Wal-Mart and the Crisis of Capitalism

Certainly, Wal-Mart will incur legal liability for the death of one of its employees in the stampede at the company's Nassau County store this morning. This tragedy is not the first time the company has seen shopping stampedes, and given the combination of increasingly crass commercialism amid the frenzy of low-priced bargains, Wal-Mart may indeed be criminally negligent not to have corporate crowd-control detachments in place for Black Friday openings.

That said, there's plenty of blame to go around in today's New York melee, not least of which should focus on the unruly mass of bargain-hunters lining up in front of the store. Indeed, initial reports indicate a violent mob mentality had taken over the crowd of shoppers, some of whom who had broken through plate-glass windows just before the store opened its doors. Pictures of the stampede can be seen, here.

Of course, like all things in American life these days, the tragedy is already being politicized, and Wal-Mart's being excoriated for its corporate practices:

I've hated that store and what it stands for for a really long time, probably since I lived in Fayetteville, AR, which is pretty close to the epicenter of evil that is the Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville. So it should come as no surprise that I hold Wal-Mart largely responsible for the the tragic events at one of their stores on Long Island this morning.

But this story is bigger than just Wal-Mart. This is a story that really shows just how desperate people are getting to continue the lifestyles they've become accustomed to during the last two bubble economies. We've spent the better part of my adult life being told that we, as a nation, can have it all: a strong economy built on outsourcing manufacturing, offshoring profits, and processing, slicing up and securitizing debt. We're told we can have the brand new cars, the huge house in the exurbs or the loft in the city (or both), all filled with the latest gadgets, because we've found yet another way to beat the system. And when, as is inevitable, the system beats us, we don't want to admit it, so when a company like Wal-Mart (and they are far from alone - they're just the trendsetter as the largest) says that if you show up at 5:00 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving, we'll give you one more hit of what you want, we shouldn't be surprised when the public reacts the way it did.

This author makes the obligatory statement, "oh sure, responsibility should be shared, of course," then continues to rail away against "capitalist exploitation" with the classic anti-globalization rants of today's neo-Stalinist left:

Shopping on Black Friday (which has a slightly different meaning to a lot of people now, I think) has been a tradition for quite some time now, but every year, the stakes get higher, and the early shoppers get more desperate. That someone died today wasn't surprising - the only surprise was that it hadn't happened earlier. For crying out loud, the Sawgrass Mills mall opened at midnight, and there were over 30,000 people there in the first two hours.

30,000 people, all chasing a limited supply of deals.

And the deals are all lies, because we never actually get to see the real cost of any of these items. We don't hear about the labor conditions the people who make this stuff have to work under. We don't see the polluted groundwater or the carbon emitted into the air. We especially don't see the damage being done to our own economy as we continue down this road of unsustainable debt. We just see cheap plasma televisions and Coach bags and trample people in order to get to them.

Desperation makes otherwise reasonable people into monsters, and I'm afraid we're only seeing the beginning of the desperation.

Compare the anti-capitalism of this essay with the lead article at the current International Socialist Review, "Capitalism’s Worst Crisis Wince the 1930s."

Then contrast these structural interpretations with the individual-level analysis at the Anchoress, "Black Friday and Love."

Humans make choices, and moral responsibility goes both ways. Rejection of mass-mob consumerism will do more to reform capitalism than a wave of corporate malpractice lawsuits, and that's to say nothing of leftist hopes for bringing about the proletarian revolution.

Mumbai Probe Focuses on Pakistani Groups

American intelligence officials are focusing the Mumbai terror investigation on Pakistani militant groups, most likely Lashkar-e-Taiba, and perhaps another cell operating out Kashmir, Jaish-e-Muhammad.

The government of Pakistan is resisting speculation that the Mumbai attacks orginated in the Pakistani state.

Meanwhile, the targeting of the Chabad-Lubavitch organization, where American Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka were killed, is one of the most disturbing elements of the attacks. The siege of the Chabad would seem an unlikely focus of exclusively local terrorist activity (Hindu-Sikh violence, for example). Plus, as many as 7 of the Mumbai terrorists have British origins with suspected ties to London's 7/7 subway attacks in 2005 (which was an al-Qaeda operation).

Scott at Powerline published this e-mail from a reader, discussing the targeting of Jews in India:

As the Indian terror event reaches it tragic end with reports of the killing of all the Jewish hostages in the Chabad House (Nariman House) there are important points that must be made. The marathon terror campaign was horrible and deadly. Despite in-depth coverage, its presentation in the Western world raises serious questions.

From the start British and American coverage concentrated on the hotels with stress of the targeting of British and Americans. The Jewish target was ignored until day two and day three. The two luxury hotels were selected by the terrorists because they are occupied by tourists. People who escaped from the hotels claimed that the terrorists asked for British and Americans. However, they were selected because they were foreigners.

Nariman House was selected by the terrorists because the Chabad building was a specific Jewish target that also included Israelis. Let me make this clear. Chabad House was the only target chosen by the terrorists in Mumbai because of its specific character - Jewish and Israeli. Hostages in Chabad House were killed because they were Jewish and Israeli.

Further indications of the anti-Western nature of the attacks are the reports that Muslims worldwide are celebrating the killlings.

See also, Bill Roggio, "Mumbai Attack Most Significant Since Sept. 11 Attack on U.S."

Gay Rights and the Postmodern Agenda

I did not know Steve Clemons was gay. In fact, the only thing I knew about Clemons, from reading his columns occassionally, was that he seemed like one more classic leftist nut spewing BDS across the blogosphere. The erudition of Clemons' essays did nothing to disguise his representation of the essential nihilism of today's postmodern left.

Clemons' Thanksgiving essay, where he discusses his sexual orientation, and his frustrations with Barack Obama, is one more example of how radically left is the progressive agenda of today's Democratic Party base:

Yes, like everyone - I'm pleased that Barack Obama won the White House. But it is only a small beginning in the right direction. But with Barack Obama, we also got Proposition 8. We have him talking about Iraq as the "bad war" and Afghanistan as the "good war". We have political appointments in both security and economic policy that either will be the height of brilliant personnel and policy maneuvering or alternatively could end up as a paralyzed cabinet and government disaster. There is only fog ahead, much yet we don't know.

We have wars going on in the Middle East that shouldn't be going on. I have friends there now being shot at - and helping to kill others - and this wasn't what the 21st century was supposed to be about.

I have been writing here for some time -- far before the National Intelligence Council's Global Trends 2025 report came out chronicling America's global decline - that America's mystique as a great nation had been punctured by the invasion of Iraq. We showed key limits in our military and economic capacity, leading allies and foes respectively to count on us and fear us less. The economic crisis is the punctuation point in America's fall from its once significant global perch. I'm worried about all of this - making a traditional thanksgiving very uncomfortable.

Our new president preaches inclusion, which is a good thing -- and I think he has the potential to be one of the great stewards of the White House and the executive branch authority we have given him.

But how could people who helped deliver this man to the White House also spit on my decision to enter into marriage with someone I have been with for 17 years? Europe has embraced adjustments in marriage easily and in a socially healthy way, and yet we still stoke embers of nativism and fundamentalism in this country. Barack Obama's voice was used on anti-gay marriage robocalls to African-American and Hispanic voters in California. To my knowledge, he didn't ask for his voice not to be used.

I think intolerance is what undermines the glue of a nation, stirring up fear and violence at home and in wars abroad. We have a lot of intolerant Americans who helped elect George W. Bush twice to the White House, and now we have many other intolerant Americans who have come into their civic responsibilities as voters and have tainted the hope that people like my partner and I have for a better and more just nation that recognizes our relationship in the ways it should be recognized.

I'm going to see the movie Milk today starring Sean Penn reprising brilliantly the life of the assassinated first gay elected politician in the United States - and no matter what Proposition 8 thought it achieved, I'll be wearing my ring.

So, this is an uncomfortable Thanksgiving holiday, and I hope that those who read this today do embrace their family and friends - all of them, gay ones too - and remember that this nation needs to stop dragging when it comes to bigotry.

I've written much on gay rights and the unhinged left's backlash against the majority vote on Proposition 8 (which Clemons conveniently omits).

Here I'll simply refer readers back my post on marriage and tradition, "Marriage and Procreation: Bodily Union of Spouses."

As for the rest of Clemons' rant, I'm a little surprised he's resorting to the same smears of intolerance and bigotry used by every other 9th tier leftist on the web.

Or, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised: The gay marriage movement has nothing more to argue for it than to demonize those who oppose them, which is essentially a temper-tantrum masquerading as argumentation. Leftists may indeed win the battle over marriage in the long run - with all the intimidation and claims of "rights" - as society proceeds along the path to hegemonic secularism. What's interesting here is how Clemons' gay marriage advocacy fits right in with all the other outrages against GOP governance over the last eight years.

For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction, or so they say. Conservatives are planning now for their comeback, and 2010's not too soon to make the case that the push for gay marriage is just one pillar of the larger radical program intent to destroy center-right traditionalism in this country.

Responding to Mumbai

Experts and media commentators are still determining the identity and affiliations of the terrorists behind the attacks on Mumbai. It's early, but I don't believe the perpetrators a directing their attacks exclusively against Hinduism, as has been true in previous terrorist incidents in India.

I'll have updates on this, but for now I simply want to note Matthew Yglesias' knee-jerk reaction against the use of force in combating the violence. In particular, Yglesias argues that India's violence should not occasion a reappraisal of the doctrine of preemption, which saw its most monumental use in the toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq:

A lot of basically sensible people, including folks like these and these who may well find themselves with positions in the Obama administration, have suggested that maybe we don’t want to throw the alleged baby of preventive war out with the bathwater of Bushism. I always think people thinking along these lines need to keep in mind that the United States isn’t the only country on the planet. I don’t think we want a world in which India claims to have a U.S.-endorsed right to launch preventive military strikes on Pakistan, or a world in which Pakistani policymaking is dominated by fear of a potentially imminent preventive Indian military attack.

Government officials are still working to resolve the crisis on the ground, and we see Ygelias - the preeminent spokesman for pacifism in Democratic Party foreign policy - already ruling out the use of force as a potential policy in responding to this round of terrorism.

Socialism, Straight from the Horses Mouth

Folks should read this piece on the economic crisis from the International Socialist Review, "Capitalism’s Worst Crisis Since the 1930s." Here's a note from the conclusion:

The disaster of the free market makes it easier for us to argue about the failure of capitalism and the need for an alternative based on human needs. The free market, which supposedly triumphed in 1989 and brought us the “end of history,” has led to nothing but misery and the ruin of millions of people, who are mired in poverty, hunger, unemployment, and ill health, but thanks to the free-market mania of the past decades, face a shredded safety net that doesn’t begin to address these problems.

People will also be forced to ask: what does government intervention mean when this is a government not of the workers, not of the masses of people, but a government that represents the interests of the owners, the bankers, and the industrialists? The state is being used for state capitalist purposes, in order to reorganize capital, even to curb some of its excesses. But its aim is to keep capitalism and its social relations going—relations in which labor is dominated and exploited for the profits of a few. Part of the restructuring will involve, as we’ve said, an even harsher attack on working-class living standards. At the same time, nationalization opens up space for us to argue against wholesale privatization, for the defense of public schools against privatization, and even to argue for nationalized health care. But we have to be clear that state capitalist nationalization—that is, the intervention of the state in order to prop up the bankers and the industrialists at our expense and without any democratic control over the process—is no great improvement over what went before. Liberals will accept that kind of state intervention. We must demand the kind of state intervention that will come only with mass pressure and control from below—intervention to improve health care, education, unemployment benefits, to prevent foreclosures, and so on.

The Left has to operate on two levels. First, a Left has to be built, or rather rebuilt, in this country that is prepared to fight on every front in defense of working-class interests, whether it is against layoffs, against foreclosures, or against cuts in health care and social services. Second, the Left must be prepared to take part in any struggles to defend the interests of the working class, as well as creating a political and ideological alternative to the free market and its defenders, conservative or liberal. The Left must utilize the crisis to conduct an ideological offensive against capitalism and to argue for a socialist alternative.

People who keep arguing that Barack Obama is "socialist" should read the full essay carefully (the authors reject the notion that the Wall Street bailout is "socialism," since the massive infusion of capital to banking and insurance giants is designed to delay the capitalist crisis and preserve American imperial hegemony - Hank Paulson, for instance, is a banker and former executive at Goldman Sachs, a member of the financial vanguard).

But let me add two points: (1) Obama is trained in radical ecomomics and postmodern ideologies, but he's now poised to govern incrementally from the center-left. While we will see some movement toward essentially European-style social-democratic policies, Obama nevertheless remains a "running dog" of the "capitalist ruling class" as far as the folks at ISR are concerned. Yet, (2) the policy regime presented above is virtually identical to those advocated by today's progressive netroots blogs (see here, here, and here, for the tip of the iceberg).

So, interestingly, once in office, the degree of repudiation of the radical netroots will be a key indicator of how far an Obama administration is willing to openly advocate an objectively socialist (i.e., anti-capitalist) policy program.

A Malignant Outrage

A couple of weeks back, Michael Goldfarb had this to say about the Democratic-left's outrage at Joe Lieberman's continuing tenure as the chair of the Senate's Homeland Security Committee:

The Democratic party and the left won a stunning victory in this election, and while they should be savoring it (and most are) a few are busy trying to settle old scores. It’s pathetic, but it’s also cause for some optimism: these people are a cancer on the Democratic party that even a landslide victory couldn't cure.

The anger hasn't gone away, of course. Leftists are still resigning themselves to Barack Obama's shift to the political center. But Dibgy at Hullabaloo is braying tonight about the decreasing likelihood of war crimes prosecutions for Bush administration officials next year:

I have always been in favor of prosecutions for the unitary executive torture regime. Recently, however, I have reluctantly concluded that the best we could hope for is a "9/12" Commission investigation since Obama has been making it quite clear that he doesn't intend to pursue government officials through the Justice system (and congress is congenitally incapable of it.) I was impressed by Charles Homan's article in Washington Monthly that at the very least we needed to establish some official narrative of illegality and abuse of power lest this become an established option for future presidents ....

[Discussion of Dahlia Lithwick ] ....

I have been being overly "pragmatic" (depressed is more like it) in assuming that a 9/12 commission will be better than nothing. It would actually be worse than nothing, creating a shallow self-serving narrative of fine, hard working public servants who may have strayed over the line from time to time because they were only trying to keep us safe. It's always been out there ....

This movement conservative zombie was created at the time of Nixon and his pardon, extended through Iran Contra, went through the insane era of partisan investigations in the 1990s which culminated in a trumped-up, partisan impeachment, a stolen election and the lawbreaking Bush years. Nobody has ever paid a price for any of that.

This really is a psychology of vengeance. President Lyndon Johnson's adminstration is widely considered to a have launched the contemporary "imperial presidency," and the dramatic enhancement of executive power in the 1960s grew with American intervention in Vietnam and later developed into a subterranean gray zone of that fed right into the Watergate-era abuses.

Digby conveniently ignores that equally significant era.

Indeed, her essay illustrates Goldfarb's point perfectly: If this is not the kind of maligancy that Goldfarb's talking about, I don't know what is.

Picture of the Day, 11-27-08

Family members wait to recover the dead, Mumbai, India.

For more information, see Amit Varma, Richard Fernandez, and Ultrabrown.

See also, Memeorandum and RealClearPolitics.

I've provide additional analysis tomorrow.

Photo Credit: New York Times

If I Saw You in Heaven...?

Thanksgiving is a time for being with loved ones.

I thought of a song I could share, as a poignant reminder of why we give thanks for our blessings: So, please enjoy Eric Clapton's, "Tears in Heaven":

I imagine most music fans know that Clapton wrote "Tears in Heaven" as a requiem for his son, Conor, at 4 years-old, fell 53 floors to his death in New York in 1991.

Check the Wikipedia entry. It turns out that Clapton asked Will Jennings to co-write the song with him. Jennings was reluctant to tackle such a deeply personal assignment:

Eric and I were engaged to write a song for a movie called Rush ... and he said to me, 'I want to write a song about my boy.' Eric had the first verse of the song written, which, to me, is all the song, but he wanted me to write the rest of the verse lines and the release ('Time can bring you down, time can bend your knees...'), even though I told him that it was so personal he should write everything himself. He told me that he had admired the work I did with Steve Winwood and finally there was nothing else but to do as he requested, despite the sensitivity of the subject. This is a song so personal and so sad that it is unique in my experience of writing songs.

Clapton stopped performing "Tears in Heaven" in 2004, when he no longer felt the loss of his boy.

Here's to wishing all of my visitors a wonderful Thanksgiving.

I love my family, my friends, my students, my teachers, my country, and God above (with due apologies to anyone I've left out).

Be with your loved ones, and be well!

God Bless America!

"A Day of Public Thanksgiving to God"

Nothing better illustrates the polarization we see in society today than how the respective political factions commemorate our most sacred national holidays and festivities.

At this morning's Wall Street Journal, Ira Stoll wrote of the founders of our nation, and about the historical personages like John Adams who recognized the blazing moral goodness of this country's founding. America's early elites raised their arms in thanks to a divine providence that blessed this land:

When was the first Thanksgiving? Most of us think of the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1621. But if the question is about the first national Thanksgiving holiday, the answer is that the tradition began at a lesser-known moment in 1777 in York, Pa.

In July 1776, the American colonists declared independence from Britain. The months that followed were so bleak that there was not much to give thanks for. The Journals of the Continental Congress record no Thanksgiving in that year, only two days of "solemn fasting" and prayer.

For much of 1777, the situation was not much better. British troops controlled New York City. The Americans lost the strategic stronghold of Fort Ticonderoga, in upstate New York, to the British in July. In Delaware, on Sept. 11, troops led by Gen. George Washington lost the Battle of Brandywine, in which 200 Americans were killed, 500 wounded and 400 captured. In Pennsylvania, early in the morning of Sept. 21, another 300 American soldiers were killed or wounded and 100 captured in a British surprise attack that became known as the Paoli Massacre.

Philadelphia, America's largest city, fell on Sept. 26. Congress, which had been meeting there, fled briefly to Lancaster, Pa., and then to York, a hundred miles west of Philadelphia. One delegate to Congress, John Adams of Massachusetts, wrote in his diary, "The prospect is chilling, on every Side: Gloomy, dark, melancholy, and dispiriting."

His cousin, Samuel Adams, gave the other delegates -- their number had dwindled to a mere 20 from the 56 who had signed the Declaration of Independence -- a talk of encouragement. He predicted, "Good tidings will soon arrive. We shall never be abandoned by Heaven while we act worthy of its aid and protection."

He turned out to have been correct, at least about the good tidings. On Oct. 31, a messenger arrived with news of the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga. The American general, Horatio Gates, had accepted the surrender of 5,800 British soldiers, and with them 27 pieces of artillery and thousands of pieces of small arms and ammunition.

Saratoga turned the tide of the war -- news of the victory was decisive in bringing France into a full alliance with America. Congress responded to the event by appointing a committee of three that included Samuel Adams, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia and Daniel Roberdeau of Pennsylvania, to draft a report and resolution. The report, adopted Nov. 1, declared Thursday, Dec. 18, as "a day of Thanksgiving" to God, so that "with one heart and one voice the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the service of their divine benefactor."

It was the first of many Thanksgivings ordered up by Samuel Adams. Though the holidays were almost always in November or December, the exact dates varied. (Congress didn't fix Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November until 1941.)

In 1778, a Thanksgiving resolution drafted by Adams was approved by Congress on Nov. 3, setting aside Wednesday, Dec. 30, as a day of public thanksgiving and praise, "It having pleased Almighty God through the Course of the present year, to bestow great and manifold Mercies on the People of these United States."

After the Revolution, Adams, who was eventually elected governor of Massachusetts, maintained the practice of declaring these holidays. In October of 1795, the 73-year-old governor proclaimed Thursday, Nov. 19, as "a day of Public Thanksgiving to God," recommending that prayer be offered that God "would graciously be pleased to put an end to all Tyranny and Usurpation, that the People who are under the Yoke of Oppression, may be made free; and that the Nations who are contending for freedom may still be secured by His Almighty Aid."

A year later, Gov. Adams offered a similar Thanksgiving proclamation, declaring Thursday, Dec. 15, 1796, as "a Day of Public Thanksgiving and Praise to Our Divine Benefactor." He recommended "earnest Supplication to God" that "every Nation and Society of Men may be inspired with the knowledge and feeling of their natural and just rights" and "That Tyranny and Usurpation may everywhere come to an end."

Compare this to Karl Jacoby, in his essay at the Los Angeles Times, "Which Thanksgiving?"

Jacoby, an associate professor of history at Brown University, can't miss the opportunity to remind us of America's history of oppression, in this case, against Massasoit and the Wampanoags of Plymouth, who (according to tradition) shared a genuinely multicultural feast of thanks with some of the original settlers of North America:

About 50 years after Massasoit and his fellow Wampanoags enjoyed their harvest meal at Plymouth, the Colonists' seizures of Wampanoag land would precipitate a vicious war between Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoags, now led by Massasoit's son, Metacom.

Most of the other peoples in New England at first tried to avoid the conflict between the onetime participants in the "first Thanksgiving." But the confrontation soon engulfed the entire region, pitting the New England Colonies against a fragile alliance of Wampanoags, Narragansetts, Nipmucs and other Native American groups. Although these allies succeeded in killing hundreds of Colonists and burning British settlements up to the very fringes of Boston itself, the losses suffered by New England's indigenous peoples were even more devastating. Thousands died over the two years of the war, and many of those captured were sold into slavery in the British West Indies, including Metacom's wife and 9-year-old son.

Perhaps multi-culti academics will never cease reminding us that America is a historical abomination, built on Native American genocide, slavery, imperialism, racism, and untold more atrocities of the founding crisis.

In the meanwhile, most American families will sit down tomorrow and enjoy a feast of thanks for the blessings they have enjoyed as citizens of America, as imperfect as that national union may be.

Thinking Clearly About Global Terrorism

UPDATE: Hot Air has got an excellent running thread of updates, including this comment:

There have been six separate explosions at the Hotel Taj, apparently, and 10 separate attacks across the city in all, according to IBN. I would never have guessed that any terror group was capable of pulling this off, be it AQ, Hezbollah, or whoever.

**********

Contemporary terrorism is widely recognized as a key manifestation of transnationalism in world politics. While we may see relatively localized or isolated insurgencies (FARC) or movements for national liberation (IRA), the types of attacks that have come to characterize the post-9/11 war on terror have all the hallmarks of non-state actors taking advantage of the network politics inherent in today's globalization.

I'm thinking about this with reference to today's terrorist attack in Mumbai, India. The New York Times identifies the group claiming responsibility as "the Deccan Mujahedeen." With at least 75 people dead, the attacks are being called "particularly brazen and dramatically different in their scale and execution."

President-Elect Barack Obama had condemned the attacks. Unfortunately, some on the Democratic-left are not so serious in their appraisal of the nature of the current threats.

Apparently, the Bush administration warned today of a possible terrorist threat to the New York subway system, to which Brilliant at Breakfast responded:

I just have one question: If George W. Bush has kept us safe, why do they need to try to scare people right before the holidays? Whether Bush likes it or not, he's still in charge until January 20.

The timing of yet another "nonspecific" warning to which we shouldn't react with alarm, right before a holiday, coinciding with today's horrific attacks in Mumbai, and fast on the heels of media scrutiny given to the bailout of Citigroup, done on the weekend when no one was paying attention and right after one of Bush's Saudi buddies took a bigger stake in the company, is all too reminiscent of threats the Bushistas have done in the past when their doings were drawing attention.

The title of the essay is, "Happy Thanksgiving, Suckers!!"

Upon reading things like this from the radical netroots I must admit that Barack Obama has so far adopted a centrist approach to filling his cabinet. I know that his domestic policy proposals next year will be some of the most aggressively liberal seen in this country in decades, but if the administration hews to a realist model of international relations, all will not be lost (crossed fingers here).

Now, note something else about the globalized nature of terror I mentioned, from Sanjeewa Karunaratne, at the Asian Tribune, which illustrates why the leftist thinking at Brilliant at Breakfast is potentially catastrophic:

Growing ... evidence suggests terrorist organizations share intelligence, technology, resources and training. Moreover, these organizations fully or partially fund their campaigns through arms, drugs trafficking, smuggling, piracy and other illegal activities. By nature, these activities involve systematic collaborations between groups operating in different geographical regions. These affiliations make terrorism, not localized, but a world-wide problem. Someone’s terrorist today is everybody’s terrorist ...

P.S.: It's not just radical netroots people who have no clue about the kind of resolve needed in today's world. See Joan Walsh for example, "I'm Grateful for Barack Obama":

Watching these scenes from Mumbai, I am a little more sympathetic to arguments that Obama needs experience and stability at Defense as he takes charge. But just a little. It would be wrong to let an ugly terror attack, wherever it occurs, shake our values and our commitment to a sane foreign and defense policy. We tried that seven years ago and look where it got us.

A little more experience? You think?

And what did it the last seven years "get us"?

Victory in Iraq and no attacks on the American homeland. But Walsh, like Brilliant at Breakfast and so many others, has no clue as to what's really happening in the world today, and what it takes to protect a nation while an arc of terror builds across the international architecture.

Atheist Nihilism

Readers may enjoy FrontPageMagazine's interview the Jonas Alexis.

Alexis is the author of the book, "In the Name of Knowledge and Wisdom: Why Atheists, Sceptics, Agnostics, and Intellectuals Deny Christianity."

Here's a couple of key passages:

FP: Why has atheism become so popular today?

Alexis: Atheism is so popular because many people—even those who claim to be atheists—do not seriously examine the worldviews and detrimental ideologies that post beneath the surface. The famed mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell was an avowed atheist until he debated the philosopher Frederick Copleston. Once Copleston logically showed Russell that atheism is existentially and experientially untenable, Russell immediately changed his atheism into agnosticism. In the Name of Knowledge and Wisdom simply shows that the atheist position is irrational and unliveable.

*****

FP: Why is nihilism so rampant in our pop culture today?

Alexis: ... In a nutshell, nihilism is so rampant because the nihilistic culture has no moral framework or principle upon which a person should base his or her life.

FP: What danger is there to a society embracing the concept that God is dead -- as the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche proposed in the nineteenth century?

Alexis: G. K. Chesterton made the point that “the first affect of not believing in God is to believe in anything.” Among the “anything” that people begin to believe is the idea that all “truth” is relative. This, by the way, is a self-defeating position. If all truth is relative, then the statement that “a ll truth is relative” is either a relative statement in itself, or it is an absolute claim. It cannot be both. If it is a relative claim, then why not include other statements such as “all truth is not relative”? Moreover, it does not take a student of philosophy to show that the claim is absolutely ridiculous. If the statement is relative, we can easily dismiss it on the basis of uncertainty because the person making the claim is not even sure that the claim is right or wrong.

Read the whole thing, here.

Feminists for Stay-Home Moms

Here's Duncan Black on Ruth Marcus' commentary on Michelle Obama's decision to be "Mother-in-Chief":

It's pretty much impossible for a First Spouse to maintain a normal life - continue her career smoothly - and trying to create a tiny bit of normalcy for her young kids is going to require heroic effort. It really doesn't mean anything beyond that.

Well, actually, it does mean something more than that.

Here's Charli Carpenter, who is an Assistant Professor at University of Massachusetts-Amherst:

To those for whom breaking the gendered glass ceiling would have felt as or more transformative than seeing a US President of color, this "Mother-in-Chief" approach could seem like a regressive subordination of women's political equality to racial equality. By this standard, Palin, with all her flaws, would have been a better feminist role model - to say nothing of Hillary Clinton, who would have combined a gender-egalitarian agenda with her trail-blazing role as the first female Commander-in-Chief. By comparison, Michelle Obama may seem at first glance to be defining her role no differently than Laura Bush, a help-meet rather than political partner. Perhaps this is a throwback to an earlier age. Perhaps feminism has been traded for racial equality in this election.

Think again. The fact that people have assumed that Michelle would take on a formal political role as first lady only underscores how normative women's political participation is today. Her unwillingness to prioritize that over her duties to her children is not a step backward but a step forward for the feminist movement: what Michelle is modeling is not indifference to politics, but policy attention to work-life balance, the missing element in the first feminist revolution [source].

Exit Question: Would liberals give a new conservative First Lady as much deference on the decision to stay home with the kids, or would she be demonized as a religious right "fem bot" hell-bent on consigning women to hard labor in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant?

Judge Admits Heckling Attorney General as "Tyrant"

Here's another example that Bush derangement has gone mainstream.

Richard Sanders, a justice of the Washington State Supreme Court, has admitted to heckling U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasy at a Federalist Society dinner last week. Mukasy collapsed, in what doctors identified as a fainting spell, while making his comments. During Mukasy's talk, Sanders stood and yelled "Tyrant! You are a tyrant!"

Sanders had previously denied inquiries seeking to confirm that he was the heckler.

Michelle Malkin made repeated requests to Sanders. Here's the letter Sanders sent Malkin upon finally admitting that he indeed called Mukasy a "tyrant":

I want to set the record straight about a dinner I attended on November 20, in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Federalist Society — a conservative and libertarian legal group of which I am a member. Attorney General Michael Mukasey was the keynote speaker.

In his speech, Attorney General Mukasey justified the Bush administration’s policies in the War on Terror, which included denying meaningful hearings for prisoners in Guantanamo, and other questionable tactics, all in the name of national security. Mr. Mukasey said those who criticize the Administration for abandoning provisions of the Geneva Conventions fail to recognize that “… Al Qaeda [is] an international terrorist group, and not, the last time I checked, a signatory to the Conventions.” Although the United States is a signatory, and these Conventions prohibit torture, the audience laughed. Attorney General Mukasey received a standing ovation. I passionately disagree with these views: the government must never set aside the Constitution; domestic and international law forbids torture; and access to the writ of habeas corpus should not be denied.

The program provided no opportunity for questions or response, and I felt compelled to speak out. I stood up, and said, “tyrant,” and then left the meeting. No one else said anything. I believe we must speak our conscience in moments that demand it, even if we are but one voice.

I hope those who know my jurisprudence will agree that to truly love the Constitution is to uphold it, to speak out for it, not just in times of peace and prosperity, but also in times of chaos and crisis.

I did not “heckle” Attorney General Mukasey, and I did not disrupt the meeting, as those who watch the video of his speech on the Federalist Society’s website will discover. I left before Mr. Mukasey had his frightening collapse. I learned of his collapse later, from news reports. It should go without saying that, despite our vastly different views on what constitutes upholding the rule of law, I hope he continues to recover and remain in good health.

Actually, I don't think it "goes without saying" that Sanders should want Mukasy to remain in good health.

Historically, "tyrants" were those whose heads the mob wanted on pikes.

Sanders, in my opinion, as an official member of the Washington state judiciary, whose courts represent one of the routes to federal ajudication in our constitutional system of federal law, has at the least committed judicial misconduct, and his actions more likely reflect the literal repudiation of the legal authority of United States government - in other words, treason.

Of course, leftists are defending Sanders for his wonderfully "impassioned dissent."

Gay Abandonment of the Traditional American Family

Jeanne Carstensen claims she's got the universal answer for the conservative pushback on gay marriage:

While conservative churches are busy trying to whip up another round of culture wars over same-sex marriage, Rodriguez says the real reason for their panic lies elsewhere: the breakdown of the traditional heterosexual family and the shifting role of women in society and the church itself. As the American family fractures and the majority of women choose to live without men, churches are losing their grip on power and scapegoating gays and lesbians for their failures.

Read the whole thing.

Carstensen is drawing on her interview with Richard Rodriquez, a thoughtful commentator on diversity issues who is gay and Catholic.

I think Rodriquez raises crucial issues about the role of the family.

But the theme seems to be that strengthening traditional families is a social vice. For Rodriguez, to strengthen families is to marginalize lifestyles that work to destroy conservative traditions, those that promote the emerging dominance of postmodern social organization and spiritual decay. And this must be opposed.

To me, that's the bigger project on the left: Tradition is the abomination, because it places moral strictures and limitations on what societies can do. Tradition emphasizes inherent goodness, like monogamous heterosexuality to the preservation of the lives of the unborn.

This part about fear of women in the workforce is a canard, and is simply one more way that the left can demonize those who refuse to go along with a moral relativism that privileges new-age anything-goes licentiousness and demeans the rigors of a moral life based in tradition and historical meaning.

Rodriguez, of course, can't explain why someone like Sarah Palin lives a life of conservative values, faith and family, with no apologies.

Food for thought, dear readers.

More at Memeorandum, including Andrew Sullivan, of course.

Picture of the Day, 11-25-08

Via the New York Times:

Sgt. Joseph Crandell, saw his 7-month-old daughter, Lena, for the first time as he was welcomed back to Germany by his wife, Layla. Lena was not yet born when Sergeant Crandell left for duty in Iraq. Part of his regiment was withdrawn from Iraq for Christmas leave.

My blessings and thanks go out the Crandall family during this holiday season.

Photo Credit: New York Times

Obama's Tidal Wave of Death

Jill Stanek sounds the warning on Barack Obama's administrative appointments, "The Tidal Wave of Death":

I haven't written on Barack Obama's cabinet appointments because frankly I found it too depressing. This is like watching a Culture of Death tsunami. Nothing we can do to stop it.

There's Tom Daschle, Obama's new Secretary of Health and Human Services, a rabid pro-abort who also hates abstinence education and supports nationalized healthcare (taxpayer funded abortions).

I've previously written on Alta Charo, Obama's new ethics advisor. Charo has ties to the human embryo experimentation industry and - surprise - supports federally funded embryonic research. She also opposes conscience rights of health care professionals to refuse to participate in abortion.

Then there's former NARAL legal director Dawn Johnsen, who will serve on Obama's Department of Justice review team.

I had supposed the topper was Obama's appointment of Ellen Moran ... as his communications director. She'll be leaving her job as executive director of EMILY's List, a group that raises $$ to elect pro-abort Democrat women.

But no, yesterday Obama named Melody Barnes to head his Domestic Policy Council. She previously served on the boards of both Planned Parenthood and EMILY's List.

There are more, but I'm drained.

Related: There's also news today on Obama's support for the Freedom of Choice Act, passage of which may force the closure of one-third of the hospitals in the country.

Repudiation of the Dark Side?

Here's this, from the letter on behalf of 200 psychologists requesting that President-Elect Obama renounce rumors of John Brennan's nomination to the CIA (via Memeorandum):

In order to restore American credibility and the rule of law, our country needs a clear and decisive repudiation of the “dark side” at this crucial turning point in our history.

God, that's sounds so horribly beyond the pale.

But I mean, c'mon, even Nancy Pelosi supported waterboarding in 2002, when briefed by the CIA on enhanced interrogation techniques (with three other top congressional Democrats).

You do what you have to do to fight and win. Democrats even know that - when the electoral winds are blowing that way, at least.

Colombian Guerillas Enjoy Safe Haven Inside Venezuela

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez regime is providing the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia safe refuge in the southwest terrority of the country, as the Wall Street Journal reports.

The rebel group, which has fought a civil war with the government of Colombia for over four decades, is a classic Marxist insurgency and in recent years has turned to drug smuggling and arms trafficking to expand its operations.

Chavez, who heads Venezuela's United Socialist Party, backs the rebels:

Mr. Chávez, who has governed Venezuela since 1999, has made no secret of his admiration for the guerrillas across the border. The populist former army officer calls Fidel Castro "father" and once tried to topple Venezuela's government in a failed 1992 coup. Mr. Chávez considers the FARC ideological brothers and possible allies against a U.S. invasion he believes might come from Colombia.

Chavez suffered a blow this week when the country's political opposition won power in local elections across the country. With the price of oil coming down worldwide, many Venezuelans have turned against the regime, rebelling against the government's support of anti-American regimes internationally.

Nevertheless, no doubt Libby Spencer and the Newshoggers gang still love Hugo (once a communist...).

Progressives and the Defense Budget

Yesterday I noted that Chris Bowers was acting rational. Today I'm not so sure. He's got a post up today that endorses an extremist view of fiscal policy and budgetary authority:

The most important appointment decision Obama will make during the transition, bar none, is who becomes, or remains, Secretary of Defense. As I have noted in the past, the Department of Defense oversees the expenditure of 52% of all discretionary spending, rendering it literally impossible for any other cabinet Secretary to oversee as much federal money. Further, keeping Gates on would only worsen Democratic image problems on national security, as he would be the second consecutive non-Democratic Secretary of Defense nominated by a Democratic President. The message would be clear: even Democrats agree that Democrats can't run the military ....

Secretary of Defense is the big enchilada. Arguably, due to the vast percentage of federal spending it receives, it is more important than all other cabinet secretaries combined. The President may be Commander in Chief, but it is the Secretary of Defense who is decides how most federal revenue is spent. We need change in the Department of Defense, and keeping Gates along with his entire team of advisors and assistants doesn't fit the bill.

Reading this, perhaps we can understand why Obama's strongly resisting the pressures from the netroots.

The Secretary of Defense decides how MOST federal revenue is spent? That's a new one.

The truth is that defense expenditures account for roughly 20 percent of federal expentitures. The biggest proportion of spending is consumed by PAYMENTS TO INDIVIDUALS, and particularly income security expenditures. These outlays include programs for the elderly, the poor, the disabled, and funding healthcare beneficiaries - that is, social programs.

Naturally, as a progressive, Bowers wouldn't think about including social programs in the types of programs where money is "spent." Those are are essentially untouchable from a far left-wing perspective. Bowers, frankly, is advocating the fiscal logic of the anti-imperialist left, seen for example in this page from the socialist War Resisters League, "Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes." The pie chart above suggests what federal expenditures look like without including entitlements and automatic social outlays.

If we really want to think about who controls fiscal power in the federal government, think Thomas Daschle, the recently named nominee-designate as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Daschle, as "health czar," is expected to have tremendous power in reforming the deliverery and access to healthcare in this country. Perhaps more importantly, Dashcle will oversee Social Security and Medicare, the most expensive entitlement programs in the nation. If these two granddaddies of the welfare state aren't reformed, they will consume the entire federal budget within a few decades.

If we're going to start talking about real budgetary choices, think social policy and entitlement reforms. Right now though, the incoming Obama administration is ramping up spending plans, and not on defense. The direction of federal budget expenditures will be one of the most important policy legacies the Obama administration will leave. Unfortunately, the left's antiwar crowd isn't talking about that.

Inside the Minds of Islamic Militants

Farhad Khosrokhavar, a preeminent research scholar in France, and a Shiite Muslim who speaks Arabic, is interviewed at today's Los Angeles Times.

Khosrokhavar conducted interviews with Islamic militants held in French prisons. He was able to connect with his subjects to a surprising degree. This passage is particularly interesting:

I was struck by the Bosnia veteran I interviewed. He studied in Malaysia. He was able to seduce a Bosnian woman and a Japanese woman, which was like apples and oranges according to him, and get the Japanese woman to convert. He had two wives at the same time. He was very intelligent, very human. But he was a cold monster. He could kill without any hint of an afterthought. A Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde, but he saw it as coherent. He saw no crisis. Usually one side hates the other in a Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde personality. But he was not schizophrenic in the least.

We'd have to read Khosrokhavar's research to see what kind of generalizations we might gather from such views.

However, John Rosenthal has published an essay summarizing the implications of Khosrokhavar work, "The French Path to Jihad."

Here's more from Khosrokhavar's interview, comparing counterterror efforts in the U.S. to Europe:

In the United States, in spite of 9/11, it is a society which understands religion much better than in Europe. Muslims can be practicing and devout without being treated as if they were fundamentalists. Europe is clearly different from the U.S. Islam is the religion of the oppressed in Europe. Most Muslims are working class. There is an underclass that is comparable to the black or Latino underclass in U.S. cities.

The major threat in Europe is small groups that are difficult to spot. Like the two Lebanese who planted suitcase bombs on a German train in 2006. Jihadists are fascinated by 9/11. They want to do something cosmic, apocalyptic, but the intelligence services are all over them. They cannot succeed. The small groups, of less than five, are the most dangerous.