Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Jnalum Persicum

Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by Jnalum Persicum »

.


America can no longer afford its global imperium


.

. . Nor is the hate video, which was actually seen by only a limited number of the world’s one billion Muslims, the real cause of the violence we have been witnessing: it is merely the spark that ignited the combustible haze of anti-Americanism that overlies over much of the Muslim world.

Many Americans believe they are innocent bystanders in the Muslim world, or involved there on an altruistic “mission” to uplift the benighted natives, to selflessly shoulder the heavy burden of policing the unruly globe, or abroad to wage an unending struggle against the dark forces of what we call “terrorism.”

What they do not at all understand is that the American imperium’s goal is to advance its own strategic, economic and political goals and keep much of the planet under its influence.

In the last century, such ambitions and behavior used to be called “imperialism,” a practice that became synonymous with the British Empire. At its apogee, the Britain Empire ruled one quarter of the globe and most of the world’s seas and oceans. At the heart of this vast empire lay its “jewel,” India. Britain’s rule over India was known as the British Raj (raj meaning rule in Hindi).

In 2008, I published my second book, “American Raj.” I sought to distill my fifty years of experience in the Muslim world to explain to Americans what was really going on in the troubled region, why it was so violent and unstable, and our own errors in fostering this problem. I tried to show what a positive role America could play for the entire Muslim world.

The more I examined the historical parallels between the British Empire and today’s American dominion over most of the Arab and greater Muslim world, the more it became evident that the United States had inherited the British Empire in 1945 and was copying its highly successful managerial techniques.

Chief among these was divide and rule, using petty princes and potentates as surrogates, building armies of native troops known as “sepoys,” forcing the subcontinent into economic subservience and captive markets.

Britain’s genius lay in managing a huge empire with tiny numbers of its own soldiers and officials. That’s why I entitled my book, “American Raj.” In it, I examined the way Washington controlled most of the Arab world’s regimes, how it promoted dictatorship and its handmaiden, corruption, and how the US used native armies to maintain its control.

I warned that the Mideast was seething with anti-Americanism, fury over the plight of Palestinians, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and rage against the corrupt, brutal rulers imposed by the United States, Britain and France. In “Raj,” I urged the United States to practice the values it preaches and help build real democracy in the Arab world before it was too late. The first and major step, I asserted, was imposed a just settlement for Palestine – which I termed “sand in the eye of the Muslim world.”

Not a single American publisher would touch “American Raj.” It was simply too heretical in challenging the myths of benign American foreign policy or predicting a coming explosion. My book was published in Canada and Europe, but not in my own country.

In December, 2010, two years after “Raj” came out, the Arab world began to erupt against dictatorship, corruption, and oppression. The revolt began in little Tunisia but soon spread to the bulwark of America’s Mideast Raj, Egypt, where the exceptionally brutal, corrupt US-backed dictatorship of Husni Mubarak was toppled. For 40 years, Washington had sustained military dictatorships in Egypt whose principal raison d’etre was making Israel comfortable and keeping the lid on a restive population.

The angry demonstrations still flaring across the Muslim world are a volcanic eruption of anger at America. They are not terrorism or religious fanaticism, though numbers of religious fanatics are indeed involved, particularly in Pakistan. They are anti-Americanism in full flame.

As I tried to explain in “American Raj,” what we call “terrorism” is in many cases virulent anti-Americanism aroused by our domination of the Muslim world – which has been battling first European, then American domination for the past two centuries. And the near universal belief among its citizens that the western powers are stealing their oil and gas resources, abetted by corrupt, Quisling regimes.

The natives are fighting back, just as they did under the British Raj. As America wrings its hands over attacks by our ingrate Afghan “sepoys” on their American and British advisors (read “white officers”), those who know India’s history will recall the great 1857 Indian Mutiny in which “loyal” native sepoy regiments turned on their British officers and their families.

Is it any wonder the Muslim world is so angry? The agony of Palestine continues, with America’s politicians, led by Mitt Romney, adopting an openly anti-Palestinian policy. His cynical words about kicking the Palestinian question down the road echoed across the Muslim world, as had virulently anti-Muslim statements by Republican presidential challengers like Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. Or the constant Muslim-bashing of Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the rest of the Murdoch empire, and the ever-expanding Evangelical news, film and publishing networks.

America’s armed forces and CIA are now waging military operations and assassinations in five Muslim nations: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and, most recently, Libya. US troops are heading into East and North Africa, with Mali next on the list. Iraq has been destroyed as a society and functioning state. Sudan, Africa’s largest state, has just been sundered into two inimical states, the US-backed one that coincidentally has oil.

There are nine million Palestinian refugees, two million Afghan refugees, two million Iraqi refugees, and now Syria is being torn apart by a US and Saudi-backed insurgency. Mubarak is gone, but Washington supports some of the world’s most reactionary and odious regimes, notably medieval monarchies in Arabia and the sinister military regime that rules Algeria. Let’s not forget, either, the ugly little despots of Central Asia who are supported and financed by Washington.

In short, there are a multitude of reasons for people in the Muslim world to be angry at America. And, of course, at themselves: youth unemployment and the economic, social and political backwardness of much of the Muslim world, endemic corruption and near total lack of real justice, powerlessness and hopelessness. Our so-called ally, Pakistan, offers an alarming example of a broken-down society ruled by thieving officials and above-the-law feudal landlords – sustained, of course, by Washington.

America can’t be blamed for many of the Muslim world’s wrenching social and political problems, but it is not doing enough to alleviate them. Instead, Washington clings to its overseas empire with the same tenacity as Britain’s imperialists at a time when the United Kingdom’s postwar economy lay shattered and drowning in debt. Britain could no longer afford its globe-girding empire then, and America can no longer afford its global imperium today. Both Raj’s had feet of clay.

.


Look, folks

That Dems this Reps that all rubbish .. you broke .. finito .. Kaput


said enough



.
Simple Minded

Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by Simple Minded »

JP,

Gotta agree with you on this one. It is the old story of choosing between guns and butter. Or in my lingo square circles and free lunches. My best friend since 1987 is a Muslim born and raised in Egypt, earned his doctorate from Rutgers.

We have been discussing the relative decline of the US and the West since 1995. Easy to see and predict long term trends, timing within a couple decades is the tough part.

All is flux, and with most of our opinions we are just vocalizing our personal snapsnots of time.
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Margolis right about the Cost but mostly a twit otherwise...

Post by monster_gardener »

Jnalum Persicum wrote:.


America can no longer afford its global imperium


.

. . Nor is the hate video, which was actually seen by only a limited number of the world’s one billion Muslims, the real cause of the violence we have been witnessing: it is merely the spark that ignited the combustible haze of anti-Americanism that overlies over much of the Muslim world.

Many Americans believe they are innocent bystanders in the Muslim world, or involved there on an altruistic “mission” to uplift the benighted natives, to selflessly shoulder the heavy burden of policing the unruly globe, or abroad to wage an unending struggle against the dark forces of what we call “terrorism.”

What they do not at all understand is that the American imperium’s goal is to advance its own strategic, economic and political goals and keep much of the planet under its influence.

In the last century, such ambitions and behavior used to be called “imperialism,” a practice that became synonymous with the British Empire. At its apogee, the Britain Empire ruled one quarter of the globe and most of the world’s seas and oceans. At the heart of this vast empire lay its “jewel,” India. Britain’s rule over India was known as the British Raj (raj meaning rule in Hindi).

In 2008, I published my second book, “American Raj.” I sought to distill my fifty years of experience in the Muslim world to explain to Americans what was really going on in the troubled region, why it was so violent and unstable, and our own errors in fostering this problem. I tried to show what a positive role America could play for the entire Muslim world.

The more I examined the historical parallels between the British Empire and today’s American dominion over most of the Arab and greater Muslim world, the more it became evident that the United States had inherited the British Empire in 1945 and was copying its highly successful managerial techniques.

Chief among these was divide and rule, using petty princes and potentates as surrogates, building armies of native troops known as “sepoys,” forcing the subcontinent into economic subservience and captive markets.

Britain’s genius lay in managing a huge empire with tiny numbers of its own soldiers and officials. That’s why I entitled my book, “American Raj.” In it, I examined the way Washington controlled most of the Arab world’s regimes, how it promoted dictatorship and its handmaiden, corruption, and how the US used native armies to maintain its control.

I warned that the Mideast was seething with anti-Americanism, fury over the plight of Palestinians, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and rage against the corrupt, brutal rulers imposed by the United States, Britain and France. In “Raj,” I urged the United States to practice the values it preaches and help build real democracy in the Arab world before it was too late. The first and major step, I asserted, was imposed a just settlement for Palestine – which I termed “sand in the eye of the Muslim world.”

Not a single American publisher would touch “American Raj.” It was simply too heretical in challenging the myths of benign American foreign policy or predicting a coming explosion. My book was published in Canada and Europe, but not in my own country.

In December, 2010, two years after “Raj” came out, the Arab world began to erupt against dictatorship, corruption, and oppression. The revolt began in little Tunisia but soon spread to the bulwark of America’s Mideast Raj, Egypt, where the exceptionally brutal, corrupt US-backed dictatorship of Husni Mubarak was toppled. For 40 years, Washington had sustained military dictatorships in Egypt whose principal raison d’etre was making Israel comfortable and keeping the lid on a restive population.

The angry demonstrations still flaring across the Muslim world are a volcanic eruption of anger at America. They are not terrorism or religious fanaticism, though numbers of religious fanatics are indeed involved, particularly in Pakistan. They are anti-Americanism in full flame.

As I tried to explain in “American Raj,” what we call “terrorism” is in many cases virulent anti-Americanism aroused by our domination of the Muslim world – which has been battling first European, then American domination for the past two centuries. And the near universal belief among its citizens that the western powers are stealing their oil and gas resources, abetted by corrupt, Quisling regimes.

The natives are fighting back, just as they did under the British Raj. As America wrings its hands over attacks by our ingrate Afghan “sepoys” on their American and British advisors (read “white officers”), those who know India’s history will recall the great 1857 Indian Mutiny in which “loyal” native sepoy regiments turned on their British officers and their families.

Is it any wonder the Muslim world is so angry? The agony of Palestine continues, with America’s politicians, led by Mitt Romney, adopting an openly anti-Palestinian policy. His cynical words about kicking the Palestinian question down the road echoed across the Muslim world, as had virulently anti-Muslim statements by Republican presidential challengers like Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. Or the constant Muslim-bashing of Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the rest of the Murdoch empire, and the ever-expanding Evangelical news, film and publishing networks.

America’s armed forces and CIA are now waging military operations and assassinations in five Muslim nations: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and, most recently, Libya. US troops are heading into East and North Africa, with Mali next on the list. Iraq has been destroyed as a society and functioning state. Sudan, Africa’s largest state, has just been sundered into two inimical states, the US-backed one that coincidentally has oil.

There are nine million Palestinian refugees, two million Afghan refugees, two million Iraqi refugees, and now Syria is being torn apart by a US and Saudi-backed insurgency. Mubarak is gone, but Washington supports some of the world’s most reactionary and odious regimes, notably medieval monarchies in Arabia and the sinister military regime that rules Algeria. Let’s not forget, either, the ugly little despots of Central Asia who are supported and financed by Washington.

In short, there are a multitude of reasons for people in the Muslim world to be angry at America. And, of course, at themselves: youth unemployment and the economic, social and political backwardness of much of the Muslim world, endemic corruption and near total lack of real justice, powerlessness and hopelessness. Our so-called ally, Pakistan, offers an alarming example of a broken-down society ruled by thieving officials and above-the-law feudal landlords – sustained, of course, by Washington.

America can’t be blamed for many of the Muslim world’s wrenching social and political problems, but it is not doing enough to alleviate them. Instead, Washington clings to its overseas empire with the same tenacity as Britain’s imperialists at a time when the United Kingdom’s postwar economy lay shattered and drowning in debt. Britain could no longer afford its globe-girding empire then, and America can no longer afford its global imperium today. Both Raj’s had feet of clay.

.


Look, folks

That Dems this Reps that all rubbish .. you broke .. finito .. Kaput


said enough



.
Thank You Very Much for Your Post, Azari.
America can no longer afford its global imperium
I agree. Should be spending the money on Inner & Outer Space: Anti-Meteor Defense, Moon Colonies, Undersea Colonies........

Or at least Roads, Schools, Bridges and CANDU or Better Thorium Nuclear Reactors...........

And better immigration security to keep Muslims bent on Jihad out.........

Otherwise IMVHO Margolis is largely a twit.......

Don't have time to do it all but will pick off a few of the low hanging bad apples
the Muslim world – which has been battling first European, then American domination for the past two centuries.
And what was the Muslim world doing before that? It was raiding and trying to enslave the rest of the World including Europe, India and uz.........

Actually IMVHO the Muslims have not gotten nearly as much oppression as they dished out to Dhimmis under their control.......

I still remember the SOP for Dhimmis delivering protection money jizya to the Muslime overlord...
one must go on jihad (i.e., razzias or raids) at least once a year…one may use a catapult against them [non-Muslims] when they are in a fortress, even if among them are women and children. One may set fire to them and/or drown them…If a person of the Ahl al-Kitab [People of The Book - i.e. Jews and Christians] is enslaved, his marriage is [automatically] revoked….One may cut down their trees…One must destroy their useless books. Jihadists may take as booty whatever they decide…they may steal as much food as they need…

…the dhimmi [may never] mention Allah or His Apostle…Jews, Christians, and Majians must pay the jizya [non-Muslim poll tax]….[O]n offering up the jizya, the dhimmi must hang his head while the official takes hold of his beard and hits [the dhimmi] on the protuberant bone beneath his ear [lower jaw]… They are not permitted to ostentatiously display their wine or church bells…[T]heir houses may not be higher than the Muslim’s, no matter how low…. The dhimmi may not ride an elegant horse or mule; he may ride a donkey only if the saddle is … wood. He may not walk on the good part of the road. [Dhimmis must] wear [an identifying] patch, even women, and even in the [public] baths…[Dhimmis] must hold their tongue…. [2]
http://vladtepesblog.com/?p=50054

Besides the above and the Barbary Pirates vs. Uz story.......

Remembering a gem of an example from Yemen: When an Arab Muslim from one tribe killed a Jew/Dhimmi/Slave who belonged to another tribe, instead of punishing the killer, a Jew/Dhimmi/Slave from the killer's tribe would be killed........

Excuse me if I don't have a lot of general sympathy for Muslim culture...
Not as bad as Nazi "kultur" but maybe not as good as Communist culture......

Have to be practical in order to keep from killing each other before we can get off planet but Muslim Culture is an ENEMY of every non Muslim culture on the planet.
fury over the plight of Palestinians
:lol: :lol: :lol:

Muslim Nations are so furious over the plight of the Palis that they refuse to give them citizenship unlike what happened to Jews expelled by the Muslims who made it to Israel or Palis who make it to Western Countries like Uz.....
Those angry Muslims from Morocco to Bangladesh are not rioting and burning because they hate Christianity, fast food, America’s consumer society, democracy, or feminism,
They hate anything that is not Islamic or loot......... Sometime even if it is Islamic.... but not their type of Islam.....

And speaking of Bangladesh, the Muslims there who were rescued from genocide at the hands of the Punjabi/Pakastani Muslim "Brothers" :twisted: by the Hindus of India are now persecuting Hindus who live in Bangladesh.......
Sudan, Africa’s largest state, has just been sundered into two inimical states, the US-backed one that coincidentally has oil.
And what coincidentally were the Muslims of Sudan doing to the Christians and Pagans of the South and to the less orthodox Muslims of the western Sudan? Raping, Robbing and Killing them in manner most foul like Muslim raiders/land pirates traditionally do........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janjaweed

I oppose Imperialism be it Uz and even more so be it Muslim..........

But am willing to let the imperial Chinese Dragons have the oil & the copper and do the guard duty...

Next time around, not gonna interfere like we Uz foolishly did when the Russian Bears were eating the Son of a Bitch Muslim ;) Afghan Hounds ;) ........

Let them deal with Dragon fire and Dragon Dung for 1000 years like Wise Uncle Ho warned of.......
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Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by Enki »

Monster_Gardener The problem with your quote about dhimmitude is that the other side was never any better than that. Europe used catapults, burned books and enslaved people.
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Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by Zack Morris »

Related to this topic is an eye-opening article by The Economist about the cost of military rockets. The US is bleeding hundreds of thousands of dollars per Taliban fighter killed.

Cheap smart weapons: Rockets galore
Jnalum Persicum

Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by Jnalum Persicum »

.

Zack ,

Taliban dime a dozen .. wie Sand am Meer

but

Nobody engaged the article I linked .. nobody talked of the essence of the article

why so ? ?

Monster, seems, living on other planet, that ORION thing

but , what about you guys ?

Is American Raj done .. well done ? ?

or

not done yet ?

silence is not an option


.
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Muslim Tax Collection Practices for Infidels

Post by monster_gardener »

Enki wrote:Monster_Gardener The problem with your quote about dhimmitude is that the other side was never any better than that. Europe used catapults, burned books and enslaved people.
Thank you VERY Much for your reply, Tinker.

Fair enough on Catapults*, Burned Books, and Slavery.

But that really wasn't the emphasis of the Dhimmi SOP quote; rather the Tax Payment Procedure....
must pay the jizya [non-Muslim poll tax]….[O]n offering up the jizya, the dhimmi must hang his head while the official takes hold of his beard and hits [the dhimmi] on the protuberant bone beneath his ear [lower jaw]…
Pure gratuitous violence designed solely to subdue and humiliate.........

For me it expresses succinctly the Muslim attitude toward Infidels........

That is even if you are willing to pay the protection money, you may still get your bones broken :shock: :o :evil:

AIUI the Mafia and Yakuza have higher standards than that: you don't get beaten up or bones broken unless you don't pay the protection money.....

I will go further and say that they are worse than the IRS ;) :twisted: :lol: :lol: :lol:


There are other points: the bit about having to were an identifying badge even in the public baths... Sounds disturbingly like the Nazis to me....

But the main point is that when they had the upper hand the Muslims were EVIL and if they ever get the upper hand again, IMVHO and the evidence* is Muslims will be as EVIL or worse.........

Not all Muslims all the time but enough and often enough........

I'm cool with a LOT less involvement in the ME by Uz*** but screeds by twits like Margolis about how awful it is for the poor Muslims is garbage without recognition that they are as bad or IMVHO worse than Uz... Better be on your guard......

*Thank you for the mention of catapults: a WMD of the times especially when loaded with the bodies of plague victims as the Turks did at Constantinople..... A reason I do NOT trust Fatwas allegedly against WMDs....

**especially Taliban Afghanistan but also elsewhere.......

***Need to concentrate on developing our own energy resources especially CANDU Thorium and on getting off planet away from Muslim and other homicidal/suicidal nutcases.....
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Phillip K. Dickensian World.......

Post by monster_gardener »

Zack Morris wrote:Related to this topic is an eye-opening article by The Economist about the cost of military rockets. The US is bleeding hundreds of thousands of dollars per Taliban fighter killed.

Cheap smart weapons: Rockets galore
Thank You Very Much for your post, Zack Morris.

I think that was part of Salafi Sam/Osama bin Ladin's plan........

But imagine what will happen if they become cheap........

Get ready for a Dickensian world :twisted: ...... Phillip K. Dickensian.....

Robotic assassins with homing darts...........
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Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by Enki »

I am sorry, but the gratuitous violence to subdue and humiliate was common to all feudal caste based cultures. That's what bowing, genuflecting, or whatever was about. Samurai killing peasants, only knights and lords being able to carry swords. Lords thinking that money is disgusting yet wanting their money managers and merchants to account for every penny and punishing them for the coffers going broke even though they themselves demanded lavish spending. It's all of a piece. Finding one particular aspect of humiliating submission in Islam is not a compelling argument considering that sort of humiliation is true of any culture. I mean how is it anything different when you are a highly skilled laborer, you establish what your time is worth but an employer who COULD pay you what you're worth talks you down just because they know what the market for that sort of job is, basing your value not on the value that your skills bring to the company, but the supply and demand of the market. It's humiliating, and many employment arrangements have started with such resentment at the outset signalling just how the employer views their role and the role off the employee. Essentially grabbing the beard and smacking one across the jaw or talking down a skilled worker or whatever is just a form of pseudocopulation, a symbolic abject humiliation meant to demonstrate clearly and distinctly who is the submissive and who is the dominant in the relationship.

For a few centuries Jews preferred to live in the Ummah than Christendom for a reason. It isn't so cut and dried. Better to be taxed and get a slight tap on the jaw than hunted down like a dog in the black forest no?
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Don't Want a Caliphate or a Raj

Post by monster_gardener »

Jnalum Persicum wrote:.

Zack ,

Taliban dime a dozen .. wie Sand am Meer

but

Nobody engaged the article I linked .. nobody talked of the essence of the article

why so ? ?

Monster, seems, living on other planet, that ORION thing

but , what about you guys ?

Is American Raj done .. well done ? ?

or

not done yet ?

silence is not an option


.
Thank you Very Much for Your Post, Azari.
Monster, seems, living on other planet, that ORION thing
Would that it were so ;) :lol: 8-)

Suspect that I will have to settle for Southern Hemisphere when Mr. MADhi meets Mr. Samson...

If I am lucky......

I did read the article.......

Have little sympathy with it except for the idea that this alleged empire is costing too much....

See little benefit from empire for uz Down in the Black Gang that could not be gained by concentrating on our own resources especially CANDU Thorium.....

So if the Raj isn't done, I'm not really in favor of keeping much of it....*

But I have little sympathy with a Wannabe World Conquering Religious Fanatic Culture with some moral standards lower than the Mafia....

Don't want go back to having a Caliphate rather than a Raj like we did not so long ago.......

*Don't believe in dropping loyal allies like the South Koreans but would be happy to see the Chinese Dragons get rid of their excess male population by lairing in Trashcanistan. Would Get rid of the excess male population in Trashcanistan too......
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Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by Enki »

I think we are going to have our scourging messiahs working regionally, the Mahdi in the Middle-East, Jesus in the West, Quetzlcoatl in Latin America, Shiva in India, and so on.

I hope those Hopi ants will take pity upon me. ;)
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Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by monster_gardener »

Enki wrote:I am sorry, but the gratuitous violence to subdue and humiliate was common to all feudal caste based cultures. That's what bowing, genuflecting, or whatever was about. Samurai killing peasants, only knights and lords being able to carry swords. Lords thinking that money is disgusting yet wanting their money managers and merchants to account for every penny and punishing them for the coffers going broke even though they themselves demanded lavish spending. It's all of a piece. Finding one particular aspect of humiliating submission in Islam is not a compelling argument considering that sort of humiliation is true of any culture. I mean how is it anything different when you are a highly skilled laborer, you establish what your time is worth but an employer who COULD pay you what you're worth talks you down just because they know what the market for that sort of job is, basing your value not on the value that your skills bring to the company, but the supply and demand of the market. It's humiliating, and many employment arrangements have started with such resentment at the outset signalling just how the employer views their role and the role off the employee. Essentially grabbing the beard and smacking one across the jaw or talking down a skilled worker or whatever is just a form of pseudocopulation, a symbolic abject humiliation meant to demonstrate clearly and distinctly who is the submissive and who is the dominant in the relationship.

For a few centuries Jews preferred to live in the Ummah than Christendom for a reason. It isn't so cut and dried. Better to be taxed and get a slight tap on the jaw than hunted down like a dog in the black forest no?
Thank you Very Much for your Post, Tinker.
For a few centuries Jews preferred to live in the Ummah than Christendom for a reason.
Quite correct.
Better to be taxed and get a slight tap on the jaw than hunted down like a dog in the black forest no?
Maybe.... If you didn't have the money to pay the tax, your life and goods were forfeit.

Might also depend on whether the tap was hard enough to break the jaw....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jizya#Comp ... _and_Jizya

Will give you the awful Samurai custom of "Cutting and Going"...........

But not so much underpaying and talking down...... not good but IMVHO not equivalent......
only knights and lords being able to carry swords.
A reason we uz have the second amendment and that things like the sai, tonfa and kiseru are weapons........
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Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by Endovelico »

(...)

Washington's Wars on Autopilot

After the last decade of military failures, stand-offs, and frustrations, you might think that this would be apparent in Washington. After all, the U.S. is now visibly an overextended empire, its sway waning from the Greater Middle East to Latin America, the limits of its power increasingly evident. And yet, here’s the curious thing: two administrations in Washington have drawn none of the obvious conclusions, and no matter how the presidential election turns out, it’s already clear that, in this regard, nothing will change.

Even as military power has proven itself a bust again and again, our policymakers have come to rely ever more completely on a military-first response to global problems. In other words, we are not just a classically overextended empire, but also an overwrought one operating on some kind of militarized autopilot. Lacking is a learning curve. By all evidence, it’s not just that there isn’t one, but that there can’t be one.

Washington, it seems, now has only one mode of thought and action, no matter who is at the helm or what the problem may be, and it always involves, directly or indirectly, openly or clandestinely, the application of militarized force. Nor does it matter that each further application only destabilizes some region yet more or undermines further what once were known as “American interests.”

Take Libya, as an example. It briefly seemed to count as a rare American military success story: a decisive intervention in support of a rebellion against a brutal dictator -- so brutal, in fact, that the CIA previously shipped “terrorist suspects,” Islamic rebels fighting against the Gaddafi regime, there for torture. No U.S. casualties resulted, while American and NATO air strikes were decisive in bringing a set of ill-armed, ill-organized rebels to power.

In the world of unintended consequences, however, the fall of Gaddafi sent Tuareg mercenaries from his militias, armed with high-end weaponry, across the border into Mali. There, when the dust settled, the whole northern part of the country had come unhinged and fallen under the sway of Islamic extremists and al-Qaeda wannabes as other parts of North Africa threatened to destabilize. At the same time, of course, the first American casualties of the intervention occurred when Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died in an attack on the Benghazi consulate and a local “safe house.”

With matters worsening regionally, the response couldn’t have been more predictable. As Greg Miller and Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post recently reported, in ongoing secret meetings, the White House is planning for military operations against al-Qaeda-in-the-Magreb (North Africa), now armed with weaponry pillaged from Gaddafi’s stockpiles. These plans evidently include the approach used in Yemen (U.S. special forces on the ground and CIA drone strikes), or a Somalia “formula” (drone strikes, special forces operations, CIA operations, and the support of African proxy armies), or even at some point “the possibility of direct U.S. intervention.”

In addition, Eric Schmitt and David Kilpatrick of the New York Times report that the Obama administration is “preparing retaliation” against those it believes killed the U.S. ambassador, possibly including “drone strikes, special operations raids like the one that killed Osama bin Laden, and joint missions with Libyan authorities.” The near certainty that, like the previous intervention, this next set of military actions will only further destabilize the region with yet more unpleasant surprises and unintended consequences hardly seems to matter. Nor does the fact that, in crude form, the results of such acts are known to us ahead of time have an effect on the unstoppable urge to plan and order them.

Such situations are increasingly legion across the Greater Middle East and elsewhere. Take one other tiny example: Iraq, from which, after almost a decade-long military disaster, the “last” U.S. units essentially fled in the middle of the night as 2011 ended. Even in those last moments, the Obama administration and the Pentagon were still trying to keep significant numbers of U.S. troops there (and, in fact, did manage to leave behind possibly several hundred as trainers of elite Iraqi units). Meanwhile, Iraq has been supportive of the embattled Syrian regime and drawn ever closer to Iran, even as its own sectarian strife has ratcheted upward. Having watched this unsettling fallout from its last round in the country, according to the New York Times, the U.S. is now negotiating an agreement “that could result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence.”

Don’t you just want to speak to those negotiators the way you might to a child: No, don’t do that! The urge to return to the scene of their previous disaster, however, seems unstaunchable. You could offer various explanations for why our policymakers, military and civilian, continue in such a repetitive -- and even from an imperial point of view -- self-destructive vein in situations where unpleasant surprises are essentially guaranteed and lack of success a given. Yes, there is the military-industrial complex to be fed. Yes, we are interested in the control of crucial resources, especially energy, and so on.

But it’s probably more reasonable to say that a deeply militarized mindset and the global maneuvers that go with it are by now just part of the way of life of a Washington eternally “at war.” They are the tics of a great power with the equivalent of Tourette's Syndrome. They happen because they can’t help but happen, because they are engraved in the policy DNA of our national security complex, and can evidently no longer be altered. In other words, they can’t help themselves.

That’s the only logical conclusion in a world where it has become ever less imaginable to do the obvious, which is far less or nothing at all. (Northern Chad? When did it become crucial to our well being?) Downsizing the mission? Inconceivable. Thinking the unthinkable? Don’t even give it a thought!

What remains is, of course, a self-evident formula for disaster on autopilot. But don’t tell Washington. It won’t matter. Its denizens can’t take it in.

http://www.zcommunications.org/overwrou ... engelhardt
I couldn't say it better...
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Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by Marcus »

Endovelico wrote:
. . But it’s probably more reasonable to say that a deeply militarized mindset and the global maneuvers that go with it are by now just part of the way of life of a Washington eternally “at war.” They are the tics of a great power with the equivalent of Tourette's Syndrome. They happen because they can’t help but happen, because they are engraved in the policy DNA of our national security complex, and can evidently no longer be altered. In other words, they can’t help themselves. . .
We have no excuse, we were warned:

8y06NSBBRtY
On Jan. 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower gave the nation a dire warning about what he described as a threat to democratic government. He called it the military-industrial complex, a formidable union of defense contractors and the armed forces.

Eisenhower, a retired five-star Army general, the man who led the allies on D-Day, made the remarks in his farewell speech from the White House.

As NPR's Tom Bowman tells Morning Edition co-host Renee Montagne, Eisenhower used the speech to warn about "the immense military establishment" that had joined with "a large arms industry."

Here's an excerpt:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial[-congressional] complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."
"The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time."
--- Richard Nixon
******************
"I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels."
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Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by YMix »

Unfortunately for everybody involved, Eisenhower was the last president whose popularity and respect had been gained outside the political system and, thus, he was the last president who could keep the pro-Cold War party in check. He was also, probably, the last president who did not take the Cold War seriously. The rest of them had to run with it or be accused of cowardice.
“There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent? Take a look at what we’ve done, too.” - Donald J. Trump, President of the USA
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Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

YMix wrote:Unfortunately for everybody involved, Eisenhower was the last president whose popularity and respect had been gained outside the political system and, thus, he was the last president who could keep the pro-Cold War party in check. He was also, probably, the last president who did not take the Cold War seriously. The rest of them had to run with it or be accused of cowardice.
The fifties kept Cold War Warriors in check? Einsenhower's administration fed off/solidified the ramping up of that Cold War. The early sixties may have been the apogee; but the fifties were like the Golden Age of Cold War stuff (and the model paid lip service for the next three decades)- so I just don't see this check.
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Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by YMix »

NapLajoieonSteroids wrote:The fifties kept Cold War Warriors in check? Einsenhower's administration fed off/solidified the ramping up of that Cold War. The early sixties may have been the apogee; but the fifties were like the Golden Age of Cold War stuff (and the model paid lip service for the next three decades)- so I just don't see this check.
It could've been far worse. Instead of Eisenhower, the USA could've gotten another Truman. At least Eisenhower knew a defensive military setup when he saw one and was pretty cautious in his approach. It's true that he let the politicians rant and rave, but he ended the Korean War and didn't begin one in Vietnam.
“There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent? Take a look at what we’ve done, too.” - Donald J. Trump, President of the USA
The Kushner sh*t is greasy - Stevie B.
Jnalum Persicum

Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by Jnalum Persicum »

.

I think this deserves a thread of it's own .. this, heart of America's present predicament

I would have preferred a new thread for this .. will lead to serious intelligent debate of American role in the world for the next 100 yrs

but

did not want to overload



America's role in the world must be re-defined and explained to its citizens.


Interesting and intelligent article

.

[..]

Romney reached back more than 60 years for this quote from George Marshall, secretary of defense in the Truman administration: "The only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it." The Korean and Vietnam Wars followed. Were they preventable?

Romney's speech was serious, especially this line which came after his call for a "change in course in the Middle East": "That course should be organized around these bedrock principles: America must have confidence in our cause, clarity in our purpose and resolve in our might."

I'm fine with that, but perhaps in the Oct. 22 presidential debate on foreign policy, moderator Bob Schieffer might ask Romney what is our cause, what is our purpose and where has might, alone, caused that purpose to be successful ? Iraq ? Afghanistan ? Vietnam ? Will it work with Iran ? Does Romney think bombing Iran, with or without Israel's assistance, will deter the mad mullahs from their goal of acquiring nuclear weapons ? Maybe it would, but can he be sure?

[..]

John F. Kennedy said in his 1961 Inaugural Address that we were willing to "...pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty."

Eleven years later as America was being torn apart by the Vietnam War, Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern said the United States "...can't be the policeman of the world."

Who is right ? I think both are right. America's role in the world must be re-defined and explained to its citizens. The presidential candidates should be asked about it. We can't afford to go everywhere and do everything. It isn't fair to our young men and women who are asked to die, or lose limbs, and it isn't fair to taxpayers who must pay for these wars. Still, America has an interest in promoting liberty and freeing people from tyranny. That interest is moral as well as self-serving. Democracies don't attack each other. But when and how should we act ?

[..]

Western values -- including religious values -- can't be forced on people who don't share them. There is a fundamental gap between Islamic cultures and the West that cannot be easily bridged by diplomacy or military might.

Romney's VMI speech sounded good to some American ears, but what does it mean to the rest of the world, which faces not invading armies, but invading terrorists without uniforms or a nation-state ? Perhaps Bob Schieffer will ask Romney and President Obama to answer these questions.

.

Fully agree

true

America must reboot and ask what is the mission and cause ? ?

American mission and cause must be moral and ethical to the eyes of the 7 Billion world population

think about it .. that was the essence of rule of "Cyrus the Persian" .. he never said people in Persian empire (biggest empire humans have seen until today) must lived according to Persian ethics and values and thinking and culture .. he explicitly said all must live according to "universal human right", but according to heir own culture and civilization and values

Absolute is only "universal human right" .. values relate to community standard, culture and civilization , they evolve


.
Jnalum Persicum

Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by Jnalum Persicum »

.

.

. . here are five critical questions that should be explored (even if all of us know that they won't be) in the foreign policy-inclusive presidential debates scheduled for October 16 and 22 - with a sixth, bonus question, thrown in for good measure.

.

1. Is there an end game for the global war on terror ?
2. Do today's foreign policy challenges mean that it's time to retire the constitution?
3. What do we want from the Middle East ?
4. What is your plan to right-size our military and what about downsizing the global mission?
5. Since no one outside our borders buys American exceptionalism any more, what's next? What is America's point these days?
6. Bonus Question



I like it .. see more frequently intelligent articles

# 3 a good sample of above :

.

Is it all about oil? Israel? Old-fashioned hegemony and containment? What is our goal in fighting an intensifying proxy war with Iran, newly expanded into cyberspace? Are we worried about a nuclear Iran, or just worried about a new nuclear club member in general? Will we continue the 19th century game of supporting thug dictators who support our policies in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Libya (until overwhelmed by events on the ground), and opposing the same actions by other thugs who disagree with us like Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Syria's Bashar al-Assad? That kind of policy thinking did not work out too well in the long run in Central and South America, and history suggests that we should make up our mind on what America's goals in the Middle East might actually be. No cheating now - having no policy is a policy of its own.

Candidates, can you define America's predominant interest in the Middle East and sketch out a series of at least semi-sensical actions in support of it?

.



.
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Dark Matters and Killer Apes

Post by monster_gardener »

Jnalum Persicum wrote:.

I think this deserves a thread of it's own .. this, heart of America's present predicament

I would have preferred a new thread for this .. will lead to serious intelligent debate of American role in the world for the next 100 yrs

but

did not want to overload



America's role in the world must be re-defined and explained to its citizens.


Interesting and intelligent article

.

[..]

Romney reached back more than 60 years for this quote from George Marshall, secretary of defense in the Truman administration: "The only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it." The Korean and Vietnam Wars followed. Were they preventable?

Romney's speech was serious, especially this line which came after his call for a "change in course in the Middle East": "That course should be organized around these bedrock principles: America must have confidence in our cause, clarity in our purpose and resolve in our might."

I'm fine with that, but perhaps in the Oct. 22 presidential debate on foreign policy, moderator Bob Schieffer might ask Romney what is our cause, what is our purpose and where has might, alone, caused that purpose to be successful ? Iraq ? Afghanistan ? Vietnam ? Will it work with Iran ? Does Romney think bombing Iran, with or without Israel's assistance, will deter the mad mullahs from their goal of acquiring nuclear weapons ? Maybe it would, but can he be sure?

[..]

John F. Kennedy said in his 1961 Inaugural Address that we were willing to "...pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty."

Eleven years later as America was being torn apart by the Vietnam War, Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern said the United States "...can't be the policeman of the world."

Who is right ? I think both are right. America's role in the world must be re-defined and explained to its citizens. The presidential candidates should be asked about it. We can't afford to go everywhere and do everything. It isn't fair to our young men and women who are asked to die, or lose limbs, and it isn't fair to taxpayers who must pay for these wars. Still, America has an interest in promoting liberty and freeing people from tyranny. That interest is moral as well as self-serving. Democracies don't attack each other. But when and how should we act ?

[..]

Western values -- including religious values -- can't be forced on people who don't share them. There is a fundamental gap between Islamic cultures and the West that cannot be easily bridged by diplomacy or military might.

Romney's VMI speech sounded good to some American ears, but what does it mean to the rest of the world, which faces not invading armies, but invading terrorists without uniforms or a nation-state ? Perhaps Bob Schieffer will ask Romney and President Obama to answer these questions.

.

Fully agree

true

America must reboot and ask what is the mission and cause ? ?

American mission and cause must be moral and ethical to the eyes of the 7 Billion world population

think about it .. that was the essence of rule of "Cyrus the Persian" .. he never said people in Persian empire (biggest empire humans have seen until today) must lived according to Persian ethics and values and thinking and culture .. he explicitly said all must live according to "universal human right", but according to heir own culture and civilization and values

Absolute is only "universal human right" .. values relate to community standard, culture and civilization , they evolve


.

Thank you Very MUCH for your post, Azari.

I agree that Cal Thomas' article is intelligent and interesting but may have a mistake or two.......
Democracies don't attack each other.
If we Uz remember our own history, we know this is NONSENSE: The American Civil War anyone..... Lincoln, Davis, Lee, Grant, Sherman...
2 "Democracies"/Constitutional Republics tearing each other apart......

Still, America has an interest in promoting liberty and freeing people from tyranny.
True but like stray and feral cats, you can't save them all... Takes time, money and often blood....... Can save individuals Or maybe a Trap, Neuter and Release & Feed program....... Gospel of the Gun might be equivalent for Islamic Culture..........
not want to overload
Don't worry too much about the overload ;) .........

Here is the missing mass ;) of the article.......... The Dark Matter ;)
Would Israel, and possibly America, be able to tolerate a counterstrike and possible terrorist acts on U.S. soil by Iranian and Hezbollah agents that could very well be in the U.S. awaiting instructions?
Important questions....

What does Cal mean by tolerate: Survive? Hold the course? Not go Vigilante.....

Survive is the most important........... Not going to discuss this too much other than to say Uz preparedness on 911 was disgraceful.......
Hope it is better now....

Hold the course.......... Not sure........ We did do the Cold War but of late especially after Vietnam and the incompetence in Afghanistan and Iraq the temptation is to "Get Er Done" with the big hammers even if something more subtle like the Gospel of the Gun might be less costly to the environment........... Maybe even longer lasting..........


The Andy Jackson in Uz gets pretty angry when attacked...... Wants to do relocation or worse when attacked by people who look or act different unless they make a real effort to prove they are part of the team... Think Zhudi Jasser or better yet Bobby Jindal........ Andy relocated the Amerindians and had an adopted Amerindian son........

The flaw in Romney's otherwise good speech was his re-statement of the policy of the current administration and previous ones that a Palestinian state adjacent to Israel is the key to Middle East peace. There is no evidence the Palestinian-Arab-Muslim world shares this goal. Radical Islamists teach, preach and act as if their objective is the elimination of Israel. The Palestinian leadership has not lived up to a single promise or agreement, while Israel has sacrificed land and lives in the pursuit of a Western mirage.
Probably true......... Wish it weren't.... Would like to see a Gaza & West Bank that are like Hong Kong & Macao are to China........ Not likely....

Would like to see Israel, Uz and others expand into Space leaving Israel on Earth largely an industrial zone for the Jacob's Ladder Spaceport ....... Also not likely......

Remembering a timeline where Uz relocated the Jews fleeing Hitler to Alaska..... Much less doable now that Alaska is a State and they have something of their own and nukes to defend it.......

Much more likely is that terrible things will be done to survive or that many/most or more do not survive........
My advice to people there is implement Plan E for self evacuation....... Ideally to the Southern Hemisphere.......
"Cyrus the Persian"
he explicitly said all must live according to "universal human right",
Needs to be defined...... Bill of Rights or Redistribution of Goods
but according to heir own culture and civilization and values
Does that include for example Dhimmi rules or worse........

And don't forget that Cyrus the Great was followed by Cambyses ........ and Xerxes & Esther..........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambyses_II
American mission and cause must be moral and ethical to the eyes of the 7 Billion world population
Maybe...... But how moral and ethical are the other 7 billion less Uz depraved sinful killer apes and similar of the world population.....

For me the greatest act of practical morality would be for Uz to get Space Colonies and an Anti-Meteor Squad going........
But given our sinful depraved nature, even that could become bad unless other nations go and do likewise.............
For the love of G_d, consider you & I may be mistaken.
Orion Must Rise: Killer Space Rocks Coming Our way
The Best Laid Plans of Men, Monkeys & Pigs Oft Go Awry
Woe to those who long for the Day of the Lord, for It is Darkness, Not Light
Jnalum Persicum

Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by Jnalum Persicum »

.


Very interesting NYT article



“Why Nations Fail : The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty,” . . The Self-Destruction of the 1 Percent


.

IN the early 14th century, Venice was one of the richest cities in Europe. At the heart of its economy was the colleganza, a basic form of joint-stock company created to finance a single trade expedition. The brilliance of the colleganza was that it opened the economy to new entrants, allowing risk-taking entrepreneurs to share in the financial upside with the established businessmen who financed their merchant voyages.

Venice’s elites were the chief beneficiaries. Like all open economies, theirs was turbulent. Today, we think of social mobility as a good thing. But if you are on top, mobility also means competition. In 1315, when the Venetian city-state was at the height of its economic powers, the upper class acted to lock in its privileges, putting a formal stop to social mobility with the publication of the Libro d’Oro, or Book of Gold, an official register of the nobility. If you weren’t on it, you couldn’t join the ruling oligarchy.

The political shift, which had begun nearly two decades earlier, was so striking a change that the Venetians gave it a name: La Serrata, or the closure. It wasn’t long before the political Serrata became an economic one, too. Under the control of the oligarchs, Venice gradually cut off commercial opportunities for new entrants. Eventually, the colleganza was banned. The reigning elites were acting in their immediate self-interest, but in the longer term, La Serrata was the beginning of the end for them, and for Venetian prosperity more generally. By 1500, Venice’s population was smaller than it had been in 1330. In the 17th and 18th centuries, as the rest of Europe grew, the city continued to shrink.

The story of Venice’s rise and fall is told by the scholars Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, in their book “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty,” as an illustration of their thesis that what separates successful states from failed ones is whether their governing institutions are inclusive or extractive. Extractive states are controlled by ruling elites whose objective is to extract as much wealth as they can from the rest of society. Inclusive states give everyone access to economic opportunity; often, greater inclusiveness creates more prosperity, which creates an incentive for ever greater inclusiveness.

The history of the United States can be read as one such virtuous circle. But as the story of Venice shows, virtuous circles can be broken. Elites that have prospered from inclusive systems can be tempted to pull up the ladder they climbed to the top. Eventually, their societies become extractive and their economies languish.

That was the future predicted by Karl Marx, who wrote that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction. And it is the danger America faces today, as the 1 percent pulls away from everyone else and pursues an economic, political and social agenda that will increase that gap even further — ultimately destroying the open system that made America rich and allowed its 1 percent to thrive in the first place.

You can see America’s creeping Serrata in the growing social and, especially, educational chasm between those at the top and everyone else. At the bottom and in the middle, American society is fraying, and the children of these struggling families are lagging the rest of the world at school.

Economists point out that the woes of the middle class are in large part a consequence of globalization and technological change. Culture may also play a role. In his recent book on the white working class, the libertarian writer Charles Murray blames the hollowed-out middle for straying from the traditional family values and old-fashioned work ethic that he says prevail among the rich (whom he castigates, but only for allowing cultural relativism to prevail).

There is some truth in both arguments. But the 1 percent cannot evade its share of responsibility for the growing gulf in American society. Economic forces may be behind the rising inequality, but as Peter R. Orszag, President Obama’s former budget chief, told me, public policy has exacerbated rather than mitigated these trends.

Even as the winner-take-all economy has enriched those at the very top, their tax burden has lightened. Tolerance for high executive compensation has increased, even as the legal powers of unions have been weakened and an intellectual case against them has been relentlessly advanced by plutocrat-financed think tanks. In the 1950s, the marginal income tax rate for those at the top of the distribution soared above 90 percent, a figure that today makes even Democrats flinch. Meanwhile, of the 400 richest taxpayers in 2009, 6 paid no federal income tax at all, and 27 paid 10 percent or less. None paid more than 35 percent.

Historically, the United States has enjoyed higher social mobility than Europe, and both left and right have identified this economic openness as an essential source of the nation’s economic vigor. But several recent studies have shown that in America today it is harder to escape the social class of your birth than it is in Europe. The Canadian economist Miles Corak has found that as income inequality increases, social mobility falls — a phenomenon Alan B. Krueger, the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, has called the Great Gatsby Curve.

Educational attainment, which created the American middle class, is no longer rising. The super-elite lavishes unlimited resources on its children, while public schools are starved of funding. This is the new Serrata. An elite education is increasingly available only to those already at the top. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama enrolled their daughters in an exclusive private school; I’ve done the same with mine.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year, I interviewed Ruth Simmons, then the president of Brown. She was the first African-American to lead an Ivy League university and has served on the board of Goldman Sachs. Dr. Simmons, a Harvard-trained literature scholar, worked hard to make Brown more accessible to poor students, but when I asked whether it was time to abolish legacy admissions, the Ivy League’s own Book of Gold, she shrugged me off with a laugh: “No, I have a granddaughter. It’s not time yet.”

America’s Serrata also takes a more explicit form: the tilting of the economic rules in favor of those at the top. The crony capitalism of today’s oligarchs is far subtler than Venice’s. It works in two main ways.

The first is to channel the state’s scarce resources in their own direction. This is the absurdity of Mitt Romney’s comment about the “47 percent” who are “dependent upon government.” The reality is that it is those at the top, particularly the tippy-top, of the economic pyramid who have been most effective at capturing government support — and at getting others to pay for it.

Exhibit A is the bipartisan, $700 billion rescue of Wall Street in 2008. Exhibit B is the crony recovery. The economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty found that 93 percent of the income gains from the 2009-10 recovery went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers. The top 0.01 percent captured 37 percent of these additional earnings, gaining an average of $4.2 million per household.

The second manifestation of crony capitalism is more direct: the tax perks, trade protections and government subsidies that companies and sectors secure for themselves. Corporate pork is a truly bipartisan dish: green energy companies and the health insurers have been winners in this administration, as oil and steel companies were under George W. Bush’s.

The impulse of the powerful to make themselves even more so should come as no surprise. Competition and a level playing field are good for us collectively, but they are a hardship for individual businesses. Warren E. Buffett knows this. “A truly great business must have an enduring ‘moat’ that protects excellent returns on invested capital,” he explained in his 2007 annual letter to investors. “Though capitalism’s ‘creative destruction’ is highly beneficial for society, it precludes investment certainty.” Microsoft attempted to dig its own moat by simply shutting out its competitors, until it was stopped by the courts. Even Apple, a huge beneficiary of the open-platform economy, couldn’t resist trying to impose its own inferior map app on buyers of the iPhone 5.

Businessmen like to style themselves as the defenders of the free market economy, but as Luigi Zingales, an economist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, argued, “Most lobbying is pro-business, in the sense that it promotes the interests of existing businesses, not pro-market in the sense of fostering truly free and open competition.”

IN the early 19th century, the United States was one of the most egalitarian societies on the planet. “We have no paupers,” Thomas Jefferson boasted in an 1814 letter. “The great mass of our population is of laborers; our rich, who can live without labor, either manual or professional, being few, and of moderate wealth. Most of the laboring class possess property, cultivate their own lands, have families, and from the demand for their labor are enabled to exact from the rich and the competent such prices as enable them to be fed abundantly, clothed above mere decency, to labor moderately and raise their families.”

For Jefferson, this equality was at the heart of American exceptionalism: “Can any condition of society be more desirable than this?”

That all changed with industrialization. As Franklin D. Roosevelt argued in a 1932 address to the Commonwealth Club, the industrial revolution was accomplished thanks to “a group of financial titans, whose methods were not scrutinized with too much care, and who were honored in proportion as they produced the results, irrespective of the means they used.” America may have needed its robber barons; Roosevelt said the United States was right to accept “the bitter with the sweet.”

But as these titans amassed wealth and power, and as America ran out of free land on its frontier, the country faced the threat of a Serrata. As Roosevelt put it, “equality of opportunity as we have known it no longer exists.” Instead, “we are steering a steady course toward economic oligarchy, if we are not there already.”

It is no accident that in America today the gap between the very rich and everyone else is wider than at any time since the Gilded Age. Now, as then, the titans are seeking an even greater political voice to match their economic power. Now, as then, the inevitable danger is that they will confuse their own self-interest with the common good. The irony of the political rise of the plutocrats is that, like Venice’s oligarchs, they threaten the system that created them.

.


very much so, ellas



.
Ibrahim
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Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by Ibrahim »

Enki wrote:Monster_Gardener The problem with your quote about dhimmitude is that the other side was never any better than that. Europe used catapults, burned books and enslaved people.
Hate to be pedantic (j/k I love it!) but this use of the term "dhimmi" is a product of the Breivik reading list. The actual term meant people who didn't have to serve in the military, and so paid an extra tax. Correctly speaking it means "protected" and you could argue that all civilian citizens of a given country are "dhimmis" with regards to their government.

Spencer, Steyn et al use it to mean "ruled by Muslims." Truly a fate worse than death, except for the large swathes of history when it was the best case scenario (as you observed).
Ibrahim
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Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by Ibrahim »

YMix wrote:Unfortunately for everybody involved, Eisenhower was the last president whose popularity and respect had been gained outside the political system and, thus, he was the last president who could keep the pro-Cold War party in check. He was also, probably, the last president who did not take the Cold War seriously. The rest of them had to run with it or be accused of cowardice.
He was prescient in seeing the rise of the MIC, but he didn't predict the moral degradation that the Cold War caused in US politics and foreign affairs (and thus eventually domestic politics). Most or all of what was unique about American democracy and culture was lost during the Cold War, and the scars of the Cold War are as deep as those caused by Soviet rule in ex-Soviet states, just less immediately visible.
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Enki
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Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by Enki »

Ibrahim wrote:
YMix wrote:Unfortunately for everybody involved, Eisenhower was the last president whose popularity and respect had been gained outside the political system and, thus, he was the last president who could keep the pro-Cold War party in check. He was also, probably, the last president who did not take the Cold War seriously. The rest of them had to run with it or be accused of cowardice.
He was prescient in seeing the rise of the MIC, but he didn't predict the moral degradation that the Cold War caused in US politics and foreign affairs (and thus eventually domestic politics). Most or all of what was unique about American democracy and culture was lost during the Cold War, and the scars of the Cold War are as deep as those caused by Soviet rule in ex-Soviet states, just less immediately visible.
What is prescient about making an ad hoc declaration about what was already a fait accompli during your administration? He didn't 'warn' us about the rise of the MIC, it was already done. He was the last president in a position to do something about it.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
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Enki
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Re: Why the American Raj is Under Seige

Post by Enki »

Ibrahim wrote:
Enki wrote:Monster_Gardener The problem with your quote about dhimmitude is that the other side was never any better than that. Europe used catapults, burned books and enslaved people.
Hate to be pedantic (j/k I love it!) but this use of the term "dhimmi" is a product of the Breivik reading list. The actual term meant people who didn't have to serve in the military, and so paid an extra tax. Correctly speaking it means "protected" and you could argue that all civilian citizens of a given country are "dhimmis" with regards to their government.

Spencer, Steyn et al use it to mean "ruled by Muslims." Truly a fate worse than death, except for the large swathes of history when it was the best case scenario (as you observed).
Thank you for explaining this. That makes a lot of sense.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
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