The Gray Conservative

Protester With A Bullhorn Interrupts State Media Coverage of the G-20

2009-09-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

This is priceless.

Pure counter-meme digital insurgency.

Priceless: How The Federal Reserve Bought The Economics Profession

2009-09-09T08:49:00.000-07:00

And immediately the Spirit impelled Him to go out into the wilderness. And He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan; and He was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to Him." - Mark 1:12-13

There's a great piece in the Huffington Post this week on the cozy associations between The Fed and the field of Economics.

Perhaps you'll recall that back in July:

"More than 250 prominent economists warned that critics of the Federal Reserve are putting 'the independence of U.S. monetary policy...at risk,' and they urged Congress to back off lest it undermine the Fed's ability to manage the economy and thwart inflation."
(WSJ: Experts Tell Congress to Lay Off the Fed)

Then in August we were presented with:

6 economists on why Ron Paul’s Fed audit idea is wrong

Robert Schiller, Yale University
Lee Ohanian, UCLA
James Hamilton, UC-San Diego
Anil Kashyap, University of Chicago
Michael Woodford, Columbia University
Michael Feroli, JPMorgan

Lots of credentialed academics on that list. You have to wonder whether or not we're really getting an objective, unbiased opinion from these expert economists. Just pick one of the names at random and decide for yourself. Take Anil Kashyap for instance:

“Prior to joining the Chicago Booth faculty in 1991, Kashyap spent three years as an economist for the Board of Governors for the Federal Reserve System. He currently works as a consultant for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and serves as a member of the Economic Advisory Panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and as a Research Associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).”

Oh where oh where would we be without our beloved Experts? If you want see how far the rabbit hole of love between Ivory Tower economists and the Fed goes, The HuffPost has done most of the heavy lifting for you:

Priceless: How The Federal Reserve Bought The Economics Profession

The Federal Reserve, through its extensive network of consultants, visiting scholars, alumni and staff economists, so thoroughly dominates the field of economics that real criticism of the central bank has become a career liability for members of the profession, an investigation by the Huffington Post has found.

This dominance helps explain how, even after the Fed failed to foresee the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression, the central bank has largely escaped criticism from academic economists. In the Fed's thrall, the economists missed it, too.

"The Fed has a lock on the economics world," says Joshua Rosner, a Wall Street analyst who correctly called the meltdown. "There is no room for other views, which I guess is why economists got it so wrong."

One critical way the Fed exerts control on academic economists is through its relationships with the field's gatekeepers. For instance, at the Journal of Monetary Economics, a must-publish venue for rising economists, more than half of the editorial board members are currently on the Fed payroll -- and the rest have been in the past.

Further down the rabbit hole:

Three Decades of Domination

The Fed has been dominating the profession for about three decades. "For the economics profession that came out of the [second world] war, the Federal Reserve was not a very important place as far as they were concerned, and their views on monetary policy were not framed by a working relationship with the Federal Reserve. So I would date it to maybe the mid-1970s," says University of Texas economics professor -- and Fed critic -- James Galbraith. "The generation that I grew up under, which included both Milton Friedman on the right and Jim Tobin on the left, were independent of the Fed. They sent students to the Fed and they influenced the Fed, but there wasn't a culture of consulting, and it wasn't the same vast network of professional economists working there."

But by 1993, when former Fed Chairman Greenspan provided the House banking committee with a breakdown of the number of economists on contract or employed by the Fed, he reported that 189 worked for the board itself and another 171 for the various regional banks. Adding in statisticians, support staff and "officers" -- who are generally also economists -- the total number came to 730. And then there were the contracts. Over a three-year period ending in October 1994, the Fed awarded 305 contracts to 209 professors worth a total of $3 million.

Gatekeepers On The Payroll

The Fed keeps many of the influential editors of prominent academic journals on its payroll. It is common for a journal editor to review submissions dealing with Fed policy while also taking the bank's money. A HuffPost review of seven top journals found that 84 of the 190 editorial board members were affiliated with the Federal Reserve in one way or another.

"Try to publish an article critical of the Fed with an editor who works for the Fed," says Galbraith. And the journals, in turn, determine which economists get tenure and what ideas are considered respectable.

...

Affiliations with the Fed have become the oxygen of academic life for monetary economists. "It's very important, if you are tenure track and don't have tenure, to show that you are valued by the Federal Reserve," says Jane D'Arista, a Fed critic and an economist with the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Robert King, editor in chief of the Journal of Monetary Economics and a visiting scholar at the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank, dismisses the notion that his journal was influenced by its Fed connections. "I think that the suggestion is a silly one, based on my own experience at least," he wrote in an e-mail. (His full response is at the bottom.)

Galbraith, a Fed critic, has seen the Fed's influence on academia first hand. He and co-authors Olivier Giovannoni and Ann Russo found that in the year before a presidential election, there is a significantly tighter monetary policy coming from the Fed if a Democrat is in office and a significantly looser policy if a Republican is in office. The effects are both statistically significant, allowing for controls, and economically important.

They submitted a paper with their findings to the Review of Economics and Statistics in 2008, but the paper was rejected. "The editor assigned to it turned out to be a fellow at the Fed and that was after I requested that it not be assigned to someone affiliated with the Fed," Galbraith says.

Publishing in top journals is, like in any discipline, the key to getting tenure. Indeed, pursuing tenure ironically requires a kind of fealty to the dominant economic ideology that is the precise opposite of the purpose of tenure, which is to protect academics who present oppositional perspectives.

And while most academic disciplines and top-tier journals are controlled by some defining paradigm, in an academic field like poetry, that situation can do no harm other than to, perhaps, a forest of trees. Economics, unfortunately, collides with reality -- as it did with the Fed's incorrect reading of the housing bubble and failure to regulate financial institutions. Neither was a matter of incompetence, but both resulted from the Fed's unchallenged assumptions about the way the market worked.

Paul Krugman, meet Maxine Johnson.

2009-08-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

Krugman opines in the NYTimes:

Obama is a Kenyan-born Nazi Muslim planning to euthanize seniors while putting them in concentration camps. The Clintons were drug-runners who murdered Vince Foster. Why do people believe this stuff?

Yes, there’s a lavishly funded industry pushing these stories. But Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and all the others wouldn’t succeed without a receptive audience. So what makes that audience so receptive?

Here’s a thought: maybe we can learn something from Bernie Madoff.

How did Madoff pull off his scam? A lot of it probably involved affinity fraud: Madoff’s victims, largely affluent Jews, trusted him in large part because he seemed like one of them.

What I think is going on here, at least partly, is that the peddlers of anti-progressive lies are managing to convince a certain kind of American — white, socially conservative, etc. — that the hate-mongers are people like them; and, even more important, that progressives are Those People, people not like them.

Right. So apparently the only people who are against the health care reform bill are those racist, socially conservative whites who are too bigoted to see that this is all for their own good.

Paul, have you met Maxine Johnson? (Hat tip: Tafaraji)

Remember the lady that was hauled out of the McCaskill townhall meeting? How could you miss it?

Turns out that that lady was one Maxine Johnson, a veteran activist for the Republican Liberty Caucus:

The relative tranquillity established during the meeting was briefly punctured near the end when police arrested a man in a dispute over a political sign. Jefferson College policy prohibits signs in the field house for events, a McCaskill aide said. Police arrested a man after he grabbed the sign of veteran activist Maxine Johnson, who ran for St. Louis alderman this year. The sign was not about health care — it was apparently a Rosa Parks poster.

The Jefferson County sheriff's office identified the man arrested as James Winfrey, 67, of Cedar Hill. He was held on suspicion of third-degree assault.

A witness, Connie Bollinger of the Overland area, said Winfrey just "came over and grabbed" the poster.

McCaskill, watching the exchange transpire from behind the microphone, expressed disappointment that it could overshadow the otherwise peaceful discourse.

I think if Krugman got out a little more he'd see that people like Maxine Johnson aren't exactly unique. Take poor Kenneth Gladney for instance, who recently received a royal ass whooping:

On the evening of August 6, 2009, Kenneth Gladney was attacked outside a town hall meeting hosted by Democratic Congressmen Russ Carnahan. Kenneth Gladney was handing out flags emblazoned with the traditional phrase “Don’t Tread on Me” when he was attacked by members of the Service Employees International Union.

Your Fellow Countrymen are Screaming at their Elected Officials. What the hell is going on in America?

2009-08-12T06:31:00.000-07:00

What do you think about these outbursts of anger and frustration?

A) These people are organized right-wing nuts.
B) These people were bussed in by the insurance companies to spread fear and misinformation.
C) These people are racist "birthers" and "teabaggers".
D) Some people have legitimate concerns but are being drowned out by A, B, and C.

At least some of these folks have to be regular people, right?

Peeved Americans roundup:

One exchange in particular from the video of Specter's town hall meeting was very telling and informative.

After watching the video of the town hall meeting, I found question twenty very intriguing because I think it shows that some on the American Right are perhaps on the brink of getting a clue about how to express disagreement in public without the susceptibility of looking like a lunatic to calm observers.

At one point, questioner number twenty—a bald man in a light blue shirt and khakis, one of the many overly-vigorous protesters in attendance—stands up and points out the obvious tension in the room to Specter. He goes on to ask rhetorically: "If you guys think that we want health care reform so bad, do this: Let's have a referendum, and do that. We'll tell you if we like your plan or not." Specter shrugged his shoulders in response as the crowd launched into another round of indignant applause. Specter then stated that he thinks it's a "fascinating idea", saying later, "That's one of the ideas I'm going to take back to Washington."

Even though the chances of that happening are slim, this was without a doubt the only meaningful exchange in the video I saw. And to my knowledge, no such thing has ever been suggested with regard to a piece of federal legislation in America.

Is it really such a "fascinating idea", though? After all, having referendums on major policy questions is nothing new. Questioner number twenty made me realize that his question brought up the possibility of the referendum-based system of the Irish in the Euro-sphere debates being cloned and applied here in America. Could the Lisbon Treaty Euro-style referendum battles that took place in Ireland happen here in the future with regard to future pieces of legislation?

The health care reform opponents remind me a lot of the "Euro-skeptics". If they weren't so preoccupied with shouting slogans and projecting anger, the American Right could push to hold a referendum on the health care reform proposal in much the same way in which Ireland rejected the Lisbon treaty. They don't seem to be that smart just yet, though.

The American Revolution (version 2.0) continues on The Hill

2009-07-21T12:20:00.000-07:00

Carbon trading must be globally regulated

2009-07-14T07:56:00.000-07:00

Carbon trading must be globally regulated

By Simon Linnett
Published: 11:00AM GMT 31 Jan 2008

Simon Linnett, Executive Vice-Chairman of Rothschild, has called for a new international body, the World Environment Agency, to regulate carbon trading.

In a recently published paper, Trading Emissions, for the Social Market Foundation, Mr Linnett argues that the International problem of climate change demands an international solution.

Unless governments cede some of their sovereignty to a new world body, he says, a global carbon trading scheme cannot be enforced and regulated.

* The full paper - Social Market Foundation

"An urgent global response." This was how Nicolas Stern described the problem of carbon dioxide emissions, in his recent review of the economics of climate change. The sense of an impending crisis infuses our all debates on this issue.

The human causes of climate change are now well established. The overall measures we must take - a reduction of our emissions - is painfully obvious.

But like a group of rabbits caught in the headlights, our actual means of escape remain unclear. We know what our end goals are, but how do we get there? How can governments achieve delivery?

The first step must be to recognise the scope of the problem. Unlike other pollutants, such as litter or nuclear waste, CO2 emissions have impact on a global level - and only on a global level.

This means we have to deal with the issue internationally. The problem is literally too big for any one country to handle. Old alliances, divisions and 'special relationships' are a meaningless hindrance.

I believe it is essential that governments and the private sector work together to solve the problem. As a banker, I suppose I would say that, but only such a partnership will we be able to harness what Al Gore called the multitude of little solutions, which all add up to a better outcome.

Only the private sector can successfully develop those solutions, but only governments can provide a framework for them to be applied internationally.

As a banker, I also welcome the fact that the 'cap-and-trade' system is becoming the dominant methodology for CO2 control. Unlike taxation, or plain regulation, cap-and-trade offers the greatest scope for private sector involvement and innovation.

Furthermore, taxation and regulation can only be levied at local or national levels, whereas cap-and-trade can operate on a global level. And remember, the problem is global.

But for the private sector to participate enthusiastically in a global carbon trading market, governments must collectively establish a robust framework within which trading can occur. It must be long, loud and legal:

* Long: it is going to be around for a long time;

* Loud: it will be the dominant mechanism for sponsoring changes in behaviour and we are going to make this perfectly clear to the world's people; and

* Legal: we will enforce it through law.

A key implication of creating a legal yet global system of trading, is the loss of sovereignty it implies. Governments must be prepared to allow some subordination of national interests to this world initiative, on the issue of emissions. This need not mean a new system of government, above individual nations.

But it would mean a change to the way treaties are agreed and worded. Instead of saying "we will cut emissions by x per cent by date y" (pledges which are inevitably broken), such statements will have to morph to "we will make our contribution to a scheme which cuts, across certain industries and gases, emissions by x per cent by date y."

The European nations already do this, on certain issues, yielding sovereignty to the EU. And in time, the EU itself will eventually have to yield to a larger body - one which includes the economic powerhouses of India and China.

The cynicism that greets such programmes is well known, since the Asian economies seem bent on rapid expansion. However, I believe that both India and China will soon recognise the benefits of joining a global carbon trading scheme.

First, a properly constituted, one-member-one-vote system would mean that they have a proper 'say'. More importantly, since the allocation of the emissions cap might trend towards recognising world populations rather than current levels of emission, both countries would stand to gain a great deal.

If emissions trading could expand into different areas of economic activity, so too could its message. When an individual receives an electricity bill, they will come to know what the cost of turning on the gas or a light was to the environment.

Perhaps they will gain a new appreciation of their burden on the broader world. Similarly, if the scheme were to expand geographically to include India, China and, ultimately, the US, so too could the prospect be realised of such allowances becoming the reserve currency of the world, taking over that role held for most of the 20th century by gold.

So emissions trading could establish a new world order for a sustainable planet, one based on the sharing of the earth's ability to absorb harmful emissions. To allocate that 'resource' fully and properly will, in turn, require resourcefulness and imagination across the globe.

*Simon Linnett is an Executive Vice Chairman of Rothschild. He has enjoyed 25 years of privatisation and PPP experience with the Bank, leading that effort for the majority of that time.

For the last 10 years, Simon has been in dialogue with both UK and, more recently, EU administrations about the future evolution of emissions trading of which he has long been a proponent. This paper represents his personal views only.

Stop. Think. Observe the pattern.

This issue becomes easier to conceptualize if you begin to think of it in terms of a list of general themes which present a matrix of challenges to global governance. Try to think of it in terms of a set of themes which are said to require supra-national collective action and global solutions. The financial crisis, the war on terrorism, proliferation, the management of pandemics, alternative energy, climate change, international standards of trade, border control, state failure, genocide: all of these, at one point or another, have been citied as key issues which permit no national or regional solution.

Compare. Contrast. See associations.

Carbon trading must be globally regulated:

"A key implication of creating a legal yet global system of trading, is the loss of sovereignty it implies. Governments must be prepared to allow some subordination of national interests to this world initiative, on the issue of emissions. This need not mean a new system of government, above individual nations."

Sovereignty and globalisation:

"The world’s 190-plus states now co-exist with a larger number of powerful non-sovereign and at least partly (and often largely) independent actors, ranging from corporations to non-government organisations (NGOs), from terrorist groups to drug cartels, from regional and global institutions to banks and private equity funds. The sovereign state is influenced by them (for better and for worse) as much as it is able to influence them. The near monopoly of power once enjoyed by sovereign entities is being eroded.

As a result, new mechanisms are needed for regional and global governance that include actors other than states. This is not to argue that Microsoft, Amnesty International, or Goldman Sachs be given seats in the United Nations General Assembly, but it does mean including representatives of such organisations in regional and global deliberations when they have the capacity to affect whether and how regional and global challenges are met.

Moreover, states must be prepared to cede some sovereignty to world bodies if the international system is to function.

This is already taking place in the trade realm. Governments agree to accept the rulings of the World Trade Organisation because on balance they benefit from an international trading order, even if a particular decision requires that they alter a practice that is their sovereign right to carry out.

Some governments are prepared to give up elements of sovereignty to address the threat of global climate change. Under one such arrangement, the Kyoto Protocol, which runs through 2012, signatories agree to cap specific emissions. What is needed now is a successor arrangement in which a larger number of governments, including the United States, China and India, accept emission limits or adopt common standards because they recognise that they would be worse off if no country did.

All of this suggests that sovereignty must be redefined if states are to cope with globalisation."

See the dots. Connect the dots.

Carbon trading must be globally regulated:

"The first step must be to recognise the scope of the problem. Unlike other pollutants, such as litter or nuclear waste, CO2 emissions have impact on a global level - and only on a global level.

This means we have to deal with the issue internationally. The problem is literally too big for any one country to handle. Old alliances, divisions and 'special relationships' are a meaningless hindrance."

"The ultimate challenge is to shape the common concern of most countries and all major ones regarding the economic crisis, together with a common fear of jihadist terrorism, into a common strategy reinforced by the realization that the new issues like proliferation, energy and climate change permit no national or regional solution."

Remember, the problem is global.

Remember, the problem is global.

Remember, the problem is global.

Germans flock to gold bars vending machine at Frankfurt airport

2009-07-14T07:06:00.000-07:00

Germans flock to gold bars vending machine at Frankfurt airport

Germany has devised the ultimate in credit crunch vending machines: Gold to Go.

After inserting your euros in the slot there is a familiar whirring noise as if the machine is readying itself to spit out a can of lemonade or a bar of chocolate. Instead there is a satisfying clunk as a prettily wrapped bar of the world's favourite precious metal thuds into the dispenser.

"It's better value than the bank," Romy Erhardt of TG-Gold-Super-Markt told The Times, "And it's very convenient — no waiting time — you just put in your cash and a minute later you are an investor in gold."

The prototype gold-dispenser has been installed in Frankfurt airport and today there was a queue of passengers mulling over whether to buy one gramme, 5 grammes or ten grammes of gold.

The one-gramme bar was available for €30 (£25). Other options — rather like a high-end coffee machine it has five selections — included a Maple Leaf Five Canadian dollar coin and a Kangaroo Fifteen Australian dollar coin. Both represent about one tenth of an ounce of gold and the price on today was hovering around €80.

"The price is updated every 15 minutes," Ms Erhardt explained. "The vending machine is linked to the computer which we use for our online gold outlet."

...

The online company Cash4gold.com meanwhile is reporting 25,000 transactions a month. And Exboyfriendjewelry.com — whose testimonials are full of stories about the cathartic effect of selling jewelery given by former husbands and lovers — is thriving.

The Germans are particularly interested, partly because of the collective memory of the currency collapse after two world wars.

Some high street jewellers even buy dental gold to be melted down. "German investors have always preferred to hold a lot of personal wealth in gold, for historical reasons," said Thomas Geissler, head of the Stuttgart-based TG-Gold-Super-Markt.

There is a German fascination with gold that goes even deeper than anxiety about failing currencies. One of Germany's best loved fairy tales, a classic bedtime story, features a donkey that excretes gold coins every time that one shouts the magic word "Bricklebrit!"

Observe the Pattern: "Boring"

2009-05-19T08:03:00.000-07:00

The Federal Reserve Needs To Be Boring Again

There is an open question about whether the Federal Reserve even has the authority to issue claims other than currency. Apparently it thinks it does. But is it even remotely credible that the Fed could have the unbounded authority to borrow money and buy assets without the inconvenience of having to explain itself on Capitol Hill?

Anything that threatens the independence of the Fed threatens the long-term viability of monetary policy. It is really important that the expanded role of the Fed in the current crisis not threaten that viability. An independent Fed can pursue policies that are politically unpopular yet in the public interest. We need central banking to be boring again, not something that keeps us on the edge of our seats.

Wrong Paul

Fantasy, fallacy and factual fumbles from the Republican insurgent.

By Joe Miller | factcheck.org

Paging Fox Mulder

The NAFTA Superhighway According to Paul, a secret organization run by unaccountable government figures is in league with foreign corporations who are all bent on usurping American sovereignty. That's not from the script for a new X-Files movie. (Or not that we know of.) It's the gist of Paul's description of a supposed "NAFTA Superhighway." Paul describes it on his Web site as "a ten-lane colossus the width of several football fields, with freight and rail lines, fiber-optic cable lines, and oil and natural gas pipelines running alongside." And that's not all. According to Paul, the ultimate plan is to form a North American Union with a single currency and unlimited travel within its borders, all headed up by "an unholy alliance of foreign consortiums and officials from several governments" that together form the shadowy "quasi-government organization called the 'Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,' or SPP."

The problem with Paul's claim is that there are no plans to build a NAFTA Superhighway. Or a North American Union, for that matter. And while the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America does exist, it's just a boring bureaucracy.

"The reason the Bilderberg conference is secret is because its proceedings are so dull that if the transcripts were ever published nobody would ever attend."

Premium Doublespeak on the Dollar

2009-03-26T07:15:00.000-07:00

Since I'm still working on the globalism primer series, I thought I'd take a break from that to give a small update.

Here at TGC, I purposefully go out of my way to avoid blogging about Obama and his administration. At the very least I try to keep it to a minimum. If you poke around on the conservative blogs, you'll find entire sites dedicated to exclusively slamming Obama; and that's literally all they do. Every single post is about Obama. Obama this, Obama that. The best example I can think of is the guy who runs The Black Sphere. There you'll find cheeky photoshopped images of Obama and wild speculations about the man's personal idiosyncrasies. It's a veritable circle-jerk of reactionary criticism.

But really, what's the point? Extended, non-stop bashing of Obama over the economy merely helps to perpetuate the myth that the President has some sort of major influence over what goes on in terms of monetary policy in the United States. Pro tip: He doesn't. However, one of the most amusing things that they do is say that they're going to do one thing, and then do another thing entirely. This is what I tend to blog about when it comes to this administration. It's their hilarious doublespeak that amuses me the most. Case in point:

Tuesday

Michele Bachmann: "Would you categorically renounce the United States moving away from the dollar and going to a global currency as suggested this morning by China and also by Russia, Mr Secretary?"

Mr Geithner: "I would, yes."

And then there was Thursday:

US backing for world currency stuns markets

US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner shocked global markets by revealing that Washington is "quite open" to Chinese proposals for the gradual development of a global reserve currency run by the International Monetary Fund.

The dollar plunged instantly against the euro, yen, and sterling as the comments flashed across trading screens. David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC, said the apparent policy shift amounts to an earthquake in geo-finance.

"The mere fact that the US Treasury Secretary is even entertaining thoughts that the dollar may cease being the anchor of the global monetary system has caused consternation," he said.

Mr Geithner later qualified his remarks, insisting that the dollar would remain the "world's dominant reserve currency ... for a long period of time" but the seeds of doubt have been sown.

The markets appear baffled by the confused statements emanating from Washington. President Barack Obama told a new conference hours earlier that there was no threat to the reserve status of the dollar.

"I don't believe that there is a need for a global currency. The reason the dollar is strong right now is because investors consider the United States the strongest economy in the world with the most stable political system in the world," he said.

The Chinese proposal, outlined this week by central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan, calls for a "super-sovereign reserve currency" under IMF management, turning the Fund into a sort of world central bank.

The idea is that the IMF should activate its dormant powers to issue Special Drawing Rights. These SDRs would expand their role over time, becoming a "widely-accepted means of payments".

Mr Bloom said that any switch towards use of SDRs has direct implications for the currency markets. At the moment, 65pc of the world's $6.8 trillion stash of foreign reserves is held in dollars. But the dollar makes up just 42pc of the basket weighting of SDRs. So any SDR purchase under current rules must favour the euro, yen and sterling.

Beijing has the backing of Russia and a clutch of emerging powers in Asia and Latin America. Economists have toyed with such schemes before but the issue has vaulted to the top of the political agenda as creditor states around the world takes fright at the extreme measures now being adopted by the Federal Reserve, especially the decision to buy US government debt directly with printed money.

Mr Bloom said the US is discovering that the sensitivities of creditors cannot be ignored. "China holds almost 30pc of the world's entire reserves. What they say matters," he said.

Mr Geithner's friendly comments about the SDR plan seem intended to soothe Chinese feelings after a spat in January over alleged currency manipulation by Beijing, but he will now have to explain his own categorical assurance to Congress on Tuesday that he would not countenance any moves towards a world currency.

Globalism Primer Part 02: Globalism's Full-Court Press, The Global Kids Initiative

2009-02-20T12:45:00.000-08:00

"There are lots of ways we can influence this country's role in the world, and I can't think of any better long-term investment than the investment represented by this group."

Richard Haas,
President,
Council on Foreign Relations

Surely you didn't think that the exposition of the general themes and justifications for contingent sovereignty would be left to linger in some obscure document on the CFR website. Digging deeper into the dissemination of the internationalist narrative reveals a full-court press which is designed to coach young people to view themselves as "global citizens".

Enter Global Kids.

Mission and History

Global Kids (GK) is committed to educating and inspiring urban youth to become successful students as well as global and community leaders. Using interactive and experiential methods to educate youth about critical international and foreign policy issues, GK provides students with opportunities for civic and global engagement. Through its professional development program, GK provides teachers and educators with strategies for integrating a youth development approach and international issues into their classrooms.

High School For Global Citizenship

Founded by Global Kids and Principal Brad Haggerty in September 2004, the High School for Global Citizenship (HSGC) is an innovative small high school in Brooklyn that aims to create a community of active learners who are engaged participants in the democratic process and are learning about foreign policy issues and the connections between their personal lives and international events.

Courses are designed with a goal of maximizing cross-curricular connections around the theme of global citizenship. In addition to traditional coursework, students have the opportunity to participate in a number of core learning experiences during their years at HSGC, including a range of Global Kids' programs; a multi-day retreat before the official school year begins; numerous field trips to international organizations and cultural institutions; an annual youth conference; an internship program; and an annual Global Citizenship Week. Furthermore, an advisory program creates a high level of personalization and ensures that every student at HSGC is well known by at least one teacher.

On the surface this is an ostensibly innocuous and noble initiative which is designed to help underprivileged children learn about the world, but in order to understand the interconnectedness of the Global Kids initiative to the doctrine of interventionist-leaning contingent sovereignty, one has to observe the language closely to get a sense of how increased awareness of unfavorable situations around the world is used to proliferate the narrative of international action.

Five Global Kids Students Advocate for Child Soldiers on Red Hand Day at the United Nations

February 11, 2009, New York, NY – Five members of Global Kids - the premiere non-profit organization in New York City that teaches underserved high school students about international issues and civic engagement – will actively participate in the Red Hand Day Campaign tomorrow, focusing attention on the growing problem of child soldiers. The red hands are the symbol of the global campaign against the use of child soldiers

The five Global Kids students are:
• Noni Fernandez - High School for Global Citizenship (Brooklyn)
• Asha Somerszaule - High School for Global Citizenship (Brooklyn)
• Ifeanyi Ekweremumba - Canarsie High School (Brooklyn)
• Sabrina Agbeti - IS 229 (Bronx)
• Justin Avendano - Academy of American Studies (Queens)

The Red Hand Day campaign will culminate on Thursday February 12 at 5:00 p.m. at the Danny Kaye Center - UNICEF House (44th St. and 1st Ave. in NYC) - when the five Global Kids youth leaders and other youth representatives from all regions of the world present a portion of “red hands” to the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to emphasize the need for international action to end the use of child soldiers.

Nearly 100 officials will attend, including Security Council members, representatives from U.N. missions, U.N. staff (selected representatives from UNICEF, OSRSG/CAC, etc.), student representatives from the New York metropolitan area and other guests.

The Red Hand Day Campaign against the use of child soldiers has engaged student, youth, community and other groups around the world to make “red hands” —the symbol of the global campaign against the use of child soldiers—in order to highlight the issue of child soldiers and need for stronger international action to end this abuse of children.

The aim of the campaign is to gather one million ‘red hands’ to present to U.N. officials in New York on February 12. This date has special significance as the anniversary of the day that the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict entered into force in 2002.

If you were curious about the list of organizations which provide funding to the Global Kids initiative, take a look at their list of funders.

(Note: Oddly enough, as I was in the process of composing this entry, the list of funders suddenly disappeared from the site. I just so happened to have the list up in another tab. This is the page as it existed just a few moments ago.)

Funders

Global Kids is most grateful to countless generous individuals and the following foundations, corporations, and government institutions for their generous support of our work in 2007-2008.

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Globalism Primer Part 01: The Key Themes and Justifications for Contingent Sovereignty

2009-02-20T10:23:00.001-08:00

The issue of globalism becomes much easier to understand when one begins to view it in the context of contingent sovereignty. Contingent sovereignty is the theory. Globalism is the practice. Globalism, and the failed-state narrative structure which supports it, is the theory of contingent sovereignty in action.

lrey said...

Contingent sovereignty is not "law". It is a concept,a rationale for action taken or to be taken, that violates the normal restrictions of sovereignty coming from the organizing principles of the Treaty of Westphalia.

...

You Grayconservative, may have misunderstood my comment to Cobb. I was essentially taking the point of view regarding Hitchens' litany, that those are areas where the deficiencies of international law are most easily exposed and vulnerable to legalistic parsing, ultimately rendering to politics and power as usual.

thegrayconservative said in reply to lrey...

You won't get any argument from me about what you've said about international standards of morality being governed by political self-interest. I don't think I ever referred to contingent sovereignty as "law". I think I called it a "doctrine" which is a word I sometimes use interchangeably with "idea" or "concept". My point in throwing contingent sovereignty and the Peace of Westphalia into the mix wasn't to make the point that Hitchens' list is subject to legalistic parsing but rather to point out that his list of four violations are merely a subset of themes which comprise a larger internationalist narrative in which certain problems are said to require international attention and intervention.

This issue becomes easier to conceptualize if you begin to think of it in terms of a list of general themes which present a matrix of challenges to global governance. Try to think of it in terms of a set of themes which are said to require supra-national collective action and global solutions. The financial crisis, the war on terrorism, proliferation, the management of pandemics, alternative energy, climate change, international standards of trade, border control, state failure, genocide: all of these, at one point or another, have been citied as key issues which permit no national or regional solution.

As a quick world-wind tour of the wide-spread and concerted dissemination of this narrative in print media I offer the following quotes.

Hass: Necessity may also lead to reducing or even eliminating sovereignty when a government, whether from a lack of capacity or conscious policy, is unable to provide for the basic needs of its citizens. This reflects not simply scruples, but a view that state failure and genocide can lead to destabilising refugee flows and create openings for terrorists to take root.

Rachman: First, it is increasingly clear that the most difficult issues facing national governments are international in nature: there is global warming, a global financial crisis and a “global war on terror”.

Second, it could be done. The transport and communications revolutions have shrunk the world so that, as Geoffrey Blainey, an eminent Australian historian, has written: “For the first time in human history, world government of some sort is now possible.” Mr Blainey foresees an attempt to form a world government at some point in the next two centuries, which is an unusually long time horizon for the average newspaper column.

But – the third point – a change in the political atmosphere suggests that “global governance” could come much sooner than that. The financial crisis and climate change are pushing national governments towards global solutions, even in countries such as China and the US that are traditionally fierce guardians of national sovereignty.

Kissinger: The ultimate challenge is to shape the common concern of most countries and all major ones regarding the economic crisis, together with a common fear of jihadist terrorism, into a common strategy reinforced by the realization that the new issues like proliferation, energy and climate change permit no national or regional solution.

Globalism Primer Part 00: The Westphalian Peace versus Contingent Sovereignty

2009-02-20T08:15:00.000-08:00

This entry begins a series of posts in which I will outline the general themes of globalism.

The the doctrine of contingent sovereignty is an innovation of thought in the conduct and rules of foreign policy which directly attacks the many-years-old idea of the Westphalian-style organization of nation states.

Westphalian sovereignty
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Westphalian sovereignty is the concept of nation-state sovereignty based on two principles: territoriality and the exclusion of external actors from domestic authority structures.

Many academics have asserted that the international system of states, multinational corporations and organizations which exists today began in 1648 at the Peace of Westphalia.[1] Both the basis and the result of this view have been attacked by revisionist academics and politicians alike, with revisionists questioning the significance of the Peace, and commentators and politicians attacking the Westphalian System of sovereign nation-states.

Traditional view

Adherents to the concept of a Westphalian system trace it back to the Peace of Westphalia, signed in 1648, in which, it is claimed, the major European powers agreed to abide by the principle of territorial integrity. In the Westphalian system, the interests and goals of nation-states were widely assumed to transcend those of any individual citizen or even any ruler.

The Peace of Westphalia is said to have ended attempts at the imposition of any supranational authority on European states. The "Westphalian" doctrine of states as independent actors was bolstered by the rise in 19th century thought of nationalism, under which legitimate states were assumed to correspond to nations—groups of people united by language and culture. Benedict Anderson refers to these putative nations as "imagined communities."

The Westphalian system reached its apogee in the late 19th century. Although practical considerations still led powerful states to seek to influence the affairs of others, forcible intervention by one country in the domestic affairs of another was less frequent in the period between 1850 and 1900 than in most previous and subsequent periods (Leurdijk 1986).

The Peace of Westphalia is crucially important to modern international relations theory, with the Peace often being defined as the beginning of the international system with which the discipline deals.[2][3][4]

International relations theorists have identified the Peace of Westphalia as having several key principles, which explain the Peace's significance and its impact on the world today:

1. The principle of the sovereignty of states and the fundamental right of political self determination
2. The principle of (legal) equality between states
3. The principle of non-intervention of one state in the internal affairs of another state

These principles are common to the way the "realist" international relations paradigm views the international system today, which explains why the system of states is referred to as "The Westphalian System".

Both the idea of Westphalian sovereignty and its applicability in practice have been questioned from the mid-20th century onwards from a variety of viewpoints. Much of the debate has turned on the ideas of internationalism and globalization which, in various interpretations, appear to conflict with Westphalian sovereignty.

A notable defence of Westphalian sovereignty is to be found in John Rawls' 1999 book, A Law of Peoples.

Against the non-interventionist Westphalian-style organization of nation-states stands the doctrine of interventionist-leaning contingent sovereignty.

Contingent sovereignty refers to the new and still evolving theory which challenges the norm of non-intervention in the internal affairs of countries, commonly associated with the Westphalian doctrine of sovereignty.

Stewart Patrick of the United States State Department has described the contingent sovereignty as follows.

Historically, the main obstacle to armed intervention -humanitarian or otherwise- has been the doctrine of sovereignty, which prohibits violating the territorial integrity of another state. One of the striking developments of the past decade has been an erosion of this non-intervention norm and the rise of a nascent doctrine of “contingent sovereignty.”
This school of thought holds that sovereign rights and immunities are not absolute. They depend on the observance of fundamental state obligations. These include the responsibility to protect the citizens of the state. When a regime makes war on its people or cannot prevent atrocities against them, it risks forfeiting its claim to non-intervention. In such circumstances, the responsibility to protect may devolve to the international community.
This emerging consensus reflects the traumas of the twentieth century. The seminal event was the Holocaust, but it was hardly the last to shock the conscience of humankind. From the killing fields of Cambodia to the bloody hills of Rwanda, a litany of atrocities has mocked our earnest, repeated pledges of 'Never Again.'
Following the NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan described what he termed a "developing international norm ... that massive and systematic violations of human rights wherever they may take place ... should not be allowed to stand." No longer should frontiers be considered an absolute defense behind which states can commit crimes against humanity with "sovereign impunity."

With regard to the doctrine of contingent sovereignty, an innovation of thinking has occured in which the concept of "global felonies" has emerged as a list of posited violations of international morality which result in the forfeiture of a nation's claim to sovereignty. This issue was discussed briefly over at Cobb in the context of a list of international violations which have been termed "global felonies" by Christopher Hitchens.

Global Felonies

From Christopher Hitchens

Essentially, there are four such criteria. One is genocide, which, according to the signatories of the Genocide Convention (the United States is one), necessitates immediate action either to prevent or to punish the perpetrators. Another is aggression against the sovereignty of neighboring states, including occupation of their territory. A third is hospitality for, or encouragement of, international terrorist groups, and a fourth is violations of the Nonproliferation Treaty or of U.N. resolutions governing weapons of mass destruction.

(c.f. Least Favored Nation)

It occured to me that Cobb's "least favored nation" concept was essentially another iteration of the doctrine of contingent sovereignty.

I think the "least favored nation" concept is somewhat premised upon the doctrine of contingent sovereignty which directly attacks the many-years-old idea of the Westphalian-style organization of nation states. It uses a list of posited intolerable violations of supra-national "international" standards as the basis of resolutions declaring the automatic forfeiture of a nation's claim to national sovereignty resulting in eventual humanitarian/military intervention.

Cobb didn't agree at first.

I very much dislike the theory of contingent sovereignty and I don't see any body capable of establishing it with any consistency worthy of military backing.

Instead I see that national arrangements and treaties are sufficiently mature, and the business interests of nations and trade blocs sufficiently mature to legally justify causus belli. The idea that a supra-national authority is required to establish causus belli is, in my opinion, wishful thinking.

I pointed out that the case for contingent sovereignty had been previously enumerated very succinctly by Richard Hass. I don't know of a better explication of the principles of contingent sovereignty than Hass' op-ed.

thegrayconservative said...

It's a mistake to believe that the theory of contingent sovereignty is limited to those issues which require military backing for the purpose of humanitarian/military intervention. Key redefinitions of the Westphalian-style organization of nations states have already taken places in the areas of trade, climate change, and the war on terrorism.

I'll remind you here that the idea of contingent sovereignty has been previously enumerated in detail by Hass and certainly encompasses more than just these four small violations listed by Hitchens. The list of "global felonies" which are said to be causes for the forfeiture of sovereignty is much longer than four, and even though you may not like the idea, it nevertheless seems that Hitchens' "global felonies" and your least favored nation concept both fix neatly into the framework.

Our notion of sovereignty must therefore be conditional, even contractual, rather than absolute.. If a state fails to live up to its side of the bargain by sponsoring terrorism, either transferring or using weapons of mass destruction, or conducting genocide, then it forfeits the normal benefits of sovereignty and opens itself up to attack, removal or occupation. The diplomatic challenge for this era is to gain widespread support for principles of state conduct and a procedure for determining remedies when these principles are violated.

Compare with:

I'm going to submit five countries onto the international shitlist in advance of Hilary Clinton. I pretty much know what she's likely to say but still, just in case she doesn't. The following are the nations who should be clutching their 'nads in fear of American aggression.

Violations of international principles of state conduct will thus gain a nation a spot on the "international shitlist" resulting in aggression, removal, or occupation. The structure of the arguments here are very similar.

Note also that Hitchens makes explicit mention of a state's ability to contain and manage germs and pandemics in relation to Zimbabwe. This is yet another posited violation which fits neatly into an accusation of a state's inability to "live up to its side of the bargain" in the form of what he calls a "germ warfare of a kind". This pillar of the contingent sovereignty theory can be understood through a series of keywords which are crucial to the failed state narrative: genocide, refugees, borders, and destabilization.

Necessity may also lead to reducing or even eliminating sovereignty when a government, whether from a lack of capacity or conscious policy, is unable to provide for the basic needs of its citizens. This reflects not simply scruples, but a view that state failure and genocide can lead to destabilising refugee flows and create openings for terrorists to take root.

Compare with:

The situation has altered recently, however, and an examination of what has altered may help us to clarify when a state crosses the boundary from "failed" to "rogue." So great is the misery of the Zimbabwean people that acute diseases like cholera are now rife. And such is their degree of desperation that they have started crossing the frontier en masse, chiefly in the direction of South Africa, taking their maladies with them. This means that Mugabe has made himself an international problem, destabilizing his neighbors and thus giving them a direct legitimate interest in (and a right to concern themselves with) the restabilizing of Zimbabwe. If the voices of people like Desmond Tutu and Graça Machel, who are beginning to insist that regional action be taken to remove Mugabe, are ever heard properly, it will probably be because Mugabe went too far in driving infected people onto the territory of the countries next door. This is germ warfare of a kind.

It's not a coincidence that Hitchens likens the situation in Zimbabwe to "germ warfare".

The "global felonies" which are touched upon here are only a handful of violations that in reality comprise an entire compendium of posited international violations which are crucial to the "what-ever-shall-we-do-with-failed states" narrative and whose proponents are always invariably in favor of an interventionist approach which frames any and everything in terms of "thinking globally". Hence the choice of the name, "global" felonies; and "global" warming; and the "global" economy. (cf. also the "global kids" initiative.) All four of Hitchens' violations are posited justifications for the forfeiture of sovereignty under this internationalist rubric. Add to that four a whole host of other posited would-be axiomatic principles of foreign policy phrased as a threat matrix of international no-no's which are enumerated with great clarity by the smart people at the CFR and interventionists like Hitchens and yourself.

Sudan, Pakistan, North Korea, Somalia, and Zimbabwe. You claim to not like the idea of contingent sovereignty, but the five nations you singled out for intervention in the "Obama Gonna What?" entry, coupled with the reasons you listed for American intervention in those areas, is a clear example of the type of innovation in thinking which holds that sovereignty no longer provides absolute protection. You, Hass, and Hitchens are very much on the same page:

Globalisation thus implies that sovereignty is not only becoming weaker in reality, but that it needs to become weaker. States would be wise to weaken sovereignty in order to protect themselves, because they cannot insulate themselves from what goes on elsewhere. Sovereignty is no longer a sanctuary.

This was demonstrated by the American and world reaction to terrorism. Afghanistan’s Taliban government, which provided access and support to al-Qaeda, was removed from power. Similarly, America’s preventive war against an Iraq that ignored the UN and was thought to possess weapons of mass destruction showed that sovereignty no longer provides absolute protection. Imagine how the world would react if some government were known to be planning to use or transfer a nuclear device or had already done so. Many would argue correctly that sovereignty provides no protection for that state.

The counter argument to the interventionist theory of contingent sovereignty is that even well-intentioned intervention has unintended consequences and blowback. Whereas the Peace of Westphalia upheld "the principle of non-intervention of one state in the internal affairs of another state" as standard operating procedure, the new internationalism is a fundamentally interventionist enterprise which is bracketed by the revisionist interpretations of the Peace and the theory of contingent sovereignty that goes along with it.

Campaign Rhetoric on NAFTA was just that—Rhetoric

2009-02-20T07:57:00.000-08:00

I'm gearing up for a series of posts on globalism and contingent sovereignty, but I wanted to post a follow-up on Obama's NAFTA renegotiation promises.

Back in June of last year I made the comment that when it came to NAFTA, the Dems would be all about business as usual.

Today in the Washington Post: NAFTA Renegotiation Must Wait, Obama Says

OTTAWA, Feb. 19 -- President Obama warned on Thursday against a "strong impulse" toward protectionism while the world suffers a global economic recession and said his election-year promise to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement on behalf of unions and environmentalists will have to wait.

Obama made the comments as he stood with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper during his first trip abroad as president. The two pledged cooperation on efforts to stimulate the economy, fight terrorism in Afghanistan and develop clean energy technology.

In a joint news conference, Obama said he wants to find a way to keep his campaign pledge to toughen labor and environmental standards -- and told Harper so -- but stressed that nothing should disrupt the free flow of trade between neighbors.

"Now is a time where we've got to be very careful about any signals of protectionism," the president said. "Because, as the economy of the world contracts, I think there's going to be a strong impulse on the part of constituencies in all countries to see if we -- they can engage in beggar-thy-neighbor policies."

The president's message served as a reminder of last year's private assessment by Canadian officials that then-candidate Obama's frequent criticism of NAFTA was nothing more than campaign speeches aimed at chasing support among Rust Belt union workers.

"Much of the rhetoric that may be perceived to be protectionist is more reflective of political maneuvering than policy," the Canadians concluded in a memo after meeting with Austan Goolsbee, a senior campaign aide and now a member of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers.

When the memo became public, Obama advisers rejected the idea as absurd and insisted that he was serious about changing NAFTA. Obama even suggested that the United States might opt out of NAFTA if the standards could not be improved to the nation's satisfaction.

But some longtime observers of the U.S.-Canada relationship said Obama's current position appears to confirm the impression that Canadian officials got from the meeting with Goolsbee.

"It sounds like [Goolsbee] was right," said former Massachusetts governor Paul Cellucci (R), who served as U.S. ambassador to Canada during George W. Bush's first term. "It looks like [President Obama has] softened that quite a bit, to put it mildly."

That could anger some of Obama's staunchest labor supporters, who blame NAFTA for sending American jobs oversees by not requiring a level playing field in the areas of labor and the environment.

But some of those allies said Thursday that they are giving the president more time to make good on his promise and praised Obama for finding a sophisticated way to express support for trade and changes to NAFTA.

Suffice it to say that I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for Obama to make good on his campaign promise to renegotiate NAFTA in any way, shape, or form. Obama putting the renegotiation of NAFTA on the back burner effectively signals that Goolsbee's statement to the Canadians about Obama's NAFTA rhetoric being just that wasn't as absurd as the Obama camp would have had people believe. Ross Perot's Giant Sucking Sound is still echoing in the form of large trade deficits and pulverized American jobs, and the thought-terminating cliché of "protectionism" is still being used as a rhetorical battering ram to stifle any rational dissent.

Broken Promises in Palestine (1926)

2009-01-05T17:21:00.000-08:00

Conservatives Lost More Than An Election

2008-11-07T08:57:00.000-08:00

Chuck Baldwin sounds off:

By Chuck Baldwin
November 7, 2008
NewsWithViews.com

That Barack Obama trounced John McCain last Tuesday should have surprised no one. In fact, in this column, weeks ago, I stated emphatically that John McCain could no more beat Barack Obama than Bob Dole could beat Bill Clinton. He didn't. (Hence a vote for John McCain was a "wasted" vote, was it not?) I also predicted that Obama would win with an electoral landslide. He did. The real story, however, is not how Barack Obama defeated John McCain. The real story is how John McCain defeated America's conservatives.

For all intents and purposes, conservatism--as a national movement--is completely and thoroughly dead. Barack Obama did not destroy it, however. It was George W. Bush and John McCain who destroyed conservatism in America.

Soon after G.W. Bush was elected, it quickly became obvious he was no conservative. On the contrary, George Bush has forever established himself as a Big-Government, warmongering, internationalist neocon. Making matters worse was the way Bush presented himself as a conservative Christian. In fact, Bush's portrayal of himself as a conservative Christian paved the way for the betrayal and ultimate destruction of conservatism (something I also predicted years ago). And the greatest tragedy of this deception is the way that Christian conservatives so thoroughly (and stupidly) swallowed the whole Bush/McCain neocon agenda.

For example, Bush and his fellow neocons like to categorize and promote themselves as being "pro-life," but they have no hesitation or reservation about killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in reckless and unconstitutional foreign wars. By the same token, how many unborn babies were saved by six years of all three branches of the federal government being under the control of these "pro-life" neocons? Not one! Ask the more than eight million unborn babies who were killed in their mothers' wombs during the last eight years how "pro-life" George W. Bush and John McCain are.

As a result of this insanely inconsistent and pixilated punditry, millions of Americans now laugh at the very notion of "pro-life" conservatism. Bush and McCain have made a mockery of the very term.

Consider, too, the way Bush and McCain have allowed the international bankers on Wall Street to bilk America's taxpayers out of trillions of dollars. Yes, I know Obama also supported the Wall Street bailout, but it was the Republican Party that controlled the White House for the last eight years and the entire federal government for six out of the last eight years. In fact, the GOP has won seven out of the previous ten Presidential elections. They have controlled Supreme Court appointments for the past thirty-plus years. They have appointed the majority of Treasury secretaries and Federal Reserve chairmen. They have presided over the greatest trade imbalances, the biggest deficits, the biggest spending increases, and now the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression.

Again, the American people look at these so-called "conservatives" and laugh. No wonder such a sizeable majority of voters yawned when John McCain tried to scare them by accusing Barack Obama of being a "big taxer." How can one possibly scare people with a charge like that after the GOP has made a total mockery of fiscal conservatism? That's like trying to scare someone coming out from a swim in the Gulf of Mexico with a squirt gun.

Republicans in '08: A Stinking Cocktail of Failure

2008-11-03T12:26:00.000-08:00

Cobb opines:

It occurs to me that what is going on in most of the Right blogosphere that I concern myself with is that opinion makers are beating the dead horse of Obama's perceived flaws not to win any more converts but to set the stage for what the Right is to believe about him should he win the Presidency.

...

What's sad and typical but hardly tragic is that Obama, who is capable of putting earnest passion into soundbites about unity, will be ill-suited to unite the nation. And this would be a good time for that sort of thing.

This disunity was wrought by the insipid antics of the Republican Party Establishment and the wholesale alienation of the million plus Ron Paul supporters who shouted from the rooftops in vain for the GOP to return to its roots and act like conservatives. This disunity was wrought by all the vapid and unthinking Party Men who shouted "socialist" and terrorist in public in spite of the fact that Congressional Republicans from Elite Team A voted in lockstep with Elite Team B to bail out corporate America on the backs of the American taxpayers.

This disunity is the direct result of the uncritical and unthinking Party Men and Party Women who were so concerned with procuring victory for their Party that they resorted to flinging the most vile and foul rhetoric imaginable in public for all to see and hear. Instead of posing the core question of "true" or "not true", they fell back to striking rhetorical conservative poses: "socialist", tax-and-spend, terrorist. Striking conservative "poses" instead of acting like actual conservatives; allowing so-called "conservatives" to sneak into power on a platform of a humble foreign policy only to have them behave as outright radicals; clinging to so-called "conservative" convictions that are functionally meaningless—a stinking cocktail of failure!

John Stewart Tearing It Up

2008-09-04T17:03:00.001-07:00

Adjectives Describing the Speeches at the Republican Convention

2008-09-03T19:56:00.000-07:00

Retarded.

Vapid.

Ham-fisted.

Stupid.

Silly.

Pathetic.

Mind Numbing.

Unreal.

Annoying.

Tacky.

Sad.

Crass.

Vainglorious.

Floundering.

Ridiculous.

Tired.

Tactless.

Sorry-as-hell.

Delusional.

Desperate.

Commentary: St. Paul, Minnesota -- the land of make believe
By Jack Cafferty

NEW YORK (CNN) -- This week the Republicans gather for their convention. For four days, they will labor under the illusion their party is still relevant. It's not.

It is entirely fitting that the headliner for this masquerade is a feeble looking 72-year-old white guy who doesn't know how many homes he owns.

It's more than symbolic that when a million Americans are losing their homes to foreclosure, the Republican candidate for president has lost track of his holdings.

McCain surrounds himself with people like former Republican Sen. Phil Gramm who called America a "nation of whiners" and said we are only suffering a "mental recession."

That's the same problem the Republican Party has. It has lost track of what it used to stand for: small government, a disciplined fiscal policy, integrity.

In a way, the perfect storm of a rapidly changing population -- old white people aren't going to be in the majority very much longer (and isn't that who most of the Republicans are?) -- has combined with the total abdication of principles, Republican or otherwise, of arguably the worst president in the nation's history to mark the beginning of the end of the Republican Party as we know it.

Republican Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia said it best: "The Republican brand is in the trash can. If we were dog food, they would take us off the shelf."

It is so bad that more than 10 percent of the Republican members of the United States Senate aren't even bothering to attend their own party's convention. They recognize dog food when they see it.

And it almost doesn't matter who the next president is. We are witnessing the beginnings of a sea change in this country.

A wakeup call has sounded for young people who are suddenly interested enough in politics to make a difference. New voter registrations across the country are making a mockery of the old polling models.

Voter turnout in the primaries was staggering. Blacks and Hispanics feel they have a real stake in things -- and as their numbers continue to grow as a percentage of the population, their voice will only get louder. The march of the next generation is underway and the older generation has no choice but to eventually get out of the way.

Watch for the signs this November. Republicans stand to be turned out of office at every level -- from the U.S. Congress to governors' mansions and state legislatures. Republicans who remain in office will be rendered impotent by their shrinking numbers.

Republicans under George W. Bush have done a lot of damage to this country in the last eight years -- but they have done more damage to themselves. It will take a good long while and a great deal of soul searching before their brand returns to the shelves in good standing.

Don't look for it to happen in St. Paul, Minnesota. This week, Republicans will be happy in the land of make believe.

The Campaign Spot on National Review Online

2008-07-16T05:29:00.000-07:00

The Campaign Spot on National Review Online has got to be the most transparently partisan and mind numbingly vapid digital political publication on the entire internet. As I read through the posts there and scroll down the page, I find it sort of odd that only about one in ten posts are about McCain, the Republican nominee.

The entire page is literally covered in posts and petty musings about Obama. Pressing 'Control F' on the Safari web browser and typing 'Obama' in the search field returns 'More than 100 matches'. Searching for 'McCain'? A piddly 21. You would think that a so-called conservative publication would have some information about, you know, the Republican nominee; but no. Reading through the posts, you get the sense that the writers there wake up in cold sweats at night from nightmares about Obama. Every single post is about Obama. If I was a McCain supporter, which I'm not, I think I'd be sorely disappointed in the lack of coverage of the Republican candidate on what used to be a conservative publication.

Cynthia McKinney Announces Run for President

2008-07-14T10:28:00.000-07:00

Hitchens changes his mind: Waterboarding = Torture

2008-07-04T15:00:00.000-07:00

Remember back when the individuals in the pro-war crowd were in the business of making the retarded distinction between interrogation and torture when it came to waterboarding? Remember how they were claiming, "Oh, waterboarding isn't torture"? And, "It doesn't do any long term damage"? Well, it turns out that Christopher Hitchens decided to try it for himself, and Vanity Fair got the whole experience on film. Hitchens pretty much does a 180 from his earlier position, and it turns out that when someone from the chatting class decides to try it out for themselves they develop the gumption and clarity to finally to call a spade a spade.

See the Video

Believe Me, It’s Torture

You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. The “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered. This was very rapidly brought home to me when, on top of the hood, which still admitted a few flashes of random and worrying strobe light to my vision, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited for a while until I abruptly felt a slow cascade of water going up my nose. Determined to resist if only for the honor of my navy ancestors who had so often been in peril on the sea, I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and—as you might expect—inhale in turn. The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me. I find I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted.

This is because I had read that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, invariably referred to as the “mastermind” of the atrocities of September 11, 2001, had impressed his interrogators by holding out for upwards of two minutes before cracking. (By the way, this story is not confirmed. My North Carolina friends jeered at it. “Hell,” said one, “from what I heard they only washed his damn face before he babbled.”) But, hell, I thought in my turn, no Hitchens is going to do worse than that. Well, O.K., I admit I didn’t outdo him. And so then I said, with slightly more bravado than was justified, that I’d like to try it one more time. There was a paramedic present who checked my racing pulse and warned me about adrenaline rush. An interval was ordered, and then I felt the mask come down again. Steeling myself to remember what it had been like last time, and to learn from the previous panic attack, I fought down the first, and some of the second, wave of nausea and terror but soon found that I was an abject prisoner of my gag reflex. The interrogators would hardly have had time to ask me any questions, and I knew that I would quite readily have agreed to supply any answer. I still feel ashamed when I think about it. Also, in case it’s of interest, I have since woken up trying to push the bedcovers off my face, and if I do anything that makes me short of breath I find myself clawing at the air with a horrible sensation of smothering and claustrophobia. No doubt this will pass. As if detecting my misery and shame, one of my interrogators comfortingly said, “Any time is a long time when you’re breathing water.” I could have hugged him for saying so, and just then I was hit with a ghastly sense of the sadomasochistic dimension that underlies the relationship between the torturer and the tortured. I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture

Something Big is Going On

2008-07-03T07:08:00.000-07:00

Something Big is Going On

The following statement is written by Congressman Paul about the pending financial disaster. He will introduce this statement as a special order and insert it into the Congressional Record next week. Fortunately, we have the opportunity to debut it first on the Campaign for Liberty blog. It reads as follows:

I have, for the past 35 years, expressed my grave concern for the future of America. The course we have taken over the past century has threatened our liberties, security and prosperity. In spite of these long-held concerns, I have days—growing more frequent all the time—when I’m convinced the time is now upon us that some Big Events are about to occur. These fast-approaching events will not go unnoticed. They will affect all of us. They will not be limited to just some areas of our country. The world economy and political system will share in the chaos about to be unleashed.

Though the world has long suffered from the senselessness of wars that should have been avoided, my greatest fear is that the course on which we find ourselves will bring even greater conflict and economic suffering to the innocent people of the world—unless we quickly change our ways.

America, with her traditions of free markets and property rights, led the way toward great wealth and progress throughout the world as well as at home. Since we have lost our confidence in the principles of liberty, self reliance, hard work and frugality, and instead took on empire building, financed through inflation and debt, all this has changed. This is indeed frightening and an historic event.

The problem we face is not new in history. Authoritarianism has been around a long time. For centuries, inflation and debt have been used by tyrants to hold power, promote aggression, and provide “bread and circuses” for the people. The notion that a country can afford “guns and butter” with no significant penalty existed even before the 1960s when it became a popular slogan. It was then, though, we were told the Vietnam War and a massive expansion of the welfare state were not problems. The seventies proved that assumption wrong.

Today things are different from even ancient times or the 1970s. There is something to the argument that we are now a global economy. The world has more people and is more integrated due to modern technology, communications, and travel. If modern technology had been used to promote the ideas of liberty, free markets, sound money and trade, it would have ushered in a new golden age—a globalism we could accept.

Instead, the wealth and freedom we now enjoy are shrinking and rest upon a fragile philosophic infrastructure. It is not unlike the levies and bridges in our own country that our system of war and welfare has caused us to ignore.

I’m fearful that my concerns have been legitimate and may even be worse than I first thought. They are now at our doorstep. Time is short for making a course correction before this grand experiment in liberty goes into deep hibernation.

There are reasons to believe this coming crisis is different and bigger than the world has ever experienced. Instead of using globalism in a positive fashion, it’s been used to globalize all of the mistakes of the politicians, bureaucrats and central bankers.

Being an unchallenged sole superpower was never accepted by us with a sense of humility and respect. Our arrogance and aggressiveness have been used to promote a world empire backed by the most powerful army of history. This type of globalist intervention creates problems for all citizens of the world and fails to contribute to the well-being of the world’s populations. Just think how our personal liberties have been trashed here at home in the last decade.

The financial crisis, still in its early stages, is apparent to everyone: gasoline prices over $4 a gallon; skyrocketing education and medical-care costs; the collapse of the housing bubble; the bursting of the NASDAQ bubble; stockmarkets plunging; unemployment rising;, massive underemployment; excessive government debt; and unmanageable personal debt. Little doubt exists as to whether we’ll get stagflation. The question that will soon be asked is: When will the stagflation become an inflationary depression?

There are various reasons that the world economy has been globalized and the problems we face are worldwide. We cannot understand what we’re facing without understanding fiat money and the long-developing dollar bubble.

There were several stages. From the inception of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 to 1933, the Central Bank established itself as the official dollar manager. By 1933, Americans could no longer own gold, thus removing restraint on the Federal Reserve to inflate for war and welfare.

By 1945, further restraints were removed by creating the Bretton-Woods Monetary System making the dollar the reserve currency of the world. This system lasted up until 1971. During the period between 1945 and 1971, some restraints on the Fed remained in place. Foreigners, but not Americans, could convert dollars to gold at $35 an ounce. Due to the excessive dollars being created, that system came to an end in 1971.

It’s the post Bretton-Woods system that was responsible for globalizing inflation and markets and for generating a gigantic worldwide dollar bubble. That bubble is now bursting, and we’re seeing what it’s like to suffer the consequences of the many previous economic errors.

Ironically in these past 35 years, we have benefited from this very flawed system. Because the world accepted dollars as if they were gold, we only had to counterfeit more dollars, spend them overseas (indirectly encouraging our jobs to go overseas as well) and enjoy unearned prosperity. Those who took our dollars and gave us goods and services were only too anxious to loan those dollars back to us. This allowed us to export our inflation and delay the consequences we now are starting to see.

But it was never destined to last, and now we have to pay the piper. Our huge foreign debt must be paid or liquidated. Our entitlements are coming due just as the world has become more reluctant to hold dollars. The consequence of that decision is price inflation in this country—and that’s what we are witnessing today. Already price inflation overseas is even higher than here at home as a consequence of foreign central bank’s willingness to monetize our debt.

Printing dollars over long periods of time may not immediately push prices up–yet in time it always does. Now we’re seeing catch-up for past inflating of the monetary supply. As bad as it is today with $4 a gallon gasoline, this is just the beginning. It’s a gross distraction to hound away at “drill, drill, drill” as a solution to the dollar crisis and high gasoline prices. Its okay to let the market increase supplies and drill, but that issue is a gross distraction from the sins of deficits and Federal Reserve monetary shenanigans.

This bubble is different and bigger for another reason. The central banks of the world secretly collude to centrally plan the world economy. I’m convinced that agreements among central banks to “monetize” U.S. debt these past 15 years have existed, although secretly and out of the reach of any oversight of anyone—especially the U.S. Congress that doesn’t care, or just flat doesn’t understand. As this “gift” to us comes to an end, our problems worsen. The central banks and the various governments are very powerful, but eventually the markets overwhelm when the people who get stuck holding the bag (of bad dollars) catch on and spend the dollars into the economy with emotional zeal, thus igniting inflationary fever.

This time—since there are so many dollars and so many countries involved—the Fed has been able to “paper” over every approaching crisis for the past 15 years, especially with Alan Greenspan as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, which has allowed the bubble to become history’s greatest.

The mistakes made with excessive credit at artificially low rates are huge, and the market is demanding a correction. This involves excessive debt, misdirected investments, over-investments, and all the other problems caused by the government when spending the money they should never have had. Foreign militarism, welfare handouts and $80 trillion entitlement promises are all coming to an end. We don’t have the money or the wealth-creating capacity to catch up and care for all the needs that now exist because we rejected the market economy, sound money, self reliance and the principles of liberty.

Since the correction of all this misallocation of resources is necessary and must come, one can look for some good that may come as this “Big Even” unfolds.

There are two choices that people can make. The one choice that is unavailable to us is to limp along with the status quo and prop up the system with more debt, inflation and lies. That won’t happen.

One of the two choices, and the one chosen so often by government in the past is that of rejecting the principles of liberty and resorting to even bigger and more authoritarian government. Some argue that giving dictatorial powers to the President, just as we have allowed him to run the American empire, is what we should do. That’s the great danger, and in this post-911 atmosphere, too many Americans are seeking safety over freedom. We have already lost too many of our personal liberties already. Real fear of economic collapse could prompt central planners to act to such a degree that the New Deal of the 30’s might look like Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence.

The more the government is allowed to do in taking over and running the economy, the deeper the depression gets and the longer it lasts. That was the story of the 30ss and the early 40s, and the same mistakes are likely to be made again if we do not wake up.

But the good news is that it need not be so bad if we do the right thing. I saw “Something Big” happening in the past 18 months on the campaign trail. I was encouraged that we are capable of waking up and doing the right thing. I have literally met thousands of high school and college kids who are quite willing to accept the challenge and responsibility of a free society and reject the cradle-to-grave welfare that is promised them by so many do-good politicians.

If more hear the message of liberty, more will join in this effort. The failure of our foreign policy, welfare system, and monetary policies and virtually all government solutions are so readily apparent, it doesn’t take that much convincing. But the positive message of how freedom works and why it’s possible is what is urgently needed.

One of the best parts of accepting self reliance in a free society is that true personal satisfaction with one’s own life can be achieved. This doesn’t happen when the government assumes the role of guardian, parent or provider, because it eliminates a sense of pride. But the real problem is the government can’t provide the safety and economic security that it claims. The so-called good that government claims it can deliver is always achieved at the expense of someone else’s freedom. It’s a failed system and the young people know it.

Restoring a free society doesn’t eliminate the need to get our house in order and to pay for the extravagant spending. But the pain would not be long-lasting if we did the right things, and best of all the empire would have to end for financial reasons. Our wars would stop, the attack on civil liberties would cease, and prosperity would return. The choices are clear: it shouldn’t be difficult, but the big event now unfolding gives us a great opportunity to reverse the tide and resume the truly great American Revolution started in 1776. Opportunity knocks in spite of the urgency and the dangers we face.

Let’s make “Something Big is Happening” be the discovery that freedom works and is popular and the big economic and political event we’re witnessing is a blessing in disguise.

He Said It First

2008-06-20T05:41:00.001-07:00

Easily the funniest political video of the entire campaign season:

This one is pretty good too, not specifically for the rapping, but the Chris Matthews voice on the hook is hilarious:

Dems on NAFTA: Business as Usual

2008-06-19T13:16:00.000-07:00

Clinton and Obama on NAFTA:

Tough talk in the primaries turns to mush in the general:

Obama: NAFTA not so bad after all

WASHINGTON (Fortune) -- The general campaign is on, independent voters are up for grabs, and Barack Obama is toning down his populist rhetoric - at least when it comes to free trade.
In an interview with Fortune to be featured in the magazine's upcoming issue, the presumptive Democratic nominee backed off his harshest attacks on the free trade agreement and indicated he didn't want to unilaterally reopen negotiations on NAFTA.
"Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified," he conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA "devastating" and "a big mistake," despite nonpartisan studies concluding that the trade zone has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy.
Does that mean his rhetoric was overheated and amplified? "Politicians are always guilty of that, and I don't exempt myself," he answered.
Obama says he believes in "opening up a dialogue" with trading partners Canada and Mexico "and figuring to how we can make this work for all people."
Obama spokesman Bill Burton said that Obama-as the candidate noted in Fortune's interview-has not changed his core position on NAFTA, and that he has always said he would talk to the leaders of Canada and Mexico in an effort to include enforceable labor and environmental standards in the pact.
Nevertheless, Obama's tone stands in marked contrast to his primary campaign's anti-NAFTA fusillades. The pact creating a North American free-trade zone was President Bill Clinton's signature accomplishment; but NAFTA is also the bugaboo of union leaders, grassroots activists and Midwesterners who blame free trade for the factory closings they see in their hometowns.

Michigan and Ohio residents shouldn't feel too bad though—at least they made them squirm a little bit on the issue, even if it was only for a single debate.

The Irish People Vote 'No' on the Lisbon Treaty, Globalists Cry in Their Soup

2008-06-16T12:22:00.000-07:00

It's been a tough couple of weeks for globalists. The Iraqi lawmakers, it turns out, don't want a permanent U.S. military presence in their country, and the Irish Republic basically told the EU to kiss where the sun don't shine with their No vote on the Lisbon Treaty.

Of course, this has the globalists perturbed. What is it about people and their stubborn reluctance to accept corporate slavery? The BBC has some brief analysis of what the No vote means, but pay attention to the seemingly innocuous title of the article that frames the No vote as a problem.

'No quick fix' to Irish No vote

Micheal Martin said the Irish people's decision must be respected

Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin has said it is "far too early" to seek a solution to the Irish rejection of a European Union reform treaty.
He was speaking as EU foreign ministers met to discuss how to respond to the Irish No vote on the Lisbon Treaty.
The treaty cannot be implemented unless approved by all 27 EU states. Only the Irish Republic has held a referendum.
The majority of EU members agree that those who have yet to ratify the treaty should carry on and do so.

EU foreign ministers have been meeting in Luxembourg ahead of a two-day summit in Brussels - starting on Thursday - that is expected to chart the way ahead.
Speaking in Luxembourg, Mr Martin told reporters: "The people's decision has to be respected and we have to chart a way through... It is far too early for proffering any solutions or proposals.
"There are no quick fix solutions."

If the will of the people of the Irish Republic was expressed through their vote, then were is the "problem" that needs "fixing"? In this podcast the BBC offers up some analysis in which one of the analysts wonders whether the EU should consider getting rid of those pesky referendums. These politicians are simply not used to referendums, to paraphrase what he said.

More:
Q&A: The Lisbon Treaty