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A conservative news and views blog.

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Location: St. Louis, Missouri, United States

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

A Question for those Who Believe in Homosexual Scouts

By Selwyn Duke

Not satisfied with having pressured the Boy Scouts of America into lifting their prohibition against openly homosexual scouts, activists now want homosexual scoutmasters to be allowed as well. Equality, you know, is the order of the day. Yet the truth is that virtually all of you who advocate this social change operate with a certain bias — you just don’t realize it.

Let’s put aside for a moment the issue of homosexuality’s moral status; for argument’s sake, I’ll accept the supposition that homosexuality is the equivalent of heterosexuality. But if this is so and it’s okay for a homosexual man be a troop leader and go on camping trips with 11 and 12-year-old boys, why isn’t it okay to have a heterosexual man be a Girl Scout troop leader and do the same with the girls?

Yes, I know that men are responsible for most sex crimes, but the homosexual man is a man, too. So why the double standard? Homosexuality and heterosexuality are equivalent, right?

It has often been said that fears of homosexual BSA leaders are unwarranted because there’s a difference between homosexuality and pedophilia. But then fears of men as Girl Scout leaders would be unwarranted, too, as there’s also a difference between heterosexuality and pedophilia, correct? After all, homosexuality and heterosexuality are equivalent.

Some activists might also aver that homosexual scout masters are vetted adults who will behave responsibly. But then the same could be said about male Girl Scout leaders, no?

As for the scouts themselves, if it’s okay for a 13-year-old boy with same-sex attraction to sleep in a tent with other 13-year-old boys, why can’t a heterosexual 13-year-old boy go camping with 13-year-old girl scouts? Homosexuality and heterosexuality are equivalent, right?

By the way, the BSA was once sued by a girl who wanted to be a “boy scout,” and there are people who say that separating the sexes in such ways is intolerable inequality. Besides, those on the cutting edge of sexual activism contend that “gender” is a personal choice, anyway, and one feminist professor insists that “gender” (I believe her theory means this to include “sex” also) doesn’t even exist. So allowing what I’ve outlined does seem like an imperative of progressive thought’s latest iteration.

Some activists also say that it’s silly to fear homosexual activity among boy scouts because the kids won’t indulge such things unless they’re inclined to do so in the first place. But the same could be said of teen boys with girl scouts — the girls won’t do anything they’re not inclined to. And homosexuality and heterosexuality are equivalent, right?

Of course, you may have a problem with all this if you understand that there is such thing as temptation and that precautions should be taken to minimize the chances of sexual activity in youth programs. If this is your attitude, though, then it follows that the exact same standards — and prohibitions — that apply to occasions of heterosexual temptation should apply to occasions of homosexual temptation.
Because as we all know, homosexuality and heterosexuality are equivalent.
                        
HYPERLINK "mailto:selwynduke@optonline.net" Contact Selwyn Duke , HYPERLINK "https://twitter.com/SelwynDuke" follow him on Twitter or log on to HYPERLINK "http://selwynduke.com" SelwynDuke.com

Monday, May 19, 2014

The loony anti-Keystone campaign

Paul Driessen

There are enormous and obvious benefits in building the long-stalled Keystone XL pipeline. But after five years of studies, President Obama still refuses to allow the necessary final approvals. My article this week assesses the craziness and obstructionism of KXL opponents.

Examined factually and dispassionately, the anti-Keystone arguments are as phony as a $3 bill. However, KXL has become the symbol of Big Green environmentalism’s immutable opposition to … and hatred of … anything hydrocarbon. KXL is fracking, oil sands, onshore and offshore drilling and, above all, “catastrophic manmade climate disruption.” It represents their determination to control our economy and lives, de-develop the United States, reduce our energy use and living standards, and redistribute wealth. That means these diehard ideological opponents will never back down. That is the Keystone pipeline issue in a nutshell.

The loony anti-Keystone campaign

It is the symbol of Big Green’s diehard opposition to hydrocarbons and modern living standards

Paul Driessen

What is this incessant nonsense over Keystone XL?

It’s a pipeline, for crying out loud. The United States already has 185,000 miles of liquid petroleum pipelines, 320,000 miles of natural gas transmission pipelines, and more than 2,000,000 miles of gas distribution pipelines. Using the latest steel, valves and other technologies to build another 1,179 miles of pipe – to move 830,000 barrels of oil per day safely from Alberta, Canada oil sands country and North Dakota’s Bakken shale territory to Texas refineries – should not be an earth-shattering matter.

KXL would create jobs – in an economy that grew at a pathetic Depression-era clip of 0.1% during the first quarter, and where the true jobless rate (unemployed, underemployed and those no longer looking) is almost 13 percent, and much worse for minorities.

In fact, Keystone would create some 20,000 construction jobs; another 10,000 in factories that make the steel, pipelines, valves, cement and heavy equipment needed to build the pipeline; thousands more in hotel, restaurant and other support industries; and still more in oil fields whose output would be transported to refineries and petrochemical plants where even more workers would be employed.

States along the pipeline route would receive $5 billion in new property tax revenues, and still more in workers’ income tax payments. Depleted federal coffers would also realize hefty gains.

The pipeline would ease railroad congestion all over the central USA. The pipeline’s absence is forcing oil producers to move crude by railroad tanker car. That certainly improves the bottom line for RR companies and folks like Warren Buffet who have big-time investments in tankers.

But it causes train logjams and delays that are creating backlogs in getting fertilizer and other supplies to farmers, who have already been hard-hit by a long winter and now may not be able to plant on schedule. Come fall, their efforts to ship corn, wheat and other crops to market will also be stymied.

By reducing the need for RR tankers, KXL would also reduce oil spills and improve safety. A 2013 derailment in Quebec killed 47 people; 2014 rail accidents in Colorado and Virginia resulted in significant oil spills but fortunately no deaths. The Bakken Field’s light crude contains more dissolved gases and thus is more flammable than heavier crudes (like Canadian oil sands output), but both tanker cars and the Keystone pipeline would carry a variety of crude products.

Improved track maintenance, train scheduling and other safety practices would reduce rail accidents and spills. However, as US State Department studies point out, the Keystone pipeline is inherently safer than RR alternatives – and would likely result in fewer than 520 barrels of crude being spilled annually, compared to 32,000 barrels in the three rail spills just noted.

KXL will make North America more energy independent, further improve US balance of trade, reduce global supply and demand imbalances, augment America’s national security, and aid our European allies in their quest to counter Vladimir Putin’s energy blackmail.

The hydrocarbon wealth the pipeline would transport will help ensure improved human health, welfare, living standards and other many other benefits, in a more stable world that has more sources of jobs, wealth and income equality. Approval would improve relations with our ally and trading partner Canada. Not tapping and safely transporting all these oil, natural gas and propane resources makes no sense.

But despite all these solid reasons for building the pipeline President Obama refuses to approve it, even to protect vulnerable Democrat politicians, for fear of offending ultra Keystone hater Tom Steyer or losing his hardcore eco-base. Senator Harry Reid can hardly bring himself to allow even votes on nonbinding resolutions in support of KXL. And rabid environmentalists say they’re prepared to go to jail over it.

What in blazes is going on here?

Keystone is symbolic! In fact, it has become the symbol of Big Green environmentalism’s immutable opposition to … and hatred of … anything hydrocarbon. KXL is fracking, oil sands, onshore and offshore drilling and, above all, “catastrophic manmade climate disruption” (the latest nom de guerre, since the global warming and climate change monikers and models have abjectly failed to reflect climate reality).

KXL represents their determination to de-develop the United States, control our lives and livelihoods, reduce our energy use and living standards, redistribute wealth – and permit Third World development only in accordance with their supposed “sustainable development” and “renewable” energy “principles.”

Anti-Keystone XL arguments are as phony as a $3 bill. Blocking its construction will have about as much effect on Earth’s climate as a hand grenade would in stopping a hurricane, even if carbon dioxide does influence weather and climate change far more than thousands of scientists say it does.

(More than 1,000 climate scientists, 31,000 American scientists and 48% of US meteorologists say there is no evidence that humans are causing dangerous warming or climate change. And it is increasingly obvious that much of the remaining “consensus” is obtained by harassing, intimidating and blacklisting any scientists who might be tempted to stray from the alarmist party line.)

China, India, Indonesia, Brazil and dozens of other countries are burning coal, driving cars, modernizing their hydrocarbon-based economies and emitting CO2 at a fevered pace. Further delaying or ultimately blocking Keystone will have no effect, especially if the oil simply goes to Asia, instead of the USA.

However, Big Green has staked its power and reputation on Keystone – and it will not back down.

This $13.4-billion-per-year US eco industry is determined to block the Keystone pipeline. As Washington Examiner columnist Ron Arnold revealed, the $789-million Rockefeller Brothers Fund launched its “tar sands” and pipeline campaigns in 2008. It funded a dozen attack groups, told them what the Fund wanted done, and presented the strategy and tactics for mobilizing the troops, inventing and spotlighting the pipeline’s alleged dangers, recruiting always-helpful media allies, and slowing and stopping KXL.

The campaigns are backed up by other wealthy liberal foundations that collectively have more than $100 billion in assets! As Arnold pointed out, they gave more than $80 billion to some 16,000 American environmental activist groups between 2000 and 2012 – and those groups were also supported by over $100 million in grants from US government agencies!

Hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer has promised to give $100 million to anti-Keystone Democrats. Law firms are making serious money filing lawsuits against KXL. And of course Hollywood elites can always be counted on to lend their support and innate grasp of energy and economic issues to pipeline opponents.

This is a force to be reckoned with, a force that has helped inflict nearly $1.9 trillion in regulatory compliance costs on United States businesses and families. That’s one-eighth of the entire US economy. It’s no wonder job, economic and investment growth rates are so miserably low.

President Obama and other Democrats, environmentalists and liberals love to expound on how compassionate and socially responsible they are. How devoted to justice, workers, middle class families, jobs, and human health, safety and welfare. How honest, transparent, respectful of others’ opinions and needs, and accountable for their mistakes and failures.

Am I the only one who sees pitifully little evidence for any of these self-proclaimed saintly attributes?

Keystone epitomizes how callous, arrogant, hypocritical and destructive the Big Green authoritarians have become. It’s high time the rights and needs of poor and middle class families got some recognition.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

"Innocence of Muslims" a Potemkin Village?

Timothy Birdnow

Doug Hagman says that the video "Innocence of Muslims" was produced with the backing of governmental entities. http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/63152

From the article in Canada Free Press:

" Additionally, the individuals and entities responsible for the Internet promotion of the video of that name can be traced not just to an intelligence operation contemporaneous to the attacks, but to previous events of historical significance and current relevance.

Investigation found that the video cited as the cause for the attack in Benghazi and riots in the Middle East underwent at least four name changes, includingDesert Warrior, The innocence of bn Laden, The Real Life of Muhammad, and finally, Innocence of Muslims. Investigation also found evidence that the primary individual behind the film worked as an operational asst for the FBI in exchange for leniency due to his criminal past. Indications of a possible association by one or more of the individuals responsible for the film to U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, are also suggested.

This investigator also found evidence that suggests that the Internet promotion of the video is linked to at least one entity with ties to government subcontractors. That is, an analysis of electronic footprints of the video trailer under the title Innocence of Muslims, which existed in virtual obscurity for a significant period from its production until September 11, 2012, has been traced to a now defunct Internet YouTube news channel that appears connected to the company formerly known as Stanley, Inc., a subcontractor to various agencies of the U.S. Federal Government that provided products and services to the U.S. military, the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, among others. Stanley, Inc. was acquired by the CGI Group in 2010.

It is relevant to note that Stanley, Inc., based in Arlington, Virginia, was awarded a $164 million contract to print new U.S. passports in 2006. It is even more important to point out that two employees of Stanley, Inc., along with a third individual employed by another defense contractor identified as The Analysis Corporation, were identified as the perpetrators who breached the records of the U.S. passport office on three occasions in 2008 and “improperly accessed” the passport records of Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain. The breaches occurred on January 9, February 21 and March 14, 2008.

Investigation verified that the CEO of the Analysis Corporation at the time of the passport office break-in was John O. Brennan, who served as a close advisor to Obama in 2008 on matters of intelligence and foreign policy. Brennan also contributed to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and had a 25-year career in the CIA. John O. Brennan is now the head of the CIA under Obama."

End excerpt.

Interesting.  I can see why intel people would make such a film for just this sort of "emergency"; it would be prudent to have something on hand to justify an intelligence failure. 

I suspect this story is going to be full of surprises.

The 911 Memorial

Jack Kemp

Well, the 9/11 Memorial in NY officially opened. As Pam Geller said, the admission price is $24 or $25. I do not know if this applies to family members of those who died and how big a bureaucracy would be needed to determine who is a family member, etc. I'm glad I didn't stand in the cold last March to try to verify the prices before the opening date.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Prof. Gates "Mugs"...New Yorkers

Jack Kemp

While riding the subway into Manhattan today, I read a New York article about why New York University gave Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. a "cheap apartment."
Some of the lowlights were:
http://nypost.com/2014/05/15/why-nyu-gave-a-harvard-professor-a-che...

BEGIN QUOTE

For years, New York University has leased a luxury flat in Chelsea to famous academic Henry Louis Gates Jr. at a deeply discounted rate despite the fact that Gates teaches at Harvard — not NYU.

The steep markdown on the posh faculty pad, likely worth thousands of dollars a month, was arranged by NYU President John Sexton, who has come under fire for helping the school’s star professors and administrators buy lavish vacation homes...

Gates admitted to the The Post that he has long received his pricey housing perk even though he has never held a job at NYU. Instead, Gates said he has an informal "consultancy” with Sexton that is ungoverned by a written contract...

Gates also suggested that Sexton bestowed the apartment on him as part of an unconventional — and thus far unsuccessful — courting ritual that has dragged on for more than a decade...

Insiders said two-bedroom apartments in the tower, which boasts a fitness center, outdoor terraces and a 24-hour doorman, are heavily subsidized for NYU faculty, renting for as little as $2,200 a month.

By comparison, a two-bedroom apartment in the adjacent building at 130 W. 15th St., developed in 2002 by Related Cos. in tandem with the NYU tower, is currently being offered at $9,195 a month...

The building was erected in 2002 on the site of the former New York State Armory to address a faculty housing shortage, according to NYU documents.

END OF QUOTE

Yes, this is the famous Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. who claimed his attempt to enter his house in Cambridge, MA, without a key resulted in a "racist" arrest, a situation which lead to the famous "Beer Summit" at the White House in Obama's first term.

I was intrigued by this situation, and in my reading had glanced over the words about this building being the former site of a NY State Armory. And since I happened to be heading near 120 W. 15th Street, I went by the building. The fact that the "NYU tower" described in the Post article is mostly five stories tall. Land is expensive and most new buildings in Manhattan are high rises because of that. It looked somewhat like the nearby recently closed St. Vincent's Hospital complex caused me to ask a building worker if this were part of that former hospital. He said no, that was nearby. But my curiosity pressed me to further say that it looked like a former institutional building (with a lobby like a hospital's). The employee told me that this site had once been the home of a military Armory, just as the Post stated. I suspect the current building with its unusual white horizontal "striping," erected in 2002, was laid out so that it could be sold or used as a business or a residence. The layout strongly resembles that of a health insurance office site, as well. In fact, to save the reader a trip to New York (Prof. Gates won't likely let you stay at his place there), if one goes to Google Maps the building can be seen on the internet at:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/120+W+15th+St/@40.7382479,-73.997...!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x89c259bd7187c51f:0xb4fa735d5a132c9a

So what do we have here? A piece of land that was donated by either the State of New York or the federal government, holding an upscale apartment complex which has a subsidy for New York University professors - as in tax subsidy, also NY State and federal. NYU is a private college (with federal government subsidies), so the average full tuition paying student - or more likely their parents - are subsidizing a nationally known professor and author's home away from home on his visits to New York City.

Prof. Gates was concerned about a policeman in Cambridge who mistook him for a thief in the night. Granted, it was the New York University President John Sexton who gave Gates this unearned luxury apartment, but Prof. Gates did not cry "elitism" when he received use of this residence that arguably he didn't earn.

Mark Dayton Does Something Sane

Jack Kemp

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/danieljmitchell/2014/05/16/no-more-stealing-by-government-a-longoverdue-attack-on-asset-forfeiture-n1838957/page/full

And Minnesota actually has eliminated this odious tactic. Here are some excerpts from a Forbes column.

In a big win for property rights and due process, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed a bill yesterday to curb an abusive—and little known—police practice called civil forfeiture. Unlike criminal forfeiture, under civil forfeiture someone does not have to be convicted of a crime, or even charged with one, to permanently lose his or her cash, car or home. …Now the government can only take property if it obtains a criminal conviction or its equivalent, like if a property owner pleads guilty to a crime or becomes an informant. The bill also shifts the burden of proof onto the government, where it rightfully belongs.

The Facts and Antarctic Ice

Timothy Birdnow

David Whitehouse dishes on Antarctica. http://www.thegwpf.org/the-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-collapse/

According to Whitehouse:

"Despite having local unstable regions Antarctica has more sea ice surrounding it than for many years, with more ice being added than is being lost by glaciers in the West Antarctic.

The media have been saying that the collapse of the West Antarctic glaciers is unstoppable; nothing can halt their retreat, say the headlines. They add that man-made climate change is one of the driving factors that will result in sea-level rises that will alter the coastlines of the world.

The media reports are based on two new studies, or rather the press releases associated with them. One of them looked at 40 years of data. The glaciers in the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica “have passed the point of no return,” according to glaciologist Eric Rignot, of UC Irvine and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The other study investigated nearby Thwaites glacier saying it will likely disappear in a few centuries.

[...]

"The media reports are based on two new studies, or rather the press releases associated with them. One of them looked at 40 years of data. The glaciers in the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica “have passed the point of no return,” according to glaciologist Eric Rignot, of UC Irvine and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The other study investigated nearby Thwaites glacier saying it will likely disappear in a few centuries.

It’s clear that this region is currently the most changeable part of Antarctica, but it’s not clear why, or how long it will go on for. Not every change seen in the past few decades (when we started obtaining reliable satellite data for the first time) is down to mankind.

The most famous and most studied glacier in the region is Pine Island. It has seen significant changes in the last few decades. Its velocity has increased by 40% between 1996 and 2007 and its grounding line retreated by about 1 km/yr between 1992 -2011. It seems that the grounding line – the boundary where a glacier touches the sea floor – is retreating allowing warm water to melt the glacier from below. This was seen for the first time in the 1990s. Since 2009 however there is some evidence that the glacier has been receding at a steady pace.

Because this region of glaciers rests on land below sea level, and there is no land formation to hold it back it is postulated that a runaway process will eventually cause the entire glacier to discharge out to sea, if things continue as they are. Timescales are important. The “collapse” of this particular ice sheet could happen in 200 years, or more likely in 500 or a thousand or more. One should be careful extrapolating hundreds of years into the future from just 20 years of data. The experience from the glaciers in Greenland is that you have to monitor them for much longer to see how variable is their output. “Rignot said, “It happened many times before when the Earth was as warm as it is about to be.” So the collapse needs the current conditions to last hundreds of years. Is that likely?"

End excerpts.

And yet the two decommissioned Icesat satellite data http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/10/icesat-data-shows-mass-gains-of-the-antarctic-ice-sheet-exceed-losses/ has been analyzed and shows East Antarctic ice is growing http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/09/01/antarctic-ice-sheet-growing-study-mass-gains-of-the-antarctic-ice-sheet-exceed-losses/, even while West Antarctic ice is declining.
http://iceagenow.com/Antarctic_Ice_sheet_Growing_Sea_Levels_Falling.htm (See here http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/antarctica/east-antarctic-ice-sheet/ for information on the geography of East Antarctica.)

Ignored by alarmists is that fact that active volcanoes lie buried under the ice in West Antarctica, a situation causing the underside of the glaciers to melt and act as lubricant. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/10/icesat-data-shows-mass-gains-of-the-antarctic-ice-sheet-exceed-losses/

Also ignored is the ice growth in East Antarctica, a situation that leads to extended pressure on the lubed-up West sheet, forcing it to flow into the sea, or as some put it, the EAIS is sliding sideways. http://phys.org/news/2013-12-east-antarctica-sideways-ice-loss.html

And West Antarctica's sheet extends out into the sea. It is analagous to a woman's long fingernail, and like a fingernail which is too long breaks occasionally.

As I have pointed out before, if we had a truly volatile situation we would see an increase in the number of smaller ice bergs. We do not see that in the Southern Ocean. http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00083/19444/17050.pdf

Read more of my work on this here. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/59709 and here http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/another_global_warming_drive-by.html

We similarly do not see an accelleration of the rate of sea level rise, and in fact sea levels dropped in 2010. IF we truly have ice melt in Antarctica (the source of most of the planet's ice) we should see a subsequent acceleration of sea level rise, yet we do not.

But Antarctica is the key to winning hearts and minds, because Antarctica is an Ultima thule, a lost land, a place of myth and legend. People know of it but cannot really fathom it, and so it acts as a blank slate, a canvas that can be painted upon in any fashion the manipulators of popular opinion would like. They know that few people have been there, so there are few people who will contradict the claims made by the Gang Green. And the melting of Greenland just isn't in the apocalyptic category of a melting ice cap in Antarctica, which would mean worldwide flooding. So they continue to peck away at the Antarctic despite little evidence.

In point of fact sea ice is at a record high this winter. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/12/antarctic-sea-ice-at-record-levels/

But the Obama Administration - calling this a planetary emergency - has allowed all of our data collection systems to degrade. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/02/global_warming_dont_confuse_us_with_the_facts.html

Make no mistake; Antarctica is catestrophic for the Gang Green and they know it. Without a media blackout of the facts the continent at the bottom of the world would be the death of the alarmist position. Sadly, the media will not report the facts.

Friday, May 16, 2014

Hero Cat

Timothy Birdnow

Here is a video that has gone viral. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/15/is-this-the-most-heroic-cat-of-all-time

People say cats are not loyal, only care for themselves. Well, it isn't true. This cat, seeing his little master being attacked by a dog, runs to the rescue, attacking the dog and chasing it away.

It makes me remember my dear late friend Blackberry. Blackberry was my best friend and protector, coming to wake me when we had an earthquake (at the risk of his own life as far as he knew). Blackberry would stay at my side night and day when I was sick, and would fetch my wife whenever something happened. (Once I was choking on some water and he was FRANTIC.) He feared neither man nor beast (as the injury to his tail before I rescued him from an abandoned building proved). He once punched a big dog in the nose and sauntered away, clearly cowing the much larger pooch.

He kept a watchful eye on the property when I was not home. He also could be relied upon to wake my wife for work after I left. All I had to do was ask him and he understood. I always refered to him as the Albert Einstein of cats. He figured out how to remove a harness the first time I tried to put it on him. He was fascinated by the workings of the toilet when I left the lid off it, yanking the chain to flush it and then jumping down to listen to the water flow down. He was brilliant.

My do I miss him.

He died of congestive heart failure, a scant two months before I was diagnosed with the same malady. In the end he was brave, and he moved from me to my wife, letting us know he was accepting his fate and saying goodbye. He was a brave and wonderful creature and I will never forget him.

Yes There Are Gay Nazis

Timothy Birdnow

I hate to have to keep doing this, I really do; I seem to be getting a reputation as a "gay basher" when I am the furthest thing from that. I've had friends who have been gay, and I know the struggles they have faced and the pain they suffer. One friend told me that when he came out to his family they pretty much disowned him, and his brother disinvited him to Thanksgiving. That says more about his family, who apparently have qualifications on their love. Jesus would not have treated anyone that way and none of us are Jesus, and so we definitely do not have that right.

But there are people who are gay and there are the movement types, the political ones hell bent (to coin a phrase) on forcing their lifestyle and their personal problems down everyone's throats. These are the destroyers, sort of a body of Satan in mockery of the Church being the Body of Christ. And since this group continually assaults the latter I am forced to defend those of us who think homosexuality is a sin (and it is, but so too is fornication, adultery, gluttony, drunkenness, and a host of other things, some of which I really don't want to think about because I am as guilty as everyone else of at least some of them). Being gay is a sin. All sins are forgivable, but not if one elevates them to the status of a virtue, which is what the political homosexual lobby is doing. Like alcoholism, one must first admit he or she has a problem. In modern America we have become expert at twisting our problem into social policy.

Recently Jack Kemp wrote a blogpost http://tbirdnow.mee.nu/ed_schultz_proves_tal_fortgangs_point chronicling the "white privilege" argument, and how it even applies to Jews who came here as refugees from Nazi death camps. Ed Schulz of MSNBC, in a tweet sent out to his followers, argued that homosexuals were the primary victims of Nazi atrocities and that Jews or Catholics or Gypsies or any dissidents who were interred or even murdered are a bunch of crybabies. (My words, his implication.)

Is that so?

Yes, there were the "pink triangle" prisoners, homosexuals who were guests of the tender hospitality of the Third Reich, but is that the whole story? Were the Nazis just a bunch of gay hating misanthropes?

Well, many of the Nazis WERE gay misanthropes. Here is an essay by author Scott Lively, who did a rather exhaustive bit of research on the homosexual roots of the Nazi Party and the sexual sadism of the Third Reich. http://www.lifeandlibertyministries.com/archives/000278.php

According to Lively:

"The "gay rights" movement often portrays itself as an American phenomenon which arose from the civil rights movement of the 1950s. It is not uncommon to hear homosexualists (those both "gay" and "straight" who promote the legitimization of homosexuality) characterize "gay rights" as the natural third wave of civil rights activism (following blacks and women). In reality, however, Germany was the birthplace of "gay rights," and its legacy in that nation is truly alarming.

The "grandfather of gay rights" was a homosexual German lawyer named Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. Ulrichs had been molested at age 14 by his male riding instructor. Instead of attributing his adult homosexuality to the molestation, however, Ulrich devised in the 1860s what became known as the "third sex" theory of homosexuality. Ulrichs' model holds that male homosexuals are actually female souls trapped within male bodies. The reverse phenomenon supposedly explains lesbianism. Since homosexuality was an innate condition, reasoned Ulrichs, homosexual behavior should be decriminalized. An early follower of Ulrichs coined the term "homosexual" in an open letter to the Prussian Minister of Justice in 1869.

By the time Ulrichs died in 1895, the "gay rights" movement in Germany had gained considerable strength. Frederich Engels noted this in a letter to Karl Marx regarding Ulrich's efforts: "The pederasts start counting their numbers and discover they are a powerful group in our state. The only thing missing is an organization, but it seems to exist already, but it is hidden." After Ulrichs' death, the movement split into two separate and opposed factions. One faction followed Ulrichs' successor, Magnus Hirschfeld, who formed the Scientific Humanitarian Committee in 1897 and later opened the Institute for Sex Research in Berlin. The other faction was organized by Adolf Brand, publisher of the first homosexual magazine, Der Eigene (The Special). Brand, Benedict Friedlander and Wilhelm Janzen formed the Gemeinschaft der Eigenen (The Community of the Special) in 1902. What divided these groups was their concepts of masculinity. Ulrichs' theory embraced a feminine identity. His, and later Hirschfeld's, followers literally believed they were women trapped in men's bodies.

The followers of Brand, however, were deeply insulted by Ulrichs' theory. They perceived themselves not merely as masculine, but as a breed of men superior in masculine qualities even to heterosexuals. The Community of the Special (CS) asserted that male homosexuality was the foundation of all nation-states and that male homosexuals represented an elite strata of human society. The CS fashioned itself as a modern incarnation of the warrior cults of ancient Greece. Modeling themselves after the military heroes of Sparta, Thebes and Crete, the members of the CS were ultra-masculine, male-supremacist and pederastic (devoted to man/boy sex). Brand said in Der Eigene that he wanted men who "thirst for a revival of Greek times and Hellenic standards of beauty after centuries of Christian barbarism."

One of the keys to understanding both the rise of Nazism and the later persecution of some homosexuals by the Nazis is found in this early history of the German "gay rights" movement. For it was the CS which created and shaped what would become the Nazi persona, and it was the loathing which these "Butches" held for effeminate homosexuals ("Femmes") which led to the internment of some of the latter in slave labor camps in the Third Reich."

End excerpt.

And the head of the Brownshirts, Ernst Rohm, the man who led the enforcement arm of National Socialism, was openly gay. Now, Hitler eventually purged the Brownshirts, but he did that because he did not have control of them and not because of their homosexual proclivities. (They were demanding that the army be disbanded and the Brownshirts installed in their place - something Hitler knew would be disastrous to his plans for conquest.)

So why were the pink triangles sent to Nazi camps?

According to Lively:

"The masculine homosexuals in the Nazi leadership selectively enforced this policy only against their enemies and not against all homosexuals. Even Rector lends credence to this perspective, citing the fact that the decree "was not enforced in all cases" (Rector:66). Another indication is that the pro-Nazi Society for Human Rights (SHR) continued to participate in German society for several years after the decree. In The Racial State, Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann remind us that Roehm was a leading member of the SHR; and we know from Anthony Read and David Fisher that the SHR was still active in Germany as late as 1940 (Read and Fisher:245). Furthermore, Oosterhuis and Kennedy write that "although he was well known as a gay-activist, [Adolf] Brand was not arrested by the Nazis" (Oosterhuis and Kennedy:7). Some of Brand's files were confiscated by the Nazis in their attempt to gather all potentially self-incriminating evidence.

In 1935, Paragraph 175 was amended with Paragraph 175a which criminalized any type of behavior that could be construed as indicating a homosexual inclination or desire (Burleigh and Wipperman: 190). (Interestingly, the new criminal code addressing homosexuality deleted the word "unnatural" from the definition-Reisman, 1994:3.) This new law provided the Nazis with an especially potent legal weapon against their enemies. It will never be known how many non-homosexuals were charged under this law, but it is indisputable that the Nazis used false accusations of homosexuality to justify the detainment and imprisonment of many of their opponents. "The law was so loosely formulated," writes Steakley, "that it could be, and was, applied against heterosexuals that the Nazis wanted to eliminate...the law was also used repeatedly against Catholic clergymen" (Steakley:111). Kogon writes that "The Gestapo readily had recourse to the charge of homosexuality if it was unable to find any pretext for proceeding against Catholic priests or irksome critics" (Kogon:44).

The charge of homosexuality was convenient for the Nazis to use against their political enemies because it was so difficult to defend against and so easy to justify to the populace. Since long before the Nazis, homosexuals had generally lived clandestine lives, so it was not unusual for revelations of their conduct to come as a surprise to their communities when it became a police matter. This is not to say that actual homosexuals were not prosecuted under the law. Many were. But the law was used selectively against the "Femmes." And even when they were threatened, many effeminate homosexuals, especially those in the arts community, were given protection by certain Nazi leaders (Oosterhuis and Kennedy:248)."

End excerpt.

And indeed many of the homosexuals arrested by the Nazis were "enemies of the State".

Hitler had good reasons to go after homosexuals outside of his movement; he needed the support of the German public, and the easiest way to get that is to act as champion of "virtue". Also, he did not want German seed wasted; he wanted a population explosion in Germany, and homosexual sex was an unproductive exercise. So the average Joe would be forbidden to indulge himself, although it would be acceptable for those who are politically connected. This is as old as civilization; laws are made for those who are not the lawmakers. Just look at the exemptions Congress has granted itself over the years; they weren't under social security, for instance. They tried to exempt themselves from Obamacare, and Obama "granted" them a  subsidy even though most staffers and whatnot would not be eligible for one. Anyone who thinks that Hitler was simply anti-gay does not understand how politics works - especially in a fascist system. Fascism is all about currying favor with the political class.

So it was part of the Nazi machine, making gays into good Nazis or else.

And Lively argues that there were two classes of homosexuals in Germany at that time (and it has always been true) - the Butch uberman types and the effeminate. It can be said that these two groups have different motivations; the butch types see themselves as glorious rebels, men of Will who can choose to reject the restrictions of biology and indulge their dominant personas. These types would also tend to be sadistic, enjoying the thrill of wielding power over another man. A kind of homosexual communion would be at work where sex would be used as a way of forming bonds. The other types - the femmes - are men who identify more with women and femininity, something that a gay Nazi would find revolting. As was said in The Sopranos when the crew learned that one of their Capos was gay "I really had hoped he was pitching and not catching." That seems to be the concensus among Nazis at any rate.

This isn't surprising; history is replete with homosexuality used to intensify masculinity. It was said that Alexander was one to hook up his battery at the opposite poles, and it is said he would indulge his men in celebratory orgies sans women. He got this, of course, from the older Greek culture. The Spartans were notorious for sodomizing young students, and a "mentoring" was expected by older Spartans for young apprentices. (I never did know why the condom company was Trojan; it should have been Spartan.) There are many other examples of this in history - up to and including today, where Muslim men in Afghanistan enjoy their "dancing boys" because they see homosexual sex as "cleaner" than sex with women (considering where they are putting things one has to wonder at their mental acumen.)  Despite strict prohibitions against homosexuality Islam has been rife with it, and for the same reasons. The Turks used to capture Christian children and put them into military organizations - the Janissaries - designed to repel Christian counter-attacks (sometimes leading a child to facing his father on the battlefield). Generally sodomy was to tool employed to wed the young man to the group, and to his new masters. The Mau-Mau did something very similar. The idea is that, if you have crossed that particular sexual Rubicon, you will find acceptance among those who have participated in the same rituals.

At any rate, there seems to have been a rather schizoid view of homosexuality among Nazis.

So when Conservatives speak of "gay Nazis" this is not something to be dismissed with a snear, as do most Leftists. There actually were gay Nazis, and the type of thinking that went with this particular ideology is alive and well in certain circles in the gay community.

As a side note, Hitler has often been accused of being homosexual, but there is no real proof of that. Hitler had at least four women lovers (one was his niece) although the man seems to have been chock-full of other perversions (he apparently enjoyed copraphilia, for instance, or so I have read.)

The top brass of the Nazi Party were members of the Thule Society, a neopagan order that practiced a variation of Theosophy. Rosenberg, Himmler, Goehring, Rudolf Hess, and a host of others were members of this occultic group, and it is said that they perhaps practiced homosexual rituals there. I don't think there is any evidence of this, but certainly the Nazi lightening bolt SS insignia, the Eagle, and the Swastika are all Theosophistic symbols. Theosophy is not inherently Satanic or evil - it says that all religions have a part of the truth. Theosophy is a religion for the modern age; you can pick and choose what you want from it. The Nazi variation stressed German mysticism and racism, something that they buttressed with the "science" of eugenics.

There is no evidence Hitler was a member, however. Also, Hitler may have been a more "advanced" adept, eschewing pleasures of the flesh.

Madam Blavatsky, one of the founders of Theosophy, once said of sexuality:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_theo.htm

""...but the real adepts - as we are reliably informed - are the most happy of mankind, since their pleasures are connected with the higher existence, which is cloudless and painless. The earliest among the changes felt by the true Chela [student] is a sense of unmixed joy to be rid of the caring cares of common life, and to exist in the light of a supremely great Ideal. Not that any true adept would say aught against the naturalness and sacredness of pure sexual relationships; but that, to become an adept one must expand the finite into the Infinite, the personal into the Universal, man into Parabrahm - if one so choose to designate that Thing Unspeakable."

End excerpt.

So Hitler may well have had minimal interest in women for religious reasons. Of course, he may not have had any reason other than that he didn't want to bother with the difficulties of maintaining a relationship.

Hitler tended to magnify himself over everything else; why would he be interested in anything but a passing fancy on rare occasions? 

I once read an interview with a woman who had gone on a date with Hitler. She said he was affable and a gentleman, but when she ordered a steak at dinner he looked at her in horror and said "you eat CORPSES!" It rather killed the mood, I would imagine, as would much of Hitler's personal quirks.

Hitler was a vegetarian - something befitting the animal-rights friendly Third Reich. He also hated smoking but admitted once he could not ban it without a rebellion.

It is interesting to note that most gay people are liberals, quick to demand such things as smoking bans and other regulations of people's personal lives while exempting themselves. This is not a slam at all gay people; there are some conservative homosexuals. But the political gays are a solid block in the Democratic Party, and yet they live very unhealthy lives, as a casual glance at actuarial tables will show.

The upshot of this is that there are gays and there are Gays. Forcing photographers to shoot your wedding, or bake you a cake, in violation of the religious beliefs of those people, certainly fits in with the Nazi vision of a society under the heel of the ruling class.

I wonder how many gay people ever consider that?

How Demagogues Con People

By Selwyn Duke

How do you know you’re being had by a slick politician? Writing in Mein Kampf about how to manipulate people and win power, Adolf Hitler said that since the average person had a very limited memory and a “slowness of understanding,” it was necessary to use only short, catchy slogans and repeat them often. Sound familiar?

Hope and Change!

Forward!

Choice!

Diversity!

Equality!

Of course, this tactic isn’t restricted to any one leader, but is as old as demagoguery itself. Slogans are very effective, which is why they are the heart of advertising: “Coke is it!” “Just Do It” “Mmm mm good”     “They're G-r-r-r-r-eat!” “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking” (setting things to rhyme or music facilitates memorization; this accounts for the rhythmic meter and repetitive structure in the Iliad and the Odyssey and why the Homeric bards were able to memorize such tomes). Sure, producers could sometimes provide technical explanations for why their products are superior, and often they couldn’t, but it doesn’t matter because they aren’t trying to appeal to the intellect. They want to engage you emotionally.

The reality of emotion’s power is why we have the Jesuit saying, “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man” and the Bible’s counsel, “Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” It’s why Boston College education professor William Kilpatrick HYPERLINK "http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/arts/al0073.html" wrote , quoting Plato on the Greek method for youth formation, that an “imaginative education” providing “examples of nobility and grace” “paves the way” for a “reasoned morality” by creating “an ‘erotic [emotional] attachment’ to virtue” and “making it more likely that the grown child will happily accept the dictates of reason.” Shape a person’s emotions when he is still wet clay and continue the process until he hardens, and he will likely be hardened on either virtue or vice, as the case may be. And, barring some vessel-shattering trauma or conversion, that will be the shape of the man.

Of course, young adults and older ones can be manipulated emotionally, too, especially when the approach appeals to their already hardened moral framework. And one of the most important aspects of self-examination is asking, “How have my emotions been shaped?” Am I embracing my beliefs because they are right or simply because they feel right? Am I, at least on certain issues, a person who cannot be reasoned out of a position because I have not reasoned myself into it, to paraphrase Ben Franklin?
One clue you’ve been manipulated emotionally is simple: Valid arguments are never just one word. Oh, commands can be one word. Emotional triggers can be one word. Demagoguery can be one word. But there is a reason why great philosophers wrote vast works: an explanation of a truth is invariably longer than the expression of the truth. It’s one reason why a catechism is far longer than the Ten Commandments.
I’ve also never seen a valid argument encapsulated in just one slogan or even saying. It’s surely true that “Boys will be boys,” but the psychological explanation of how exactly they act, or why, requires more than four words.

And just imagine that we applied what we accept from politicians to other areas in which we need expertise. Let’s say you went to a doctor and, upon asking for his prescription, he screamed “Health!” Or imagine you booked a lesson with a tennis instructor and his only advice for improvement was “develop skill!” I doubt you’d think the experience was worth the fee.

Now we come to the issues. Your position on, let’s say, marriage, abortion or immigration may or may not be valid, but if one word or slogan is all you have to back it up, you don’t have a valid argument for it. And if that is truly all you have, chances are that you were won over in an invalid manner — through sloganeering. Again, this is true even if the position you arrived at may happen to be valid.
“Equality!” or “Choice!” isn’t an argument; it’s a word. “Marriage equality!” or “Our strength lies in our diversity” isn’t an argument; it’s a slogan. By the way, the same applies to “liberty.” I surely believe man should have appropriate freedoms and that they’re being trampled today, but shouting “liberty!” tells us nothing about what “appropriate” freedoms would be exactly, how this is determined or how they can be secured. Note, this isn’t to say that battle cries aren’t sometimes useful and necessary. But the subject here isn’t rallying the troops but intellectual and moral growth.

Now, when analyzing whether we have arguments or just slogans, there is a trap we can easily fall into: thinking that arguing with others is synonymous with having an argument. Sure, if someone contradicts us on an issue we’re passionate about, we’ll certainly have our retorts. But the question is, if we were simply asked, without being challenged egotistically, to explain the reasoning behind our position, would our response amount to little more than a slogan? Do we instinctively fall back on slogans or reasoned arguments?

Having said all this, the medicine this article administers is insufficient for many of the patients it aims to reach. For it is not a slogan but is appealing to slogan-oriented people; it is the using of an intellectual appeal to address an emotional issue. It was understandable why Debby Boone HYPERLINK "http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&sqi=2&ved=0CCYQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Db07-yKnKRMQ&ei=d0plU7PhL4qEyAHboIGABA&usg=AFQjCNE-tr4p7J0ysfE93oqRsFoiw59Ncw&bvm=bv.65788261,d.cWc" sang “It can’t be wrong when it feels so right,” for something that appeals to the intellect but cannot touch the heart (either because of its deficiencies or because the heart is hardened to it) can never “feel” as good as what grabs the emotions because the intellect doesn’t “feel” at all. This bane of humanity is what C.S. Lewis spoke of in The Abolition of Man when writing, “Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism.”

So a better first step would be to help people develop an “erotic attachment” to virtue, “erotic” meaning “passionate” in this sense. But this is very difficult to do with adults in any case, and it’s not the purpose of reasoned commentary.

Regardless, those who have ears to hear and eyes to see should take heed. As with the late Christopher Hitchens, whose great reasoning powers became clouded when discussing religion, even the best of us can have areas where we’re governed by that most unwise of helmsmen: passion. And whether individually or as a people, the more powerless we are against the animal organism, the more animalistic we become.
                 
HYPERLINK "mailto:selwynduke@optonline.net" Contact Selwyn Duke , HYPERLINK "https://twitter.com/SelwynDuke" follow him on Twitter or log on to HYPERLINK "http://selwynduke.com" SelwynDuke.com

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Ed Schultz Proves Tal Fortgang’s Point

Jack Kemp

As has been widely reported, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz has Tweeted – and then deleted – a statement that “Gay people were really the ones being persecuted in Hitler’s Germany.” http://weaselzippers.us/185872-unreal-msnbcs-ed-schultz-says-gay-people-were-really-the-ones-being-persecuted-in-hitlers-germany/

A few days ago, Debbie Hallber at American Thinker noted various people who attacked the Princeton student grandson of a Holocaust survivor, Tal Fortgang. She documented some of those refuting Mr. Fortgang’s argument that coming to America with essentially the clothes on their back did not give his grandparents – and Tal himself – and significant white privilege (the new buzzword of the left).

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/05/liberal_privilege_unpacking_the_invisible_valise.html

BEGIN QUOTE

Responses to Fortgang’s essay have been swift and ferocious.  Many of his critics adopt the smug, superior tone that Fortgang complains about in his piece.  In Time Magazine, Princeton freshman Briana Payton writes:

    You.  Are.  Privileged.  It is OK to admit that.  You will not be struck down by lightning, I promise.  You will not be forced to repent for your “patron saint of white maleness” or for accepting your state of whiteness and maleness.

Clutch writer Jovanna Blaize calls Fortgang a “poster child for white male privilege” and says, “Must be nice to be white and delusional and privileged.”  Salon's Kate McDonough labels Fortgang a “jerk” and a racist, and describes his argument as "ridiculous baby tantrum thoughts."  In another viral piece, the writer calls Fortgang a “complete f**king a**hole” who “misses the point of everything.”

END QUOTE

There were other similar remarks quoted in a New York Times article about Mr. Fortgang as well,

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/03/nyregion/at-princeton-privilege-is-a-commonplace-b-misunderstood-or-c-frowned-upon.html?_r=1 ; but Ed Schultz has really torn the mask off of what these denials of the Fortgang family’s experience is: a trial balloon to make hard core antisemitisim  and Holocaust Denial respectable speech, no longer “a sin that dares not speak its name,” now almost 70 years after the Holocaust.Ed Schultz made his best first effort to break the “Colored by Historic Understanding” Line and advance a leftist agenda of making Holocaust denial accepted conversation in polite society. This also is true of his attempting to advance a corollary desire of the left, namely that anyone who speaks about the Holocaust should be shamed into silence for making a mountain out of a molehill. Schultz, by stating what he did about what he felt is the main issue of that time, all but implied that more gays were killed by the Nazis than the six millions Jews.

Glenn Beck noted that the Anti-Defamation League (a left leaning organization) has not, to date, said a word about Ed Schultz’s Tweet. http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/05/14/ed-shultz-tweets-it-was-gays-not-jews-most-persecuted-in-nazi-germany/ ; One has to presume that the being considered a member in good standing with the left-leaning agenda is more important to the Anti-Defamation League than standing up for Jews. Beck also mentioned the S.A. and its head, Ernst Rohm, who helped build the Nazi Party – until Hitler found them inconvenient and eliminated them in “The Night of the Long Knives.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_R%C3%B6hm

Yes, there were homosexuals persecuted by the Nazis in concentration camps, but there were also a homosexuals among the ranks of Nazis running concentration camps. These homosexuals  were largely able to avoid persecution because of their high position in government’s apparatus – kind of like George Soros, the Jewish property liquidator in Hungary. The Nazis, in fact, preferred to prosecute mostly effeminate homosexuals, not gays with more masculine mannerisms. The book “The Pink Swastika,” by Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams, documents this http://www.amazon.com/The-Pink-Swastika-Scott-Lively/dp/0964760975/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400103206&sr=8-1&keywords=the+pink+swastika ; despite the reviews by detractors on Amazon.com.

Ed Schultz is not interested in facts, just in trying to shout out or codify his emotions over those that disagree with him. In fact, openly gay tv host Anderson Cooper has criticized Schultz for being “Pretty thin skinned for someone who goes around calling people (most notably, Laura Ingraham) sluts.” Cooper, the Blaze website stated, was also replying to an attack by Shultz made on Cooper just because GQ Magazine called Cooper a member of “The 25 Least Influential People Alive.” http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2011/12/03/anderson-cooper-rips-msnbcs-ed-schultz-pretty-thin-skin-for-someone-who-goes-around-calling-people-sluts/  ; One could imagine what would happen if a conservative talk show host or commentator chose to single out Cooper from that GQ list (which proves nothing). The left in general would call it a “dog whistle” attack on gays – and various gay group spokespersons would make it an issue for weeks - if not years - as an example of anti-gay hate speech.

 But to return to Schultz’s Tweet From Hell, he has just helped prove the case that Tal Fortgang made in the Princeton University paper. Not all white people have an inherent privilege in this country. And if you don’t believe Tal Fortgang, you can also ask Paula Dean, the Duck Dynasty family and the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling. Orwell said it best years ago in describing a totalitarian style government and society: “Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.” But do we need a society whose political and emotional tone is animalistic?

The Long Goodbye? China, the World Bank, and the American Century



Brian Birdnow

Last week a World Bank report that compares something called purchasing power parity claimed that, based on the purchasing power statistics, the Chinese economy has reached a point of rough equality with the United States, or, could actually have moved slightly ahead of the USA, based on the incomplete figures of economic growth over the last three years. This announcement, which confirms the fact of China’s explosive economic development, and the anemic American recovery after the Great Recession of 2008-2010, has caused quite a stir in a number of quarters. The Chinese, usually quick to tout great achievements, have been generally quiet about this one, and their official response has been to state that they have “…a long way to go, yet.” The response in the American financial sector has been rather understated, as well, with the major brokerage firm spokespeople stating that this confirms the correctness of the advice given to investors at the beginning of the new millennium, to wit, the fact that there was money to be made in China. The same brokerage firms are now talking about the unexpected opportunities available in Sub-Saharan Africa, so the world might be seeing another tectonic shift in commercial priorities and capital allocation.

The real response to the report came from the deep thinkers in the geopolitical sphere, namely the think tanks, government, and academia. There, this turned out to be startling news, not necessarily that the Chinese are catching up with the USA, but the surprising contention that they might already be tied with the United States in the economic pennant race. This statement brought forth a flood of meditations on the Chinese rise and the American decline, and what this means to the world. Some of the professoriate pointed to Brooks Adams and his 1895 classic “The Law of Civilization and Decay” wherein he contended that the power in the world was shifting westward, that New York would surpass London as the world financial center (which did take place in 1915) and that the American republic would be to the twentieth century what Britain had been to the nineteenth century. If one updates Adams to 2014, he can see civilization continuing its westward push across the Pacific and to China today. Other commentators cited Oswald Spengler and his 1918 tome, “The Decline of the West”. Spengler, whose work is favored by Henry Kissinger and other certified members of the Deep Thinkers Inc. club, contended during the closing years of the Great War that Western Civilization was in terminal decline. What would replace this was unclear, but the times were changing quickly. Still other commentators cited Arnold Toynbee, Fernand Braudel, and Sir Halford Mackinder as strategic thinkers whose works might illuminate the supposed Chinese rise, and corresponding American decline.

The academic and quasi-governmental elites who weighed in on this topic seemed to be more interested in congratulating themselves for their prescience than in assessing the data in a detached fashion. In any event, it would be wise to keep this in perspective. We have heard all of this before, not only in relation to the Chinese challenge, but as far back as the Cold War. In the 1950s many of the people who are paid to make these types of predictions stated with certainty that the Soviet Union was catching up with the United States, and would soon surpass us as the world’s leading economic power. They pointed out the supposed superiority of the Soviet schools, and cited the success of Uncle Joe Stalin’s five year plans as evidence of the efficiency of central economic planning. This contention was given a veneer of plausibility when the Russians “beat” us into space in the autumn of 1957. Growing concern over our lost competitive edge launched the national career of a theretofore playboy senator from Massachusetts who argued that he would “…get this country moving again!” The Soviet economic challenge was as much of a myth as their strategic and military challenges were grim realities, but all of this found its own level when Ronald Reagan took charge in Washington.

Still, the scaremongers conjured up a new bogeyman in the late 80s in the form of the Japanese menace. We were told that Japan was buying up the United States, with the intention of turning the USA into a vassal state, if not a colony. A number of short “academic” studies penned by American economists and some remarkably surly short works penned by influential Japanese public figures fed this fire. We were told that we would all be speaking Japanese by the year 2000, and what did we fight World War II for, anyway? Even before this great fear reached its highest point Japan slipped into an economic downturn, which became a twenty year slump. This illustrated the limits of Japanese power and effectively put an end to the idea that the twenty-first century belonged to the Land of the Rising Sun.

Now we confront the Chinese challenge, and contemplate the coming Chinese century. The first order of business is to ask the world whether the Chinese statistics concerning economic growth are reliable and/or true. A number of years ago Lester Thurow, the distinguished MIT economist, wrote a very long scholarly article concerning this very subject. Thurow began by using the Chinese government’s own statistics on their economy and productivity in 1992. He took these numbers and then calculated where they would be if China had really been experiencing 10% yearly economic growth. The numbers were off the charts in an unfathomable manner. When certain media agencies asked for a Chinese response they refused to comment, and curtly mentioned that their statistics cannot be questioned, nor could they be expected to conform to simple American mathematical reckonings.

While we are on the subject of statistical reliability we can question the entire premise of the World Bank report. The concept of purchasing power parity is relatively new and concerns the considerably lower cost of living in China, versus the higher cost of living in America. This involves much economic calculation and the figures get murky when talking about converting the Chinese “yuan” into the American dollar. The Chinese have undervalued the yuan for decades, as a way of making Chinese exported goods cheaper in foreign countries, and thus, more competitive. In terms of Gross Domestic Product, the one statistic that really measures national economic might, the American economy is still 40% larger than the Chinese economy. With a GDP that is less than two-thirds that of the perceived Chinese “main enemy”, it is no wonder that the official Chinese response to the news was the laconic reply that they had a lot of work to do!

We can, for the sake of argument, wonder what would be the case if the Chinese contention is true. The Chinese economy is obviously not larger that the still undefeated USA. Certainly, they have closed the gap considerably, and by roughly 2025-30 they will be on the same level, if current growth rate prove sustainable. What, though, do these numbers mean now? They mean that the Chinese people are living better in a material sense, and that is certainly good. The population of China is, however, over five times the size of the American population and, in a relative manner the Chinese experience nothing close to the standard of living that is common in the USA. Also, it is an open question how long the Chinese boom will continue. The Chinese leaders are sitting on a rumbling volcano, and they know it. Due to the national birthrate the Chinese economy must produce twenty million new jobs a year just to accommodate those who are entering the labor force. This explains the “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” Chinese approach to economic growth. We are seeing the results right now. There is a huge crime problem in China with burglaries, armed robberies, and assaults rising rapidly. Many Chinese industrial cities resemble nineteenth century English mill towns with vast slums, non-existent sanitation facilities and a permanent pall of smoke and ash over the residential population. The Chinese have refused to sign the Kyoto protocol and have ignored Western requests that they reduce their industrial pollution. The Obama Administration has decided to treat the Chinese with kid gloves on this issue, while they threaten American companies at the same time. Very sad, but certainly not surprising.

Regardless of any of the various “takes” on the situation, the Chinese economic challenge is real, and it is serious. The Chinese have been channeling the overflow and residue from the economic boom into the military. They see this as the gateway to that one elusive variable, namely, world power. It is no coincidence that while China has grown stronger she has grown more aggressive and threatening to her neighbors. Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia and the Philippines have all butted heads with the Chinese in recent years. This continued pattern of aggressive behavior is likely to continue as the Chinese grow more powerful.

What should be the American response to growing Chinese economic power? We could simply unleash our own productive capacity, by cutting corporate and personal income taxes and beat the Chinese at their own game. Such a confident and strong Reaganite response is unlikely with a redistributionist welfare statist Administration in charge in Washington, and a defeatist opposition party, to boot. The second possibility is a general paralysis of will, and a resignation that this changing of the guard will happen, and, as Paul Kennedy argued back in 1987 that all we can do is attempt to manage American decline “gracefully”. This seems to be the preferred mode of thinking, in much of official Washington, and of course, in the multinational organizations. The third, and final, and least palatable option is to embrace American decline. We should cede world power to China, we should help them into our former seat of leadership, and allow them to deal with the world’s problems. This idea has drawn qualified approval from conservatives like Pat Buchanan and liberals like Paul Krugman. When then-Senator Barack Obama announced for the Presidency in 2007 he stated a liberal mantra as a campaign slogan: The main problem in the world was the fact that America was too strong. The world was better served when there were contending centers of power largely factoring each other out. The Pax Americana was a dangerous phenomenon, and Obama, as President would oversee its retirement. Which side does a reader believe that Obama is on in the debate over how to respond to the emerging Chinese colossus? Go Figure!

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

The Aviary is Back

Dear readers,

The Aviary www.tbirdnow.mee.nu is back up and running. I will probably keep this site updated in a hit or miss fashion as a mirror. Please feel free to visit either website.

Thanks for your patience,

Tim

Look for the Union Hashtag

Jack Kemp

Look for the Liberal Hashtag
 to the tune of "Look for the Union Label"
Look for the liberal hashtag
when you are getting the shaft from Dems.

Remember somewhere Obama's phrasing,
himself he's praising, Christians he's hazing - he's such a louse.

We work hard - and he's complaining?
Thanks to God and ourselves, we're paying our way!

So always look for the liberal hashtag,
it says they're hard trying to destroy U.S.A.!

A Call for Anarchy, Not Patriotism on May 16



By Alan Caruba

The Constitution grants Americans the right to assemble for the redress of grievances. It does NOT permit the seizure of federal buildings or of elected and appointed representatives for the purpose of removing them from power.

The forthcoming May 16 Operation American Spring, is a call for a million or more Americans to come to Washington, D.C. for the purpose of staying in the nation’s capital “as long as it takes to see Obama, Biden, Reid, McConnell, Boehner, Pelosi, and Attorney General Holder removed from office” is a call for anarchy.  http://patriotsforamerica.ning.com/

Operation American Spring offers the perfect opportunity for elements within the Obama administration to claim the government is under attack even if they were the ones doing an actual armed attack.

Among those million attending would surely be “patriots” who would not heed the organizer’s call to not bear arms and to obey all District laws. The purpose of the event is to remove those it says are “threatening our existence, our freedom, our liberty, our Constitution, our life. When the government becomes lawless, then ‘we the people’ no longer are obligated to follow the government…At this time the government is performing as a lawless entity.”

The federal government is not lawless. Most of us, while unhappy with the gridlock of Congress and the constant stream of lies from the White House, know that it is working for the most part within the constraints of the Constitution. If you want lawlessness, just show up to participate in Operation American Spring.

By contrast, note that there a legal suits in the courts challenging the legitimacy of Obamacare, a tax that was initiated in the Senate when only the House may authorize taxation, and there is congressional action proceeding on both the IRS actions and the deceptions put forth about the Benghazi attack. It’s not as if Congress is not taking action or that the courts are not proceeding to address these issues. They are. http://www.wanttoknow.info/falseflag

Operation American Spring says its goal “is restoring the U.S. Constitution as the law of the land, removing the lawless leadership.” We have the means to do that. They are called elections and we have an important one in November.  http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2014/01/exclusive-bin-interview-with-colonel-harry-riley-leader-of-operation-american-spring-video-2881974.html

Why can’t the organizers just wait until then? The answer is that they want the President and Attorney General and others it names removed now.

That’s not how our system works and we should all have real concern when Operation American Spring says “The militias across the United States are responding and mobilizing to the call to protect the Republic.” The problem with this is that a militia is defined as “a group of people who are not part of the armed forces of a country but are trained like soldiers.”

Operation American Spring is led by Col. Harry Riley, U.S. Army (Ret), a man who served 34 years in the military before retiring in 1992. Suffice to say he has had a remarkable career and has been the recipient of many awards including the Silver and Bronze Star. He says that what he is calling for is “civil disobedience” and he cites what occurred in Cairo in 2011 as an example, but those demonstrations were against a despot and resulted in the Egyptian military having to step in to remove duly elected members of the Muslim Brotherhood when their leader attempted to dispense with that nation’s constitution. That doesn’t even begin to describe the state of affairs in America today.

Obama had made it clear he would prefer to rule—not govern—by executive order and regards Congress as a nuisance, but he is not a despot. Not yet.

A massive march and occupation of the nation’s capital offers the perfect opportunity for what is known as a “false flag” event that would empower the President to declare martial law and unleash vast arrests and imprisonments that completely bypass the Bill of Rights.

By definition, a false flag operation is one in which elements within a government stage an attack, pretending to be a targeted enemy and then blaming it on those it seeks to control and subdue. Those would be the “patriots” who show up to achieve Operation American Spring’s goals.

Restoring the Constitution and the rule of law would literally require a second American Revolution and no one wants or needs that.

Washington, D.C. has hosted many major marches over the years. All have been conducted without violence. None have proposed taking over the government. It’s one thing to be unhappy with the President and his administration. It’s quite another to ignore the Constitution in the name of restoring it.

© Alan Caruba, 2014

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