Fem Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action, Business, Feminism, Gender, Labor

Everyone is shocked—shocked—that “[a]mong the most distressing” information buried in the “jobs report for August” was the following, as reported by Economix’s Catherine Rampell:

The share of men actively participating in the labor force — that is, working or looking for work — was at an all-time low. Just 69.8 percent of all men over age 16 were in the labor force in August, compared to a long-term average of 78.3 percent since the Labor Department began tracking these data in 1948. The share has been falling pretty steadily over the last six decades but has declined sharply in the last few years.

All manner of explanation is floated for the increasing marginalization of men in the US labor force. Nary a mention is made of the gender-centric policies that govern both state and big-business bureaucracies.

Every one of us knows men who slog under these conditions. All too well do we know too that the ladies are getting a leg-up.

In certain fields—say, electrical engineering—women are so rare that no matter how mediocre an engineer the woman is; the men around will be expected, if implicitly, to valiantly compensate for her intellectual deficiencies. Their reward? She-devils that not only get credit for work they have not done, but begin to believe their own hype.

Understand, this is not to say that there are no outstanding females in the applied sciences; of course there are. But many more are the outstanding men who’re being sidelined to showcase what are, on average, mediocre women.

Speaking of a performative contradiction, Catherine Rampell, the reporter, should look to her left, on the perch at the Economix blog. What is the ratio of men to women among the “Featured Contributors”? Two to three.

See if you can spot the trend wherever you go. I do.

Sober Up About The Arab Spring

Democracy, Islam, Middle East, Reason

“Romanticism is man’s revolt against reason,” wrote the great classical liberal economist Ludwig von Mises. Minds ravaged by the rot of romanticism were everywhere on display in mainstream media’s coverage of the “unfinished revolutions of the new Middle East.”

But not only mainstream. The same wishful thinking infected the garden-variety, left-libertarian column. To wit:

“A long-oppressed people finally rises up and braves tanks, secret police thugs, and the inertia of routine humiliation to say: ‘Enough’!”

Tunisia received a more sober analysis from the same source. Still, an analysis that uncouples cultural and religious factors from the events on the ground is bound to end in a disconnect. (“Ah, how the hell did we get from A to B?”)

The missing link: “Democracy was not sprung as Athena was from her father’s head.” Not every person who longs to breathe free is willing to let the other guy breathe (or walk around with a head on his shoulders, for that matter).

Sentimental gushing about THE ARAB UPRISING notwithstanding, those of us who’ve lived in the region have remained skeptical and disinterested, befitting the non-interventionist mindset.

John R. Bradley’s AFTER THE ARAB SPRING, reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement, will sober up the dreamer in no time:

Consider Tunisia, a small, literate country where abortion is legal and sex education taught in a world-class education system, all thanks to Habib Bourguiba, who led the fight for independence from France and ruled “with an iron fist” for thirty years. The still-beloved Bourguiba held power by limiting political freedoms but granting social ones and raising middle-class living standards.
Here was a “Muslim authoritarian country” that got it right. It might have continued, had Bourguiba’s successor, Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, been less greedy and arrogant, his wife less ostentatious and her family less thuggish and opportunistic. Tunisians objected, but what did they get? Bradley paints a sinister portrait of Rashid Ghannouchi, leader of the Islamist Ennahda party and head of Tunisia’s elected interim government. When Ghannouchi states “we want a system based on coalitions since only this will protect us from tyranny”, Bradley hears “a power sharing deal”, where liberals have some say in the economy while the Islamists “pursue [their] social agenda of Islamizing Tunisian society from below … [eradicating] the country’s secular inheritance [and] dragging Tunisia, chanting and ululating, back to the Middle Ages”. Far from empowering the people, the Jasmine Revolution was “the dumbest most selfdefeating uprising in history” and the Arab Spring a dismal failure that “socially and economically has put back countries like Tunisia, Yemen and Syria by decades”.

Now Is Not A Good Time, Bibi

America, Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has chosen a most inopportune time to demand face time with Barack Obama. A smart man, Bibi knows exactly that he can help make Obama look bad, and with this maneuver, make Romney’s insane foreign policy bellicosity look good.

I would even venture that Netanyahu has pulled a self-serving political maneuver by inserting himself into the middle of a rancorous American election season.

Via RT:

Reuters report that Netanyahu’s office had requested a meeting with the American commander-in-chief, but that staffers for the president don’t seem interested in entertaining the idea. “[T]he White House has got back to us and said it appears a meeting is not possible. It said that the president’s schedule will not permit that,” an Israeli official tells Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Now more than ever I fear that Mitt Romney, were he to be elected, would go to war with Iran, simply to fulfill a campaign promise: friendship with Israel no matter the costs to war-weary Americans.

I understand that readers who frequent this space crave partisanship. They’ll have to go elsewhere. I detest Obama and what he stands for. But that doesn’t mean I will not call it as I see it on those rare occasions when the president is right. Obama is on the campaign trail (fooling the American people for the second time around). Israel is a wedge issue in this election. Now is not a good time, Bibi.

Moreover, and as I put it in “The Titan is Tired”:

The titan is tired. We Americans have our own tyrants to tackle. We no longer want to defend to the death borders not our own—be they in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Israel, wherever. And we don’t need our friends looking to us to do so.

Eleven Years Of Terrorizing Ourselves By Myron Pauli

Homeland Security, Islam, Liberty, Terrorism, The State

ELEVEN YEARS OF TERRORIZING OURSELVES – BY MYRON PAULI*

In the early 20th Century, the “Great Powers” played a reckless game of imperialism, competing to control the globe – Germans in Windhoek, French in Zhanjiang, Brits in Lusaka, Turks in Mosul, Italians in Asmara, and Austrians in Sarajevo and Russians in Lushunkuo.

As part of this recklessness, the Russian “intelligence services” helped the Serbian Black Hand who assassinated Serbian King Alexander and Queen Draga (born September 11) in 1903. Later on, the Black Hand assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand that set up the orgy of bloodletting known as World War I. During that war, the German “intelligence services” sent Lenin to Russia to start another orgy of bloodletting. The term “blowback” often describes the whirlwind unleashed by these “intelligence services.”

Following Britain’s World War I “victory,” they decided to control the Arab world with hand-picked corrupt monarchs with names like Farouk and Feisal. After World War Two, the Soviet Empire countered with “secular nationalists” like Gamal Nasser, Assad, and Hussein.

In 1979, America decided to counter the Soviets by backing militant Moslems in Afghanistan and throughout the Moslem world. In this, America was assisted by the Saudis, Pakistanis, and Israelis. The Soviets got suckered into invading Afghanistan which only increased American support of Mujahedin hotheads.

When the Soviets left, the Americans moved in– and became the new target of the hotheads. The ultimate blowback came on 9/11/01. Added to this was the anthrax attacks from some disgruntled Army employee and the “DC Sniper” and you have all the domestic “terrorism” visited on America. I am not counting semi-manufactured “foiled attempts,” where FBI provocateurs find (typically) low-IQ minority misfits to “agree” to do nonsense like shooting fighter planes with Stinger missiles as a real attack on the USA – nor pathetic plots like shoe-bombers, “liquid-mixing”-bombers and underpants-bombers whose nuttiness was only exceeded by the even-nuttier response.

Total damage is a little over 3000 people and a couple of ugly buildings – most assuredly a tragedy. A greater number of lives could be saved by following Mayor Bloomberg’s dietary advice. The money we have wasted since could have built hundreds of buildings. Far greater than the damage caused by “terrorists” in the US has been the response.

The greatest expense have been the idiotic wars (beyond that of just chasing Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan performed by Special Ops working with the “Northern Alliance” in 2001) in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan which have left refugees (tomorrow’s terrorists) and instability.

Next comes generally bloated military spending – the favorite of the “Republikeynsians” (bragged about in TV ads throughout Virginia in 2012). But as bad as a wasted aircraft carrier or a gold-plated golf course in Germany might be, even worse is the damage we are doing to our souls.

Far worse is the paranoid surveillance state that we are imposing – first on the rest of the world but also on ourselves. Due process of law, a concept that goes back to the Magna Carta, is utterly discarded. Incarceration without trial, death by drone, Patriot Acts, NDAA, a government that considers the lives of its people to be completely public; but its own machinations to be completely secret; self-serving leaks of lies to increase war fever, groping grandmas at bus stations …. – the list goes on and on ad infinitum.

A new Department, “Homeland Security” – gives billions to arm local police to the hilt. I remember when people debated whether American police should carry guns or be disarmed like the British Bobbies. Now, the police, BATF, DEA and SWAT teams are often armed for a D-Day invasion on your house.

Tasers are routinely used at traffic stops. Laws multiply and their enforcement becomes increasingly arbitrary. Urban neighborhoods and our southern border are devastated by the idiotic “war on drugs” that continues regardless of the evidence of its insanity.

In the hands of an Obama, Bush, or Romney, these powers are frightening enough; should the US suffer bankruptcy, I shudder to think of what USA Fuhrer might arise to abuse such power. The subsequent abuses might make 9/11/01 as forgotten as Queen Draga’s birthday!

As Ben Franklin forewarned, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

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Barely a Blog (BAB) contributor Myron Pauli grew up in Sunnyside Queens, went off to college in Cleveland and then spent time in a mental institution in Cambridge MA (MIT) with Benjamin Netanyahu (did not know him), and others until he was released with the “hostages” and Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1981, having defended his dissertation in nuclear physics. Most of the time since, he has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He was NOT named after Ron Paul but is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli; unfortunately, only the “good looks” were handed down and not the brains. He writes assorted song lyrics and essays reflecting his cynicism and classical liberalism. Click on the “BAB’s A List” category to access the Pauli archive.