The Iranian Revolt

Via Atlas Shrugs and Riehl World View, here's Rich Lowry's communication with John O'Sullivan, "The Iranian Revolt":

John O'Sullivan wrote me this note today.

Dear Rich,

Thanks for your note. I am happy to give you my judgment on the Iranian revolt. In brief, it’s one of the most important movements of our time. It radically undermines both the realist argument that Muslims are uninterested in democracy and the Jihadist claim to represent the mass of Muslims. And if it continues—whether it is crushed or triumphs in the immediate future—it will add immeasurably to the forces of evolutionary change in the Muslim world since it strikes me as being more like the Glorious, American and “velvet” revolutions (i.e., it is a revolution against a radical revolution) than like the French, Bolshevik, and 1979 revolutions.

Well, that’s a bigger mouthful than you expected. But this is an issue on which I would prefer you to take the advice and opinions of my Iranian colleagues on Radio Farda and the English language website of RFERL. So I am attaching two documents below that I think you will find helpful.

There are two sections following this, at the link. Here's this, a second letter, from a protester on the ground:

If you want blood, you got it

5:00 pm Tehran is officially a war zone

Our peaceful demonstration quickly turned into a riot. Charges by the guards and return favors of the people quickly got out of hand. Jaleh, Hooman and I just joined the flow and we were attacked three times by the time we got to Navab avenue. Blood was everywhere. Right after Navab avenue the guards started firing tear gas into the crowed and boy did that hurt. As all three of us escaped into a small street choking from the gas the guards attacked us from behind and we all got hit on the back by many painful things. I looked back and saw a young man fell on the ground, I screamed “khodaaaaaaa” (God), Hooman quickly ran towards him and the three of us carried him to a corner. He was hit on the head and his eyes were rolled up and could not comprehend anything ...

See also, Memeorandum.

Healthcare Bondage? The Uninsured as Chattel Slaves

You know the debate over universal healthcare has gotten pretty polarized when hardline netroots blogs start agitating for a new war of secession. That's right. Check out Glenn Smith at Firedoglake, "Slavery and the Health Care Crisis":

The gravity of America's health care crisis is the moral equivalent of the 19th Century's bloody conflict over slavery. This is not hyperbole, though the truth of it is often lost in abstract talk of insurance company profits, treatment costs, and other cold, inhuman analyses.

Today's health system condemns 50 million Americans to ill health and death while guaranteeing health care to the economic privileged. It cannot stand.

About 18,000 Americans die each year because they lack health insurance. That's more than a third the number of lives lost in battle during each year of the four-year Civil War.

Members of Congress without the moral clarity to recognize this equivalence will be condemned by history. Their spinelessness and lack of will when confronted with the power of the insurance industry is just as morally bankrupt as the American congressmen who bowed to Southern slave-owners.

The morally compromising efforts to pass health care reform that insurance companies might like is as insane as the compromises over slavery. Those compromises -- the First and Second Missouri Compromises of 1820, their repeal by the Kansas-Nebraska act of 1854, and the notorious Dred Scott decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1857 led to the War Between the States.

War is what happens when morality is sacrificed to political expediency. The stupid compromises over slavery ducked the fundamental moral question at hand. The compromises were doomed to fail, as all such moral cowardice ultimately fails. That's no original thought. It's a central message of authentic Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. In fact, those traditions only bought blood and trouble for themselves when they forgot this fundamental teaching about moral courage ...

Condemning Americans to premature death and ill health so some can earn profits is the moral equivalent of slavery.

Boy, that's a doozy! Read the rest here (via Memeorandum).

I guess if cooked polling data isn't enough (health reform may be dead this year), leftists can always raise the specter of a March to the Sea to crush the hegemonic private-insurance oppressor class!

Image Credit: Michelle Malkin.

RightwingSparkle on Twitter

I love Kathleen's tweet:

Please. If you are liberal, don't follow me. You won't enjoy it and twitter is my happy place. I argue enough on my blogs.

And check out RightWing Sparkle!

Neda is Martyr to Iranian Revolt!

From Robin Wright, "In Iran, One Woman's Death May Have Many Consequences":

Iran's revolution has now run through a full cycle. A gruesomely captivating video of a young woman — laid out on a Tehran street after apparently being shot, blood pouring from her mouth and then across her face — swept Twitter, Facebook and other websites this weekend. The woman rapidly became a symbol of Iran's escalating crisis, from a political confrontation to far more ominous physical clashes. Some sites refer to her as "Neda," Farsi for the voice or the call. Tributes that incorporate startlingly upclose footage of her dying have started to spring up on YouTube.

Although it is not yet clear who shot "Neda" (a soldier? pro-government militant? an accidental misfiring?), her death may have changed everything. For the cycles of mourning in Shiite Islam actually provide a schedule for political combat — a way to generate or revive momentum. Shiite Muslims mourn their dead on the third, seventh and 40th days after a death, and these commemorations are a pivotal part of Iran's rich history. During the revolution, the pattern of confrontations between the shah's security forces and the revolutionaries often played out in 40-day cycles. (See pictures of terror in the streets of Tehran.) ...

"Neda" is already being hailed as a martyr, a second important concept in Shiism. With the reported deaths of 19 people Saturday, martyrdom also provides a potent force that could further deepen public anger at Iran's regime.

More at the link. And Memeorandum.

Also, Robin Wright at the Los Angeles Times, "The evolution of Iran's revolution: The current confrontation is another phase of the country's century-long political journey. And this one, like the others, will bring lasting changes."

Image Credit: The Lede, "Sunday: Updates on Iran’s Turmoil."


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UPDATE: Instalanche!

They Killed Neda - YouTube Monetizes Video!

I didn't know Neda's name yesterday when I posted these thoughts to my Facebook profile:

I think that video today of the young woman shot and killed in Iran, showing her eyes roll up in death, was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. It's not a movie. We are blessed with freedom, and freedom isn't free...

Michelle Malkin has a commemoration, "They Killed Neda, But Not Her Voice":

Her name was Neda, which means “voice” in Farsi. According to numerous online accounts picked up by media outlets worldwide, she was shot in the streets by Iranian state police while protesting today. This is what repression looks (warning: graphic)...

Here's the video, the Live Leak version, since YouTube monetized the video at the link:

See also, the Los Angeles Times, "IRAN: Footage of woman apparently shot in Tehran galvanizes opposition."

Plus, Dr. Melissa Clouthier," Iran: Blood Is Spilled."

Hat Tip: Memeorandum.

Say Hello to Noah Johns!

In my inbox:

Mr. Douglas:

I too am a political science professor here in NC. I share many of the same political beliefs as you. I have just recently started a blog I am placing a link on there to your site and would appreciate you returning the favor. Thanks for the great work on your blog and I really enjoy reading it.

Noah

Noah's blog is here. He's got a post up on American Power!

He's also now on my blogroll. So, say hello to Noah Johns!

Andrew Sullivan: Update on Neocon Derangement

Andrew Sullivan is the moment's most prolific Iran blogger on the web. Yet his work's a travesty of journalism, with all the petty, venal, and scurrilous anti-Semitism we are seeing. On top of that we've also got all of his pathetic Man-Crush Obama blogging.

Dan Riehl has some thoughts:

If Andrew Sullivan wants to jump into the emoting bin at Wal-Mart to pick-out a cheap canned syrupy concoction on Iran to serve up to his readers, he's allowed; but it shouldn't be confused with the insight, or wisdom he colors it up to look to be. And it does matter for reasons that are critically important to America and her security.

The rejection of al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan; the ground-up election of Obama in America; and now the rising up of Iranians for freedom and civility with their neighbors: these are the green shoots of recovery from 9/11 and its wake.

Sullivan manages to see Obama's invisible hand having at least some role in all this. But Obama has been more invisible, than he's been a hand in fighting al Qaeda in Iraq, or to the Iranian people currently dying in the streets. In fact, he's done more to legitimize the very leadership that still oppresses and shoots innocents down in the streets in Iran, than has he done anything to undermine it. To the extent America has played any role, this movement was not born of the last five months.

Ann Althouse, picking up on the same themes, asserts Sullivan's questionable integrity:

It is possible that Obama is doing exactly the right thing — but I can't take Andrew Sullivan's word for it, because of he's been slathering praise on the man for far too long.

I'm glad to see Sullivan's writing coming under scrutiny.

I've long said it, but the more I read Sullivan the more I'm convinced he's simply an awful man. What's bothersome this morning is Sullivan's opportunism. All week he's been attacking the "evil" neocons - deploying the oldest and most despicable anti-Semitic canards - and then today he turns around to expropriate the day's top neoconservative writing as his own.

In his post, "Today's Must-Reads I: Gerecht," Sullivan spins off Reuel Marc Gerecht's work as validation of his own:

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a neoconservative with intellectual honesty and a real grasp of the region he studies, homes in on the core fact on Day 9 of the uprising, and Day 1 of the battle ...

As Iranians have come to know theocracy intimately, secularism has become increasingly attractive. Iran now produces brilliant clerics who argue in favor of the separation of church and state as a means of saving the faith from corrupting power.

Where Gerecht is analytical, Sullivan scavenges like a vulture. He feeds on the insights of others:

It is hard to overstate the importance of this, which is why, in my judgment, this is potentially the most important positive moment in history since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Because it is the clearest and most promising sign that the Islamist Wall is breaking up. We have long wanted and needed a reformation of Islam and Islam's relationship with politics. The two are connected: without some civil space for dialogue, how can anyone do the intellectual and theological work to forge a new Islam more compatible with democratic norms and individual freedom. Iran is beginning to show us how that can happen.

Now step back and note how Sullivan actually repudiates himself in a later post, citing the master Bush-basher, Spencer Ackerman, in "This Conservative Revolution":

I've written before that this reminds me of the American rather than the French revolution - because it is being waged not as a means to destroy the system, but to force it to live up to its democratic promises. And that's why it's so potent. That's also why Obama's emphasis on justice, rather than freedom, is so shrewd. What we have to focus on is simply the election, its fraudulence and the necessity of a new vote. That's all. If those promises are met, the coup-regime will fall. Of course no liberal democracy will instantly follow. Mousavi is not a radical; he's a moderate establishment type. This is Gorbachev not Yeltsin. But this is not something to fear; it is something to embrace, as Reagan did.

Sullivan then quotes Ackerman for authority ("Moussavi’s Message of Reform").

But come on! What democratic promises in 1979?

As I've indicated, Ackerman wants to consolidate a "reformist" Iranian Islamist state "BECAUSE IT OVERTURNED A U.S-BACKED REGIME."

Ayatollah Khomeini did not come to power with the promise of freedom. The revolution of '79 installed a Islamo-fascist dictatorship. Spencer Ackerman sees the Bush administration as a bigger threat to the Iranian regime than the mullahs in Tehran. And Andrew Sullivan, in citing him, is blogging too fast to realize how stupid he makes himself out to be. Once you deconstruct what Sullivan is saying, we see it's all about him and his Man-Crush Dream-Boy Obama.

Iranians DO NOT need regime change to validate President Obama's hollow words on "justice." The Iranian people need to establish the secular state that Reuel Marc Gerecht has laid out, and when they do, they'll vindicate the neoconservative vision that folks like Andrew Sullivan and Spencer Ackerman have worked so hard to destroy.

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UPDATE: Thanks for the links! Atlas Shrugs, Gateway Pundit, and Riehl World View.

Bush Haters Bare Their Fangs

At Atlas Shrugs, "Wow, the Bush haters bare their fangs."

Public Enemies Trailer

I just caught this trailer for the new Johnny Depp film, Public Enemies, in theaters July 1st:

The official website is here, and the Wikipedia entry is here.

Gangster movies are right up there with Westerns in my book ("I want him DEAD! I want his family DEAD! I want his house burned to the GROUND! I wanna go there in the middle of the night and I wanna PISS ON HIS ASHES!").

But what makes this one look especially good is Johnny Depp. The most versatile actor of his generation, I'm excited to see him play ultimate bad-guy John Dillinger.

Exploding the "Foundation Myth" of Iran's Islamist Regime

Spencer Ackerman reveals his shallow understanding of Iran, in "Moussavi’s Message of Reform." Stabbing at insight, Ackerman says of Moussavi:

Clearly we're in the realm of myth, and foundational myth at that. It matters very little what westerners think about Moussavi's description of Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution. By locating the opposition within the promises of the Revolution, Moussavi claims a clear source of legitimacy, the same that the regime claims, and seeks to denies that legitimacy to Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.

Considering what the revolution of 1979 really represents, Ackerman needs to go back to school.

Contrast this "foundational myth" gobbledygook with Reuel Marc Gerecht, "The Koran and the Ballot Box":

WHATEVER happens in Iran in the aftermath of this month’s fraudulent elections, one thing is clear: we are witnessing not just a fascinating power struggle among men who’ve known each other intimately for 30 years, but the unraveling of the religious idea that has shaped the growth of modern Islamic fundamentalism since the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928.

The Islamic revolution in Iran encompassed two incompatible ideas: that God’s law — as interpreted by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — would rule, and that the people of Iran had the right to elect representatives who would advance and protect their interests. When Khomeini was alive and Iran was at war with Iraq, the tension between theocracy and democracy never became acute.

Upon his death in 1989, however, the revolution’s democratic promise started to gain ground. With the presidential campaign of Mohammad Khatami in 1997, it exploded and briefly paralyzed Khomeini’s successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the theocratic elite. God’s will and the people’s wants were no longer compatible.

To the dismay of Ayatollah Khamenei, who remains supreme leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, the candidate whom President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “defeated” in the rigged elections, has become the new Khatami — except he is far more powerful. While Mr. Moussavi lacks Mr. Khatami’s reformist credentials, he is a far steelier politician. And the frustrations of President Khatami’s failed tenure have grown exponentially among a new generation that is less respectful of mullahs and revolutionary ideology.

Yet in the current demonstrations we are witnessing not just the end of the first stage of the Iranian democratic experiment, but the collapse of the structural underpinnings of the entire Islamic approach to modern political self-rule. Islam’s categorical imperative for both traditional and fundamentalist Muslims —“commanding right and forbidding wrong” — is being transformed.

This imperative appears repeatedly in the Koran. Historically, it has been understood as a check on the corrupting, restive and libidinous side of the human soul. For modern Islamic militants, it is a war cry as well — a justification of the morals police in Saudi Arabia and Iran, of the young men who harass “improperly” attired Muslim women from Cairo to Copenhagen. It is the primary theological reason that Ayatollah Khamenei will try to stop a democratic triumph in his country, since real democracy would allow men, not God and his faithful guardians, the mullahs, to determine right and wrong.

Read the whole thing.

In contrast to Gerecht, Ackerman believes in the Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution, BECAUSE IT OVERTURNED A U.S-BACKED REGIME.

But Ackerman, blinded by hatred, is wrong once again. As George Packer noted earlier, Ackerman is so intent on seeing the United States as the source of all evil in Iran, he can't see the bullets, truncheons, and rifle butts that are the real and immediate threats to the people on the streets. He suffers, frankly, from the same anti-Americanism and BDS that we've already seen in Andrew Sullivan and Matthew Yglesias - which is not surprising. Events in Iran have triggered some nasty partisan recriminations at home. And the debate is even more intense since it's likely we're looking at the Obama adminstration's first really substantive foreign policy failure.

If revolution fails now in Iran it won't because of events of long ago, from 1953. The realist "caution" of this administration will leave the president's hands soaked in the blood of this interrupted Green Revolution. Spencer Ackerman will be splattered along with him.

New York Times: Oversamples Democrats, Push-Polls Respondents in Health Care Survey

Maggie's Farm nails the New York Times' bogus healthcare survey, "New York Times: McCain Voters Not Americans?:

The lead headline is about a NYT/CBS News Poll, trumpeting “Wide Support for Government-Run Health.” The lead paragraph:

Americans overwhelmingly support substantial changes to the health care system and are strongly behind [72%] one of the most contentious proposals Congress is considering, a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

BUT, according to the actual poll data, of the 73% of respondents who said they voted in 2008 only 34% voted for McCain and 66% for Obama. The actual vote was 48% McCain. So, 29% of McCain voters ignored by the poll must not be Americans ...

It's not just the horribly flawed sampling. The question wording on some of these questions is a disaster - total push polling!. For example, question #56:

When you think about the problems with the U.S. health care system, how serious a problem is doctors ordering medical tests and treatments their patients don't really need. Is it a very serious problem, somewhat serious problem, not too serious a problem or not at all a serious problem?

Man, that is whacked!

The Obamacare health commissars, with the help of the New York Times, will make the determination over doctors in determining when medical tests are necessary and what type of treat patients get!

And even with the Times' bunk methodology, 77 percent of respondents are "generally satisfied with the quality of health care in this country."

And of course, Hullabaloo says we can't have that!

Hat Tip: Memeorandum.

Image Credit: Michelle Malkin.

America's Republican Mullahs!

Just when you thought you'd seen it all - and Andrew Sullivan can do that for you - here comes Frank Schaeffer at the Huffington Post, "The Real Lesson of Iran - Beware America's Republican Mullahs":

When there are tens of thousands of Americans sitting in evangelical churches every Sunday wherein President Obama is vilified as an "abortionist," a "Communist," a "secret Muslim," and even as "the Antichrist," when the former vice president accuses our President of what amounts to treason, all because President Obama won't allow the torture of prisoners in an American version of holy war, all because he has decided it is wise to build bridges of respect to Muslim countries, we've left recognizable political territory and entered the realm of violence-inciting hate and delusion of the kind Iran's "supreme leader" indulges in ...

Look at Iran and give thanks that the Republican Party - the tool of America's mullahs married to the Neocon war mongers - is in decline and has been rejected by the American people. Work to keep America secular, free and democratic.

This is over-over the top. Schaeffer's claim to fame, made repeatedly, is that he's a former member of "The Religious Right."

Weird stuff, but pretty much on par with what Sullivan's peddling. You've got to love the Huffington Post-Kos-Sullivan alliance!

Hat Tip: Hot Air Headlines.

Andrew Sullivan: Anti-Semitic Neocon Derangement

From William Jacobson's must-read post yesterday, "NeoCon Derangement Syndrome On Steroids":

To read Andrew Sullivan's posts on the suppression of the opposition in Iran, you would think American "NeoCons" (whoever they may be) were in the streets swinging batons from the backs of motorcycles, trashing the library at Tehran University, and breaking into homes in pursuit of demonstrators.

Sullivan's post, The Khamenei-NeoCon Agreement, is the latest in his recurring conspiracy theory that supporters of freedom for Iranians are actually against freedom for Iranians.

Also, as Michael Goldfarb indicates, Sullivan's blogging is demonstrably anti-Semitic, "Sullivan and Khamenei Agree: Jews Control the Media," and "Hiatt and Goldberg on Sullivan." (The latter post includes an update from Jeffrey Goldberg writing last year, "Andrew and the Jew-Baiters.")

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Andrew's latest post this afternoon, speaking of President Obama's most recent statement, also makes mention of the "evil" neocons, "Obama's Response":

Did you notice how many times he invoked the word "justice" in his message? That's the word that will resonate most deeply with the Iranian resistance. What a relief to have someone with this degree of restraint and prudence and empathy - refusing to be baited by Khamenei or the neocons, and yet taking an eloquent stand, as we all do, in defense of freedom and non-violence [emphasis added].

So, "Khamenei" and "the neocons" together in one breath.

God, this man is nasty, as I've demonstrated many times.

Ace of Spades HQ adds this:

It's jawdropping that Sullivan would claim that "neocons" and "AIPAC" would want the revolution to fail. One American clearly seeks the failure of the revolution, but that's his own fantasy-boyfriend Barack Obama. And Sullivan can't say that his would-be boyfriend is in the wrong, so he puts Barack Obama's words into the mouths of his enemies - "neocons" (by which he means Jews) and AIPAC (by which he means Jews).

Did I say one American opposed the revolution? My bad. Two. The man Sullivan passionately supported on the Republican side of the campaign - Jew-hatin' race-baitin' conspiracy-addled Ron Paul - also does.

So that's two of Andi's crushbook favorites who are flacking for Ahmadinejad and the mullahs. But who gets blamed? The Jews, naturally.

And:

If you have any doubt that Sullivan is an anti-semite, I invite you once again to ponder how risible the claim is that Jews, of all people, are actually buddies with Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. And carrying their water.

Or neocons, for that matter, who aren't Jews (though Sullivan uses them as rough synonyms).

Iran has been fighting a proxy war against Israel since 1979 and its highest officers routinely threaten to wipe it off the map with a first-strike nuclear holocaust.

Any supporter of Israel -- Jewish or not -- would dearly wish Ahmadinejad to crumble into dust.

This is the most madcap of old-timey Jewish conspiracy ranting, where not only are Jews to be blamed for making trouble with foreign powers to further their own suspiciously-Yiddish interests, they're also, incoherently, alleged to be making secret pacts with those same foreign powers to further their dangerously-Hebraic agendas.

This is Nazi-type stuff, claiming Jews are both on both sides of every conflict and in fact the puppet-masters puppeteering both sides for their own nefarious, gefilte- stinking ends.

There's more in an update, "Take Two: Let Me Explain What Sullivan Is Saying." Ace explains the dementia of "Andi The Anti-Semite Sullivan":

... he's suffering from cognitive dissonance: He's a passionate supporter of both Obama and the Iranian Revolution, and his addled, demented brain is having trouble reconciling the fact that the Love of His Life actually seems to be the one flacking for Ahmadinejad, while neocon-Jews he despises actually seem to be against Ahmadinejad.

It also could be due to self-love, his unrelenting, insatiable narcissism. He wants himself to be the most passionate supporter of the Iranian uprising in America, and so when Charles Krauthammer appears to be an even more passionate supporter, saying crazy things like "Barack Obama should support the uprising," Sullivan needs some way to explain that Krauthammer is actually not what he seems.

Krauthammer seems to be more forward-leaning than Sullivan? Easily explained: He's actually supporting Ahmadinejad, deliberately, trying to trick guileless Gentiles into taking steps that will undermine the protesters. An agent provocateur.

Andrew Sullivan's narcissistic, demented worldview will not admit of someone being "more right" than he is. He must come up with some mechanism by which the only two people who have it exactly right are Andrew Sullivan and his dreamlover Barack Hussein Obama.

As readers can see, this is just one more reason why I don't like Andrew Sullivan. But the lefties will no doubt be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Andi The Anti-Semite Sullivan. Also, recall my essay from last year, "Kos and Andrew: Merchants of Hate" (and by lefties, we can safely include Conor Friederdorf in that category as well).

Image Credit: Darleen Click, "Excitable Andy: ‘Watch out for the Jooooos!’"

Police Clash With Protesters in Bloody Tehran Crackdown

From Fox News, "Iran Riot Police Clash With Thousands of Protesters in Bloody Tehran Crackdown":

Thousands of protesters defied Iran's highest authority Saturday and marched on waiting security forces that fought back with baton charges, tear gas and water cannons as the crisis over disputed elections lurched into volatile new ground.

In a separate incident, a state-run television channel reported that a suicide bombing at the shrine of the Islamic Revolution leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini killed at least two people and wounded eight. The report could be not independently evaluated due to government restrictions on journalists.

If proven true, the reports could enrage conservatives and bring strains among backers of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. Another state channel broadcast images of broken glass but no other damage or casualties, and showed a witness saying three people had been wounded.

Read the whole thing, here.

Also Blogging: Drew at AOSHQ, "Obama To Iran: Hey Guys, Can't I Just Finish My Ice Cream?", and Reliapundit, "The Iranians Protesting and Dying in the Streets are the Real Freedom Fighters."

Plus: Mark Steyn, "Neutrality Isn’t an Option," via Memeorandum.

American Hegemony, Continued...

My good friend Ottavio, from Down Under, has a great post up, "U.S Declinism Theories Are Nothing New."

As he notes, "America will remain the sole superpower even if not quite as powerful as in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War ..."

Also, Ottavio's entry gives me an opportunity to finally post Michael Lind's contrarian recent essay, "The Next Big Thing: America":

There will be no winners from the prolonged and painful economic emergency. But some countries will lose more than others. The United States is likely to emerge less damaged than most, as unfair as that will seem to a world that blames it for triggering the crisis. For one thing, it is much easier for a chronic trade-deficit country such as the United States to rebuild its battered export sector than it is for export-oriented countries like China and Japan to rebalance their economies toward more consumption and social insurance. For another, the United States, alone among the world’s leaders, is potentially an industrial superpower, a commodity superpower, and an energy superpower at the same time.

The United States will also continue to benefit from the inward flow of foreign money, talent, and labor. Others may grumble about the creditworthiness of Uncle Sam in light of emergency-driven deficits, but in the foreseeable future what places will be a safer haven for investments? A fragile and politically unstable China? Japan, with a shaky economy and aging population? A Europe of squabbling nation-states, riven by cleavages between natives and Muslim immigrants? Authoritarian petrostates where assets can be confiscated without warning?

The crisis has reduced the flow of immigrants into the United States along with the demand for their labor, but both should recover, putting the country back on its pre-crisis path of immigration-fed population growth and leading to a population of 400 to 500 million by 2050 and as many as a billion people by 2100. Whether the U.S. economy can grow rapidly enough to maintain a high standard of living for all those people remains to be seen (though prophets of Malthusian gloom about alleged U.S. overpopulation have been refuted many times before). The bottom line is: The populations of Europe, Russia, and Japan are declining, and those of China and India are leveling off. The United States alone among great powers will be increasing its share of world population over time.

Otto von Bismarck observed that God favors fools, drunkards, and the United States of America. The U.S.A. has been a lucky country, and despite its present suffering it is unlikely that America’s luck has run out. Relying on the import of money, workers, and brains for more than three centuries, North America has been a Ponzi scheme that works. The present crisis notwithstanding, it still will.

Obama Dithers on Iran

First, check The Rhetorican, "The Four Iran Scenarios."

Also, from Stephen Hayes and William Kristol, "Resolutely Irresolute: Obama dithers while Tehran burns" (via Memeorandum):

The events of the past week in Iran, following the June 12 presidential election there, have been remarkable and hopeful. It's been a moment when one would like a president of the United States - who has, in such moments, a supporting but not an inconsequential role--to rise to the occasion. Barack Obama hasn't. We are therefore put in the position of hoping that the words of an American president are being mostly ignored, that his weakness won't matter, and that the forces of reform or revolution will be able to prevail - as they may - with the support of many in America, if not the president.

The day after the election, as hundreds of thousands of Iranians gathered in the streets to protest election fraud, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration was "monitoring" the situation. The next day, Sunday, as the extent of the fraud became clear to anyone willing to see it, Vice President Joe Biden said that while there were "doubts" about the outcome, "I don't think we're in a position to say" that the election wasn't free and fair. Obama played golf.

On Monday, Obama finally had something to say: "I think it would be wrong for me to be silent about what we've seen on the television over the last few days." He said he was "deeply troubled" by the violence but noted, "We respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran." Eight people were killed that day.

On Tuesday, Obama acknowledged the "amazing ferment" inside Iran. But, as the forces of change rallied behind Mir-Hussein Mousavi, and as Mousavi, heretofore a cautious apparatchik, was carried along Yeltsin-like to a position of virtual opposition to the regime, Obama seemed to try to take the steam out of the protest, declaring, "The difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised." Meanwhile Gibbs said that while Obama "deplored the violence"--disembodied violence, whose perpetrators went unnamed - he was nonetheless encouraged by the "vigorous debate inside of Iran by Iranians."

On Wednesday, Gibbs repeated those words verbatim and reported that the president would continue to "ensure that we're not meddling." And on Thursday, Gibbs once again said the president "deplored unnecessary killing." Senator John Kerry, defending Obama, said, "We can't escape the reality that for reformers in Tehran to have any hope for success, Iran's election must be about Iran - not America."

All week, the Obama administration bent over backwards to avoid questioning the legitimacy of the Iranian regime. In this, Obama became a de facto ally of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Although Obama finally spoke about the protesters - "the whole world is watching," he said - he never expressed real support for them.

Obama supporters defended his silence. Anything he said to endorse the protests, they argued, would taint the protesters' message and damage their cause.

More at the link.

And The Lede and Memeorandum.

Bonus: Dan Collins lends poetic solemnity.

Murder in Iran

The Facebook link is here.

I got the tweet from Allahpundit. Co-blogger Ed Morrissey's got his post, "Iranian police throwing teargas at protesters in Tehran; Update: I’m ready for martyrdom, says Mousavi; Videos: Woman murdered in cold blood, police beat women with batons":

Check out Gateway Pundit as well, "HEAVY CLASHES IN TEHRAN!... Explosions Reported! (Video) ... Update: Protester's Plea- "Please Pray for Us" ...Update: Mousavi- Ready for Martyrdom."

I'll have more on developments in Iran, but check out Memeorandum for now.

Full Metal Saturday: Stacy Ferguson

Okay, are folks still trying to get a million hits on their blog? Well, you've got to keep things hot!

So, "check it out"! Stacy Ferguson's still trying to get the boyz on "rock, rock". Yep, "Fergie Topless In Allure Magazine." And at Allure's page, "Fergie: Her Allure Photo Shoot."

As for our regular linkage extravaganza at today's Full Metal Saturday, check out Dan Collins' happening new digs, "Piece of Work in Progress." Dan's a great blogging buddy. So update your blogrolls and for added coolness, get steaming with Dan on Twitter!

Now, let's give it up for Carol at No Sheeple's Here!. She's got another stylin' weekend roundup, "Full Metal Jacket Reach-Around Father’s Day Edition." Plus, Smitty's keeping the flame burning with "Full Metal Jacket Reach Around."

And in the spirit of the weekend, a sweet Father's Day post is at Pundit and Pundette, "Fathers Day: Assorted Quotations and Simple Love."

And don't forget to visit my friends and allies:

Snooper's Report, Grandpa John's, Cranky Conservative, Jimmie Bise, Little Miss Attila, Moe Lane, Private Pigg, Pundit & Pundette, The Rhetorican, R.S. McCain, Saber Point, Stephen Kruiser, Suzanna Logan, TrogloPundit, Doug Ross Journal, Villainous Company, PoliGazette, Prying 1, The Western Experience, The Oklahoma Patriot, Right Wing Sparkle, Conservatism With Heart, Duck of Minerva, Wolf Howling, Right Wing Nation, Stephen Green, The Tygrrrr Express, The News Factor, Israel Matsav, The BoBo Files, Grant Jones, Tapline, New Testament News, Wizbang, William Jacobson, Phyllis Chesler, Right View from the Left Coast, Generation Patriot, Macsmind, Flopping Aces, Edge's Conservative Movies, Stop the ACLU, The Conservative Manifesto, Gates of Vienna, Joust The Facts, Panhandle Poet, Steven Givler, The Astute Blogger, Chris Wysocki, Moonbattery, Sweating Through the Fog, Three Beers Later, PA Pundits, Paco Enterprises, Ken Davenport, Sister Toldjah, Blazing Cat Fur, The Daley Gator, Just One Minute, Dave's World, Sparks From the Anvil, Gateway Pundit, Political Pistachio, Liberty Pundit, Not One Red Cent, Right Truth, Dave's Notepad, The Red Hunter, Maggie's Farm, The Next Right, This Ain't Hell, Stop the ACLU, Right Wing Nuthouse, Melissa Clouthier, Paula in Israel, Pamela Geller, Vanessa's Blog, Pat's Daily Rants, Bob's Bar & Grill, Power Line, Melanie Morgan, Dave in Boca, Neo-Neocon, Right in a Left World, Flag Gazer, Politics and Critical Thinking, Riehl World View, Midnight Blue, Caroline Glick, The Average American, The Griper, FouseSquawk, The Other McCain, Cheat Seeking Missiles, Roger Simon, Classical Values, Samantha Speaks, Grizzly Mama, The Capitol Tribune, The Patriot Room, The Real World, RADARSITE, Serr8d's Cutting Edge, Bloviating Zeppelin, Born Again Redneck The Educated Shoprat, St. Blogustine, Yid With Lid, Pondering Penguin, Betsy's Page, The Anchoress, Ace of Spades HQ, Right Wing Sparkle, Thunder Run, The Classic Liberal, Conservative Grapevine, Cassy Fiano, Jim Treacher, NetRightNation, Q and O, Urban Grounds, Ed Driscoll, Cold Fury, Michelle Malkin, Neptunus Lex, Neo-Neocon, The Astute Bloggers, The Liberty Papers, The Monkey Cage, Law and Order Teacher, Mike's America, AubreyJ, Dan Collins, The Jungle Hut, Wake Up America, Dan Riehl, Nikki's Blog, Big Girl Pants, Maggie's Notebook, Hummers & Cigarettes, Mark Goluskin, Jawa Report, Darleen Click, The Skepticrats, Fausta's Blog, Clueless Emma, Obob's World, Seymour Nuts, Red State, Dr. Sanity, The Desert Glows Green, Not One Red Cent, Vinegar and Honey, Sarge Charlie, Thoughts With Attitude, Kim Priestap, Swedish Meatballs Confidential, Five Feet of Fury, Amy Proctor, Blonde Sagacity, Liberty Papers, TigerHawk, Point of a Gun, Right Wing News, And So it Goes in Shreveport, Nice Deb, Becky Brindle, GrEaT sAtAn'S gIrLfRiEnD, Fishersville Mike, Ann Althouse, The Blog Prof, Monique Stuart, No Sheeples Here!, Dana at CSPT, Glenn Reynolds, Obi’s Sister, Right Truth, Gold-Plated Witch on Wheels, Chicago Ray, Ace of Spades HQ, and Natalie's Blog.

Special Saturday Shout-Out: Courtney at GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD as well, "44, Where Are You?"

If I missed your blog, just give me a heads-up in an e-mail and I'll add you ASAP!

Fringe Activists Now Poster Killers for the Conservative Right

Here's the AP headline, "Arizona killings rock anti-illegal immigration movement, highlight risk of fringe activists." The Holocaust Museum shooting took place on June 10th. Many commenters at that time linked the suspect James von Brunn to Scott Roeder, the man accused of killing abortionist George Tiller?. It's been nearly three weeks since Tiller was killed. So why is AP running stories to build up further support for the discredited DHS domestic terror report. None of these suspected killers represent the conservative movement. All Americans should be saddended by these events, but they should not be browbeaten into silence by the left wing press and the demonic netroots hordes so quick to exploit these tragedies.

The tagline on Shawna Forde's anti-illegal immigration Web site says her group was "doing the job our government won't do." They wanted to patrol the border, but her small band of activists needed money to do it.

So, authorities say, Forde and two men dressed up as Border Patrol agents and broke into the southern Arizona home of a man they thought was a drug dealer, hunting for money or drugs to sell. They found neither, but killed the man and his 9-year-old daughter.

The May 30 killings rocked an anti-illegal immigration movement that prides itself on being vocal but not violent, and added to a growing list of activists accused of using violence to advance their aims.

In recent weeks, a white supremacist was accused of killing a black guard at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and an ardent abortion foe allegedly shot and killed a prominent Kansas abortion doctor.

The possibility that activists in the anti-illegal immigration movement would use violence did not surprise Heidi Beirich, research director at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups.

"We figured for a long time that we were going to get violence out of this movement," she said.

Her organization says the number of hate groups nationwide has risen 54 percent since 2000, fueled by opposition to Hispanic immigration and, more recently, by the election of the nation's first black president and the economic downturn.

Several groups focusing on stopping illegal immigration formed in the past half-dozen years, and many were drawn to southern Arizona, the busiest corridor in the nation for illegal border crossings.

"Some are using the movement to promote their own bigoted, racist ideology," said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino. "But I want to be clear: That's not everyone in the movement, and it poses a real problem."

He said the movement's message attracts people with ulterior motives. Larger groups try to patrol their ranks for potentially troublesome people but have no power to stop exiles like Forde from starting splinter groups, and even from using the Minuteman name.

After the killings, some of the movement's leaders quickly distanced themselves from Forde and her Minutemen American Defense group, saying they warned for months that she was potentially dangerous.

"We knew that Shawna Forde was not just an unsavory character but pretty unbalanced as well," said Chris Simcox, the founder of one of the original border watch groups, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

Related: Jazz Shaw, "Revenge of the Little People: Does right-wing political commentary really drive lonely fringe dwellers to commit hate crimes?"