O'Reilly Factor - Is The Nuclear Threat Growing In Japan?

Is the worldwide media hyping the nuke situation in Japan a bit too much? The truth is no one knows how bad things are.

Nero Has Nothing on This Guy

~ “LETTERS FROM AMERICA” - by The Metaphysical Peregrine ~

The Middle East is in chaos. Libyan dictator Khadafy is murdering his people. An American female reporter is beaten and ganged raped by Egyptian thugs. Saudi’s are moving into Bahrain. Lebanese again clashing with their oppressors the Syrians. Pirates are capturing ships and killing American citizens.  Obama mouths empty platitudes and does nothing.

Japan is in serious serious trouble. Obama mouths empty platitudes and does nothing.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers are getting murdered in Mexico. They travel there unarmed. This time he doesn't  mouth empty platitudes, he sends 20 more unarmed ICE agents to Mexico. (It’s against Mexican law for foreign law officers to have guns.)

Mexican drug cartels control huge swaths of the US\Mexican border. Signs are put up warning US citizens to stay out of those areas. US citizens along the border are being beaten, murdered, raped and their property is being stolen and destroyed. Obama mouths empty platitudes and does nothing, other than sue Arizona for enforcing Federal immigration laws he refuses to.

Union and Democrat Party thugs are sent to Wisconsin to protest what the Governor is doing to balance the state budget. Obama’s campaign organization, “Organizing for America” is sent there to bully and intimate. People get hurt, there’s vile foul language, the State Capitol Building is invaded by these people Obama supports. He’s spoken in favor of their behavior. Democrat elected officials flee the state to avoid voting on the budget, and Obama approves.  The protesters, when they left after nearly four weeks, left behind $7.6 million worth of damage and trash cleanup and repair.

Obama’s Black Attorney General refuses to prosecute Blacks and focuses prosecutions on Whites. People have quit the Justice Department in protest. 

Obama took an oath to uphold the laws of the land, and abide by the Constitution. He has instructed his racist attorney general to not support the "Defense of Marriage Act", which is federal law. It states marriage is between a man and a woman. 

Obama has stopped oil production in the Gulf since the oil explosion last year. Leases have not been renewed; no new leases have been made. Oil production has plummeted. Then he says about off shore oil production, “So any notion that my administration has shut down oil production might make for a good political sound bite, but it doesn’t match up with reality. We are encouraging offshore exploration and production.”  Federal judges rule the moratorium is unconstitutional. He forges ahead. Gas prices are skyrocketing.

His healthcare program has been ruled unconstitutional because the commerce clause doesn’t include forcing citizens to buy a private sector product, in this case insurance, and he ignores the ruling. He said health care prices will be reduced by his program; heathcare costs are skyrocketing.

His economic plan has added $trillions to our national debt. He continues to borrow and print money. The “stimulus” money that was supposed to go to the private business sector went mostly to state and local governments, whose employees are union members and got paid with that money. Then the union dues where deducted, and the unions sent the money back to the Democrat Party. Federally funded money laundering. The balance of the "stimulus" money went to Wall Street fat cats and their bankers.

Unemployment hovers around 10%. That’s the official number. People that have used up their unemployment benefits are no longer counted. People with low paying part time jobs that used to have well paying full time jobs, are not counted. The real number of unemployed is between 17% and 20%.

These are the most glaring examples of his uncaring incompetence. Most of the time regular citizens don’t pay much attention to politics and policy in off election years, but this year citizens are beginning to take notice.

He has played more rounds of golf than any other president. He hosts weekly parties at the White House. Today he took time to fill in his NCAA Basketball playoff predictions and will be on television tomorrow with them.

Even members of his own political party are starting to grumble the he needs to show some leadership. He’s nowhere to be found during the current budget negotiations.   

From a Rasmussen poll: His approval rating is going in the tank.

The world is catching fire. Obama sits. The US is on the brink of economic, social and political meltdown. I'm nervous for the world. I'm nervous for my country. 

Italy’s top 15 cultural exports

Petrarch, by Andrea del Castagno
(Uffizi Gallery, Florence)

I must confess that debating on what is typically English or French or Italian, etc., is something I like less and less as time goes by and I get older. And this for the simple reason that I like to think of the West (or “Western Civilization”) more as a whole, as a single and, somehow, complete entity, than as the sum of its parts. This, of course, without smoothing down or denying the peculiarities of each nation and its peoples.

But perhaps it’s me who is missing something here. The fact is, in my view, that one cannot think of Shakespeare, to make an example, without thinking of the ancient Rome and the Italian cities of Venice and Verona. Or, to make another example, one cannot think of the American Revolution without thinking of the marquis de Lafayette and the French Revolution, and vice versa. And even the American exceptionalism, which, besides being at the heart of American conservatism, is also real and true per se, would be inconceivable without referring to, say, its Puritan roots, that is, its deep English roots. It was one Puritan leader, John Winthrop, who first expressed the idea that the Puritan community of New England should serve as a model community—the “City upon a Hill”—for the rest of the world!

But the above said is only a preamble for the real issue of this post, that is, what the Independent says about Italy and its contribution to the world. It’s a list of fifteen Italian cultural typicalities (“Italy’s top 15 cultural exports”), including Dante and Leonardo da Vinci, the sonnet, and, why not, beautiful women, great soccer players, and fast cars. The choices are questionable in some cases, but nonetheless arguable. In any case, it’s a loving tribute to Italy from a British newspaper, or, as I would prefer to say, a gracious homage to an Italian speaking Western country from an English speaking Western newspaper. In other words, a tribute to the West itself, and a must read piece.

As for the sonnet, however, more precise information is necessary. The article says that “the 14-line, strictly rhyming poem so loved by Shakespeare derives from a 14th-century scholar called Francesco Petrarca, aka Petrarch.” Well, I’m bound to say that it is Giacomo da Lentini (1210 circa – 1260 circa), head of the Sicilian School under Frederick II, who is traditionally credited with the invention of the sonnet. Moreover, other Italian poets, including Dante and Guido Cavalcanti, wrote sonnets some decades before Petrarch (1304-1374). But then again, it was Petrarch who polished and perfected the sonnet form (the vast majority of his 366 poems collected in the Canzoniere were sonnets). Not by chance the Petrarchan sonnet still bears his name...

Pope Benedict's New Book

Benedict XVI’s new book, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection—published in English by Ignatius Press—is the sequel volume to Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, the highly acclaimed work which attracted praise from Catholic and non-Catholic Christians alike. The part II of this fascinating interweaving of history and theology draws the reader deeper and deeper into the mysteries of Jesus’ mission, life, death, and resurrection.

In his new book, Benedict XVI clarifies five disputed questions on the life of Christ that still spark heated debates among theologians and others, said Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, presenting the Pope’s book in the Vatican press office last Thursday.

According to the prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, the five questions the book clarifies are the following:

1. the historical foundation of Christianity
2. Jesus’ messianism
3. redemption and the place that the expiation of sins occupies in it
4. Christ’s priesthood
5. the Resurrection

Three excerpts from the book (“The mistery of the betrayer,” “The dating of the Last Supper,” “Jesus before Pilate”) can be read here. They are presented at length, entire sections lifted from the chapters of the full book.

And below is the book trailer for Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week.

That's Where I Am Now

Fonte Avellana Hermitage
Provinces of Pesaro and Urbino, Marche region (Italy)

Meanwhile, Lebanon Is Already Lost

Hezbollah

Do you remember the famous quote by Titus Livius, “Dum Romae consulitur, Saguntum expugnatur” (Ab Urbe Condita, XXI, 7)? This could be translated in a much updated version as While Washington (and Rome, London, Paris, etc.) debates what to do with Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, Lebanon falls. Hezbollah has won there, with the support of Iran and Syria. In brief, this is a must read article.

Venice: It's Carnival Time!

Photo courtesy of www.carnevale.venezia.it

Though not a huge fan of Carnival at large and the Carnival of Venice in particular (I hate crowded places where you're always bumping into people…), I certainly love Venice—how could it be otherwise?—and beautiful pictures. That’s why I recommend you to drop by at Mirino’s blog, where you’ll find both the flavor of Venice and the magic of photography.

Gaddafi Between History and Chronicle

Oriana Fallaci interviewing Gaddafi

It’s always difficult to find wide-ranging, truthful and reliable information on the major issues of today’s world. Generally speaking, the information provided by mainstream media is almost always inaccurate and incomplete. That’s what so often makes reading newspapers and magazines a frustrating experience. Or at least that’s my experience. But this doesn’t apply—and I am glad to acknowledge it—to a report by the German magazine Der Spiegel that I came across yesterday (available in English version here). It’s about Muammar Gaddafi and what’s going on in Libya, but it also provides “an overview of a changed world,” with a special emphasis on countries with revolutionary potential. It’s rather a long piece, but believe me, it’s worth the time you’ll spend reading it.

One more suggestion (whether you were a fan of the late, great Oriana Fallaci or not): A few days ago the Corriere della Sera published a summary of Oriana Fallaci’s interview with Colonel Gaddafi (in English), which appeared in the same newspaper (and in the Times Magazione) on December 2, 1979. Almost a historical document and a great piece of journalism. The text comes from the second part of their conversation, in which Gaddafi talks about his policies and replies to charges of supporting terrorism that were being leveled at him.

In the meantime the Libyan air force is bombing the oil refinery and port town of Marsa El Brega as battles between forces loyal and against Gaddafi—who vows to fight to the “last man and woman”—raged in several towns across the country. The story is not yet ended.

Poland Über Alles

Twenty years ago, the deeply Catholic Poland was a backward agricultural and provincial country. Yet, since then, it has experienced an almost nonstop boom. Even during the 2009 recession, which we’re still recovering from, Poland’s economy grew by 1.7 percent. And thanks to its accession to the EU in 2004, unemployment fell from more than 20 percent to about 8 percent today. No surprise that Poles are among Europe’s most optimistic people… Read the article at Spiegel Online International.

English Identity: A New Report

An interesting new report (“Fear and HOPE”), commissioned by Searchlight Educational Trust, explores the issues of English identity, faith and race. With 5,054 respondents and 91 questions, it is one of the largest and most comprehensive surveys into attitude, identity and extremism in the UK to date.

“This report paints a disturbing picture of our attitudes towards each another and the unknown,” says Nick Lowles, Chief Executive of Searchlight. While highlighting the dangers that lie ahead if the issues explored in the research are not addressed, Fear and HOPE also “shakes the confidence of those who believe that all is well in Britain’s multiracial society.”

The full report will be available here from Monday, February 28, 2011 at 9.00pm (Greenwich Mean Time). In the meantime, you can read the executive summary here. Via Harry's Place.

The Rubicon is a River in Wisconsin

Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post:

The magnificent turmoil now gripping statehouses in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and soon others marks an epic political moment. The nation faces a fiscal crisis of historic proportions and, remarkably, our muddled, gridlocked, allegedly broken politics have yielded singular clarity.
[...]
We have heard everyone - from Obama's own debt commission to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - call the looming debt a mortal threat to the nation. We have watched Greece self-immolate. We can see the future. The only question has been: When will the country finally rouse itself?
Amazingly, the answer is: now. Led by famously progressive Wisconsin - Scott Walker at the state level and Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan at the congressional level - a new generation of Republicans has looked at the debt and is crossing the Rubicon. Recklessly principled, they are putting the question to the nation: Are we a serious people?

An Afghanistan in the Mediterranean?

Two scenarios of the Arab revolution. That of Egypt, with an unprecedented alliance between Christians and Muslims. And that of Libya, where the collapse of the regime paves the way for radical Islamism. Take a look at the analysis of Khaled Fouad Allam, as expounded in an article by Sandro Magister.

The picture that emerges […] is that of a Muslim world that is much more fragile and disorganized than is usually imagined. Much more varied. Much more exposed to secularization and to the languages of global communication, universal but still uncertain in meaning.

Yet, this doesn’t apply to all of the Arab countries in revolt today. In fact, there is one exception. That exception is Libya:

Libya has never been a homogeneous nation. It is a tangle of Arab, Berber, and African tribes, for each of which group loyalty matters more than anything else. At the outbreak of the revolt, entire cities and regions were quickly made autonomous.

In Libya there are no real and proper state institutions, no parliament, no army that could assume power, as happened in Egypt, and ensure a smooth transition.

For Gaddafi, the "revolution" was the state, and the state was him. His was an "Islamic Maoism" purified of the prophetic tradition, the Sunna, which made him foreign and distasteful to the bulk of the Sunni Muslim world itself.

Paradoxically, the tyranny of Gaddafi guaranteed the Catholic Church levels of freedom greater than in any other Muslim country of the region.

The downfall of Gadaffi may therefore coincide with the total collapse of Libya. Which could become – Allam warns – "an Afghanistan in the Mediterranean."

An Algerian with Italian citizenship, Khaled Fouad Allam is professor of Sociology of the Muslim world and History and Institutions of the Islamic countries at the Universites of Trieste, Urbino and at the Stanford University of Florence.

When the Privileged are Angry

James Taranto’s piece in the WSJ’s Opinion Journal is well worth a careful read. He addresses the Wisconsin thing, the main issues at stake—including the differences between public and private sector unions and between Tea Party and union protests—and their political, economic, and “cultural” implications. He also shows how “almost every lie the left ever told about the Tea Party has turned out to be true of the government unionists in Wisconsin and their supporters.” Via Bookworm Room.

If Gaddafi Vows to Die a Martyr

That the Arab revolution might reach Libya was regarded as out of the range of possible (or desirable) things. And if one leader could survive the storm, it seemed to be Kadhafi, with his broad security apparatus, his elite military units and his own oil wells. At least that’s how we felt until a few days ago.

But with their utter courage the demonstrators in Benghazi, Surt, Misurata, Tubruq, Derna, and Tripoli have taken even this certainty away. And what is more is that these events mark the first time that uprisings roiling the broader Middle East have destabilized a major oil-producing state. Of course, that’s also why Libya holds a different level of interest to the West than Tunisia or even Egypt. This is true above all for Italy, Libya’s former colonial overlord and its top trade partner. Italy has a lot to lose if Gaddafi goes:

"Italy has been worried because the effects would be more direct and immediate than on other countries" if Gathafi is forced to relinquish power, said Ettore Greco, director of the International Affairs Institute in Rome.
The Libyan regime has shut down illegal immigration towards Italy and holds major stakes in Italian companies including the country's top bank UniCredit, industry giant Finmeccanica and first-division football club Juventus.
Italian officials say a pact with Libya on immigration has reduced undocumented arrivals by more than 90 percent and Libya has threatened to lift controls if Europe tries to topple Gathafi.
Italian businesses also have key investments in the North African state, which accounts for 14 percent of the global output of Italian energy giant ENI.
Italy is the biggest exporter to Libya and is also Libya's biggest export market, importing around 23 percent of its oil supplies from Libya.

That explains the reason why Italy—along with Britain, another country with which Libya has a special (business) relationship—is treading cautiously.

However, in general, as a result of the turmoil, crude oil prices are rising to their highest levels in two years: they went up 6% alone yesterday and the Arab revolution could cause them to go a lot higher (by the way, the exodus of international oil firms is an indication of how dramatic things have become in Libya).

That’s what explains why Russian President Dmitry Medvedev predicted “fires for decades and the spread of extremism” in the Arab world if protesters, whom he called “fanatics,” come to power.

Yet the European and American Left are far less cautious and definitely side with the Arab revolution. And to think that Gaddafi, as recalled by the German conservative daily Die Welt, started as an Arab nationalist with a socialist vocabulary, and many leftists honored him (along with the late far-right Austrian nationalist Jörg Haider), into the ‘90s, as an ‘anti-imperialist’ figure. Things change so quickly sometimes…

But this time, unlike in the cases of Tunisia and Egypt, it’s a bit more difficult to disagree. In the light of what “the mad dog” has proven himself to be these days, even the European Union, Obama and the lefties might be right. And perhaps this will be recalled as the beginning of the last act of the Libyan tragedy:

He called on "those who love Muammar Gaddafi" to come out on to the streets, telling them not to be afraid of the "gangs".
"Come out of your homes, attack them in their dens. Withdraw your children from the streets. They are drugging your children, they are making your children drunk and sending them to hell," he said.
He would "cleanse Libya house by house", he said.
"If matters require, we will use force, according to international law and the Libyan constitution," he said, and warned that the country could descend into civil war or be occupied by the US if protests continued.
Anyone who played games with the country's unity would be executed, he said, citing the Chinese authorities' crushing of the student protests in Tiananmen Square as an example of national unity being "worth more than a small number of protesters".

Well, frankly speaking, who in the right mind would miss him? Just let him “die a martyr” if that’s what he wants, and may Allah have mercy on him, because his people won't.

True Grit. Much, Much More Than a Remake

First off let me say that, speaking of movies, as a lover of Westerns I have been a lifelong fan of John Wayne—it is not by chance that Rio Bravo is perhaps my favorite movie ever, though no small part of the credit for this is due to Dean Martin and director Howard Hawks. Second, I think that John Wayne’s 1969 True Grit was a great movie. With all this being said, I have to say that the 2010 remake by Joel and Ethan Coen—starring a fierce but self-ironic Jeff Bridges as Rueben “Rooster” Cogburn, a pompous Matt Damon as Texas Ranger La Boeuf, and the young newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, cast as Mattie Ross after competing with 15,000 other applicants for the role—is a great movie, too (watch the trailer below).

So, I’m not at all surprised if the film received critical acclaim. Rotten Tomatoes, which gives each movie a breakdown of the number of good reviews versus bad, reported that 95% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 203 reviews, with only 10 negative reviews and an average score of 8.3/10. “The critics,” according to the above mentioned popular movie website, “say the Coen Brothers’ (relatively) straightforward remake of True Grit is a rewarding movie in its own right—it’s tough, sly, and filled with marvelous performances, most notably Jeff Bridges and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld.” In other words, in their reviews the movie pundits think that True Grit is “a crowd-pleasing effort from the Coens that manages to maintain their trademark subversion within the framework of an old-school Western.” Just to make an example, according to Total Film, which gave the film a five-star review (denoting “outstanding”), “This isn’t so much a remake as a masterly re-creation.” As it was not enough, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops review called the film “exceptionally fine” and said “[a]mid its archetypical characters, mythic atmosphere and amusingly idiosyncratic dialogue, writer-directors Joel and Ethan Coen’s captivating drama uses its heroine’s sensitive perspective—as well as a fair number of biblical and religious references—to reflect seriously on the violent undertow of frontier life.”

Well, I am by no means a movie critic, nor an aspiring one, but I couldn’t agree more…

Deservedtly, the movie is currently nominated for ten Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor (Bridges), Best Supporting Actress (Steinfeld), Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Sound Editing (the ceremony will take place on February 27, 2011).

I thoroughly enjoyed the soundtrack (by Carter Burwell) as well. It is made up of 19th-century church music. The 1888 hymn “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” is used as Mattie Ross’s theme (Iris DeMent’s version, from her 2004 album Lifeline, is used during the end credits). Other hymns are also referenced in the score, including “The Glory-Land Way” and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” (watch the featurette video on True Grit’s music). Unfortunately, because the hymns are considered pre-composed music, the score was deemed ineligible to be nominated for Best Original Score in the 2010 Academy Awards.

Lenin is Alive and Well in America

~ “LETTERS FROM AMERICA” - by The Metaphysical Peregrine ~

That tactics are toned down, the bloody militarism is too, but the mindset is the same. In 1917 the Bolsheviks couldn’t get their way, so they just started a reign of murder and terror until they did. They were able to keep it up for about a century. Mao and his murderers in China couldn’t get their way, so they started a reign of murder and terror until they did.

The tactics of the Left have changed. Now they have protests, often leading to violence of a lesser sort than Lenin and Mao engaged in, and a perfect example is what’s happening in Wisconsin now. I guess it could just be called intimidation and bullying instead of a violent revolution. They're going for the same result. Make sure they have the money and power, and that the citizens obey them. 

The governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, when he was running for office, said he would make major budget cuts and curtail the power of the unions. Most unions members are government employees, and think that no matter what the economic situation of a state or the country; the citizens should be taxed so they can maintain their life styles. The same citizens that are losing their homes, taking wage and salary cuts, and getting laid off. The citizens liked what they heard Walker and other Republicans say they were going to do to address the $billions of debt Wisconsin is facing, and so elected them.

A huge chunk of that debt, not only in Wisconsin, but in all the states facing bankruptcy, can be laid right at the doorstep of unions. [Side note: Every state and city in America facing bankruptcy is run by Democrats and unions.]  In Wisconsin, state employees (union members) do not contribute to their own health care or retirement plans. They get a full ride on the back of the citizens who are contributing to their own plans. They’re highly paid too; for example, the average wage of a teacher there, salary and benefits, is $89,000 a year. (Note they get three months off in the summer plus 30 days off for various holidays and stuff too.)

Now these employees aren’t showing up for work, and are going to the state capitol building and protesting; twenty-five thousand of them the first day of the demonstrations. This is a great message for the teachers to relay to kids…don’t like the way things are going, don’t show up for work and have a temper tantrum. Despite what their union, the National Education Association (NEA) says, teachers aren't about the kids, teachers are about how they can benefit themselves. If that weren't so, they they would have shown up to work. (To teach, one must be a union member, union thuggery, so those teachers that are coerced to join don't fit that observation.) Which is what the Democrat legislators have done; not show up. They fled the state instead of debating and voting as they were hired by the citizens to do. They had to flee the state because the state police were looking for them, to arrest and take them back to the capitol. They can’t cross state lines to effect the arrests.

There are 19 Republicans in the legislature and 14 Democrats. Twenty are needed for a quorum. The governor has proposed to eliminate collective bargaining rights for state employees, require employees to pay for half of their pensions and at least 12.6 percent of their health insurance. Wage increases would be tied to the Consumer Price Index. Union negotiations would be limited to wages. This is what the legislators were to debate and vote on. For this the Governor and Republicans are called all sorts of nasty things.  

The state just doesn’t have the money to continue to pay all those benefits and wages. Many retirement packages provide a higher annual income than the employee made while working, and for more years than he\she worked. The governor can’t do what Obama does, borrow and print $trillions and pretend it’s not such a big deal. Something else Obama and the Democrats and their union thugs have done (the two main sources of funds for the Democrats are George Soros and unions) is send in Leftists from all over the country to join the protesters. A wing of the Democrat Party, and the campaign organization for Obama, Organizing for America, is the coordinator in this attack on a state, doing its own state business. The federal government has no jurisdiction here; this is only a Leninist political maneuver, led by the president, who is elected to represent all the people, not just unions and his other political supporters. Obama called what Governor Walker is doing “an assault on unions”. It’s none of Obama’s damned business. Walker’s response: "I think we're focused on balancing our budget. It would be wise for the president and others in Washington to focus on balancing their budget, which they're a long ways from doing."

Starting when GW Bush signed TARP, which was to save the economy but made things worse, and which Conservatives were against; Conservatives starting writing letters to their Representatives and Senators to stop the spending insanity. That didn’t work so Citizens began getting together to confront their congress critters in town hall meetings, and those people were the foundation of the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party. That didn't work. They held rallies. That didn’t work either, so in the election this past November, a massive number of Republicans, fresh faces, not the old RINO’s (Republican In Name Only), were elected to state legislatures, governorships, Senate and House of Representatives. It was a major power shift. (No Conservatives took to the streets to effect this change.) 

What’s happening in Wisconsin is a microcosm of the tipping point we face. Do the unions and their political sock puppets demand we the people pay up to sustain their power and life styles, or are the Citizens in fact the government, and tell the unions and congress critters they’ll take what they're given and shut the hell up or quit.

The cowardly Wisconsin Democrats fled the state rather than do what they’re paid to do. State (Leftist) employees took to the streets rather than go to work and do what they were paid to do. There’s the difference. Conservatives took the legal and moral path, and were called fascists, Nazis, violent, etc., and the Leftists are in fact engaging in fascist, Nazi, Leninist behavior because they’re losing the argument and power. Lot’s of signs by the way, and we’re not surprised, of the Governor with a Hitler mustache.   

The tactics have softened, but the intent is there. We’re at tipping point. Marx and Engels with the Communist Manifesto, or Jefferson and Washington with the US Constitution?

Neoconservatism: An Obituary?

Glenn Beck said that C. Bradley Thompson’s new book Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea is “a must-read for all Americans interested in defending the founding fathers vision of a free and just society.” Actually, as far as I have seen until now, this book is being described by reviewers and readers as a comprehensive analysis of what neoconservatives call their “philosophy of governance” which probes and explicates the deepest philosophic principles of neoconservatism, traces the intellectual relationship between the political philosopher Leo Strauss and contemporary neoconservative political actors, and provides a trenchant critique of neoconservatism from the perspective of America’s founding principles. I have just ordered it from Amazon. Will let you know what I think.

Egypt: Another Iran In The Making?

Now that Mubarak has stepped down, what will happen in Egypt? That’s the question we all are asking ourselves. More precisely: What will the new Egyptian government look like? And what will be the role of the Muslim Brotherhood? Needless to say, as many international observers—including the Italian doyen of political scientists, Giovanni Sartori—have pointed out, the risk now is that a second Iran might be born.

Like the Shah Reza Pahlavi before him, Mubarak has been a loyal ally of the West. Also on the list of likenesses between the two stories is that the Shah, besides being the first Muslim leader to recognize the State of Israel, went down in history for countless clashes with radical Islamists, and Mubarak, in turn, banned the Muslim Brotherhood (which presents itself as the moderate face of Islam but supports Hamas in Palestine) and strengthened relations with Israel. We know how things went in Iran.

Perhaps it is true that, as Scott Atran put it, the Muslim Brotherhood is not to be feared because it is “marginal to the spirit of revolt now spreading through the Arab world.” Or perhaps Caroline Glick was right when she wrote, “If the (Egypt) regime falls, the successor regime will not be a liberal democracy. Mubarak’s military authoritarianism will be replaced by Islamic totalitarianism.” What I know is that, according to a survey conducted in Egypt—and in six other majority Muslim countries—by the Washington-based Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, “at least three-quarters” of Muslims in Egypt say

they would favor making each of the following the law in their countries: stoning people who commit adultery, whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery and the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion.

The survey also finds that

Muslim publics overwhelmingly welcome Islamic influence over their countries’ politics. In Egypt, Pakistan and Jordan, majorities of Muslims who say Islam is playing a large role in politics see this as a good thing, while majorities of those who say Islam is playing only a small role say this is bad for their country.

Yet, when asked for their views about democracy, majorities in most of the Muslim communities surveyed say that democracy is preferable to any other kind of government… Maybe this means that—whatever President Obama may think about the Egypt crisis—we should start asking ourselves to what extent their way to think of democracy is compatible with ours. In the meantime, I can’t help recalling what an Egyptian student had to say about this whole matter, a story very different from what most of us have been seeing on television or reading in our papers. However, and in any event, let's keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best, no matter what our personal beliefs (or disbeliefs) may be.

Lincoln, Reagan, Poltical Parties and the Current Political Power Shift

~ “LETTERS FROM AMERICA” - by The Metaphysical Peregrine ~

Last weekend, we celebrated the 100^th anniversary of Ronald Reagan, and this weekend we celebrate the 202^nd anniversary of Abraham Lincoln, the founder of the modern Republican Party. What both men had in common was governing by the principals found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

The Democrat Party tried all through the 20^th century up to now to co-opt Lincoln for its own purposes, and now is trying to co-opt Reagan. There was the recent Time Magazine cover putting Obama arm in arm with Reagan. If it weren’t a Democrat Party mouthpiece, I would have thought it satire.

The foundation of the Republican Party was anti-slavery, and a civil war had to be fought to bring it to an end. (The Democrat Party was pro-slavery) Another part of the framework of the Party was and is keeping government limited. Democrats will say, when trying to co-opt Lincoln, was that he was a good Progressive because he expanded government. He did; he had to conduct a war. The US budget began at $63.2 million in 1860 and increased to $1.29 billion in 1865, and it was reduced to $293 million by 1870. Blacks voted overwhelmingly Republican after the Civil War and into the 1930’s when the Democrats started offering something for nothing. Since then Blacks have seen themselves moved into urban ghettos, put in housing projects, seen their families dissembled, and the men emasculated by those policies. The Ku Klux Klan was all Democrats; one could say they were the terrorist wing of the Democrat Party. Yet Blacks overwhelmingly (over 90%) still vote for the Party and politicians that resisted freeing slaves, murdered them, continued to impoverish them, then re-enslaved them to the State. When Moses was leading the Jews out of Egypt, the hardships were such that many begged him to take them back to Egypt and slavery, it being better to suffer that than what they were going through. Democrats and Franklin Roosevelt (Moses) complied and lead Blacks back into slavery.

Ronald Reagan came to power inheriting double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, and double digit interest rates. He did exactly the opposite of what Obama is doing now. Obama has increased regulation of private business, Reagan reduced it. Obama has weakened the military, Reagan strengthened it. Obama wanted to raise taxes, but even he recognizes that doing so during a recession would be a near death blow to the US economy. Reagan cut taxes across the board. The top marginal tax rate was 70% and he reduced it to 28%. Obama has weakened foreign policy and Reagan strengthened it. Reagan believed in strength by projecting power, and Obama projects appeasement and apology. Part of co-opting Reagan is trying to redefine the man’s ideas and principles, just as they have Lincoln’s. They are trying to rewrite history too, saying they (Democrats) were always respectful of Reagan and his policies.

Here’s some of the things said about him during his presidency. Tip O’Neill, Speaker of the House during Reagan’s presidency, said, “The evil is in the White House at the present time. And that evil is a man who has no care and no concern for the working class of America and the future generations of America, and who likes to ride a horse. He’s cold. He’s mean. He’s got ice water for blood.” Lot’s of ‘working class’ people were thrown out of work during Carter’s administration, yet during the Reagan administration, 21 million jobs were added. Democrat congressman William Clay of Missouri said Reagan was trying to replace “the Bill of Rights with fascist precepts lifted verbatim from Mein Kampf”. I remember all kinds of comparisons of Reagan to Hitler and Nazism, part of the unrelenting attacks and insults that have lasted until recently.Even during Reagan's funeral, Democrats and their mouthpieces in the Jurassic Press were making snide and cynical comments about him and people that agreed with his policies and principals. 

The Democrats are now saying Reagan was good on foreign policy, yet at the time were horrified that he called the Soviet Union the evil empire, were aghast he told Gorbachev to “tear down this wall”, mocked and blocked his Strategic Defense Initiative; in short opposed everything he tried to do in foreign policy.

The reason for this attempted usurpation is the Democrats are losing power. They lost 63 seats in the House of Representatives in the last election, six Senate seats, several governorships, and several state legislatures. They are going to lose several more in the next election. The latest census shows that Democrat run states, with serious over regulation of business and uber high taxation have lost a lot of population; people have moved to business friendly states with low taxation. Those Republican states will gain, through redistricting, more house seats, in addition to more Democrats and RINO’s (Republican In Name Only) being voted out next year. Since their shine is off, Democrats are trying to gather for themselves some of the shine that comes from leaders that actually believe in, and apply, the principles of the Constitution.

It was important to Lincoln that he keep the Constitution intact. Lincoln was castigated for not, by the stroke of the pen, abolishing slavery the minute he came to power. He responded saying, they “seemed to think that the moment I was president, I had the power to abolish slavery, forgetting that before I could have any power whatsoever I had to take the oath to support the Constitution of the United States and execute the laws as I found them.”

Reagan wrote a friend in 1979: “…the permanent structure of our government with its power to pass regulations has eroded if not in effect repealed portions of our Constitution.” It was during Reagan’s second term that he directed his Attorney General, Ed Meese, to start challenging legislators and the Courts to apply the “original intent” of the Constitution to law and governance. It caused a big fight, and the Democrats hated it.

The principals set forth by Reagan and Lincoln today is the foundation of the TEA Party movement and the re-emergence of the idea of limited government, low taxation, and the return to the original intent of the Constitution; that there is human equality, not equality of outcome through governmental regulation outside the parameters of the Constitution.

Why Big Government Doesn’t Work

The latest video released by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation (CF&P) highlights the “four reasons why big government is bad government.” This is the eleventh video of CF&P’s Economics 101 series, which is designed to explain free market concepts, with particular emphasis on reaching students and young people.

In short, the video explains that excessive government spending:

1. crowds out private growth
2. requires destructive levels of taxation
3. created deficits and a massive debt
4. violates the Constitutional prescription of limited government.

Needless to say, this is also the path which led to the fiscal collapse of some European welfare states.