Category Archives: Media

Recent Fed Revelations Should Shoo-In Ron Paul

Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Media, Political Economy, Ron Paul

I wonder if the king of Keynesianism, economist Paul Krugman, is reading the report by his New York Times colleague, BINYAMIN APPELBAUM. The report revolves around the utter ignorance evinced in the 1,200 pages of transcripts of the “conversations between Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues at the Fed Board of Governors in 2006.” Krug should!

As PBS’s RAY SUAREZ’s reports, “They discussed the changing conditions surrounding an overheated housing market.”

The question really is this: Why, in the presence of a presidential candidate such as Paul, does APPELBAUM and his interlocutor find the complete lack of understanding of the housing crisis among the Board so “striking”? Isn’t it time to admit that one current frontrunner spoke to these facts and to the economic truths they portend?

HERE ARE SOME particularly jarring excerpts from the exchange between these two blind mice of mainstream media, jarring because of the half truths they represent. The man missing from this report is also the reason the minutes are now available:

“… these minutes show us the extent of their misunderstanding of the health of the economy. They show us how badly they misunderstood the way that the economy was working, how badly they misunderestimated the impact of the housing crash.

And it shows, you know, a group of very intelligent, very thoughtful people, you know, talking about the economic situation in the country in a considered way, evaluating what might happen, and having a discussion that, it turns out in retrospect, was far removed from the reality of the actual situation.

… it’s so striking. If you kept reading from that quote, what you would see is that she went on to say, basically, but this is a small problem. The market as a whole is doing fine. The overall quality of these securities is very good. I’m not worried about the housing market.

In fact, at one point, she said that if there was a mild correction in housing, it would benefit the economy by moving resources to healthier sectors of the economy. You’re right. They saw it. They saw that housing was crashing. They joked about the problems that home builders were having in selling homes

…To be fair, a lot of other economists at the same time were talking about blue skies, soft landing, moderation in the coming years. It wasn’t like there were just a bunch of clods sitting around this table, and everybody else could see it, right?

MORE.

UPDATE II: Pat Buchanan And MSNBC’s Pygmy (Like Snakes Crawling Out of Hibernation)

Christianity, Democracy, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Multiculturalism, Nationhood, Paleoconservatism, Political Correctness, Propaganda, Race, Racism, South-Africa

“Pat Buchanan and MSNBC’s Pygmy” is my latest WND.COM column. Here’s an excerpt:

“The ideas he put forth aren’t really appropriate for national dialogue, much less the dialogue on MSNBC.” So decreed MSNBC president Phil Griffin about Patrick J. Buchanan’s grand historical synthesis, “Suicide of a Superpower: Will American Survive to 2025?” Mr. Griffin was justifying the banishment from the network of one of the last authentic conservatives in mainstream media.

If I were not already persona non grata within the mainstream, I would be worried.

In an exchange with this writer, Mr. Buchanan had mentioned that his “18,000-word chapter on ethnonationalism and tribalism and the surge of both throughout the Third World—as well as our own declining world—tracks pretty much with what” I had written in my book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” published in May of 2011.

Buchanan’s towering text concludes as follows: “We were one nation. We spoke the same language, learned the same history, celebrated the same heroes, observed the same holy days and holidays … were taught the same truths about right and wrong, good and evil, God and country. We were a people then. That America is gone. Many grieve her passing. Many rejoice. But we are not a people anymore.” (Page 424.)

America, as Mr. Buchanan observes, was eaten away by the acid of the 1960s revolution, “with its repudiation of Christian morality and embrace of secularism and egalitarian ideology.”

South Africa was relatively unaffected by that revolution. It was a staunchly traditional Christian country. Stores closed on Sundays. Television came late to the place but so did pornography and the gay rights movement. In South Africa, the influence of Christianity receded after the 1994 democratic transition.

Whereas “Americans are no longer a people,” by contrast, the Afrikaners, as illustrated in “Into the Cannibal’s Pot,” still linger as a people, clinging to what Barack Obama would indubitably deride as their bibles, their guns and their bigotries.

Dubbed the white tribe of Africa, this organic nation has, however, ceased to exist as a nation-state, dissolved by democratic decree. The sundering of state sovereignty has, in turn, exposed Afrikaners to ethnic cleansing, a familiar feature of democracy a la Africa. …

Read the complete column, “Pat Buchanan and MSNBC’s Pygmy,” on WND.COM.

The book discussed, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon. (Don’t forget those reviews; they help this cause.)

A Kindle copy is also on sale.

Still better, shipping is free and prompt if you purchase Into the Cannibal’s Pot from The Publisher.

UPDATE I (Jan. 13): Prof. Ole Jørgen Anfindsen (his Wiki bio is here) has reviewed Into the Cannibal’s Pot on a Norwegian webzine. Prof. Anfindsen blogs at HonestThinking.com. If only I had Norwegian. (Or maybe not .)

UPDATE II: In reply to a reader (snaketrapper) on WND: Had this reader read my book, which references Prof. Hoppe’s “Democracy,” and carries advance praise from him—he might be better informed about this writer’s views and her understanding of the country of her birth, where members of her family, Christian and Jewish, still reside. But, of course, the assorted snakes that have crawled out of hibernation to comment about a book (written by a Jew) that they have in all likelihood not read (or a short column that doesn’t give the right answers to all their questions)—are more interested in asserting uninformed, unfounded, collectivist, irrational biases against the author of “Into the Cannibal’s Pot,” than reporting on the issues addressed in the book. I refer this reader to the section in the book titled, “A strategy for Survival.” I will add this: If I have learned anything from writing this book it is this: Anti-Semitism and collectivism are alive and well.

Darn Right It’s ‘Dusk in Ron Paul’s America’

Journalism, Media, Propaganda, Republicans, Ron Paul, Uncategorized

“Paul’s supporters say they appreciate the Texas congressman’s bleak stump speech, noting that he’s been proven right on the issues before and insisting that they welcome the refreshing candor of his Cassandra-like message. … The dark tone adopted by Paul represents a dramatic departure from the traditional presidential campaign speech,” complains POLITICO. “[I]t’s dusk in [Paul’s] America, not morning. His rhetoric is also distinctly different from what his rivals are saying, even as they criticize President Barack Obama’s stewardship. Where they see waste, fraud and ineptitude in federal government and Congress, Paul sees lying, scheming and conspiracy.”

“When you count the way they did during the Depression … unemployment is probably closer to 20 percent. That’s why there’s a disconnect. People feel worse than the government tells you you’re supposed to feel,” Paul said. “The unemployment rate is much bigger, the inflation rate is much worse.”
“That’s the harsh reality of it. It is a grim situation,” said Chris Fleming of Manchester, who attended a Nashua event last week. “The whole media blackout plays a role; they don’t like having that message put out. Why would we want to walk around like horses with blinders on?”

[SNIP]
“Remember that no matter their brand of political prostitution (Republican or Democrat), media talking heads are props to the politicos; they mirror the political class, reflecting and reinforcing the opinions—and the reality—among the elites they serve. More often than not, the chattering classes are as privileged and protected as their masters. These ‘Demopublican Monopolists’ sense that as long as they sustain their respective constituencies, they will retain their perches and their sizable salaries.

But things are a changing. The country is changing. These B-rate minds are paddling as hard as they can to save sinecure. Even if it means not facing reality. The statist men and women of the media are up the creek without a paddle. More than anything they fear losing their status.

Ron Paul makes these vainglorious individuals face reality when all they want is to save face.” (“Media Top-Dogs Kick Underdog Ron Paul”)

UPDATED: On ‘Mickelson in the Morning’

Ilana On Radio & TV, Media, South-Africa

I’ll be on “Mickelson in the Morning,” with Jan Mickelson, of WHO News Radio, 1040. Topic: “ITCP.” Date: Jan 10, 2012, @ 9:00 AM Pacific Time.

I’ve been eager to meet Mr. Mickelson, a legendary Iowa broadcaster.

UPDATE (Jan. 10): “Powerful stuff … Ilana has done us a service in writing one of the best books I have read; one of the most profound evaluations of human nature, in the misdirected pursuit of a multicultural soup. Into the Cannibal’s Pot should be required reading in political science courses at the university level; it’s that good.”- JAN MICKELSON, WHO News Radio, 1040

In addition to his gracious words about Into the Cannibal’s Pot, Jan Mickelson told me today what I did not know: Pat Buchanan has been fired from the MSNBC cesspool. Mr. Buchanan denies it. Does anyone know for sure?