The New York Times starts a series “examining the lives of youth across the Muslim world at a time of religious revival” in Egypt:
Here in Egypt and across the Middle East, many young people are being forced to put off marriage, the gateway to independence, sexual activity and societal respect. Stymied by the government’s failure to provide adequate schooling and thwarted by an economy without jobs to match their abilities or aspirations, they are stuck in limbo between youth and adulthood.
***ÂÂ
With 60 percent of the region’s population under the age of 25, this youthful religious fervor has enormous implications for the Middle East. More than ever, Islam has become the cornerstone of identity, replacing other, failed ideologies: Arabism, socialism, nationalism.
The wave of religious identification has forced governments that are increasingly seen as corrupt or inept to seek their own public redemption through religion. In Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Morocco and Algeria, leaders who once headed secular states or played down religion have struggled to reposition themselves as the guardians of Islamic values.
Ahmed Muhammad Sayyid, used as the NYT’s anecdotal window into this larger picture, is also used to show the ultimate risk of this dynamic to US national security:
Mr. Sayyid, like an increasing number of Egyptians, would like Islam to play a greater role in political life. He and many others said that the very government that claimed to elevate and emphasize their faith was insincere and hypocritical.
“Yes, I do think that Islam is the solution,†Mr. Sayyid said, quoting from the slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned but tolerated organization in Egypt that calls for imposing Shariah, or Islamic law, and wants a religious committee to oversee all matters of state. “These people, the Islamists, they would be better than the fake curtain, the illusion, in front of us now.â€Â
***
Like most religious young people, Mr. Sayyid is not an extremist. But with religious conservatism becoming the norm  the starting point  it is easier for extremists to entice young people over the line. There is simply a larger pool to recruit from and a shorter distance to go, especially when coupled with widespread hopelessness.
Notable in this narrative is what does not appear.  Islam is replacing failed ideologies like Arabism, socialism, nationalism. Democracy — or constitutional republicanism, to be more precise — does not appear in this dynamic. Moreover, this account appears to recognize that Islamic extremists and jihadists are not primarily the product of poverty and lack of education. Rather, as Alan Kreuger previously wrote for the NYT, it is usually corrupt and oppressive regimes that deny political and economic freedome to their people that provide a pool from which the educated may become terrorists.
Similarly, public opinion data generally shows that Anti-American attitudes in the Muslim world are not due to hatred of America’s values or political system, but to the view that the US has had a double-standard in promoting democracy, including supporting authoritarian regimes in the Arab and Muslim world while not promoting democracy there as it did elsewhere after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Moreover, this frustration with corrupt, repressive regimes occurs in the context of an increasingly global economy and increasingly global information age. There is an observable chasm between those parts of the world where citizens are becoming more globally connected, enjoying new economic and political freedoms, and control over their own destinies anf those parts of the world where people are losing connectivity, facing less economic and political freedom, and less control over their future.
The notion that revolution and unrest are driven by the clash of rising expectations and downturning gratifications in not a new one, whether it is in Colonial America, Tsarist Russia, or Iran.
The above is a prelude to revisiting the ways in which the US can view the threat of terrorism by Islamic extremists:
The first is that the enemy are Islamic fundamentalists and that the war is primarily a product of the unique aspects of fundamental Islamic religion and culture. The second is that the Islamic terrorists are the product of authoritarian, repressive and often stagnant regimes. The third school posits that terrorismâ€â€Islamic and otherwiseâ€â€is the historical result of foreign occupation.
The political debate in the USâ€â€and perhaps the West generallyâ€â€is premised on an avoidance, if not a rejection, of the the first theory. The Bush Administration has generally subscribed to the second theoryâ€â€militarily in in Afghanistan and Iraqâ€â€diplomatically with the Palestinian Authority and Lebanon, etc. The Administration’s critics tend to subscribe to the third theory, as reflected by people like Robert Pape, Juan Cole, and others who believe that the U.S. should have remained committed to the Realist school of foreign policy to address the issue.
There are those, like Peggy Noonan, who have become disenchanted with the Bush administration because they belive the Bush Doctrine to be unrealistic. Noonan’s epiphany in this regard came during President Bush’s second inagural speech:
The administration’s approach to history is at odds with what has been described by a communications adviser to the president as the “reality-based community.” A dumb phrase, but not a dumb thought: He meant that the administration sees history as dynamic and changeable, not static and impervious to redirection or improvement. That is the Bush administration way, and it happens to be realistic: History is dynamic and changeable. On the other hand, some things are constant, such as human imperfection, injustice, misery and bad government.
This world is not heaven.
***
Ending tyranny in the world? Well that’s an ambition, and if you’re going to have an ambition it might as well be a big one. But this declaration, which is not wrong by any means, seemed to me to land somewhere between dreamy and disturbing. Tyranny is a very bad thing and quite wicked, but one doesn’t expect we’re going to eradicate it any time soon. Again, this is not heaven, it’s earth.
Noonan’s disenchantment with the speech eventually grew into a disenchantment with the president generally:
I suspect people pick up with Mr. Bush the sense that part of his drama, part of the story of his presidency, is that he gets to be the romantic about history, and the American people get to be the realists. Of the two, the latter is not the more enjoyable role.
Americans have always been somewhat romantic about the meaning of our country, and the beacon it can be for the world, and what the Founders did. But they like the president to be the cool-eyed realist, the tough customer who understands harsh realities.
With Mr. Bush it is the people who are forced to be cool-eyed and realistic. He’s the one who goes off on the toots. This is extremely irritating, and also unnatural. Actually it’s weird.
Noonan’s position is understandable. It flows from one of the basic elements of conservativism — the notion that it is more realistic about the limits of human nature and the ability of government, particularly in reshaping human nature or culture(s). Conservativism generally derides the Left for believing that Utopia can be imposed by government force.
Unfortunately, Noonan (and those like her) are giving free reign to that impulse without considering the context set forth above. She may recoil from the Bush Doctrine, but she has yet to consider the likely consequences of the alternative approaches.ÂÂ
Noonan is presumably against an actual religious war on the Muslim world. ÂÂ
Disengaging from the Middle East would leave in place the dynamic in which Islam is seen as the alternative to corruption and oppression, and in which the US is blamed for not promoting democracy in an even-handed manner. Energy independence could accelerate the rise of politicized Islam, and US withdrawal would increase the risk of conflict between other nations destabilizing the global economy.
Once the alternatives are considered, the Bush Doctrine looks like neo-Realism. Old school US foreign policy Realism is one reason we face the risky situation in the Middle East described in the New York Times. Dealing with that world requires realism in facing up to that fact, and recognizing what it means in a world with a global economy and increasingly global infosphere. Realism requires a recognition that we cannot run away from the problem, even when doing something about it may be very difficult.
Bush surpassed Reagan. Peggy can’t abide that.
Transcended, I mean.
/giggles
yup this is all true Karl
bush is just tryin to destroy the substrate the nurtures terrorists.
it is all experimental in a way.
radical islam is just a formulization of bullied syndrome antidote.
revengers and the bullied syndrome dudes see islam as redemptive , cuz its all about justice.
“Here in Egypt and across the Middle East, many young people are being forced to put off marriage”
My take is that in a culture of polygamy there are always excess young males. Unless they find a way to have 4 females for every male there are going to be young men with no marriage prospects. A society that has an excess of males will be either be unstable itself or will send it’s instability abroad.
very good post , Karl.
But there are more just 2 alternatives.
Engage or disengage.
How about engage, but without trying to dominate or bomb into oblivion.
P.S.
I have to admit, though.
You seem like the guy i will have the great time talking about movies…
Engage or disengage. That’s what Bush is telling them.
sashal,
Obviously there are more than two alternatives. Bush’s approach has involved war (not bombing into oblivion, which would be the first approach) twice, but not in other instances. And Iraq had ripple effects in Libya and Lebanon, that ebb and flow with the perception of overall success.
Here comes China, ready or not.
How about engage, but without trying to dominate or bomb into oblivion.
Near as I can tell, that is what we have been doing.
“Here comes China, ready or not.”
That’s another one, but their excess is not due to polygamy. Government policy combined with culture, come to think about it, it is similar.
Of course that’s what we’re doing. Whether, you were for the action in Iraq or not,(IMO, the action in Afganistan was 100% warranted)the fact is that we have haven’t “bombed” anything into oblivion. Perspective is missing to these people that claim this stuff. If we were to “bomb” everything into oblivion, they certainly would see the difference. Of course these are the same people that say we are killing far more Iraqis than Saddam ever did. Some are just ignorant (my dear old mom, who made this very claim just today) and some are just willfully lying through their teeth.
Yeah, about that doctrine>
Success in its most optimistic, pre-invasion terms of a genuinely liberal democratic Iraq that would make peace with Israel and serve as a model for the region was not actually ever possible for many of the reasons , but suppose for a moment that it was possible. Wouldn’t that great dream have been worth it? No, not at all. Two reasons: 1) America should never, barring an attack or uncontainable threat from that country’s government, attempt to dictate through the use of force the political future of any other country; 2) even the most optimistic scenario of liberal democratic Eden serves no compelling U.S. interests.
Does it actually matter to American security whether people in the Middle East vote in their bad governments or not? Well, no, it doesn’t.
Is it the proper business of the United States government to use its military so that people in other nations can be liberated from repressive governments? Quite simply, no, it isn’t. That isn’t what our government exists to do. It should use its military to defend our country, any allies with which we may have defense treaties and vital resources. It cannot be worthwhile to liberate other peoples because it is a kind of war that not only goes far beyond what our government is supposed to be doing and engages in conflicts that it has no right to involve our people in, but also because it quite clearly harms the United States in the process.
More basically, any such intervention is, by definition, an act of aggression by one state against another. An intervention with the stated goal of regime change is even more obviously an act of aggression.
Aggressive war cannot be moral and it cannot be just. To choose war, as our government indeed did, is to choose to unleash all the horrors of war on people who have done no lasting, grave or permanent harm to us. They may or may not be wretched, awful people. They may or may not be tyrants. Whether they are or not is actually irrelevant to the question of whether our government has the right to commit aggression against another state. The bottom line is that the attacked state has done nothing to deserve our attack on it. How much less, then, do the civilians killed in the process deserve it? How can a war of aggression ever be “worth†the moral stain and illegality that it entails? How can unleashing hell on earth without cause ever be worthwhile? It cannot be.(from D.Larison)
Let’s take another view.
When I was living in one of the Eastern block countries, and praising and praying to Reagan and USA for the HELP to dismantle USSR totalitarianism, I would have never approved the direct military intervention.
How much my personal liberty costs to me, if I would collaterally lost the member of my family or a close friend. Would I have the same love and respect towards USA as I have now?
The problem with many of you guys , you think about the war as something absract, a toy, a computer game. “We are the great white hope, we want to bring the rest of you retched people freedom and if we kill a few thousand innocents, no big deal at all” .
It should use its military to defend our country, any allies with which we may have defense treaties and vital resources.
Like Kuwait?
ZIONIST IMPERIALIST CAPITALIST RUNNING DOG AGGRESSORS !
I love how the minds of the loonwaffles work.
#12
Where to start.
If by peace you mean the absence of war, then yes that would be a benefit and achievable. (1) You mean like Germany in 1945? They never directly attacked us either.(2) Yes it does. It places a government friendly to our national interests in the middle east. Directly astride the roads to Tehran, Damascus and Cairo. Which you agree are responsible for aiding terrorists.
More basically…………….. You mean like our intervention with the sovereign nation of Yugoslavia?
Aggressive war cannot be moral and it cannot be just. War isn’t about morality. There never was or ever will be a moral war. War is about survival. The most basic basic, brutal, savage kind. BTW all war is aggressive.
No lasting…………….You’re absolutely right. The jews deserved what they got. Iraqis needed to suffer under their ruler, Saddam.
The problem with many of you guys , you think about the war as something absract, a toy, a computer game.
Would you like to know how many of my family members went over to Europe to liberate those countries and didn’t come back? This country did that, twice.
Wars are awful, terrible, ugly things. But there are things that are far worse. Slavery. For example.
Aggressive pacifism cannot be moral and it cannot be just. To choose retreat, as Obama would have us do, is to choose to unleash all the horrors of genocide on people who have done no lasting, grave or permanent harm to us.
I am sure happyfeet meant Cambodia, or Darfur’s genocides, correct?
And there is the deliberate crap about “aggressive pacifism”. Why ?
Almost nobody, but about meager 5% of population was against attacking Afghanistan for giving shelter to our enemy…
Rusty, since when you are such a liberal to decide who should be freed from slavery and with what price ?
B.Moe.
Was that the international alliance of many nations including Russia and France, under the UN in regards to Kuwait, which was attacked and needed to be defended ?
Nonono. Obama is of the genocidal bent. Just look at his home country. It is all he knows of the world.
sashal,
1. That has exactly nothing to do with your point or B Moe’s response.
2. We went back into Iraq under the authority of UN resolutions and with a coalition of 49 countries in support of the mission. Are you suggesting that it’s only OK if Russia and/or France are on board?
When you put sashal up to your ear can you hear the ocean? That would be neat.
oops, missed my friend JD answer.
Yes, I am actually a zionist and capitalist.
Sorry about that…
#20… and besides Kenia, Indonesia school systems as well
You are a loonwaffle. You evinced in your first comment that you had not read the post, and you followed that up with Mother Sheehan loonwaffle boilerplate, which you evinced that you had not read at #18.
I don’t think you read.
Good night America. Obama’s home country is AMERICA, loonwaffle. You can’t even be baited properly.
The bottom line is that the attacked state has done nothing to deserve our attack on it. How much less, then, do the civilians killed in the process deserve it?
If you are referring to Iraq with this statement, then you need to go back to the beginning, because Saddam most certainly earned an attack. In point of fact, as already pointed out by Pablo, the UN agreed.
Iraq may not yet be what we, or its citizens hope it will be, but it does now have the distinct advantage of not having Saddam and the Baathists actively making the region, and the world, a worse place.
Russia and France had a little stake in Saddam’s regime, don’t ya think? Sashal, I read your comment and found myself nodding in agreement with some of it, as I do share a few of those sentiments. But, far more innocents died under the tyrannical regime of Hussein than have since the war began. Far more will die if we leave too early. Again, I wasn’t in favor of going into Iraq, but the fact is we’re there. I don’t buy the “concern” for innocents killed in the war. Where was the concern for them before when Saddam was mass murdering his own people? Again, you can be against the war for just the reasons you mentioned, but that concern for Iraqis thing just rings so hollow and stinks of politicizing, when they were dying at a far greater rate under Saddam.
Is that Godwin on the phone? Get Godwin on the phone…
More seriously, when sashal was praying for a non-military victory in the Cold War, the US was busy winning it in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, etc. Not by direct military intervention, but by indirect military intervention. That option wasn’t really open in Iraq after Pres. Bush 41 and Clinton both screwed over Saddam’s opponents. Having done that, sashal thinks the moral thing to do would have been to continue to let them rot.
sashal is of course entitled to his/her opinion. So are the Iraqis, who — whatever their opinions of the aftermath — continue to support the decision of the US to remove Saddam from power.
Funny, I remember all kinds of dire warnings about the brutal Afghan winter, and how nobody had ever succeeded in conquering that country. It was going to be a quagmire — A QUAGMIRE, I TELL YOU!!!!11!!!
Nice to know that was only a meager 5% of the population. Funny how they all seemed to get media exposure at the time. Every last one of ’em.
It really is all the standard talking points — if we cannot help Darfur, we must help no one. Mind you, the people preventing international action on Darfur are precisely the same people who wanted to block action on Iraq (Russia, France) for precisely the same reasons (oil concessions). So we are to let the third world turn into a backward, miserable breeding ground of anti-Americanism and Islamic terrorism so as not to annoy France and Russia.
Pablo and Education Guy both make great points in regards to Saddam and his provocations. Hell, the earlier Iraq war never really ended, officialy, anyway.
Rusty, since when you are such a liberal to decide who should be freed from slavery and with what price ?
1860-1866
Karl, USA were not involved in Afghanistan military, remember?(I mean of course standing army and occupation).
I am never and actually all for our positive influence in the world.
Trade, cultural and economical cooperation. Even military and intelligence cooperation.
The wars, Karl, should be used only in defence, or retaliation, and should never be preemptive option to whatever jerk may sit in the Oval Office, including Clinton , which btw, unleashed bad example of Kosovo to many separatist movements in the world.
The Utopian idealism of neoconservatives(which I am sure you know takes roots in Troskyite permanent revolution/wars ideas)is in fact harmful to the world and more importantly to USA interests in the world.
OT.
Karl, get yourself a copy of “12”, russian version.
I was amazed when it got Oscar nomination .
As the director freely admitted on Russian TV, he was surprised as well (for different reasons then me), for the movie whitewashes and justifies the corruption and under – the-table actions for the peculiarities of a Russian soul and culture, not by history of slavery, revolutions and totalitarianism…
Thanks for nice conversation, sorry for the grammatical mistakes(English -second language).
Good night.
Zionist sashal.
@ #12
Is that you, Tiger?
Obama’s home country is AMERICA, loonwaffle
C’mon, hf, that is so Teddy Roosevelt. Help me out here, “I’d like to teach the WORLD to sing…
de,de,de,de,de,de…
And the ears.
A Seashell and Balloon In Every Pot.
It’s just disappointing is all cause that is a very elegant post up there, brilliantly synthesized and explicated, and he loonwaffled all over it without reading it. And also it put Peggy in her place pretty damn adroitly, not that seashell noticed. Chitinous loonwaffle.
I wonder whether sashal forgot about the less than enthusiastic support democrats gave the First Gulf War. Looking at the vote for the AUMF for that conflict, when one of our most important allies in the region was invaded, it sure looks like some aggressive pacifism was going on back then.
sashal, supposed Zionist, has yet to figure out that it is hard to “cooperate” with people dedicated to her extermination. And anyone who thinks Afghanistan or Nicaragua was won by international cooperation and peace-chanting is simply delusional. Of course, skipping over my reference to indirect military action and why it was not an option for Iraq is yet another symptom of someone who simply shuts out any idea that does not fall within their own blinkered ideology.
That Saddam was in constant violation of a ceasefire from the most multi-lateral military action in recent memory — including his attempt to assasinate Bush 41 — means nothing to people like sashal. Invading Iraq was about the least preemptive war in recent US history.
Nor does it occur that the reason things have tuned in Iraq is precisely because Iraqis (esp. the Anbar tribes) figured out that the US does not seek to disrupt their lives as the foreign jihadists did.
And inasmuch as Russian language and culture was one of my fields of study (going back as far as to translate Old Church Slavonic), I doubt a movie is going to teach me much about Russia’s lack of history with democracy (even that brief flirtation with the Duma pre-Revolution wasn’t much) Trotsky’s theories, etc.
@ #39
Agreed. Speak softly and carry a Great White Fleet.
maybe you missed a chance to make a useful friend, Karl:
sashal
Published Letters: 3
Page 1
*
Dear Glenn
[Read the article: Have Bill Frist and right-wing bloggers plagiarized their new Iraq plan?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]
You are by far my favorite writer on the matters of the contemporary politics in USA, digby and tristero being close second.
But this article I would certainly put in the instant classic category (the subtle humor is especially appreciated by the legal immigrant -me- from the scary USSR).
I love how you deconstruct the totalitarian tendencies and Utopian neoconservative ideas of imposing and promoting (by force )the ideology in the modern world. We all know what happened before with the people who do not learn from history and do not take into account different stages of cultural and historical development in diverse areas of our planet (bolsheviks).
Take this highest and respectful compliment and token of appreciation of your tireless work from the guy who had spent good chunk of his life under authoritarian rule and knows first hand what this is and how pernicious the government propaganda could be…
yupp, russian and most likely a jew (they get carte blanche immigrant status due to a dead Senator named “Scoop”) and a nice guy. But you had to be a dickhead didn’t you? Are you playing your know-it-all attitude for the 10 or so idiots who only read this blog…myself included…like the ticker below is moving awfully slow of late. I don’t think he’ll come back.. but I do as it’s funny reading this stuff and you did come up with some interesting ideas….but all has been done before…except for how are you going to pay for your imperial army? Raise Taxes is the only solution or….cut back on medical spending which has taken whatever “peace dividend” we got after Bush 1. And shut up, guinsPen….you’re on my dollar if you’re still in the service although your ‘blog’ is pictures only.
Tax preparation a’comin….is like Preparation H. And put the hanger thing-ys on ur blog g.
Or, as V. S. Naipaul said in a 2002 interview:
I think people have spoken much rubbish about that event [9/11]. The poor revenging themselves on the rich! It’s nothing but an aspect of religious hatred. And that is so hard to deal with, or even contemplate. You can deal with the poor striking out, but you can’t deal with the threat of a universal religious war.
[…] has a post over at protein wisdom I find very interesting and something worth my pondering. Actually,it’s a subject I’ve […]
Hey! I was a lot more dickheady than Karl. I made an express point of it cause that was a loonwaffle, a loonwaffle who apparently from what you say has no excuse whatsoever. And also I don’t think you read the post either.
Really what is the point, does one think a MB regime in Egypt (likely
headed by someone like Katatni or
someone worse)would be any kind of
improvement. Egypt’s Islamists have given us Atta, Sheik Rahman, the Istambouli bros (who capped Sadat, due to the inspiration of Rahman and Neil Livingstone penpal Quaradwi)Zawahiri,
Zarquawi successor (Ayub al Masri; which literally means ‘the Egyptian’)
you get the drift.
happyfeet – Actually reading the topic is optional for people like data. I am pretty sure that any topic leads back to taxing the rich for the imperial army.
“Similarly, public opinion data generally shows that Anti-American attitudes in the Muslim world are not due to hatred of America’s values or political system, but to the view that the US has had a double-standard in promoting democracy, including supporting authoritarian regimes in the Arab and Muslim world while not promoting democracy there as it did elsewhere after the fall of the Soviet Union.”
Who’d a thunk? I saw it on Protein Wisdom, and it summarizes the situation in a nutshell. Next thing you know, someone here will draw the logical connection to our support of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, maybe even make fun of the Bush ‘hating freedom’ shtick.
Maybe not, dave. And if you’re going to cite traffic stats as some sort of evidence confirming your blather, you might ought to actually look at them first. 14.4K page views and 9.4K visits today. that’s well better than average, and on a Sunday, no less. Dipshit.
It’s just sad cause this post says a lot. And narciso, I don’t think it’s an accident that the NYT kicked off their series with the state most likely to invoke your reaction.
A holiday Sunday too.
The Daytona 500 Sunday no less. The daves, and their variations, are pretty predictable today. Weisman and data being mental midgets is as predictable as Kyle Busch doing something boneheaded and costing someone else a shot at a win.
So JD, nothing to say about Karl’s post at all? Don’t be shy.
We (in the hive mind sense) thought we’d let you flesh it out, David. Perhaps you can start with the US support of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.
Yup. Karl has forgotten more about politics than you have ever known. If any of the daves told me the sky is blue, I would require written documentation as proof.
Next thing you know, someone here will draw the logical connection to our support of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, maybe even make fun of the Bush ‘hating freedom’ shtick.
Don’t be shy David, step right up and tell us how we should be better promoting freedom and democracy in those countries. Please be as specific as possible.
happy, I read the post twice. It was a call for “responsibility”. In other words: war for a hundred years as Mac says it. How to pay for it. Like how are you going to pay for that C30 Volvo? dickheady>>>? ha, I was being nice of course.
Freedom Ain’t Free. Pay for It. Republican Dickheads just don’t get it. Military actions of a major order as Karl insists upon require lots of mullah…like giving the greenbacks to the Mullahs. or bombing them w/o too much collateral damage…and giving Israel the bulk of our “foreign aid” (which by Euro dimensions isn’t much).
McCain et al wants to extend Bush’s tax cuts to the wealthy and Republican. Increase deficits. Getting bored yet? It’s very boring to fill out the tax forms, tax policy is very dull esp. when you think only the ‘little people’ pay taxes.
DW, eh? do you think he can read that sort of Hillary wonkish stuff?
Perhaps you can start with the US support of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. good start, P…like let’s support the most corruptable of Palestinians, yupp. U’re a wise guy. Gov. Bush and Candibritches seem to agree w/ you.
g’nite
Islamic terrorists are the product of authoritarian, repressive and often stagnant regimes.
datadaveperson, you should refute that if you have a mind to, because that’s what is at the heart of this argument, not a call for “responsibility.†It’s hardly fiscally responsible to allow the root causes of terrorism to fester I don’t think.
I think Dave W is confusing anti-Americanism in the Muslim world with the mindset of al-Qaeda and its affiliates. Who, if they are to be believed, really do hate our freedoms, though they would probably write freedoms as “freedoms.”
Least, I think this is who Bush is talking about, given that he’s always been careful to separate out the rest of the Muslim world, and call Islam a religion of peace, etc.
EG – We should just bomb them into oblivion. Or, in the alternative, conservatives revel with glee at the oppressive actions by those governments.
datamoron – we do not think that the little people pay taxes. We know that an increasingly smaller percentage of successful Americans shoulders the tax burden for everyone. Every new middle class tax cut takes some more people off of the tax rolls.
JD, this is from Baracky Chavez’s “Economic Agenda” …
I’m not saying that’s all he takes off the tax rolls, I just remembered that part. He also has “Eliminate Income Taxes for Seniors Making Less Than $50,000” in there, but he’s not clear how many millions of people that is. God knows what else is in there.
You can get the pdf here.
This continual erosion of the tax rolls will tear our country apart someday. An increasingly decreasing percentage of actual taxpayers will continue to pay increasing amounts of taxes. This growing group of people who do not actually pay taxes will never again vote to increase their own taxes.
Sorry for the tangent. I am a bit out of sorts ever since the Busch brothers fucked up Jr’s race today.
Right, and the demographics on the non-taxpaying geezer population is probably why he doesn’t say how many people he’s talking about here. Probably figures he can lower the inheritance tax threshold and recoup on the flipside.
And no politician has ever been hurt at the ballot box by promising free shit to geezers.
datadave first mistakenly assumed that I didn’t know who sashal is. Then he cites what looks to be a mash note from sashal to Glenn Greenwald as evidence that I might have made a friend?
I am less than impressed, even by datadave standards.
David Weisman has a more valid point, though I suspect his execution of that argument would put nuclear weapons and much of the world’s oil supplies in the hands of people who care not a whit about freedom or democracy. We managed to make that mistake vis Iran in the 1970s and I suspect most would be keen not to repeat it.
There is a difference between noting that US policy can work with the braoder swath of Muslim public opinion and making priorities of cases that would result in disaster. As I have noted previously, there are no ideal options in Pakistan and few good ones following the Bhutto assassination. Getting Musharraf to compromise with the PPP is about the best that can be realistically expected at the moment, followed by diplomatic pressure regarding liberalization of the judiciary. There are even fewer good options with Saudi Arabia. The point is to push without toppling regimes into the hands of Islamic extremists, because that is the prevalent alternative at the moment, even in Egypt (the Brotherhood being no bunch of sweethearts and recently armed to boot).
Moving the Saudi oil infrastructure out of the range of Saddam’s Scuds was a good start I think. Frankly for the freedom and the democracy and the reform I’d save them for last. Cause they suck is why, and they should be historicized as the last backasswards subhuman regime on the planet, even if it’s only for a day or so.
To cite yet another example, it is the Bush administration (along with Tony Blair) that put anti-corruption on the foreign aid agenda.
happy,,, unusually glum about someone? The Saudi regime is part and partial to the Bush regime. And vice versa. Most of their oil goes to Europe or Japan or China. So why are we breaking the bank defending them? I think you’re down on S.A. me thinks? “Cause they suck is why” they is Saudis or Iraqi’s? I am thinking Saudis.
JDnumbnuts, indeed the wealthy pay the bulk of income taxes but that is a minority of taxes paid in the USA. Payroll taxes, property taxes, state taxes, and by passing the costs to the customer, corporate taxes are paid by the middle class in proportionality. Even income taxes are now “proportionality” falling on the middle class more than the ultra wealthy who are more likely to gain wealth by inheritance* than before as warren buffet and bill gates have informed us over and over again. If you stop being the mentally deformed ditto head you might also consider that the ‘banker’ of choice for Bush/Reagan deficits is the social security fund also paid primarily by the middle class and not by the investor class. (* john kerry’s wife for example or walmart heirs)
Damn, it’s 45 degrees and raining. Snow sports are fleeting pastimes.
Karl. you said you doubted his Zionist self identification or at least his support for Israel. I at first thought he was Isreali, as many share his viewpoint there too. You also read a lot into his post more than he meant I am sure. Your support for real politik concerning Iran’s hated Shah is quaint. 1970’s comment.. The sort of mistake that Jimmy Carter made in allowing the Shah into the USA for medical treatment at the insistence of Rockefeller and Kissinger while the Iranians legitamately wanted his thievery and criminality to be adjudicated in the country from where he was from. That mistake doomed Jimmy Carter apparently.
It would have been better to support a democratic socialist nationalist regime that was elected in 1953: wiki:
Reza Shah sought to balance Russian and British influence, but when World War II started, his nascent ties to Germany alarmed both Britain and Russia. In 1941, Britain and the USSR invaded Iran in order to utilize Iranian rail road capacity during World War II. The Shah was forced to abdicate in favour of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In 1951, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh was elected prime minister. As prime minister, Mossadegh became enormously popular in Iran after he nationalized the Iran’s oil reserves. In response, Britain embargoed Iranian oil and invited the United States to join in a plot to depose of Mossadegh; and, in 1953, President Eisenhower authorized Operation Ajax. The operation was successful, and Mossadegh was arrested on August 19, 1953. After Operation Ajax Mohammad Reza Pahlavi rule became increasingly autocratic. With American support, the Shah was able to rapidly modernize Iranian infrastructure, but he simultaneously crushed all forms of political opposition with his intelligence agency, SAVAK. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini became an active critic of the Shah’s White Revolution and publicly denounced the government. Khomeini, who was popular in religious circles, was arrested and imprisoned for 18 months. After his release in 1964, Khomeini publicly criticized the United States government. The Shah was persuaded to send him into exile by General Hassan Pakravan. Khomeini was sent first to Turkey, then to Iraq and finally to France. While in exile, he continued to denounce the Shah.
Arrival of Ayatollah Khomeini on February 1, 1979 from France.
Arrival of Ayatollah Khomeini on February 1, 1979 from France.
The Iranian Revolution, also known as the Islamic Revolution,[52][53][54] began in January 1978 with the first major demonstrations against the Shah.[55] After strikes and demonstrations paralysed the country and its economy, the Shah fled the country in January 1979 and Ayatollah Khomeini soon returned from exile to Tehran, enthusiastically greeted by millions of Iranians.[56] The Pahlavi Dynasty collapsed ten days later on February 11 when Iran’s military declared itself “neutral” after guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed troops loyal to the Shah in armed street fighting. Iran officially became an Islamic Republic on April 1, 1979 when Iranians overwhelmingly approved a national referendum to make it so.[57][58] In December 1979 the country approved a theocratic constitution, whereby Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the country. The speed and success of the revolution surprised many throughout the world,[59] as it had not been precipitated by a military defeat, a financial crisis, or a peasant rebellion.[60] Although both nationalists and Marxists joined with Islamic traditionalists to overthrow the Shah, the revolution ultimately resulted in an Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.[61]
anyway, our meddling in support of corruption was what caused the problem. But because the Shah had financial connections with American institutions he was given preferences way beyond what was good for America and our real politik. I agree with Happy, the Saudi’s are utterly corrupt and we should do our best to bring about change there as “if you lie down with dogs” or is it ‘fleas’?? as the Arabian people want freedom and are restive under the monarchical, ultimately anti American, Saudi tyranny .
oh, JD even if the top 1 percent paid 70 percent of all taxes…what would that mean? They are wonderful generous people?
Maybe the real answer is…they got most of the money. That might not be a good thing for our middle-class ethos..or Republican conservatives in general. That is the problem…heightened inequality due often to inheritance…even many conservatives are concerned about the growing calcification of income classes. It is now harder for middle income people to move up to wealth or lower class to move up too. I read it on NRO. And David Brock’s. It’s a concern.
it’s just a post on the ethereal web, so got to find some income myself…later.
What would that mean? It would mean that the top 1 percent was paying way more than their fair share. To you, apparently, that is a feature, not a bug.
It is now harder for middle income people to move up to wealth or lower class to move up too.
Sure it is.
What you’ve left unsaid is that the definition of what it means to be lower-middle-upper middle class is constantly expanding (sometimes for political expediency!) just like how “poverty” in the U.S. is defined very, very differently than it is in the rest of the world. Let’s the the word “wealthy” for example. All the socialist candidates in the presidential race (Huckabee, Obama, Clinton) want to take money away from the “wealthy”…and look how low that bar gets pushed.
RDub – This is just standard boilerplate class warfare and envy from the libs. datalessdave is one that is especially focused on same. Apparently, having more than half of the country not paying income taxes is a good thing in his world.
Yes dave, the rich should be punished for being rich. After all, the poor are so much better at job creation. Besides why should people get to keep what is theirs?
Oh and BTW, someone will be along to take your ski’s from you. The poor can’t afford them so you can’t be allowed to have yours. It’s only fair.
I would love to see a non slippery monetary definition of middle class. That word is thrown around by both sides as if everyone already knows what it means. I would also like to see it defined in terms of geographic location, but I fear I am going to be SOL on both counts.
After all it’s much easier to make promises during an election if you don’t have to be tied down to measurable figures.
Can a word salad hit a baseball?
EG – Don’t go getting all fact-y on the libs.
Dave, you know not of what you speak, or you’re using the word “often” here, not caring about what it means.
My household income is in the top 5%. My wife was born to a couple who ran a feed store in Sanford, FL; they’re still scratching to get by. I am one of six children raised by a mobile home salesman and a social worker. You, on the other hand, are an ignorant, factoid-emitting dickhead.
The idea that totalitarian Islamism is a motivated by a reaction to the authoritarian regimes in ME countries has it backwards; it has taken ruthless authoritarian regimes to keep the Islamists in check since the end of WW2. Think the late elder Assad of Syria. Or ther oil sheiks of SA. This doesn’t excuse them, indeed I think they should be replaced. But by whom and with what becomes the next question. The claims of “oppression” being supported by the US Government used by Islamists are merely old Marxist agitprop, convenient leftovers of the USSRs influence in the region.
This is also the arguement of convenience the anti-American left uses to hate the USA; “we hate you because you support repressive regimes” which has an element of truth to it. Using Authoritarian right regimes as a bulwark against the USSRs expansionism had that price. It was called “realpolitik” and the left despised it, but that was because the opponents were Communists.
But, when we actually go in to depose an authoritarian regime in an effort to remake it into a Democracy, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, the left calls it Imperialism and tries to undermine it by quoting our past support for the dictator we deposed, or by simply making shit up, like we created the Taliban by opposing USSR expansionism in Afghanistan, which ignores a whole generation of warlord infighting after the USSR left.
In other words, these are not good faith arguements. This is old, recycled Commie propaganda and should be disregarded as such.
Slarti – Like your example, my better half and I come from humble origins. She arrived in this country not knowing a word of English, and their family had the equivalent of $7 American upon their arrival in our country. That she, and all of her siblings, would now be considered upper middle class flies in the face of datalessdave’s assertions.
Don’t go getting all fact-y on the libs.
You’re right, my bad. I’m not sure what I was thinking.
Note Datadipshit saying it would have been better for a “democratic socialist ” solution to Iran and blaming our allowing the Shah into our country as the reason Jimmah Tarder failed to get re-elected, totally ignoring the taking of 413 Americans hostage in an act of war by Khomeini and Carters going along with it to avoid war with a 2 bit Islamic dictatorship. Funny also how he conveniently ignores the Nazi influence in the formation of the Baath party of Iraq and Syria while quoting it to condemn the Shah.
More arguements of convenience from the left. Same ol’, same ol’
SGT Ted I don’t think you’re right about the authoritarian regimes cause your argument elides the socialism. Unemployment and no opportunity of hope for opportunity + Islam makes for a kooky sanguinity about suicide and stuff and also they Islam is a very scapegoaty religion and they mostly direct their critiques away from their own societies. In a liberalized state it’s a lot hard for the government to redirect frustrations like that. These societies are still extremely isolated. Especially if you have tits.
Oh. they Islam shoulda been *the* Islam
and *harder*
and, coffee
I don’t get my personal anecdata confused with a rebuttal; likewise, I don’t want datadave’s pseudorandom sequence of assertions to get confused with a real argument.
HF, Islamists are emulating the Communist scapegoating techniques. That is my point. They use commie pronouncments about lack of “social justice” to win sympathy and support in the media and from useful idiots like datadave, when they have no intent to govern as such and indeed intend to replace the form of oppression. The one elephant in the eoom for SA is that the reason there such widespread unemployment is because they import the untermenche to do work they think is beneath them. Also, all those unemployed Saudi young men have a guaranteed stipend from oil revenues that allows them their leisure time activity of dreams of Islamic supremacy. It’s not that they are “oppressed”; they have nothing better to do with their time.
On a positive note, his comments might be good for the occasional weather report, if you knew what zipcode he was posting from.
I think we mostly agree, SGT, it’s just that I think the fact that these people live amongst mutant and distorted economics gets overlooked a lot in the Islamist critique. Socialism breeds all kinds of misshapen spawn everywhere and always. It retards the flow of information mostly like a lot, an it’s very synergistic with Islamism. This I think is kind of a force multiplier if you want an isolated society.
Hmmm. Better. Coffee seems to be working.
It’s really simple, in my head anyway. Cause it’s my head. These societies have no metrics for figuring out who the losers are what they are living amidst. Capitalism sorts that out.
I haven’t read all of the comments (I will do that, and I will be surprised if I read something that hasn’t been written over the past six and a half years). There is nothing unrealistic about putting a safety valve on a boiler that takes the pressure off before an explosion. Mexico sends their surplus population to the US for that reason. Islamic nations use the US and Israel as safety-valves; putting something else in place would be better for us.
I’ve heard of pressure-cookers, and the danger involved in using them.
That’s why my mom never made fried chicken. Also she says if you do it the other way you get grease all over. Same with pork chops.
Read the comments – nope, nothing new.
Oh right. Like you knew about the fried chicken.
feets:
Would you say then that it Captialism would/should be a greater agent for change in the ME than Democratic reform?
I ask this because I’m re-reading some Solzhenitsyn and am always surprised that while a fierce critic of the Soviet regime, he does not embrace our version of democracy at all. If he’s right, some people are culturally, historically, not good “matches” for Democracy–at least the kind that we practice.
I thought they went quite excellently with the sashal and dated word-salads.
Well, um. Ok. I try. Europe is all about carving out socialist exceptions to Capitalism, but they couldn’t do that were we not picking up so much of their slack. They’re still acceptably democratic, however tenuous it seems sometimes. What I think happens is that socialism freerides on the robustly capitalist states of the world. So what I think more is that if you can produce or cajole or whatever a robustly capitalist ME state, you have a foment that is very friendly to democratic reform. Remember the socialism of the ME has but one real engine of its own, oil. Geologically I think more than culturally is where you find the mismatch. But for real I shouldn’t be answering that question cause I don’t read enough.
I see, hf, and I think I agree. The cultural climate created by Capitalism (alliterations r me) seems well disposed to democracy. I don’t know much about the economic systems of much of the ME, but Saudi Arabia looks to me like a “Rank Capitalism for me, Socialism for you” kind of thing.
Oh, and if you are interested in Solzhenitsyn–One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch is wonderful…and, unlike the vast majority of Russian literature, short.
Saudi Arabia is more a corporation than a country I think. Really though if I had to speak to them as a nation I’d say they’ve just inbred out all the genes for anything that requires vision. I’m rather prejudiced, bigoted even, with respect to that state in particular. Odious.
Short is good. It seems I only read paper on planes anymore.
But who really knows a priori other than a socially constructed, blood lust racist, for whom there is hardly even a possibility that “some people” might exist?
I guess I must be in the midst of a super-hypersensitivity reaction to the idea that word-formulations, especially about people as grouped by various arbitrary externals, constitute much having to do with reality and its/anyone’s potential.
For example, was “our” capitalism good for Alexander?
datadave,
In the future, you might want to steer clear of the wikipedia for something as controversial as US foreign policy toward Iran.
However, if you like the wikipedia, you should be aware that it runs contrary to your characterization of Mossadegh as a “democratic socialist.” Rather, he repeatedly sought emergency powers to achieve his aims, ultimately moving to dissolve parliament, in spite of the Constitutional provision which gave the Shah sole authority to dissolve Parliament. He then abolished the Constitutional guarantee of a secret ballot. Moreover, some argue that while many elements of Mossadeq’s coalition ultimately abandoned him, it was the loss of support from Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani and other Shia clergy that was fatal to his cause, reflective of the dominance of the ulama in Iranian society and a portent of the Islamic Revolution to come.
Sorry the world refuses to conform to your lefty talking points.
Oh, I should have added that Mossadegh was not elected. He was appointed by the Iranian parliament, the Majlis, and his position was ratified by the Shah.
You, on the other hand, are an ignorant, factoid-emitting dickhead.
come on Slart, you can do better than that. I do have a PoliSci degree sorry to say. I do know all too well what I know of. My current clients are of that “inherited” class. But since it’s only their ‘camps’ I don’t get a lot for working only a seasonal basis for them. It’s like golf, sailboats, drinking and a real ball for them……but avoiding taxes is a professional occupation for them.
u’re in the top 5 percent…oh, you’re poor compared to the real investor class…I am talking million plus per year..but they aren’t even in the major leagues…lets say “rich” now is Billionaires only in net worth. But being over 300K a year is pretty damned good..so we’ll consider that well-off and above. Under 250-300K that’s upper middle class..but most of us are in the lower middle class like 30 to 100 K a year depending on household size. We’re getting squeezed with the hidden taxes of payroll (if employed), insanely high health insur. premiums (avoided by investors as they can do a very high deductible), transportation costs (going to texxon/mobile) etc. etc. Not whineing just stating a fact. But due to cheaper goods from China and low food costs and greater efficiencies in products and services most of us are somewhat satisfied by the glut of entertainment and toys that require a lesser cost than in the past. But since oil’s going up and health insurance is going up and deficits are going up…the “middle” is starting to fray and panic. Savings are non existant. Thus the hopefulness for change of a Democratic Presidential possibility. I still think McCain has the edge in November but as happy’s link of a few days back…the tide is shifting towards the Democrats because of the economy and what I call “middle-class squeeze”.
Karl, interesting. But the wiki shows that Britain and USA treated Iran as a Banana Republic and infringed upon the popular Prime Minister’s election by that same Parliment. And the CIA’s using conservative clerics to removeing Mossadeqh speaks volumes about our causing the current ‘blow back’ from supporting Islamic fundamentalists in the past whether in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt. Now we reap the whirlwind of our CIA supporting Islamic conservatives in our efforts to defeat ‘commies’ even if they are elected by parliament, etc. .
you left out the CIA’s coup planning in the removal of a legitimate head of state in favor of an autocratic monarch. So you are saying CIA’s involvement wasn’t a factor? Jeesh, are you purposely lying by ignoring the CIA’s involvement?
“Jacob G. Hornberger, the founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation, commented that “U.S. officials, not surprisingly, considered the operation one of their greatest foreign policy successes — until, that is, the enormous convulsion that rocked Iranian society with the violent ouster of the Shah and the installation of a virulently anti-American Islamic regime in 1979.”[7] According to Hornberger, “the coup, in essence, paved the way for the rise to power of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and all the rest that’s happened right up to 9/11 and beyond.”[7]
and
“The extent of the U.S.’s role in Mossadeq’s overthrow was not formally acknowledged for many years, although the Eisenhower administration was quite vocal in its opposition to the policies of the ousted Iranian Prime Minister. In his memoirs, Eisenhower writes angrily about Mossadeq, and describes him as impractical and naive, though he stops short of admitting any overt involvement in the coup.
Eventually the CIA’s role became well-known, and caused controversy within the organization itself, and within the CIA congressional hearings of the 1970s. CIA supporters maintain that the plot against Mossadegh was strategically necessary, and praise the efficiency of agents in carrying out the plan. Critics say the scheme was paranoid and colonial, as well as immoral.
In March 2000, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated her regret that Mossadegh was ousted: “The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons. But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran’s political development and it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America.” In the same year, the New York Times published a detailed report about the coup based on alleged CIA documents.[4]
For his sudden rise in popularity inside and outside of Iran, and for his defiance of the British, Mossadegh was named as Time Magazine’s 1951 Man of the Year.
It is also interesting to note that the 1953 Coup in Iran was the first time the United States had overthrown a government in its history. Ironically, less than a year after this event, the United States overthrew another democratically-elected leader, Jacobo Arbenz, who had just nationalized the United Fruit Company.” That’s from wiki too but I think he may be wrong about the being the first time…there were several coups all throughout Latin America attributed to the USA decades before. Panama’s creation and separation from Columbia was a US adventure for example…but maybe not the US govt’s.
Perhaps you defend our activities in Central America for Banana companies which kept those countries in misery, our imperialist program in Haiti. Our imperialist corruption in the Philippines where half the population seems to go to garbage dumps to find something to sell or eat and as result are to be chased around by sea bees in Humvees for the fun of scaring them…(as told to me by a sea bee who also added stories about gang-rapping Filipino girls…great work he had… he was a co-worker for awhile and my sister who was in the Philippines can vouch for the attitudes of service men, her then Air Force husband got the clap and well…you can see why he’s an ex-) But since Cuba, Haiti, Central America, and the Philippines are our products of nation building…I only hope that Iraq can do better. Currently 80 percent of the population has been polled saying things were better under Saddam Hussein than under the American occupation. Iran seems to like individual Americans but they don’t want another invasion or infringement of their growth by the CIA. Think about how our govt. treated the Haitians.
italics… stopped them too late.
I dunno… the United Fruit Company sounds like a CIA front to me.
and yet, it took me longer to read it than War and Peace. okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little. hated that book. but so many people love it so maybe I should give it another chance now that it’s been almost two decades. in other Russian related ramblings, we watched The Brothers Karamazov a couple nights ago. mmmmmmmm, Yul Brenner.
I do know all too well what I know of.
You can say that again. I wouldn’t, but you can.
sgt ted….kindly remove your head from ass:
On a state visit to Iran, Carter spoke out in favor of the Shah, calling him a leader of supreme wisdom, and a pillar of stability in the volatile Middle East. The speech was apparently never shown on American television.
When the Iranian Revolution broke out in Iran, and the Shah was overthrown, the U.S. did not intervene. The Shah went into permanent exile. Carter initially refused him entry to the United States, even on grounds of medical emergency.
Despite his initial refusal to admit the Shah into the United States, on October 22, 1979, Carter finally granted him entry and temporary asylum for the duration of his cancer treatment; the Shah left for Panama on December 15, 1979. In response to the Shah’s entry into the U.S., Iranian militants seized the American embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage.
Hey, I was there dude, grasshopper, just keep grunting for bubba Bush. Carter let the Shah in….hostages were taken as a result.
The CIA and Rumsfield also supported the Saddam and his Baath party as they were fascists who killed democrats and commies. You know so little.
happy, there’s a great book about bananas out recently. Pretty much astounded me…like bananas had to be cheaper than apples to sell them..so the guys in Central America made ’em cheaper by forcing everyone into hard labor and not paying them much more than a slave could work with. Then the US Govt. bailed out the banana companies with troops whenever the natives rebelled. Currently banana crops are going to die out due to a plague but bananas will have to be genomealtered to survive the next few decade.
nice that our govt conspired against our own apple growers in favor of a few wealthy banana growers.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19097412
Carter let the Shah in….hostages were taken as a result.
Nobody is disputing that, dipshit. He is saying that isn’t the reason Carter didn’t get re-elected. Carter didn’t get re-elected because he was exposed as being absolutely incompetent as far as how to deal with the situation, and the fact he had fucked up the economy about as bad as humanly possible.
Yes I know… NPR loves the banana story. Jesus but don’t they. Evil banana capitalists in drivetime. No wonder they’re shedding audience like cat hair.
ddave,
Where’s your support for the CIA backing the Shia clerics? The clerics abandoned him because he was aligning himself with the Communists. If anything, the clerics switched to back the CIA.
also:
Glad to see you don’t know what a “head of state” is. And that you have no response to the actual history, which is that he was removed by a constitutional monarchy, after he unconstitutionally dissolved parliament, cracked down on civil liberties, lost popular support after his Leftist policies ended in economic disaster, and lost the clerics for siding with the Communists.
I know, but I’m a minimum-effort kind of guy, same as you.
Ah, much is explained.
Translation: dave is a janitor, and resents the hell out of the people he works for. It’s a sad story.
Brilliant rediscovery of that which, I’d wager, every single one of us has been aware of for decades.
None of which has anything like…oh, I don’t know…Democratic pet projects as root cause? Your “regressive” payroll tax is Social Security. Other “regressive” taxes are corporate income taxes which, naturally, get passed on to the consumer.
Now, if you’d only gone to med school, you’d have a doctor that made house calls. You could even sue yourself for malpractice, and make a fortune!
You’re an idiot, dave. If you have a college degree, I’d write them and ask them for a refund, if I were you.
I almost feel bad about calling you an idiot instead of rebutting your points, but then I remember that you still haven’t made any.
Regarding the class war, dave, I suggest you take hostages. It appears you think that doing so is a reasonable response to policy disputes, and God knows they can afford the ransom. Problem solved!
slart, you are funny. I agree about the regressive taxes..whether they be caused by Democrats or Republics. Regressive taxes are unfair.
hostages, yeah, were a big factor in Jimmy’s fall. I hated the guy actually but lately, he’s about the only former President that people seem to respect. Outside of here. The Press really beat up on him about the hostages. He tried to rescue them but apparently the military fucked up. He didn’t want to waste more lives rescuing the hostages as he knew they weren’t going to be harmed but possibly hundreds would die in a rescue attempt already in trouble with the helicopters crashed. The Iranians released them just before Reagan was inaugurated, perhaps knowing that they knew they had pushed the issue far enough, feeling wonderful they caused Jimmy’s fall. The economy was screwed up before Carter came around..something call ‘stagflation’ due to earlier oil embargo, deficits from ‘nam war. The 70s were just delightful: Discos and all that. Tight polyester shirts.
g’nite
Please god! Make the dumb one stop!!
Imagine an article like this one written about a similar operation executed by the Bush administration, without the complete laying of blame on the shoulders of W.
“he’s about the only former President that people seem to respect.”
Perspective moment:
“I don’t know how McGovern lost. Everyone I know voted for him.”
_________________
“He tried to rescue them but apparently the military fucked up.”
With leadership like Warren “You’ll just shoot the guns out of their hands, right?” Christopher behind them. No tto mention that it was the very first completely joint, small unit, action attempted by the US military.
Knew weren’t going to be harmed? Where would he have come by this, at that time, prognositcation? A foresight all the more rediculous for you ti mention given that the hostages themseves don’t seem to agree with your assessment of their treatment.
You still don’t know what stagflation is.
Deficit spending didnt’ really take off until after the Vietnam war. Carter preserved the Ford deficts, about 3 times more than the highest defict year during the Vietnam War, just over his longer presidency.
Being this consistently wrong all the time, MUST be willful. You have access to the internet and could actually check your facts a little before you click the button.
datadave – congrats. that compendium of assininity was your best to date. Kudos!
Why is it that when everyone has to pay the same tax rate libtards call it regressive as opposed to fair, or equal?
It is hard to pick the best from that one – blaming the military for the hostages, saying jimmah is the most respected, or just the overall level of teh stoopid
Well. Lots of the world hate and despise us, so they must have a valid reason.
And, along the same lines, I think we have some local unanimity as regards datadave.
Or, he could be the Kwisatz Haderach, only in deep cover. It’s a tossup.
I keep expecting him to disappear due to forgetting to breathe. He must have a caretaker who reminds him every now and then.
he’s about the only former President that people seem to respect.
Palestinian terrorists love Jimmy Tarder’s ass as do anit-American tin pot dictators of every stripe that he has made a point of befriending.
I think it’s his teeth that appeal to people. Plus shooting his neighbor’s cat.
That was an accident! and besides he offered to get her a new one.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2008/pdf/hist.pdf
check out the ‘social security’ trust fund (paid by mostly the middle class) and it’s bankrolling of the federal deficits and federal income tax paid by the wealthy disproportionately as to population (but not by wealth).
JD, when it comes to social security and exemptions from required insurance (by state laws you self insure and avoid even mandatory auto insurance with proof of liquidity above a certain level..our state around 130K) and lower health care premiums, we already have a tax that is lower rate for the wealthy than for the middle class (don’t forget property taxes and sales taxes ). Don’t believe me. Ask Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. They said time and again their employees pay a higher rate of taxes than they do.
The rest of you wingerwankers. Go get a life. Can’t read this blog all the time.
Reagan traded arms for hostages. Remember? At least Jimmy had some honor.
data – Is there anything wrong with saying that the middle and lower classes benefit more from SS? Wonder when the last time Gates and Buffet recd a bi-monthly paycheck. Seriously, is there any issue that does not make your class envy bleed through?
Explain why poor people pay sales tax at a lower rate than others, data. When you get to the cashier at Target, do they ask you if you are rich or poor? Same with property tax. We pay well over 12,000 a year in property tax. Seeing how property taxes are in no way tied to income, this is yet another howler of yours. Consistency is not a good thing when you are consistently stoopid.
Of course they do; most of their income is from capital gains, not ordinary income. Not only that, they can afford to hire lawyers to tax-shelter their income. If it were up to me, dave, I’d do away with at least some tax shelters, but you never know how these things are going to ripple out. Capital gains tax has always been a hot topic of discussion, economically speaking, and rates have varied between 12.5% and 77%. Kind of like federal income tax.
So, the question is, do you tax the living shit out of capital gains, or do you attempt to optimize tax rates so as to not completely discourage reinvestment? People on both sides of that question like to pretend that there’s some consensus of opinion as regards the answer, and that the other side is just a bunch of dipshits for disagreeing.
They also give away a lot of money, which helps.
In any event, it’s no surprise Gates and Buffet pay an effectively lower tax rate than the average joe. They’re two of my favorite reasons why I think the IRS should accept voluntary donations, in addition to the involuntary ones. It’d serve two purposes: increase revenues, and remove all excuses for Buffet and Gates to bleat about how bad they’ve got it.
This, and the fact that you’re…well, an ignorant buffoon, is why you catch so much abuse. I’m guessing these are attention-getting behaviors, because no one as annoying as you have been here could ever hope to stay employed, married, or befriended.
Most of Gates’ income, by the way, is dividends. I’m guessing he pays something like $26 million in dividend income tax, and maybe only $300k on his salary. Social Security is, for him effectively zero, because he’s way over the cap. So his effective income tax rate is going to be roughly 15%; possibly a bit less depending on how much of his charitable contributions he can write off.
Given that Microsoft pays fairly well, I wouldn’t doubt it in the least that most of his employees pay more in taxes; they probably have much less of their income as dividends, and aren’t so far past the SS cap.
thanks Slart. You are very informed and highly entertaining. I’ll lay off some of the negativity. My life is after all not bad, well pretty good, being healthy and wealthy in love, if not money.
I do see this growing inequality problem as interesting and maybe ominous as perhaps as my nature being more pessimistic and nerdish than most but then seems it is happening as now it takes two incomes on average to keep a household economically viable while a generation or so ago, one income could do.
I think in general the more money one has is due to the power of money to work for you not how much you work for money. When you get up in the ‘investor class’, it’s mostly capital gains I think. And income from Swiss bank accounts…. yeah, really the real high incomers would pay us contractors with Swiss bank cheques and that’d be work on some place out of 6 or so perhaps they didn’t live in..just visited for a week or two a year.
It’s not so much jealousy as fairness that bothers me in this regard. I do the math especially in regards to health insurance premiums and see i can’t afford them but contractors are expected to keep rates not too high or they think we’re ripping them off. People with wealth are abnormally concerned about getting ripped off as they are traveling so much that they can’t oversee their many projects. A sudden rate of pay increase spooks them and they can get cheaper contractors anytime. ah ha, I’ll go back to working for school teachers I think, not bad as they appreciate the work but can’t afford the high end mat’ls I’ve been able to use of late…like Ipe decking and rails for decks and porches. Incredible wood from Brazil.
Realism? Neorealism? Bush administration? Then how come hardcore realists like John Mearsheimer opposed the war in the first place? How come Republican realists (also known as “pragmatists” by a NYT article, as opposed to the “neoconservatives”) also opposed the war or at least its further continuance? Realism deals with maximizing the national interest in an anarchic world order. Neorealism stresses the structural foundation of anarchy and the capacities of states to engage in military action to explain clashes between states. No sir, Mr. Bush is a weird version of liberal idealism: liberal in the sense that he believes that liberal economics (i.e. free trade, open markets) and democratic republicanism (rolls eyes at that one) are the best way to go. Idealistic because he strongly believes in his role in world history and perhaps even believes that his mission is to “democratize” the Middle East. Add to that the oil politics of his neoconservative cronies who pushed for war with Iraq and you got yourself a big ole mess that “true” realists would have warned against. Thank you for your time.
Good article, odd but entertaining posts, shame half of them don’t listen to each other.I’ll keep an eye out for you thanks
Noonan was quoted as saying “Ending tyranny in the world? . . . Tyranny is a very bad thing and quite wicked, but one doesn’t expect we’re going to eradicate it any time soon.”
I actually agree with Peggy here, although I personally wouldn’t have picked on the ambition to end tyranny which seems to me like a noble and worthwhile perennial ambition that every U.S. president ought to share. What about the ambition to end poverty? Seriously if all the billions of humans over millenia of years have failed to eradicate that, is it something we’ll accomplish soon? I think not. Or ignorance or disease or voting Democrat. These are all plagues on humanity that would be worth ending (like evil itself) but are simply part of the human condition and our aim should not be to grandstand and boast about aims to eliminate the uneliminable but it should be to govern. (Hello? “Government” from the word “govern”.) I’ve recently heard a number of reiterations of the idea that the only legitimate role of government is to protect its citizenry. But in fact the only legitimate role of government is to govern, to restrain evil and promote good. McCain had it right when he said our response to evil should be to fight it. Obama had it wrong when he said our response to evil should be to find the evil within. (wth??)