Category → Government Of the People…
Syria contrasts a world upside down
The sadistically brutal civil war in Syria has highlighted key foreign policy issues, both on the right and the left.
First, oddly but on second thought, unsurprisingly, the left’s International Human Shields group has waited until now to announce its intention to field live humans to block potential American bombs in Syria. These folks never interceded to block Assad’s conventional or gas missiles falling on hundreds of thousands of women, children, and elderly, nor did they stand in Israeli schools and homes as tens of thousands of missiles rained down for years from Gaza.
Somehow, in their twisted minds, American bombs on Syrian military targets are bad, Syrian bombs on civilians are not an issue. The left hates American freedom, loves dictators. It’s been this way since the left’s embrace of the Soviet Union because it opposed the US. That wasn’t so logical either, but at least these folks are consistent. But when they say they are anti war, know that it’s untrue. Russia’s invasion of Ossetia and Chechnya didn’t warrant a peep. America invades the country that harbored Osama Bin Laden, and they raise hell.
Second, conservatives are driven by both genuine anti war concerns and also a desire to put Obama in a box. Obama is incompetent, but conservatives should not make matters worse. Rather, it stands to reason that conservatives stand against dictators gassing their own citizens. America can and should do much militarily to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons, without opening the door to Islamic kooks. If there’s one thing America stands for, it’s a strong opposition to dictators gassing civilians.
Maybe small things will help
Sometimes the smallest of things can change the course of history.
Otherwise known as the “butterfly effect,” or “ripple effect,” among other suitable descriptions, the idea that tiny, often initially imperceptible actions ultimately trigger world-changing events has a persistent following especially among scientists, religious believers, and conspiracy theorists.
Tomorrow starts the Jewish New Year. Although it is only followed by a relative handful of humans on Planet Earth (about seven or eight million people), perhaps those prayers for peace and harmony, goodness and health, will waft to the highest places and trigger an outpouring of blessings. We can all only hope and pray.
Happy New Year to my many Jewish friends.
Dithering and weakness as foreign policy goals, tools
The past weeks, really months, with the famous Obama Red Line, have been filled with incredible dithering and rudderless, terribly public waffling and indecision. America’s allies believe they cannot trust America, and America’s enemies are clearly unafraid of us. With a slavish mainstream media that seeks only to bolster Obama, somehow all this failure will be cast as a really slick foreign policy. What I did enjoy was how even the appearance of a threat of American bombing sent Syria’s army scurrying from its daily routine of raping, torturing, and pillaging civilians, and either deep into hiding, or deep into defection.
So in a way, we can say that even Obama’s dithering helped slow down the Assad regime’s murderous onslaught.
I’ll take what I can get, and give credit where it is due: Obama, you are the least qualified, most inexperienced person America has ever had as president, but even your incompetence can be occasionally helpful.
That’s it, Obama is like Inspector Clouseau…
Comeuppance 101
If you run for US president on a platform of blaming the incumbent for everything, you just might find yourself in the same position some years later, with far less to show than that “failure” before you had.
Obama’s failure to create even a small international coalition to surgically remove Bashar Assad’s weapons of mass destruction is a result of his mistreatment of America’s key allies (Britain, France, Israel, Poland), his confused messages (pacifism vs. ‘red lines’ etc.), willingness to toss old friends overboard for whatever end…(Mubarak in Egypt), and his arrogant personality.
None of America’s former allies know if they can really trust Obama, and all of America’s avowed enemies believe he is a paper tiger.
Ye reap what ye sow….and more children in Syria will be gassed by Assad as a result. If this is Hope and Change, so be it. Most people call it disaster. It’s an expensive form of Comeuppance 101.
Was today’s MLK event in DC a sham and partisan pep rally?
How odd that none of the following black leaders were invited or present to speak at today’s MLK event on the DC Mall: Clarence Thomas (US Supreme Court), Condoleeza Rice (US NSA), Dr. Ben Carson, Professor Thomas Sowell, Congressman Allen West, Alan Keyes, or sitting US Senator Tim Scott, the only black US Senator…among many other candidates who might have had something to say about MLK and civil rights.
Partisan activist Donna Brazile coordinated the event, but exclaimed surprise that no Republicans spoke much less attended.
Wonder if today’s event was really just a partisan pep rally?
On the other hand, THIS was a genuine human rights rally: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs
50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr march
On the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s nation-changing march, let us look closely into what has been achieved since that time, and what has failed.
On the list of achievements we have the definite growth in black voting and a far-reaching acceptance, even embrace of dark skin color among European-Americans. The Negro saga in America is both a painful story, and also a story of redemption, as blacks have found their way into any and all professions they desire, including baseball, football, tennis, track and field, medicine, technology, theology, law, academia, entertainment, and government.
That said, there is a key failure that King would have never imagined, and that is the self-segregation of much of the black community, and the seeming desire for perpetual victim status contrary to the facts and opportunities presented. Today, despite enormous advances on every front, black unemployment is three times higher than whites.
I say this in the wake of months of debate about Martin and Zimmerman, and newly surfaced and long-suppressed news items about black-on-black violence and nakedly racist black-on-white violence.
The failure of much of the black community is no secret, and people like me are not going to stand by idly and watch it happen, and we will not fear being called “racist” for identifying the problem and proposing solutions. Nor will I become a racist in reaction to someone else’s racism.
Racists believe in racial determinism. Racists believe that skin color is an indication of both physical and mental ability. Like the vast vast vast majority of European-Americans, I reject those goofball notions. I do embrace a color-blind America that rewards citizens for the quantity and quality of their work, and for the content of their character.
My commitment to the success of the black community is to say that good, well-meaning people like me are here to help, to lend a hand, to support you and your local institutions. I will say that the anti-white racism in the black community is both sad, and alarming. But I will not say that America is a racist nation. Racism is a corrosive, destructive, evil thing, and it eats the people who live it.
When I watch MLK’s speeches, I am overcome with feelings of inspiration and love. MLK saw an America that had potential, whose equal opportunity was the signature of a free society that the American dream promised. Call me naive, but I am sticking to my silly ideas of equality and brotherhood. MLK wanted it that way.
Words worth repeating
http://newslanc.com/2013/08/18/parties-at-center-of-attorney-general-investigation-of-harrisburg-incinerator-deeply-involved-in-lcswma-deal/
Nevin Mindlin for Mayor files appeal
In a show of strength and commitment, Nevin Mindlin filed an appeal today, challenging last week’s politicized court holding that threw him off the ballot.
If there’s one thing Harrisburg needs now, it’s a strong leader like Mindlin.
Taxpayer funded holiday
Obama’s pet dog was airlifted into Martha’s Vineyard to join the family on their multimillion dollar taxpayer funded holiday there. Obama ate the hell out of tons of fried food, including oysters and clams. The Middle East is in melt down and Obama had time for a ten minute press event before returning to play more golf. Everything about this guy is BS. At my expense. At your expense. And yet, his followers maintain a messianic love for him that requires rodeo clowns to lose their jobs because Obama is so untouchable.
I can’t think of another time the nation was so badly divided, except in the lead-up to the civil war. Abolitionists and slave owners really hated each other, and each maintained mutually exclusive views that ultimately could only be resolved through force.
Go ahead and play golf, you dolt. Go to sleep, go to sleep.
In Eric Papenfuse’s own nutty words
http://www.midtownscholar.com/home/billayersfeb5th.pdf
You don’t see that any group asked Midtown Scholar to host domestic terrorist Bill Ayers in this announcement.
http://www.pennlive.com/editorials/index.ssf/2010/01/why_i_invited_bill_ayers_to_co.html
Papenfuse says he invited domestic terrorist Bill Ayers because we cannot improve our school system until we encourage students to become poets, artists and naysayers rather than graduates qualified to work for business.
Anybody but this guy for mayor.