Another Brownie Point For Barack

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Iran, Neoconservatism, Russia

In “Let’s Fret About Our Own Tyrants,” I awarded Obama his first brownie point for resisting the neoconning of the election upheaval in Iran. He now gets another brownie point for not emulating Bush and his neocon coterie in stepping on the Russian Bear’s claws and placing a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, over in Russia’s back yard.

In the business of fomenting friction, “America’s Russian experts say the move can only contribute to a warmer dialogue between Moscow and Washington, they say no one should expect any reciprocal concessions from the Kremlin on issues of key concern to the US, such as Iran.”

One doesn’t adopt and execute a reasonable foreign policy in order to please; a good strategy is aimed at America’s national interests. The Empire has got to cut back and return to defending the homeland. But while dropping the missile shield may be seen as one tiny step in the right direction, I have no doubt that the administration will “compensate” for this small anti-imperial concession by beefing up other fronts.

To repeat—and all in all—making nice with “Old Europe”—which is how the stupid, reckless Bush administration dismissed Europe (including its correct objection to the Iraqi invasion)—is a good thing. Sure, neoconservative war harpies get hot for over heated rhetoric against any and all. They’ll just have to get their kicks playing video war games. As will they have to get through their thick skulls that this country is no longer a super power.

It’s neither sexy nor smart to smite the world when you’re … broke and bankrupt.

Man With A Microphone

Conservatism, Literature, Media, Pop-Culture, The Zeitgeist

“IS GLENN BECK Bad for America?”, asks TIME, in what is clearly a rhetorical question for the Magazine. Better Beck’s “pox-on-both-parties populism” than nothing (or than TIME), is my reply.

“I don’t trust a single weasel in Washington. I don’t care what party they’re from. But unless we trust each other, we’re not going to make it.” This last bit of standard Beck fare is, of course, nonsense, to which TIME, not unreasonably, responds thus:

“How can we trust each other, though, when the integrated economy of ranters and their delighted-to-be-outraged critics are such a model of profitability?”

“Extreme talk, especially as practiced by a genuine talent like Beck, squeezes maximum profit from a relatively small, deeply invested audience, selling essentially the same product in multiple forms. The more the host is criticized, the more committed the original audience becomes. And the more committed the audience, the bigger target it presents to the rant industry on the other side of the spectrum. A liberal group called Color of Change has organized an advertiser boycott of Beck’s TV show — great publicity for the group and a boon to Beck’s ratings.”

“If it’s E pluribus unum you’re looking for, try American Idol.”

[SNIP]

The most disturbing thing about the “rant-racket” is in this snippet:

“Beck recently entered into a partnership with Simon & Schuster … to create a range of books for every audience, from children to teens to adults.”

…This as writers like myself struggle to find publishers for their books.

Updated: A Windy Carter 'Breaks News' On 'Countdown'

Barack Obama, Journalism, Media, Political Correctness, Propaganda, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, Race, Racism, Reason

Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed that news media could stoop so low. With his most solemn, commissar-like countenance, thought-crime investigator Keith Olbermann broke news on his Countdown show: The intensity of the animosity toward Barack Obama is based on his being a black man. So said the feeble-minded Jimmy Carter. This, by Keith’s journalistic standards, meant that the libel was true.

Olbermann proceeded to “debate” the ad hominem with the off-putting, effeminate, left-liberal Markos Moulitsas (It’s hard to believe that he served in the armed forces and has fathered children), and before him with Lawrence O’Donnell.

Such speculation amounts to psychologizing—impugning a disputant based on assumptions about his motives, instead of arguing the case based on facts and reason. Even worse: this breaking-news balderdash rested on an argument from authority. A shameless O’Donnell asserted in all seriousness that because Carter had said so, and because Carter was from the South, he ought to know. Therefore, Joe Wilson and Southern Americans must be taken to the proverbial woodshed, i. e., subjected to reeducation in the form of endless discussion about race, conducted by the familiar race hucksters.

Middle America had better stand and fight this one to the end.

Update (Sept. 17): At the time Obama ascended to the throne his approval ratings ran to 70 percent. Are we to believe this senile git Carter that between March and September of 2009 Americans developed a bad case of racism?