" will start heading for the Desert Hell themselves instead of just sending their sons and daughters.
August 5, 2006
• This man Foxman is hard to keep up with. At the Scotsman, we find this report by Craig Howie: "Jewish groups call for hate-crime probe on Mel Gibson." Well, of course, that would be justified, wouldn't it? After all, Gibson said what he said, to a Jewish cop, in the course of committing a crime — resisting arrest. Doesn't that make his speech a crime, too, under current "law"?
August 1, 2006
• At the New York Post, John Podhoretz writes: "Too nice to win? Israel's dilemma." A sample: "Could World War II have been won by Britain and the United States if the two countries did not have it in them to firebomb Dresden and nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki?" Don't make the mistake of thinking that this is moral idiocy; neocons such as Podhoretz are not moral idiots; they are something far worse.
August 1, 2006
• Does the "Support our troops" rule apply to this guy? — "I came over here because I wanted to kill people." Andrew Tilghman of the Washington Post interviewed this Hero of Duh-MOCK-risy before the latter became famous.
August 1, 2006
• At VDare, Joe Guzzardi offers this dispatch from the epicenter of our multicultural socialist utopia: "Mixing Mexicans and Muslims." I do have to wonder about the Spanish phrases Guzzardi taught his Mahometan students. Was he trying to get them shot?
August 1, 2006
• Posted at TMZ.com is this account of the recent distressing incident involving Mel Gibson: "Gibson's Anti-Semitic Tirade — Alleged Cover Up." In this story, as in the less colorful wire story I read in today's paper, Gibson is said to have announced that he has "battled with the disease of alcoholism for all of my adult life."
July 30, 2006
• Some polls indicate that the sheeple have become a little less ovine lately about Bush's War, but this one makes me think they've become more ovine about his bodyguard of lies: "50 percent of U.S. says Iraq had WMDs." The story is by Jennifer Harper at the Washington Times.
July 30, 2006
• I recommend this good analytical backgrounder by Robert L. Johnson, posted by our brave friends at Strike the Root: "Israel's Most Powerful Weapon — The Holocaust."
July 30, 2006
• At Mises, Hans-Hermann Hoppe offers his vision of how defense and justice services would work in a modern stateless society: "The Idea of a Private Law Society." He proposes some applications and extensions that I haven't seen before, and I'll have to think about them. But here's one good nugget that some of us here at TLD have actually thought about before: "If one can only appeal to government for justice, justice will be perverted in the favor of government, constitutions and supreme courts notwithstanding."
July 30, 2006
• Let's just hide and watch them fight: Howard Dean, advertised in 2004 as a radical peace candidate, has now leveled a charge, in the service of Zionism, that has outraged the Zionist Republicans: "Dean calls Iraqi PM an 'anti-Semite,'" by the AP's Brian Skoloff. Which side will wind up being acclaimed as the more Zionist?
July 30, 2006
• Sheldon Richman strikes again, and to excellent effect, at Future of Freedom: "Not World War III." This is a stinging condemnation of the new front in the Bush/Israeli Mideast war. But along the way, Richman makes another point that deserves three cheers: "In its rocketing of Israeli civilians, Hezbollah is behaving like a government."
July 26, 2006
• This one's priceless. Posted at Insight I find this uncredited piece: "Dump Condi: Foreign policy conservatives charge State Dept. has hijacked Bush agenda." The lead: "Conservative national security allies of President Bush are in revolt against Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying that she is incompetent and has reversed the administration's national security and foreign policy agenda." One of these "national security allies" is — Richard Perle!
The attack on Rice parallels neocon William Kristol's unrelenting barrage against Donald Rumsfeld. Both attacks are provoked by some big neocons' belief that the Bush regime isn't being imperialistic, and bloodthirsty, and reckless enough: in short, if you can believe it, not neocon enough.
Rice is a hapless, visibly quivering rabbit, while Rummy is a real player; but one thing they have in common is that they happen not to be Jewish. One may detect here a search for suitable sacrificial goats of the goyish persuasion.
July 26, 2006
• At SF Gate, the San Francisco Chronicle's Matthew Kalman writes: "Israel set war plan more than a year ago: Strategy was put in motion as Hezbollah began gaining military strength in Lebanon." You mean it wasn't all cobbled together after those two Israeli grunts went astray? Well, I swan!
July 26, 2006
• We'd better pray that it doesn't go this far: "The Pin in the Grenade," by William Rivers Pitt, posted at Truthout. For me, the eyebrow-raiser was the mention of that special-forces outfit in Pakistan.
July 26, 2006
• iSteve.com has posted a ponderable piece by the tireless thought-provoker Steve Sailer: "Cousin Marriage Conundrum: The ancient practice discourages democratic nation-building." Sailer is aiming at the neocons' purported strategy of "reforming" Muslim societies in the Middle East, but his analysis is of wider application.
The invention of romantic love was an achievement that seems characteristic of the West — just the sort of achingly beautiful thing white Westerners would have come up with — but from reading Sailer one may infer that it can also be problematic for the survival of the West, because romantic love can trump loyalty to the bloodline, especially at a time when other bulwarks of Western culture have fallen. Keep that in mind the next time you see a blond, blue-eyed woman permitting herself to be interfered with by a black man. (This piece apparently first appeared in the print version of The American Conservative.)
July 26, 2006
• At the Rockwell site: "Bush's Bloodbath in Babylon: 'Coincidence' and Consequences," by Chris Floyd.
July 22, 2006
• At AlterNet: A brief but pungent dispatch by Michael Lerner: "Middle East Violence: Neocons' Fantasy." On the Stephanopoulos program for
July 16, George Will execrated this latest proposal of the chickenhawk William Kristol, and he added the useful observation that the so-called neoconservatives are actually the most radical people in Washington.
July 22, 2006
• At Antiwar.com, Patrick Buchanan blasts the same target: "No, This Is Not 'Our War.'"
July 22, 2006
• At Future of Freedom: "What Is the Enemy?" by Sheldon Richman. A taste: "To be blunt, from time immemorial business has probably been the biggest opponent of the free market."
July 22, 2006
• At VDare: Michelle Malkin's "'The Race' Schools: Your Tax Dollars at Work." Read and froth.
July 22, 2006
July 16, 2006: I was tipped to all the articles for this date by the indefatigable Jeff Blankfort.
• I was unaware of these particular atrocities when I wrote my Stop and Think observation, "Degrees of stench," but after a while even the most casual observer begins to expect this sort of thing: "Lebanon police: 15 die in IAF strike on van in south Lebanon," by Amos Harel and Yoav Stern at Haaretz.
It's called "collateral damage," and the perpetrators are always very sorry afterward. After sixty-some years of bombing, shelling, and rocketing densely populated cities, states still affect shock and bewilderment when civilians somehow get in the way. And of course it's always the other guy's fault.
• You will find a more graphic account of the air strike at The Guardian: "Children die in convoy attack as Israel widens Lebanon assault," by Inigo Gilmore, Patrick Wintour, and Tracy McVeigh. This piece also deals with Vladimir Putin's failure to tug his forelock in the presence of his Wee Guest.
• It may seem clear to you, as it does to me, and Putin, and even to much of the mainstream media, that the Wee Decider is firmly in Israel's corner in the current conflict. But it's not so clear in Israel, according to the staff of The Forward in this dispatch: "Bush Criticized Over Concern for Lebanese Regime."
• Here's a scary dispatch at Ynetnews: "Report: Israel gives Syria ultimatum." More progress toward "stability," Condoleezza Rice-style!
• A concise backgrounder from the peacenik-Left viewpoint is Marwan Bishara's "Israel on the Offensive," posted at The Nation.
End of entry for July 16, 2006.
• On
June 18 I linked to Craig Unger's disturbing piece at Vanity Fair on the Niger yellowcake scandal, and now I must direct your attention to another hair-raiser, this time at Mother Jones: "Three Days in Rome," by Laura Rozen. Here's the subtitle: "In which a neoconservative jack-of-all-trades, a pair of Pentagon hawks, and an Iranian exile with a knack for tall tales try to outflank the CIA and conjure a coup in Tehran." My astonished reaction when I read this piece was: "Italy again! Italian spooks again! Michael Ledeen again!" You'll see what I mean.
July 14, 2006
• In a piece posted at his site, "Gaza: of Mice and Men," the courageous Israel Shamir has a few things to say about the invasion of Gaza and its historical background. Here is one of them, for benefit of those inclined to believe Israel's pretext: "Haaretz (29.06.06) revealed that the plans for mass arrests of Palestinian leadership and for re-invasion were prepared a long time ago."
July 14, 2006
• We know our enemies are relentless. We must not forget that many of them are quiet, too. Quiet as termites; quiet as cancer. At MSNBC appears this Associated Press dispatch by Stephan Savoia: "Advocates quietly push for slavery reparations." Subtitle: "With global attention and cases in court, scholars say issue has momentum." Warning: The nauseous factor in this article is very high indeed, and it may set you to wondering whether our people even deserve to survive.
July 14, 2006
• A new study calls into question the existence of a "boy crisis" in America; and that is a remarkable finding given the fact that our "man crisis" is so palpable, and one would naturally assume that the two problems must co-exist. In any case, here is the fiery Fred Reed's take on the latest cultural monstrosity to be declared mythical by the experts: "Want To End the 'Boy Crisis'?" The article is posted at the Rockwell site.
July 14, 2006
• Europe is dying, and — mirabile dictu — the Associated Press has noticed! I first saw this wire story in one of my local papers; here's an on-line posting at WTOP Radio: "U.S. Approaches
300 Million People." I don't know who wrote that headline, but if it prompts you to yawn, "Who cares?" you should know that that's not what the story is really about. The headline in the Huntington (Ind.) Herald-Press forJuly 6 is much better: "Population bust in Europe, Japan."John Seager, a population-control activist, is quoted as saying of the demographic catastrophe: "It may be the only good crisis we ever had." Yes, indeed, that crushing surplus of white people and Japanese is ending. And with it, surely, will end those terrible famines that have always gripped modern Europe and Japan. Surely the sprawling shanty-towns and endemic disease will vanish, too. Yes, in the coming years such advanced and wealthy nations as Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Bangladesh will be able to end the food shipments and medical aid they have so generously provided over the years to the world's poorest countries!
July 10, 2006
• If you're waiting and hoping for a final neocon crackup, you ought to have a look at this L.A. Times piece by Jacob Heilbrunn: "Neocons in the Democratic Party." Normally I've just used the label "War Liberals" to describe the people Heilbrunn refers to, but my Pollyannish optimism may have blinded me once again.
July 10, 2006
• So we don't live under totalitarianism, hunh? If government edicts about the capacity of your toilet tank weren't enough, try this on for size: "U.S. proposal would let UglyRipes be sold outside state," by Susan Salisbury of the Palm Beach Post. Bureaucrats pronouncing on the shape of tomatoes! Does there remain a single little aspect of our lives that our rulers haven't invaded?
July 10, 2006
• I'm pleased to note that Chris Moore of LibertarianToday has cited our own Dr. Steve Sniegoski in a recent piece: "Zionist fanatics and the threat to America's future." I think you'll find Moore's point about triangulation to be interesting. And if after reading the first chunk you haven't already concluded that Moore is a brave man, wait 'til you get to the part about the uses of the Holocaust.
July 10, 2006
• The unstoppable march. It's becoming harder and harder to be shocked, as one enormity follows another in close succession, but this AP story follows its blah headline with a full 220 volts: "Calif. Court OKs Teens' Suit vs. School." You'll feel the first jolt in the lead: "Two teens expelled from a Lutheran high school because of an alleged lesbian relationship can sue the school even though it is a private religious institution, the California Supreme Court ruled."
On
July 4, I trust we celebrated all those freedoms the government has generously issued us, including the freedom of religion, which the Left keeps assuring us is completely unfettered. (Of course not even the Left has gall enough to emit fables about the freedom of association.)
July 3, 2006
• Rachel Carson's great hoax revisited. At Mises, Lew Rockwell updates us on the homicidal scandal: "The Spring is Silent on DDT." A tidbit: "Why has the war on malaria failed? Because governments banned the cure. Now they claim to wonder why people are sick and dying."
July 3, 2006
• At spiked, the always-interesting Frank Furedi writes: "Meet the Malthusians manipulating the fear of terror." Subtitle: "From climate change doom-mongers to population alarmists, every kind of fear entrepreneur is piggy-backing on the 'war on terrorism.'" Fear entrepreneur — that's good.
July 3, 2006
• Jewish pork. At JTA News, "Global News Service of the Jewish People," Ron Kampeas reports: "Jewish groups hope they can keep homeland security money flowing." (Once on the page, hit the printer icon or the "Continue without registering" button, and you'll be able to read the whole thing.)
Kampeas writes, "An array of Jewish groups nationwide is just now beginning to spend the
$14 million of the$25 million mandated by Congress in 2005 to secure at-risk nonprofit groups." What!? "At-risk nonprofit groups"!?The fact that Jewish groups get
56 percent of the loot is certainly provocative, and though the swag-delivery system Kampeas writes about is fairly minor in absolute terms, in another sense it's worse than the subsidizing of new firetrucks for little towns in flyover country. After all, the latter form of coercion and corruption does result in actual firetrucks, whether or not they're really needed.We should keep an eye on the post-9/11 pork-barrel scandal in general. We're talking about many hundreds of millions of dollars. For example, completely overshadowing both the "nonprofit" and firetruck scandals is the scandal of the post-9/11 Liberty Bonds in New York City, which enriched big-time developers who — with the aid of eminent domain — were able to undertake massive projects that had nothing to do with the wreckage in Lower Manhattan.
July 3, 2006
• The cultural collapse evident in the sudden upsurge of tattooing has just about knocked me out, but I've still never had a good grip on the numbers. I wondered, could as many as, say,
10 percent of the youngfolk possibly have disfigured themselves? Oh, no, my fellow normals. It's worse than that, according to this AP story by Andrew Bridges, and the afflicted are not all youngfolk: "Survey: 24 percent between 18-50 tattooed." (The survey results were first published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.)A couple of people interviewed in the story attempt to account for the popularity of tattooing, but they display our era's characteristic historical amnesia by failing to address the fact that at one time — fairly recently, indeed — it was highly unpopular. As Bridges points out, "a generation or two ago," nobody but "soldiers, sailors, bikers, and carnival workers" had tattooes. (He left out prison inmates.) I myself find it difficult to answer the "why this, why now?" question, except to observe that the craze reflects an infantile form of low-class exhibitionism. And that comports exquisitely with the current American popcult overall. But there's got to be more to it.
June 28, 2006
• At Future of Freedom, Sheldon Richman offers a useful reminder, eloquently penned: "Government Keeps People Poor." He notes that both Republicans and Democrats "will claim to care about the poor, but 'caring' means they can be counted on to utter the 'right' words on cue."
June 28, 2006
• Negro transvestites are extremely popular with Hollywood, but they are less so with some shopkeepers in New Orleans, according to this story at New Orleans CityBusiness, "Transvestite gang pesters Magazine Street," by Richard A. Webster. All progressive humyns will recognize yet another tragic outbreak of HAAAATE.
June 28, 2006
• What astonishes me about the kids who wind up victimized by on-line sex maniacs is the sheer heedlessness involved. In our age swarming with goblins and perils for the weak, one would not ordinarily expect to see the fundamental impulse of self-preservation wither and die. Do children still understand, even, that hot stove, burnee-burnee? Does anyone try to teach them?
At the New York Times, Tom Zeller Jr presents "A Lesson for Parents on 'MySpace Madness.'"
Thanks to Zeller's piece we can see the ugly results of the modern American ideology under which no one is responsible for anything except people who truly aren't responsible.
June 28, 2006
• Newsweek's Ellis Cose may unintentionally have offered a little hope to white Americans: "Black Versus Brown: Can the venerable black-Latino coalition survive the surge in Hispanic power?" My hopefulness is premised on the assumption that we'll be able to hide and watch while the colored minorities fight over power and pelf. But of course we'll still be robbed to pay for most of it. And of course we'll still be denied the freedom of association.
June 28, 2006
• This is just an observation, not an argument, but I must say I derive some amusement, of the more astringent sort, from these grand Bushite "Operations" — Operation Neocon Feculence, Operation Schizoid Eschatology, and so forth — that seem to have come to us from World War II with a good salting by George Orwell along the way. William S. Lind is on the same wavelength as I am, and he accompanies his observations with some good arguments: "Air Strikes in Afghanistan: Aargh!" His energetic piece is posted at Antiwar.com.
June 24, 2006
• From the Left, CounterPunch offers this informative backgrounder by the old CIA hands Kathleen and Bill Christison: "The Power of the Israel Lobby: Its Origins and Growth." One doesn't reflexively believe everything written by CIA types, of course, but if there's ever a good time to take seriously what they say, it's probably when they're dissenting from Bushite orthodoxy while simultaneously revising leftist analysis.
June 24, 2006
• We've zinged Ilana Mercer a time or two here at TLD, but when she's right, she's right: "War Apologists Still Unapologetic" (posted at her blog). She begs to differ with an amazing claim by Lawrence Auster. (Of course I'm not saying Mercer is right about the Wee Decider's personally being the driving force for war.)
June 24, 2006
• TLD's Jaywalker Watch continues as I recommend to your attention this dispatch by George Archibald at The Washington Times: "Textbooks flunk test." What, oh what, could possibly be the (instant) solution to this particular crisis of statism? Libertarians know, but few others can even imagine it.
June 24, 2006
• As you may recall, Steve Sniegoski has been interviewed by Hesham Tillawi on the latter's cable and Internet program "Current Affairs" out of Lafayette, Louisiana. But Tillawi has now been dropped by the Muslim-owned satellite channel Bridges TV. In his press release on the matter Tillawi says Bridges told him that it had received too many complaints about his program. But as you'll see, over a two-week period the story about who was actually complaining changed radically. The Age of Orwell perdures.
June 24, 2006
• At JustOneMinute, Tom Maguire declines to mince words about the Duke rape-case scandal: "It's a Crock."
June 18, 2006
• Here's another non-word-mincing assessment of the Duke case, by William L. Anderson at the Rockwell site: "Duke Lacrosse: A 'Meaning' in Search of a Scandal."
June 18, 2006
• I should have linked to Joe Sobran's column of May 9 before this: "Bush's Place in History." Joe writes, "Seldom has one man gotten on so many people's nerves for so many different reasons."
June 18, 2006
• Remember the Niger "yellowcake" business that the Bushites were scaremongering about, during the run-up to their invasion of Iraq? At Vanity Fair, Craig Unger offers a long but fascinating exposé: "The War They Wanted, the Lies They Needed." If you like John le Carré, you'll like this. Just pray it's not all true.
June 18, 2006
• At the Forward, Marc Perelman writes: "U.S.-Indian Nuclear Deal Puts Israel in Hot Seat." According to Perelman, the trouble is that "by granting legitimacy to India's nuclear arsenal, critics say that the deal will raise complaints of double standards and spark new calls for international scrutiny. Any such debate is likely to bring an unwelcome spotlight onto Israel and to re-energize longstanding calls by Muslim countries for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons." And naturally no one wants that!
June 18, 2006
• As you'll no doubt recall, just three days ago, in linking to a story about the auction site's influence in undermining state regulation, I exclaimed, "Three cheers for eBay!"
Now see this, at Fox News: "eBay Invites Internet Regulation, Backs Online Gambling Ban," by Radley Balko.
Ye GODS! As radical, skeptical, canny, etc., as I like to think I am, I'm just unable to keep ahead of this damnable sucking up to the state. As usual, the real aim in this present case is to suck up unjust privilege against competitors.
You will learn something very important from Balko's account. In discussing corruption, free-marketeers often make a sharp distinction between defensive bribery ("So you'll just leave us alone!") and offensive bribery ("So we can grab us some boodle!"). Here we see how slippery the slope is from the first, defensible, form of corruption to the second, which is utterly indefensible.
For my part, in future I will attempt to hew more rigorously to the rule I proposed in the title of a recent "Stop and think" installment: "Trust no one." (Many thanks to a certain longtime friend of TLD for bringing this noxious news to my attention.)
June 9, 2006
• Whenever I've read anything by Robert Higgs, he's been getting at something vital, and this piece, at the Rockwell site, is no exception: "Amid the Respectables in the Heartland." The question of respectability and its menticidal power is something that deserves to be treated much more often, including by us disrespectables hereabouts.
June 9, 2006
• The problem with this piece by Mark Steyn is that it's accessible only to paid subscribers of The New Criterion. Still, it's so good that I thought I had to mention it and link to its first couple of paragraphs: "It's the demography, stupid." (Lucky me — I received a purloined copy of the whole thing.) You might consider signing up and paying the three bucks for full access. Steyn's subtitle is, "What do Europe's declining birthrates say about its chances of survival?" According to him, they say some extremely scary things.
As you might expect a neocon to do, Steyn spends most of his time bonging the tocsin against the Muslims — but I trust we anti-Zionist, antiwar folk will not drift into sentimentality with respect to the Muslim migrations and demographic explosion, especially in the context of the white demographic implosion.
June 9, 2006
• I'll admit it: though I've been known to whine about TLD's being blacklisted, I find Ann Coulter's support for Bush's War so repulsive that I've been blacklisting her. But this, posted at Townhall.com, is too good to ignore: "On the Seventh Day, God Rested and Liberals Schemed." It's the opening chapter of Coulter's new book Godless. She has a sharp eye for contradictions — at least the ones perpetrated by liberals.
June 9, 2006
• Sheldon Richman indulges in some more of that unpopular truth-telling in this column at Future of Freedom on the killings at Haditha: "Iraqi Death by Political Abstraction."
June 6, 2006
• At the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Andrew J. Coulson of the Cato Institute comments on a statement by Seattle Public Schools that is both incredibly zany and incredibly frank: "Planning ahead is considered racist?"
He writes: "According to the district's official Web site, 'having a future time orientation' (academese for having long-term goals) is among the 'aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype and label people of color.'"
And: "The site goes on immediately to say, 'Emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology' is another form of 'cultural racism.'"
Readers of Edward Banfield's The Unheavenly City Revisited will understand what I mean by "incredibly frank." In fact, the Seattle schools are franker on the matter of time preference than Banfield himself could be. In any case, we may doubt that the schools' denunciation of organized living and of individualism will help blacks and browns overcome their disadvantanges, whatever the true source of those disadvantages may be.
By the way, what about those Asians? Is their typically long time preference a symptom of white racism?
June 6, 2006
• Mark Weber of The Institute for Historical Review gave this address almost a year ago, but it's still today's news: "The Challenge of Jewish-Zionist Power in an Era of Global Struggle." Highly recommended — though at least one of Weber's predictions about the cresting of power remains debatable.
June 6, 2006
• At the New York Times, Katie Hafner tells us "How eBay Makes Regulations Disappear." Three cheers for eBay!
June 6, 2006
• At the Washington Times we find this Associated Press dispatch by Calvin Woodward:
"' 75 Kissinger memo discounted Israel."It begins:
The United States reached out to hostile Arabs three decades ago with an offer to work toward making Israel a "small friendly country" of no threat to its neighbors and with an assurance to Iraq that the U.S. had stopped backing Kurdish rebels in the north.Dr. Stephen J. Sniegoski says:"We can't negotiate about the existence of Israel," then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told his Iraqi counterpart in a rare high-level meeting, "but we can reduce its size to historical proportions."
This proposal would have involved solving the Palestinian problem in ways not necessarily to Israel's liking. While Kissinger admitted that the United States could not force a Palestinian state into existence, he maintained that "no solution is possible without it." Kissinger even predicted that in 10 or 15 years "Israel will be like Lebanon — struggling for existence, with no influence in the Arab world." True, Kissinger was courting a high official of an Arab state, but still it seems clear that the U.S. administrations before that of Bush II understood that American interests were not the same as those of Israel.June 6, 2006
• A famous and progressive social democracy continues to scale new heights of civilization, according to this dispatch by Stephen Bevan at The Telegraph: "South African police accused of ignoring ritual murders."
May 25, 2006
• I've often wondered whether Jay Leno's Jaywalking segments could possibly be legit. Even now, with the clock striking thirteen for our culture, could any California young'un capable of holding a job or graduating from college possibly be so extravagantly ignorant? But now comes a piece by Diane Ravitch in the Los Angeles Times that just about convinces me that all those childlike paralegals and grade-school teachers and medical technicians may be the real deal: "PC textbooks full of skewed history."
May 25, 2006
• When Tom Sowell lays off lauding Bush the Magnificent and the Glorious Neocon War and the Garrison State, he can be very good indeed. For example, here's his column of May 17 about the Duke University stripper-rape story: "The biggest scandal" (posted at Townhall).
Regarding the prosecutorial misconduct — which Sowell hammers — can anyone believe that if D.A. Michael Nifong had treated a group of Negro or Mexican defendants this way, in a case where a white woman had complained of being raped, the matter would not now be in the hands of the federal court system? And that Nifong himself would not be under intensive investigation by the Federal Civil Rights Police and FBI? If not the IRS, the DEA, and, I don't know, maybe the NSA, too? Moreover, in those circumstances I'd expect that North Carolina would turn out to have some kind of bar association or ethics board after all.
May 25, 2006
• Writing at The Nation about the phone-records scandal, Robert Scheer focuses on Gen. Michael Hayden, who will probably be the next CIA director: "The Spook in Your Phone." But John D. Negroponte, Über-Chief of Spying, receives an adverse assessment, too.
May 15, 2006
• At Alternet, Jan Frel asks: "First Lady or Fair Game?" If you saw either the Chris Wallace show on Fox or the Stephanopoulos show on ABC yesterday, you'll know what Frel is talking about. If not, here's a hint courtesy of Frel: "George Bush is hiding behind his wife's skirts. That's what's going on here, and she deserves to be called on it."
May 15, 2006
• If you're still able to be amused by this sort of thing, this article in The Forward may evoke a bitter chuckle: "Groups to Bush: Drop Iran-Israel Linkage," by Ori Nir.
Nir writes:
Communal leaders say that although they deeply appreciate the president's repeated promises to come to Israel's defense, public declarations to that effect do more harm than good. Such statements, they say, create an impression that the United States is considering a military option against Iran for the sake of Israel — and could lead to American Jews being blamed for any negative consequences of an American strike against Iran.According to Nir, "Messages were passed to the White House through several channels, Jewish activists said." Surely those "channels" cannot have anything to do with the Israel lobby, since some of the most respectable and influential people in the country have informed us that no such thing can exist. However (and somewhere in here you may want to start that bitter chuckling), all that channeling seemsto have worked: Speaking before the annual conference of the American Jewish Committee in Washington last week — his most recent address before a Jewish audience — President Bush talked about America's commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and about his administration's commitment to Israeli security, but he did not link the two, as he has several times in recent months.Sit! Stay! Roll over! — says the tail to the dog.
May 15, 2006
• In the letters column of the London Review of Books, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt "engage with the letters responding to our article." They are referring, of course, to "The Israel Lobby."
May 10, 2006
• "After exhorting all Comrade Workers of the Ministry to press ever more diligently to ensure the heroic and glorious success of the People's Beet Harvest of 1946, Comrade Deputy Assistant Minister for Root Crops Velikovsky closed by assuring those present that our Great Cultivator of Peace, Comrade Stalin, has initiated heroic and glorious new strategies to completely uproot the poisonous weeds of fascism and plutocracy throughout the Zone of War." Yep, that's the unmistakable totalitarian style, all right — but it turns out that, mutatis mutandis, it can be adapted for use by our own Imperial Liberal Democratic Utopia. Have a look at this Washington Post story by Al Kamen: "The USDA on Iraq: Everything's Coming Up Rosy." A friend of mine who works for the Agriculture Ministry actually had to sit through one of these pep talks on the war. According to Kamen, all the other ministries have been instructed to engage in the same cheerleading.
May 10, 2006
• Kevin MacDonald, author of The Culture of Critique and other scholarly but politically incorrect studies, has done an interesting thing at his site: He has posted the text of Jacob Laksin's attack on him, "Cal State's Professor of Anti-Semitism," and interpolated his own comments and replies in red. MacDonald opens with a short introduction, in black type. (Laksin's piece first appeared at FrontPageMagazine.)
May 10, 2006
• At Harvard Magazine, Craig Lambert summarizes the findings of two academics — Linda Bilmes of the Kennedy School of Government and Joseph E. Stiglitz of Columbia — on the cost of Bush's War, with respect not only to the "defense" budget but also to American society in general: "Iraq Black Hole: The $2 Trillion War."
May 10, 2006
• The eagle-eyed Gary North has been around, and it shows in this must-read article of his at the Rockwell site: "The Red/Blue Map vs. Conspiracy Theories."
May 5, 2006
• In a memorial lecture posted at Mises, Roderick T. Long eloquently assesses "Rothbard's 'Left and Right': Forty Years Later." This piece is important from the historical perspective, and it may come as a revelation to readers too young to have once wandered about in Army surplus and long hair. Back then, Murray Rothbard's libertarianism had a leftist tinge (as did mine, as a loyal little Rothbardian). Rothbard eased off on the apertura a sinistra during the last 10 or 15 years of his life; and I am skeptical about Long's claim that a new anti-authoritarian Left is emerging.
May 5, 2006
• Manuel Lora reminds us that "Libertarians Are Not Socialists, Prophets, Omniscient, or Specialists in Everything" in this valuable essay on the Rockwell site. He provides some thinking tools that we should find useful when we hear such questions as: "In a libertarian society, how would X work? How would problem Y be solved? What guarantees would there be that Z would/would not happen?"
May 5, 2006
• Strakon is rendered optimistic! This Reuter article is supposed to be a shocker, in the negative sense, but I am pleasantly surprised at how high the percentage of non-nitwits was found to be: "Most young Americans can't find Iraq on map — study," by Deborah Zabarenko.
May 5, 2006
• Two excellent and complementary pieces on Mearsheimer and Walt have appeared recently. I highly recommend both:
— At The Nation, "Ferment Over 'The Israel Lobby,'" by Philip Weiss. Weiss managed to wangle an interview with John Mearsheimer, though he couldn't get one with Stephen Walt.
— At CounterPunch, "Breaking the Last Taboo: The United States of Israel?" by Robert Fisk. Fisk did land an interview with Walt.
April 29, 2006
• It seems there are still some Christians out there who can contemplate the state schools without a grimace and a desperate prayer. Get a load of this: "A Baptist Pastoral Letter Supporting Public Education." It's the product of the Baptist Center for Ethics (Nashville, Tenn.), an outfit that the established media describe as "moderate" — which is to say, it's left-wing.
According to the media coverage of this story in my area, the "moderate" Baptists are calling for kids to stay in state schools in order to advance the separation of church and state. That about pulled me out of my chair, I can tell you. Though the actual text seems a good deal cloudier on that point, it's still pretty zany.
April 29, 2006
• More "diversity" nonsense. In a story that was picked up by the AP, Tanya Brown of the Lafayette (Ind.) Journal and Courier writes: "Diversity at Purdue slowly progressing." Tragically from the progressive standpoint, though, the school's "black population [is] still struggling to reach the peak it hit in the late '90s, when more than 1,140 black students attended Purdue," out of a total enrollment of about 30,000.
According to Brown, "diversity at Purdue has become a serious topic in recent years. Officials, who say the school cannot feasibly become one of the best schools in the country without a diverse atmosphere, have included diversity as an overarching goal of Purdue's strategic plan." That's odd, because to my knowledge Purdue University has always been regarded as one of the top schools in the country in its traditional specialities — science and engineering — even though it's a state institution. (If memory serves, Purdue is the only university in the country with two graduates who have walked on the moon — Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan.) Are we to suppose that increased "diversity," Brown style, will keep the Purdue cyclotron humming?
Here's another odd thing. Brown reports that "minorities at Purdue are promoted with a higher success rate than non-minorities, with 85 percent of candidates advancing in 2006, compared to 78 percent of non-minorities." And that tells me that for Brown and her paper, some minorities are more minor than others. Blacks are the only student minority group Brown specifically mentions, and she doesn't say whether that "higher success rate" owes anything to the efforts of characteristically big-domed students of Jewish, Pakistani, Indian, or East Asian descent.
And that provides further evidence (if we need it) that the crazed superstition of "diversity" is all about the blacks, except for an occasional nod to the Hispanics.
Comment. You're probably right, Strakon, in suspecting that non-Negro students have contributed to the minority success rate, but I'm wondering whether other factors may account for part of it, such as affirmative-action grading and pud majors such as General Studies, Remedial Remediation, and (not to put too fine a point on it) Diversity. [Modine Herbey]
April 29, 2006
• At ARI Watch, an uncredited writer reminds us of some of Ayn Rand's writings on the U.S. wars of the last century: "Ayn Rand on WW II." ARI is the Ayn Rand Institute, and our "watcher" establishes the context in his lead: "Again and again ARI compares America's entry into World War II with the invasion of Iraq, and looks to FDR's generals during World War II for inspiration in conducting the Iraq war." According to the citations provided in this piece, Rand herself was not quite so eager to applaud the various U.S. "Crusades" and "Good Wars" and "Police Actions."
April 24, 2006
• To help you keep your perspective in good working order, I link to this piece at Mises by Mark Brandly: "How Big Is Bush's Big Government?"
April 24, 2006
• At The Progressive, old lefty Howard Zinn writes of "America's Blinders," asking, with respect to the Bush warmongers' deception, "How come so many people were so easily fooled?" If you can avert your eyes from Zinn's predictable leftist lurchings-off-the-pier, you may find yourself endorsing much of what he has to say.
April 24, 2006
• I have to admit that before the Mearsheimer-Walt controversy exploded I'd paid almost no attention to the story of Rachel Corrie, the American rights-activist murdered in 2003 by an Israeli soldier wielding a bulldozer as his weapon. I'm paying more attention now. What's the connection? It emerges from this piece at The Nation by Philip Weiss: "Too Hot for New York." Long story short, the powerless Israel lobby has now turned its powerlessness against the peacenik Left, in an attempt to suppress a play based on Miss Corrie's story.
April 20, 2006
• At CounterPunch, Norman Solomon reminds us of Miss Corrie's murder in the context of the Mearsheimer-Walt suppression, though he doesn't mention the lobby's campaign to suppress her story: "Mearsheimer, Walt, and Corrie: The Lobby and the Bulldozer."
April 20, 2006
• Sheldon Richman has another thought-provoker at Future of Freedom, "What Do You Mean 'We'?", dealing with immigration and demonstrating clearly how what he calls "the democratic myth" leads straight to totalitarianism.
Along the way Richman accurately observes, "If I want to rent an apartment to and employ a Mexican, that's no one's business but my own, regardless of whether he's cleared some arbitrary bureaucratic hurdles." Inspired by that, I would observe, also accurately, that if I want not to rent to a Mexican or employ him, that's no one's business but my own, regardless of whether I've satisfied some totalitarian decrees known as "civil rights laws."
April 20, 2006
• Mariachi bands, ¡Si! Symphony orchestras, ¡No! In an opinion piece at The Telegraph, "U.S. wages indiscriminate visa war," Vicki Woods reports: "In a tale of our terrorised times, the Hallé Orchestra has regretfully had to cancel its planned American mini-tour next year because it can't afford the visas." According to Woods, the orchestra also confronted a bureaucratic nightmare of Kafkaesque proportions.
So Bush's Garrison State is doing its best to protect us from the dangers of the high culture of the West, eh? Sounds about right.
April 20, 2006
• Seymour Hersh has struck again, in another hair-raising article at The New Yorker about our masters' plans for permanent war: "The Iran Plans / Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?"
Although I am doing my best to remain skeptical about this, Hersh claims that the creeps in Washington are considering a nuclear first strike. In any case, unless he is making up everything out of whole cloth, it appears that the leaks from the War Establishment are continuing.
I was struck by Hersh's report that Wee Bush thinks that "saving Iran is going to be his legacy."
That's right — saving Iran.
So Iran is the country that all the saber-rattling is intended to benefit! And here we've been investigating the Israel Lobby. If Bush's sentiments are accurately reported, I suppose we'd better start investigating the Iran Lobby.
April 10, 2006
• At TomPaine.com, Beirut journalist Rami G. Khouri offers "a modest proposal that could serve the best interests" of both the West and the Middle East: "Condoleezza Rice should be given a fulltime, serious job in the sports world — commissioner of the National Football League has been suggested, analyst-commentator for ESPN television would also work — and she should leave the task of politically rearranging the Middle East to its own people, and to the natural rhythms of history. Please, somebody give Condoleezza Rice a whistle, and take away her howitzers."
Oddly enough, Rice herself has said that NFL commissioner is her "dream job." May Rice's dream come true, and soon!
"Iraq's Transformation"April 10, 2006
• I've mentioned this travesty before, but I figure it's time to get your blood boiling again. At the left-wing site AlterNet, Stan Cox endorses the anti-Southern movie "CSA: The Confederate States of America," which imagines an alternate history in which the Confederacy didn't just establish its independence (which is all it wanted) but somehow conquered Lincoln's Union: "Ain't Just Whistling Dixie." That's the kind of scenario, stripped of all plausibility and possibility, that I like to call Beyond Science Fiction.
However, according to Cox, since the actual America is evil, evil, evil all the way through, not a heck of a lot would have been different.
The amusing aspect is the involvement of PBS in the "mockumentary." PBS initially gave film maker Kevin Willmott "$10,000 in seed money," but according to Willmott, "when PBS representatives saw the draft, they said, 'You've gotta be kidding!'" Now try to imagine the level of Bolshie nuttiness it would take to elicit such a response from the commissars at PBS.
April 10, 2006
• At Mises, Gregory Bresiger offers a sharp-eyed view of the new anti-imperialist documentary "Why We Fight." Lovers of peace, freedom, and justice will value the revisionism he brings to bear: "Is Capitalism Why We Fight?" Highly recommended.
April 6, 2006
• When I think of established academia these days I find myself fantasizing about pitchforks and torches. Here are two links, passed along by Ronn Neff, that will show you what I mean:
At The American Thinker, "Academic arrogance," by Thomas Lifson. Lifson's closing sentence should be shouted from the rooftops.April 6, 2006At The Citizen Scientist, "Meeting Doctor Doom," by Forrest M. Mims III. (Obsolete browsers may block you from getting to this one.)
• Joe Sobran has just got to stop writing these dynamite columns. I'm starting to fall behind in linking to them!
"A Quagmire of Ideas" (March 16).Joe starts out, "President Bush says we are not only in a war of arms, but 'a war of ideas.' And, as I understand it, he figures he's just the man to lead the free world into intellectual combat."
April 6, 2006
• I first spotted this column by Thomas Sowell in one of my local papers, and I'm glad to find a posted version at Townhall.com: "Guests or gate crashers? Part II." The column will please those in favor of immigration restrictions, but the reason I'm linking to it is Sowell's little analysis of how government intervention can prompt Third World immigration in unexpected ways.
I had been about to write something that made a related point; I'll do so here. Sowell cites federal water subsidies that benefit desert agriculture in California and draw in low-wage Hispanics. I'd like to point out also that if it were not for federal water subsidies — including subsidies of hydro-electric power — that benefit the desert city of Los Angeles, the metropolitan region that is "Reconquista central" and perhaps the greatest single magnet for colored immigrants from Latin America would surely be only a fraction of its present size. And the magnetic power of the city, which was mostly built by white Westerners, would be reduced proportionally. (Decades of war contracts have also subsidized the growth of Los Angeles.)
In a free market, if sufficiently overwhelming reasons exist for a city to grow in a difficult locale, market mechanisms may well provide important missing resources such as water and electricity. But, really, the site of Los Angeles is an awfully odd one for a great city. All in all, there seems to be no good reason for it to exist at its present bloated size, if we drop state power out of our calculations.
The same goes for other artificial outposts in the desert such as Tucson, by the way.
April 6, 2006
• They're doing it again, this time in Florida. On December 30 I posted a link to this AP story out of Pittsfield, N.H.: "Students say Holocaust assignment violated religious freedom." According to Local6.com, state-school "educators" in Apopka, Florida, have now engaged in similar child-molestation: "School's 'Holocaust' Experiment Upsets Parents / Dad: Son Cried Over Becoming Jew for Day."
April 4, 2006
• At Antiwar.com, Justin Raimondo gives us his take on the "Israel Lobby" controversy: "The Lobby Strikes Back." Raimondo reports that among the people Stephen Walt is in trouble with is a Jewish chap named Robert Belfer, "a former Enron director who endowed Walt's professorship when he donated $7.5 million to the Kennedy School's Center for Science and International Affairs in 1997."
As some of us at TLD have done, Raimondo evinces a little skepticism about the claimed weakness of the Israel Lobby.
April 4, 2006
• "Hell freezes over" is how David T. Wright titled his e-mail alert about a certain article at the Rockwell site. The piece, by Richard Wall, is "The Assassination of President McKinley," and if you're wondering why Mr. Wright supposes that Satan and his imps are skating, it's because The Last Ditch is actually mentioned! In the past I've overstated what I've called the "TLD Blackout," but to the best of my knowledge it has been absolute at LewRockwell.com, until now.
The piece itself is a good one. For one thing, Wall cites TLD by way of praising and recommending Walter Karp, the great analytical historian who is almost as unknown (or unmentionable) as the TLD gang. For another, Wall includes a long quote by Emma Goldman, which you should not miss — especially its final paragraph.
Mr. Wright dealt in part with McKinley in his TLD essay on Karp's The Politics of War.April 4, 2006
• Quite some time ago I coined the word "transparodistic" to describe many events, trends, utterances, and proposals in the nutworld where we're trapped. I meant to suggest that such stuff was just beyond parody. Prof. Robert Murphy of Hillsdale College obviously would understand what I was getting at: "Soda and the Sin Tax." The piece is posted at the Mises Institute.
Though it is hard to keep a straight face as the nutballs rave, we mustn't forget that they're nutball totalitarians, using past tyrannical depredations as the building blocks for future tyrannical depredations, until the dawning of that perfect day when finally — to quote E.B. White — "everything not prohibited is compulsory."
I for one am grateful that at least some totalitarians don't try to hide their one big premise in a fog of inconsistency.
March 30, 2006
• Joe Sobran has never written words truer than these, which you will find in his column for March 7, "We the Sheep" — "Civics for Suckers, Lesson One: In a two-party system, you can get the evils of both parties at the same time. Maybe you voted Republican because you hated the way the Democrats always inch in the general direction of socialism. The joke's on you! The Republicans start a war and simultaneously accelerate the drive toward socialism."
March 28, 2006
• I was surprised at the reaction to the Mearsheimer and Walt "Israel Lobby" articles, which I commented on earlier this month. That is, I was surprised that there was a reaction. I figured the System would choose the path of caution and bury Mearsheimer and Walt in silence. Instead, the whole thing has been permitted to explode into a white-hot public controversy. I may have underestimated the unshakable power and confidence of the Lobbyists.
But as Steve Sniegoski pointed out to me, Mearsheimer and Walt actually cast a wide net, investigating not just the neocons and their role in the war but the entire Lobby itself and its general influence over Central Government policy. The two scholars just couldn't be permitted to get away with that.
Here are some links to articles about the flap, recommended by Dr. Sniegoski and others, that I've collected over the past few days:
• At Camera — "Harvard Backs Away from 'Israel Lobby' Professors; Removes Logo from Controversial Paper," by Alex Safian.That's enough for now. It will be interesting to see whether the two hitherto respected scholars find themselves "Irvinged," assuming they both don't come crawling on their bellies as so many before them have done, tearfully blubbering their ab• At the Forward — "Professor Says American Publisher Turned Him Down," by Ori Nir.
• At the Forward — "Scholars' Attack on Pro-Israel Lobby Met with Silence," by Ori Nir.
• At Haaretz — "So pro-Israel that it hurts," by Daniel Levy. Writing in an Israeli publication, Levy declares: "Their case is a potent one." (Recommended by Dr. Sniegoski.)
• At the Jerusalem Post — "'AIPAC study is ignorant propaganda,'" by Nathan Guttman. This one presents Alan Dershowitz's assessment, and it's more the kind of thing you'd expect. (Recommended by Dr. Sniegoski.)
• At the Christian Science Monitor — "Israeli media condemn, discuss report on US-Israel ties," by Tom Regan.
• At Democracy Now! — "New Study Criticizes Power of Israeli Lobby in Washington." (Scroll down or search for title.)
• At OpEdNews.com — "The Israel Lobby," by Jon Korein.