Category Archives: America

Update II: 'The Narcissism Revolution'

America, Democracy, Foreign Policy, History, Intelligence, Iran, Old Right, Propaganda

Richard Spencer of Taki’s Magazine makes astute observations about the cloying American coverage of what he dubs “The Narcissism Revolution.” “The blogosphere has been far worse. If Republicans are saying, ‘We’re all Iranians now!’ then with the bloggers it’s, ‘The Iranians are all Americans now!’ It’s the Narcissism Revolution, and everything that happens in Tehran is, pretty much, all about us.”

Richard captures the self-absorption madness. To apply his whipping words to McCain (they were meant for Jonah Goldberg): “Hate to break it to [you], but [Iranians] don’t like you, they really don’t like you.”

Does anyone think Iranians are hanging on the words of the sanctimonious moron who let loose with the ditty, “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran”? I don’t think so.

I don’t get the National Geographic Channel. My impression is that it’s stacked with skirts such as Lisa Ling, transmitting the propaganda du jour, as they travel through “dying” forests and straddle “dissolving” icecaps.

Now that Ling is preoccupied getting her sister free after the latter was caught nosing around in North Korea, they’ve allowed an intelligent man, in-the-know, to impart to a mind-numbingly ignorant people something of the history of American interference with Iran.

I believe Michael Scheuer is associated with “Iran and the West,” although I can’t see his name among the list of credits.

It should be worth watching.

Update I (June 22): “The Narcissism Revolution” is in full swing. Glenn Beck, indistinguishable from the neocons on foreign affairs, entertained a guest on his show, from one of the Spread Democracy think tanks. The man said, and I paraphrase, “the Iranians are holding up signs in English; they are speaking to us.” As Spencer observed, “It’s all about us.” The same contention I’ve heard made repeatedly by the Republican Mullahs.

Update II (June 23): A good post by Prof. Bainbridge, who conjures Russel Kirk in support of the paleo-libertarian, in my case, (paleo-conservative in Buchanan’s case) mitts-off approach to Iran:

Of Bush 41’s war on Saddam, Kirk wrote that: “Now indubitably Saddam Hussein is unrighteous; but so are nearly all the masters of the “emergent” African states (with the Ivory Coast as a rare exception), and so are the grim ideologues who rule China, and the hard men in the Kremlin, and a great many other public figures in various quarters of the world. Why, I fancy that there are some few unrighteous men, conceivably, in the domestic politics of the United States. Are we to saturation-bomb most of Africa and Asia into righteousness, freedom, and democracy? And, having accomplished that, however would we ensure persons yet more unrighteous might not rise up instead of the ogres we had swept away? Just that is what happened in the Congo, remember, three decades ago; and nowadays in Zaire, once called the Belgian Congo, we zealously uphold with American funds the dictator Mobutu, more blood-stained than Saddam. And have we forgotten Castro in Cuba?” To which one might now add Hamas in Gaza.

Kirk pointed out that the policies of Bush 41 resulted in a situation in which, “in every continent, the United States is resented increasingly as the last and most formidable of imperial systems.”

Bush 43 made that situation even worse by trying to impose democracy by military means.

And that’s what paleos despise.

Concludes Bainbridge: “I’ve changed my mind in recent days about Obama’s handling of this issue. On this issue, I think he’s being remarkably prudent in Kirk’s sense of the word.”

‘Foxy Knoxy’: Another Toxic Export

America, Celebrity, Crime, Europe, Media

Ann Coulter is right about very many things; it’s a shame she rarely writes about the things she’s right about. This week, she has—and with a vengeance—in an excellent column exposing the crime that is America’s news coverage of the case of creepy, corrupted “Foxy Knoxy” (Amanda Knox), an American college student, aged 21, from Seattle, Washington, who is on trial for murder in Perugia, Italy.

With O.J.-type evidence in support of their case, Italian law enforcement agencies are alleging Knox murdered and sexually assaulted one of her roommates, British exchange student Meredith Kercher.

I’ve watched the case unfold and have had similar thoughts as those Ann Coulter expresses in “NYT: DUKE LACROSSE PLAYERS KILLED MEREDITH KERCHER:

“The evidence includes:

— a large kitchen knife, believed by forensic investigators to have caused at least one of Kercher’s three wounds, found at Sollecito’s house. Despite having been thoroughly washed, the knife had Knox’s DNA on the handle and the murder victim’s DNA on the blade.

— a bloody footprint at the crime scene that matches Sollecito’s. The floor had been cleaned so that the footprint was invisible to the naked eye, but was revealed with Luminol (just like on “CSI”).

— Knox’s bloody footprints, mixed with Kercher’s blood, were found in another roommate’s room, where a window had been broken to make it look like there had been a break-in — a theory discounted immediately by investigators. Knox’s footprints, too, had been scrubbed but were discovered with Luminol.

— Kercher’s bloody bra strap at the crime scene that had abundant amounts of Sollecito’s DNA on it.” Read on.

[SNIP]

The case is instructive in what it says of a deep-seated pathology infecting American society, where reality takes a backseat to some self-serving parallel universe. You see it again and again … Something else that’s worth noting and is not forthcoming from the American media, paragons of pity that they are: Meredith Kercher, whose throat was cut with a pen knife during the sexual assault, died an agonizingly slow death.

'Foxy Knoxy': Another Toxic Export

America, Celebrity, Crime, Europe, Media

Ann Coulter is right about very many things; it’s a shame she rarely writes about the things she’s right about. This week, she has—and with a vengeance—in an excellent column exposing the crime that is America’s news coverage of the case of creepy, corrupted “Foxy Knoxy” (Amanda Knox), an American college student, aged 21, from Seattle, Washington, who is on trial for murder in Perugia, Italy.

With O.J.-type evidence in support of their case, Italian law enforcement agencies are alleging Knox murdered and sexually assaulted one of her roommates, British exchange student Meredith Kercher.

I’ve watched the case unfold and have had similar thoughts as those Ann Coulter expresses in “NYT: DUKE LACROSSE PLAYERS KILLED MEREDITH KERCHER:

“The evidence includes:

— a large kitchen knife, believed by forensic investigators to have caused at least one of Kercher’s three wounds, found at Sollecito’s house. Despite having been thoroughly washed, the knife had Knox’s DNA on the handle and the murder victim’s DNA on the blade.

— a bloody footprint at the crime scene that matches Sollecito’s. The floor had been cleaned so that the footprint was invisible to the naked eye, but was revealed with Luminol (just like on “CSI”).

— Knox’s bloody footprints, mixed with Kercher’s blood, were found in another roommate’s room, where a window had been broken to make it look like there had been a break-in — a theory discounted immediately by investigators. Knox’s footprints, too, had been scrubbed but were discovered with Luminol.

— Kercher’s bloody bra strap at the crime scene that had abundant amounts of Sollecito’s DNA on it.” Read on.

[SNIP]

The case is instructive in what it says of a deep-seated pathology infecting American society, where reality takes a backseat to some self-serving parallel universe. You see it again and again … Something else that’s worth noting and is not forthcoming from the American media, paragons of pity that they are: Meredith Kercher, whose throat was cut with a pen knife during the sexual assault, died an agonizingly slow death.

Geithner Gives Chinese Students The Giggles

America, China, Debt, Economy, Education, Inflation, Israel

There is something quaint and good-natured about laughing at the ludicrous Geithner’s claims of American solvency, instead of getting angry or being rude, as less-inhibited Westerners might, when faced with a bald-faced lie. The Chinese response is definitely culturally distinct.

Were American students capable of grasping how bad the U.S. Treasury Secretary’s policies are, and how dire the debt and the deficits, they might grow testy. Alas, no point dealing in hypotheticals. The chances are slim that an audience of students on a typical American campus would allow facts, the laws of economics and reason to get in the way of Obamadualtion and general Keynesian credulity (a proxy for economic illiteracy).

It happened in China (via Reuters):

“China is the biggest foreign owner of U.S. Treasury bonds. U.S. data shows that it held $768 billion in Treasuries as of March, but some analysts believe China’s total U.S. dollar-denominated investments could be twice as high.

‘Chinese assets are very safe,’ Geithner said in response to a question after a speech at Peking University, where he studied Chinese as a student in the 1980s.

His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience, reflecting scepticism in China about the wisdom of a developing country accumulating a vast stockpile of foreign reserves instead of spending the money to raise living standards at home.”