The Terrible Troika’s Advisers

Bush, Iran, Iraq, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Propaganda, Republicans, War

The empire is bankrupt and in the throes of death. Its operatives are writhing with it, hanging onto the last shreds of the gory glory that came with directing American Manifest Destiny abroad. Unstable systems and people are most dangerous before dissolution and collapse.

This is why the advisers behind at least one of the presidential wannabees should be of interest.

But first, if you missed the primitive, atavistic utterances made by the terrible troika in Arizona with respect to Syria and Iran, here they are, excerpted in this Guardian post titled, “prolific proliferators of confusion.”

Except that there is nothing confused about the blood that’ll flow if one of these losers ascends to the executive throne. The Romney-Santorum-Gingrich bellicosity rivals Bush’s. The absence of any learning curve extends, seemingly, to their receptive audience, which applauded their every promise of action abroad.

Any criticism The Terrible Troika levies at Obama is for “showing weakness by not leading the allied air campaign in Libya, where the U.K and France played prominent roles, and not being tough enough on Iran to stop its nuclear-weapons efforts.”

More wars is what we’ll net with the three crappy candidates.

Romney’s Team sports these neoconservative heavy hitters:

Cofer Black, a former head of Central Intelligence Agency’s counterterrorism center and executive of the security firm Blackwater, now Xe Services; Meghan O’Sullivan, a Bloomberg View columnist and former White House official who oversaw Iraq and Afghanistan policy; Eliot Cohen, director of the Strategic Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and a former counselor at Rice’s State Department; Dov Zakheim, the former Pentagon comptroller; and John Lehman, Ronald Reagan’s Navy secretary.

And “Robert Joseph, a White House National Security Council aide during Bush’s first term and later a State Department official.”

Save the People; Kill the European Superstate

Barack Obama, Debt, EU, Europe, Federalism, Foreign Policy, The State

The following excerpt is from this week’s column, “Save the People; Kill the European Superstate”:

“An honest man,” wrote Ayn Rand in “Atlas Shrugged,” “is one who knows that he can’t consume more than he has produced.” Where does this leave the Greeks?

For the second time since 2010, Eurozone finance ministers threw Greece a “financial lifeline,” this time to the tune of $172 billion. The European banks have agreed to write-off more than 50 percent of the money owed by Greece, forgiving a $100 billion in debt.

Still, Athens, like Washington, is corrupt to the core. It continues to spend more than it takes in. Greek labor markets have yet to be liberalized. A high minimum wage impedes hiring. And, by BBC News’s accounting, “a habit of paying a ‘holiday bonus’ equal to one or two months’ extra pay” persists. One need not be a Delphic oracle to divine the next stage in Greece’s unraveling: a downgrading of the country’s credit rating to junk status.

“Austerity,” however, is a euphemism among politicians and their media pack animals for “long term retrenchment and reform” in the public sector. Implicit in their critique of “austerity” is that inflicting pain on the Greek state apparatus will inevitably destroy Greek society.

Au Contraire. State and society should never be conflated.

Try explaining to our president that the bigger the state, the smaller the civil society. …

Read the complete column, “Save the People; Kill the European Superstate.”

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Mitt Falls Off the ‘Conservative’ Wagon Again

Economy, Elections, Political Economy, Republicans, Ron Paul

Conspicuous by its absence from the Republican wrestling smack-down tonight was mention of Mitt Romney’s neo-Keynesian slip the other day.

Mitt Romney said Tuesday that cutting spending slows growth in the economy — a rhetorical slip more akin to an argument a Democrat might make than a Republican.
Speaking in Shelby Township, MI, the former Massachusetts governor took a question about the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission empaneled by President Obama to address the nation’s deficit and debt issues. In his response, he said that addressing taxes and spending issues are essential.
“If you just cut, if all you’re thinking about doing is cutting spending, as you cut spending you’ll slow down the economy,” he said in part of his response. “So you have to, at the same time, create pro-growth tax policies.”

What next? An admonition about the government’s need to stimulate demand? (Read more about Romney’s economics here.)

Other than Ron Paul’s undignified venture into the wrestling ring (he called Rick Santorum fake in a new ad), was there anything worth discussing?

The Superman Behind ‘Endorse Liberty’ Super PAC

Elections, libertarianism, Media, Ron Paul

“The four Republican candidates raised $21 million combined. The super PACs supporting them raised $22 million.” [Via PBS]

Ron Paul has “raised over $2 million. His super PAC raised over $2 million.”… the guy who is backing him is interesting. His name is Thiel. “He was an early investor in Facebook. He was actually portrayed in the movie ‘Social Network’ as the angel investor in that movie.”

Thiel’s a 44-year-old guy, worth lots of money. And he’s given something close to three-quarters of all of the money that has gone in to Endorse Liberty. And he is a very devout libertarian, very much a hands-off, government-hands-off-business kind of a guy.

No wonder mainstream media mumble about the identity of Ron Paul’s mysterious, magnificent backer. Peter Thiel is the quintessential Randian hero. READ more about him here.

Thiel has, naturally, arrived at one of the central themes of “Into the Cannibal’s Pot.” To quote Theil: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. … While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better.”

It’s a shame he walked back the anti-franchise statement.