Civil war in Libya?

?

How much ground will a capitalist concede?

Bi-partisan?

Concession?

Compromise?

Equality?

Democracy?

So who is hardline?

Cricket for the uninitiated

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.

It's a joke, right?

Like it's ever been otherwise? Like it has ever NOT happened. Pathetic. You stinking idiot, Mr Rivero.

The rest of the world looks on and laughs at you, Mr Rivero.

Rivero is an ultranationalist. Yet when America acts in its national interests, Rivero criticises it - as unprincipled self-interest.

Antiwar.com - blatant anti-semitic lying

SOURCE

These are the most contentious claims:

1) Israeli FM Threatens War With Iran Over Suez Warship Claim

2) Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman .... suggested this could provoke an Israeli attack on the nation.

If one follows the links antiwar.com give which are presumably supposed to flesh out their claims, there is not the least indication that their claims are merited. It's a complete fabrication.

The link antiwar.com provide leads to CNN saying:

Liberman urged Israel's allies to pay attention.

"We expect the international community to act speedily with determination against the Iranian provocations, designed to deteriorate the situation in the area, and put the Iranians in their place," he said.

Liberman's comments were not so much a threat but a wake-up call about a "worrying development," said a senior government official who was not identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The official said Liberman was "painting it as a challenge to the West."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamim Netanyahu's office offered no immediate comment.
SOURCE

Of course, the story is iterated at poorrichard's blog, and promoted by WhatReallyHappened / Mike Rivero. Big shock.

This is just anti-semitism. Israel threatens war...... Do these people really see Israel threatening war based on the quotes in that CNN article? If they do, they are deeply anti-semitic and their judgement is way-beyond skewed. Crazy.

I tried posting some comments to the antiwar article, but they are in moderation. I asked them to backup their claims, and said if they couldn't then their claims shouldn't appear at all. Obviously.

My comments haven't appeared yet, but I notice that they did publish this one:

In light of the ethnic cleansing conducted by the "chosen" ones and supported by the Anglo Alliance of Terror ,Mr. Adolf begins to look like a Boy Scout.

Hitler as boy-scout, as compared to Israel. Well, if that gets published why even have moderation?

It's instructive, and not a little frightening to read the comments generated by this "antiwar" article. Here's the flavour so far:

-Are we to believe the same clowns who planted false information on Iraqi WMD's and murdered people on the high seas?

-They have some fucking nerve pointing their finger at IRAN, when what they did is 1000 X worse.

-The CIA could shut him up with a 9mm

-the Israeli FM doesn´t care. It´s not his business. He´s an insane religious war monger nut

-someone should put a muzzle on him.

-Its time the American Dog put a stop to the wagging of its Isreali Tail.

-Can ANYONE in our government get on the phone and shut up this jackass?

-Why do loud mouths like Lieberman push for wars when he is basically a man who never would put his rear end in harms way? I am shocked that he did not cry holocaust also.

-Expecting Lieberman to "grow up" is like expecting a brownshirt to go into a hippie commune.

-let them start a war over it and see what happens.

All that from an entirely fabricated headline. Nevermind the clear cause is manouevering of Iranian warships near Israeli waters - at Suez! - eh, antiwar.com?

---------------------------

There's another article at antiwar.com that claims,

"The two ships have been confirmed as a supply ship and a frigate, and are said to be heading to Syria, which prompted Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to threaten war yesterday."
SOURCE

It links directly back to the original article I mentioned. So already it has been taken as "fact" and reiterated as such.

The author of BOTH articles is Jason Ditz - Antiwar.com's managing news editor!

And look at this - an antiwar.com audio piece about how

Jason Ditz, managing news editor at Antiwar.com, discusses Radio Free Europe’s strange accusation that Ditz is an Iranian agent
SOURCE

Well, how could that possibly make any sense!? LOL

Checking antiwar.com's Wiki page we find this gem:

According to Eric Margolis, “Americans would have been totally misled had it not been for the Internet sites like ‘Antiwar.com;’ ‘CommonDreams;’ LewRockwell; and Bigeye; and magazines like ‘American Conservative’ and ‘Harpers.

Nevermind that Eric Margolis is a featured writer at LewRockwell's website? Don't mention it, eh? Best not to. Incestuous lot, aren't they, these independent types?

Ironically, defending himself from accusations of being an Iranian agent, Ditz writes,

In the era of the Internet wild accusations gain a remarkable level of currency across broad swathes of society, and certainly people making up stories is nothing new.
SOURCE

Indeed, Mr Ditz.

Here's Ditz on Iranian elections:

the enormous majority apparently won by President Ahmadinejad seems to have left little doubt that the polls predicting his victory have proven accurate. The ability to maintain that majority even amid a high turnout seen to favor the challenger underscores his popularity
SOURCE

Very trusting, all of a sudden, isn't he?


----------------------

UPDATE: Antiwar.com have not published my comments questioning their claims, but they have just published this comment:

Avigdor nut should begin digging his own grave when he pushes the button for the 600 nuclear heads which Israel claim to have. Look at this nut-case's eyes. You can see the foolish satan in them. Even the King of Satans chose deformed satan to posses this idiot. If this Zionist idiot and his religious halfbred bastard start war with Iran then this will ignite WW3 then it will be the end of the Great Satanic Israel. WE should bring Senator Joe Doberman to Israel to be in the front lines.

They will publish that, but not me saying,

Please, back this up? Where - and how exactly - does Lieberman "suggest this could provoke an Israeli attack on Iran"?

If you can't justify such a claim, what was it ever doing there?

Why would a serious place publish the one comment and not the other? That's about all one need know, imo - that they publish a pile of vicious anti-semitic bullshit but refuse to publish the most pertinent (and polite) question.

From antiwar.com's own self-eulogy:

the editors take seriously our purely journalistic mission, which is to get past the media filters and reveal the truth about America's foreign policy.
SOURCE

Sorry, but what a load of codswallop. Get past the media filters? By publishing anti-semitic bullshit comments and fabricated headlines whilst refusing to print comments asking them to stand-up their own claims? Despicable. Antiwar?

------

Update2 - They finally have published my comments! God, they're slow. The response unsurprisingly has the following tone:

ahh nice another aipac schill on antiwar.com spreading more disinfo. any one with a clue knows lieberman is a racist lunatic nut job. and seriously, what isn't an existential threat to israel?? the only state in the reigon with nukes and submarines to deliver them...and why is it that 2, TWO boats from iran on manuevers is an act of war. i guess having america having an entire carrier battle group cruising the straits of hormuz is a peaceful stance?? the hypocrisy is astounding.

what's rubbish is a bunch of pathetic zionists on this site trying to counter the facts that their nation state is an apartheid theocracy ruled by racist lunatics. islam is extreme and the land you stole belongs to you because god promised it?? it'd be funny if it wasn't such insane hypocrisy.

That's such a typical sort of response in such circumstance - it isn't just disagreement with my opinion, it's an entire worldview automatically placing me into (a vile little) box. Bizarre and quite disturbing. Antiwar.com is clearly succeeding in doing its job - creating Brownshirts.

Rivero disagrees with gun-use for self-defence

What exactly happened?

A US consulate employee (Davis) shot dead two Pakistanis on a motorcycle from his car last Thursday in a crowded part of the city. A third man was later killed in a hit and run when a US consulate car, reportedly sped down the wrong side of the road on its way to aid the American. The US employee reportedly told Pakistan police that he was acting in self-defense and that the men, who were armed, had tried to rob him after taking out money from an ATM.

The US consulate employee remains in Pakistani custody. He is charged with two counts of murder and of possessing an illegal firearm.
SOURCE

If this was an American in America, Rivero would be outraged. How does he know it wasn't self-defence? He doesn't - he can't know it.

And look how he treats American "demands" for the return of a national they say has diplomatic immunity? Rivero seems to suggest such demands are insensitive because of the volatile atmosphere in Pakistan. Whereas when Israel boarded the recalcitrant Mavi Mamara and an American citizen was killed, Rivero wanted the US to declare war on Israel. Domestic Israeli opinion and possible unrest has never featured in Rivero's discourse, so why should Pakistan's?

It isn't difficult to see Rivero's game. Rivero will abandon principle for realpolitic whenever it suits his agenda - but when his enemies pursue realpolitic rather than principle he condemns it for lack of principle - and when his enemies pursue principle regardless of the politics he condemns them for their lack of realpolitic.

In this instance, Rivero disposes with principle and suggests US is ham-fisted in demanding Davis' release and thereby provoking public animosity. What he omits to say is that

"U.S. officials....believe Davis is being held despite his diplomatic immunity because of fears that releasing him might cause domestic unrest."
SOURCE

So, according to Rivero the US should abandon international convention because of fears of unrest, but never considers that Pakistan aren't releasing him because of the same fear of unrest. [Did Israeli concern over the Mami Marmara sway him any? No.]

Diplomatic immunity is reprehensible perhaps, but it is what it is. Domestic unrest in Pakistan is no reason to abandon international treaty nor is it a reason to abandon a citizen-servant of the American state (one with Diplomatic Immunity, a status protected under international law and treaty).

Rivero tells audience - "Listen to David Duke!"

Oh yeah, we all should all listen to a racist, former Klan leader about 'Zionists'. He's bound to have the lowdown, right? Objectivity. Aye. Duke really cares about Egyptians, don't you know? Funny, but I thought nationalists like Duke always suggested Americans shouldn't be concerned about affairs overseas......it's none of their business, right?

Marx's Humane Criticism of Religion

I was reading the passage of Marx wherein he makes the famous remark about religion being 'the opium of the masses' and I was struck by his sensitivity and understanding - in contrast to how the quote is usually portrayed: as an extremely hostile 'socialist-atheist' position. True, it's an atheist's view. But it certainly doesn't lack empathy, understanding or sympathy.

Marx says

Religion is the general theory of this world.....

Less true today, surely - but still true. Religious education surely is the most common sort - and it has a refined call on human consciousness - it is meant to deal with human concerns, so it speaks to people. Yah - functionalism.

Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification.

All true, surely? Humanity's encyclopaedia, its logic, its ethics. Isn't it?

It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality.

Out of the shadows, from tree-climbing ape to rocketeering man. It's a process, from ignorance to knowledge, innocence to ability.

The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering.

That doesn't lack empathy - it's a recognition of suffering, not a dismissal of religion as irrelevant nor is it contempt of religion as if for a disease. Rather it's a sympathy for religion as a symptom of disease. Religion less as cause but more as effect - the target of criticism is the disease (the real human conditions), not the symptom (religion).

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world.....

That's a very touching sentiment. It's very humane, warm, understanding.

Religion is....the soul of soulless conditions.

the heart of a heartless world.....the soul of soulless conditions. And isn't it? Those aren't the words of some firebrand intent on causing harm. It's a very warm, sensitive description of religion.

It is the opium of the people.

It doesn't sound the same in context, does it? [I wonder if he ever tried some?]

The most important part, which makes perfect sense to me, is this:

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.

Brilliant.

The full passage:

Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man—state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Rivero: "regaining the country"

Regain their country? From Jews, or from Zionism or from Israel? Rivero provides some historical 'context' by which to adduce his position:

Well, that seems obvious enough.

The "taking back of the country" is one of the central appeals of fascism. In Nazism it was a mobilising force, taking the form of extreme anti-semitism. But essentially the argument was the same then as Rivero's is today - that the country's problems are tied to the presence and influence of Jews and that a now-decadent society is in need of being 'taken back' by 'the real Americans'.

Such ideas are rejected by the vast majority, but Rivero and his ilk rationalise this political failure as simply more evidence of the grand conspiracy and its manipulation: "the Jews own the media!" of course, of course....and everyday people are derided as 'sheeple'. How else to explain the near-total rejection of ideas like the paranoid, Nazi-notion of a Jewish world-conspiracy?

Even history must conform, whereby the Jews must be blamed for 'launching war on Germany', rather than the other way around. This inversion of reality is an acceptance of the Nazi position - it is a (false) Nazi narrative, repeating it is repeating falsified Nazi history.

US Budget

Income
Expenditure

What a mess. A cool $12Tn-$13Tn in debt, and increasing at $0.5Tn to $1.5T a year.

Wow.

But where has this deterioration come from? Some of it is inflation, the numbers get bigger over the years. But Wiki reports on the present causes, comparing 2001 with 2009: the position deteriorated very seriously under George Bush following surpluses under Clinton:

2001 vs. 2009

According to the CBO, the U.S. last had a surplus during fiscal year (FY) 2001. From FY2001 to FY2009, spending increased by 6.5% of GDP (from 18.2% of GDP to 24.7%) while taxes declined by 4.7% of GDP (from 19.5% of GDP to 14.8%). The drivers of the expense increases (expressed as % of GDP) are Medicare & Medicaid (1.7%), Defense (1.6%), Income Security such as unemployment benefits and food stamps (1.4%), Social Security (0.6%) and all other categories (1.2%). The drivers of tax reductions are individual income taxes (-3.3%), payroll taxes (-0.5%), corporate income taxes (-0.5%) and other (-0.4%). The 2009 spending level is the highest relative to GDP in 40 years, while the tax receipts are the lowest relative to GDP in 40 years. The next highest spending year was 1985 (22.8%) while the next lowest tax year was 2004 (16.1%)
SOURCE

So, spending increased and tax-cuts meant receipts declined. Then there was a financial crisis, and a recession.

How much has that effected the position?

2001 vs. 2012
Causes for Changes in CBO Forecasts.

The U.S. budget situation has deteriorated significantly since 2001, when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast average annual surpluses of approximately $850 billion from 2009-2012. The average deficit forecast in each of those years as of June 2009 was approximately $1,215 billion. The New York Times analyzed this roughly $2 trillion "swing," separating the causes into four major categories along with their share:

* Recessions or the business cycle (37%);
* Policies enacted by President Bush (33%);
* Policies enacted by President Bush and supported or extended by President Obama (20%); and
* New policies from President Obama (10%).

CBO data is based only on current law, so policy proposals that have yet to be made law are not included in their analysis. The article states that "President Obama’s agenda ... is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits", but that he "...does not have a realistic plan for reducing the deficit..." Presidents have no Constitutional authority to levy taxes or spend money, as this responsibility resides with the Congress, although a President's priorities influence Congressional action.

Peter Orszag, the OMB Director under President Obama, stated in a November 2009 that of the $9 trillion in deficits forecast for the 2010-2019 period, $5 trillion are due to programs from the prior administration, including tax cuts from 2001 and 2003 and the unfunded Medicare Part D. Another $3.5 trillion are due to the financial crisis, including reductions in future tax revenues and additional spending for the social safety net such as unemployment benefits. The remainder are stimulus and bailout programs related to the crisis
SOURCE

So, of a $9T deficit projected for 2010-2019 - $5T is due to previous administration, $3.5T is the financial crisis, and the remaining $O.5 Bn is the bailout and 'stimulus'. Hmmm. Obama's fault, eh? Sure.

A couple of things stand out for me:

1) the relatively low level of interest payments. It's a drag on the US economy, no doubt. But it certainly isn't a critical component by size. This alone refutes all the conspiro bullshit about how America is going broke because of interest repayments etc. Rubbish. Plus, apparently half of the debt remains held domestically, so any interest payments go back into American income somewhere.

2) the implication that taxes need to rise substantially across the board - or massive spending cuts. Probably both. No, not much of a novel insight, I know.

So, how to alter spending so as to improve the annual position by, say, $1 Trillion? That should at least be break-even on the current account deficit, and even provide for a surplus. That's 1,000,000,000,000 dollars, divided by US population (300 million). That's $3333 per person in the US. That makes circa $6666 per person in the working population. Per year. Woah!

And it keeps getting worse?

Of course, America's such a strong society, it's so well integrated and social that everyone will readily agree on the necessary measures and they'll soon be pulling together to get the job done. I'm sure. Gulp.

2007 - Mubarak cracks down on Muslim Brotherhood

Egypt's Mubarak cracks down on Muslim Brotherhood

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Tuesday, March 20, 2007

CAIRO — The regime of President Hosni Mubarak, amid efforts to revise the constitution, has launched a major crackdown on the opposition.

Egyptian opposition sources said security forces have arrested a range of dissidents who oppose the Mubarak regime. The sources cited the Muslim Brotherhood and the pro-democracy Kefaya movement.
SOURCE

John Bolton - AQ as Nazism

What I'm doing today is doing what I'm doing now: I'm educating a new generation in the CIA that the Muslim Brotherhood was a fascist organization that was hired by Western intelligence that evolved over time into what we today know as al-Qaeda.

Here's how the story began. In the 1920's there was a young Egyptian named al Bana. And al Bana formed this nationalist group called the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Bana was a devout admirer of Adolph Hitler and wrote to him frequently. So persistent was he in his admiration of the new Nazi Party that in the 1930's, al-Bana and the Muslim Brotherhood became a secret arm of Nazi intelligence.

The Arab Nazis had much in common with the new Nazi doctrines. They hated Jews; they hated democracy; and they hated the Western culture. It became the official policy of the Third Reich to secretly develop the Muslim Brotherhood as the fifth Parliament, an army inside Egypt.

Interesting. The entire (long) article is here.

Again, this story was linked to in the notes supporting an article posted at Ryan Dawson's Rys2Sense/Anti-neocons -- they censored my elaborations, and yet the notes supporting the article (posted by a moderator!) say exactly the same thing as I had.

Bolton claims that

Instead of prosecuting the Nazis -- the Muslim Brotherhood -- the British government hired them. They brought all the fugitive Nazi war criminals of Arab and Muslim descent into Egypt, and for three years they were trained on a special mission. The British Secret Service wanted to use the fascists of the Muslim Brotherhood to strike down the infant state of Israel in 1948. Only a few people in the Mossad know this, but many of the members of the Arab Armies and terrorist groups that tried to strangle the infant State of Israel were the Arab Nazis of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Britain was not alone. The French intelligence service cooperated by releasing the Grand Mufti and smuggling him to Egypt, so all of the Arab Nazis came together. So, from 1945 to 1948, the British Secret Service protected every Arab Nazi they could, but they failed to quash the State of Israel.

What the British did then, they sold the Arab Nazis to the predecessor of what became the CIA. It may sound stupid; it may sound evil, but it did happen. The idea was that we were going to use the Arab Nazis in the Middle East as a counterweight to the Arab communists. Just as the Soviet Union was funding Arab communists, we would fund the Arab Nazis to fight against. And lots of secret classes took place. We kept the Muslim Brotherhood on our payroll.

Well, that makes a lot of sense. Saddam Hussein, whilst not Muslim Brotherhood, perhaps, destroyed the Iraqi leftwing and was backed by Washington to do so. So why couldn't they use Islamic fundamentalists seeded with Nazism to do the same? We know they did it in Afghanistan, hiring Osama and the Mujahadeen to oppose Russian/Soviet intervention in Afghanistan (intervention which the Afghan Government itself had requested and the Soviets had resisted, IIRC).

From Wiki

The Afghan government, having secured a treaty in December 1978 that allowed them to call on Soviet forces, repeatedly requested the introduction of troops in Afghanistan in the spring and summer of 1979. They requested Soviet troops to provide security and to assist in the fight against the mujahideen rebels.

In July, the Afghan government requested that two motorized rifle divisions be sent to Afghanistan. The following day, they requested an airborne division in addition to the earlier requests. They repeated these requests and variants to these requests over the following months right up to December 1979. However, the Soviet government was in no hurry to grant them.
SOURCE

That this is called an "invasion" is a complete distortion. It is also the view shared by the rebel forces in Afghan civil war - the same forces that America supported - Osama Bin Laedn and the Mujahadeen - the Muslim Brotherhood, the Nazi connection.

Wiki goes on to say something very interesting about the famous Brezinski interview wherein he is supposed to have made his claims about wanting to give Russia its own Vietnam (in Afghanistan) - apparently Brezinski says the interview never happened. I think this is the first time I have heard that Brezinski denies the interview took place, or that he said those things. Hmmm. Doesn't Chomsky refer to that interview?

Wiki continues:

The anti-communist rebels garnered support from the United States. Former CIA director and current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote in his memoirs From the Shadows that the U.S. intelligence services began to provide financial aid to the rebel factions in Afghanistan six months before the Soviet deployment. On July 3, 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order authorizing the CIA to conduct covert propaganda operations against the communist regime.[29]

Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski allegedly stated in an interview that he claimed was illegitimate and fabricated that the U.S. effort to aid the mujahideen was preceded by an effort to draw the Soviets into a costly and presumably distracting Vietnam War-like conflict. In a 1998 interview[30] with the French newsmagazine Le Nouvel Observateur, Brzezinski recalled: "We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would... That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Soviets into the Afghan trap... The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, "We now have the opportunity of giving to the Soviet Union its Vietnam War."[31][32] He maintains that this interview is simply untrue and that there were no arms sent to the Afghan insurgents until the week after the Soviet invasion. He suggested that the latter claim is easily verifiable, saying "the records are open!"[33] His claim is supported by the fact that he was never recorded or video-taped making any of these alleged statements by the interviewer. Two declassified documents signed by Carter shortly before the invasion do authorize the provision "unilaterally or through third countries as appropriate support to the Afghan insurgents either in the form of cash or non-military supplies" and the "worldwide" distribution of "non-attributable propaganda" to "expose" the leftist Afghan government as "despotic and subservient to the Soviet Union" and to "publicize the efforts of the Afghan insurgents to regain their country's sovereignty," but the records also show that the provision of arms to the rebels did not begin until 1980

Well, regardless whether that interview is real or not, there is no doubt the US supported Osama Bin Laden and the Mujahadeen - spawn of the old Nazi Muslim Brotherhood.
-----------

So, in 3 different places we have evidence of USA supporting anti-communist movements: embracing Nazi-influenced Islamic fundamentalism when necessary (Egypt, Afghanistan rebellion), or secular ultranationalist movements (Iraq - Saddam Hussein, Egypt/Mubarak) as necessary.

We can see from this why the US would have supported Mabarak, whom suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood, along with democracy. It isn't contrary for the US to then support the Muslim Brotherhood in Afghanistan: both serve US interest.

What we have is American intervention - supporting a variety of regimes depending on the local conditions, to protect its own interests and influence - not out of any moral or ethical principle.

This whole narrative makes a lot of sense to me. It's historically accurate, and applies across a range of superficially very distinct and different scenarios. Even present-day Egypt.

Dishonesty, lies, deception - despicable. You know who you are.

Some dishonest POS has changed my post at their blog - they completely changed the content of my post, making it appear I have said things I never did. Despicable behaviour.

The loon makes out they are being stalked by someone. Clearly they are the ones doing the stalking themselves - publishing personal information alongside lies and deception. If they have to change my post and lie to make a case, why believe any of their claims? Truly despicable behaviour.

The following appears to be written by me, but I didn't write it. The blogowner has altered what I wrote, changing my original post to essentially the opposite of what I had said. Here's the version that now appears at their site - which I did not write:


Seems to me be certainly unethical to alter peoples' posts - is it illegal? I will make a complaint to Wordpress, for certain. I don't name the blog because I don't see why they deserve a link, and they are posting personal information about people.

Punks. I did not say what they claimed I did. I just posted this in response:


How long before that gets changed?
-----------


ETA - it didn't take long to get changed - a matter of a few hours. My post has now been changed to read as follows:


Same deal as before - my post was changed to essentially the opposite of what I had actually said. That's about as low as one can go as a blog owner. But there we are - they provided the means to undermine themselves.

What a very stupid and malicious thing to do. Does this person imagine that such obvious tampering and flat-out dishonesty will help support their claims? Crazy.

ETA2: A rather purposefully menacing post has been added. It says my site is a "lethally tedious Zionist shill disinfo blog". Good. That's just the way I would want someone like that to imagine it. Having already revealed personal information about one person, they're now threatening me - "I also know who Socrates is, and it may interest you to know, my boring little man, I know who YOU are too." I'm sooooooooooo boring that random nutters on the internet know who I am......and waste their minutes writing crap threatening me.

lethally tedious Zionist shill disinfo blog - I like it! Catchy.

Islamism, fascism and terrorism

I came across John Loftus speaking about "Islamism, fascism and terrorism".

[In fact I was reading the links given in support of the article posted at Rys2Sense's forum - when I posted the same narrative it was deleted and censored.]

I'm not too sure about John Loftus, however, the article says:

A former war crimes investigator explained how the terrorist network al Qaeda spawned from Nazi and Islamic extremist movements following WWII.

John Loftus, who regularly appears on Fox News and ABC Radio addressed the theme of “the roots of prejudice and hatred in the world.”

Early in his law career he took a volunteer attorney job created by the Carter administration to hunt Nazis “because I thought it would look good on my resume.”

To his surprise, rather than traveling to Germany to investigate he was sent to the U.S. Government’s massive underground vaults protecting classified information. Loftus claims he was given complete access to the 20 acre-sized vaults, where he says he found some disturbing information.

During his time in the government’s underground vaults, Loftus said he read a file on an organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood. In the file was information about a man named Hasam al-Banna who founded the organization in 1920.

“Mr. al-Banna was a devout admirer of a young Austrian writer named Adolph Hitler. His letters to Hitler were so supportive that when Hitler came to power in the 1930s he had Nazi intelligence make contact with al-Banna to see if they could work together,” Loftus said.

Hitler had al-banna establish a spy network for Nazi Germany throughout Arabia.

Al-Banna promised Hitler that when Gen. Rommel’s Nazi tank division arrived in Cairo and Alexandria, the Muslim Brotherhood would ensure all of the British troops would be killed.

“These men were Nazi agents, they were spies, who adopted the Third Reich’s policy towards the Jews,” Loftus said.

He spoke about another prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a man known as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was the organization’s representative in Palestine. The Grand Mufti brought with him a hatred of the Jews. He was a principal organizer of the 1920 “Bloody Passover” massacre of Jews who were praying at Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall.

Following a failed attempt to create a Nazi uprising in Iraq, the Grand Mufti fled to Europe to organize international Arab forces for the Third Reich disguised as SS divisions.

“In truth these forces were Arab fanatics, Arab Nazis from all across the Middle East,” Loftus said.
SOURCE

There's that same narrative again. But it's John Loftus? Well, ok, here's that same narrative again, only with more detail:

Islamism, fascism and terrorism (Part 3)
By Marc Erikson, Asia Times, 4 December 2002

Islamism, or fascism with an Islamic face, was born with and of the Muslim Brotherhood. It proved (and improved) its fascist core convictions and practices through collaboration with the Nazis in the run-up to and during World War II. It proved it during the same period through its collaboration with the overtly fascist "Young Egypt" (Misr al-Fatah) movement, founded in October 1933 by lawyer Ahmed Hussein and modeled directly on the Hitler party, complete with paramilitary Green Shirts aping the Nazi Brown Shirts, Nazi salute and literal translations of Nazi slogans. Among its members, Young Egypt counted two promising youngsters and later presidents, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar El-Sadat.

In later years, the Brotherhood had serious fallings-out with Nasser, whom it attempted to assassinate on several different occasions, and with Sadat, whom it did assassinate in 1981. But up until at least the time of Nasser's 1952 coup d'etat, all was sweetness and light between Hassan al-Banna's brethren and Nasser's "free officers". In his personal diary, Sadat wrote in the summer of 1940:

"One day I invited Hassan al-Banna, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, to the army camp where I served, in the Egyptian Communication Corps, so that he might lecture before my soldiers on various religious topics. A few days before his scheduled appearance it was reported to me from army Intelligence that his coming was forbidden and canceled by the order of General Headquarters, and I myself was summoned for interrogation. After a short while I went secretly to El Bana's office and participated in a few seminars he organized. I like the man and admired him."

Whether al-Banna, who had already been in contact with German agents since the 1936-39 Palestine uprising against the British, or someone else introduced Sadat and his free officer comrades to German military intelligence is not known. But in the summer of 1942, when Rommel's Afrikakorps stood just over 100 kilometers from Alexandria and were poised to march into Cairo, Sadat, Nasser and their buddies were in close touch with the German attacking force and—with Brotherhood help—preparing an anti-British uprising in Egypt's capital. A treaty with Germany including provisions for German recognition of an independent, but pro-Axis Egypt had been drafted by Sadat, guaranteeing that "no British soldier would leave Cairo alive". When Rommel's push east failed at El Alamein in the fall of 1942, Sadat and several of his co-conspirators were arrested by the British and sat out much of the remainder of the war in jail.

Islamist-fascist collaboration did not cease with war's end. King Farouk brought large numbers of German military and intelligence personnel as well as ranking (ex-) Nazis into Egypt as advisors. It was a bad move. Several of the Germans, recognizing Farouk's political weakness, soon began conspiring with Nasser and his free officers (who, in turn, were working closely with the Brotherhood) to overthrow the king. On July 23, 1952, the deed was done and Newsweek marveled that, "The most intriguing aspect [of] the revolt ... was the role played in the coup by the large group of German advisors serving with the Egyptian army ... The young officers who did the actual planning consulted the German advisors as to 'tactics' ... This accounted for the smoothness of the operation."

And yet another player fond of playing all sides against the middle had entered the game prior to Farouk's ouster: In 1951, the CIA's Kermit Roosevelt (grandson of president Teddy, who in 1953 would organize the overthrow of elected Iranian leader Mohammed Mossadegh and install Reza Pahlavi as Shah) opened secret negotiations with Nasser. Agreement was soon reached that the US, post-coup, would assist in building up Egypt's intelligence and security forces—in the obvious manner, by reinforcing Nasser's existing Germans with additional, "more capable", ones. For that, CIA head Allen Dulles turned to Reinhard Gehlen, one-time head of eastern front German military intelligence and by the early 1950s in charge of developing a new German foreign intelligence service. Gehlen hired the best man he knew for the job—former SS colonel Otto Skorzeny, who at the end of the war had organized the infamous ODESSA network to facilitate the escape of high-ranking Nazis to Latin America (mainly Peron's Argentina) and Egypt. With Skorzeny now on the job of assisting Nasser, Egypt became a safe haven for Nazi war criminals galore. The CIA officer in charge of the Egypt assistance program was Miles Copeland, soon a Nasser intimate.

And then things got truly complicated and messy. Having played a large role in Nasser's power grab, the Muslim Brotherhood, after the 1949 assassination of Hassan al-Banna by government agents [see part 1] under new leadership and (since 1951) under the radical ideological guidance of Sayyid Qutb, demanded its due—imposition of Sharia (Islamic religious) law. When Nasser demurred, he became a Brotherhood assassination target, but with CIA and the German mercenaries' help he prevailed. In February 1954, the Brotherhood was banned. An October 1954 assassination attempt failed. Four thousand brothers were arrested, six were executed, and thousands fled to Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Lebanon.

Within short order, things got more tangled still: As Nasser in his brewing fight with Britain and France over control of the Suez Canal turned to the Soviet Union for assistance and arms purchases, the CIA approached and began collaboration with the Brotherhood against their ex-ally, the now pro-Soviet Nasser.

We leave that twisted tale at this stage. A leading Brotherhood member arrested in 1954 was Sayyid Qutb. He spent the next 10 years in Jarah prison near Cairo and there wrote the tracts that subsequently became (and till this day remain) must-reading and guidance for Islamists everywhere. (The main translations into Farsi were made by the Rahbar of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.) But while brother number one went to jail, other leading members who had escaped were given jobs in Saudi universities and provided with royal funding. They included Sayyid's brother Muhammad and Abdullah al-Azzam, the radical Palestinian preacher (the "Emir of Jihad") who later in Peshawar, Pakistan, founded the Maktab al-Khidamat, or Office of Services, which became the core of the al-Qaeda network. As a student at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, Osama bin Laden, son of Muhammad bin Laden, the kingdom's wealthiest contractor and close friend of King Faisal, became a disciple of Muhammad Qutb and al-Azzam.

Sayyid Qutb was born in 1906 in a small village in Upper Egypt, was educated at a secular college, and subsequently worked as an inspector of schools for the ministry of education. In the 1930s and 1940s, nothing pointed to his later role. He wrote literary criticism, hung out in coffee houses, and published a novel which flopped. His conversion to radical Islam came during two-and-a-half years of graduate studies in education in the United States (1948-51). He came to hate everything American, described churches as "entertainment centers and sexual playgrounds", was shocked by the freedom allowed to women, and immediately upon his return to Egypt joined the Muslim Brotherhood and assumed the position of editor-in-chief of the organization's newspaper.

While in jail, Qutb wrote a 30-volume (!) commentary on the Koran; but his most influential book, published in 1965 after his 1964 release from prison for health reasons, was Ma'alim fi'l-tariq ("Signposts on the Road", also translated as "Milestones"). In it, he revised Hassan al-Banna's concept of establishing an Islamic state in Egypt after the nation was thoroughly Islamized, advocating instead—fascist or Bolshevik-style—that a revolutionary vanguard should first seize state power and then impose Islamization from above. Trouble is, this recipe went against the unambiguous Muslim prohibition against overthrowing a Muslim ruler.

Qutb found his clue to resolving the dilemma in the writings of his Pakistani contemporary, Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi (1903-79), founder in 1941 of the Jamaat-i-Islami, who had denounced the existing political order in Muslim societies as partial jahiliyyah—resembling the state of unenlightened savagery, ignorance and idolatry of pre-Islamic Arab societies. There was nothing "partial" about the jahiliyyah of the existing order, nothing that could be redeemed, pronounced Qutb: "... a society whose legislation does not rest on divine law ... is not Muslim, however ardently its individuals may proclaim themselves Muslim, even if they pray, fast and make the pilgrimage ... jahiliyyah ... takes the form of claiming the right to create values, to legislate rules of collective behavior and to choose any way of life that rests with me, without regard to what God has prescribed."

Only uncompromising restoration of the ideal of the union of religion and state as evidenced during the 7th century reign of the "righteous caliphs" would do. Islam was a complete system of life not in need of man-made additions. Any ruler, Muslim or otherwise, standing in the way could be justifiably removed—by any means.

This, naturally, applied to Nasser, and another attempt on his life was made in 1965. Qutb was rearrested, tortured and tried for treason. On August 29, 1966, he was hanged. The charge against him of plotting to establish a Marxist regime in Egypt was ludicrous. Nasser and his minions knew full well that the real danger to the regime stemmed from Qutb's denunciation of it as jahiliyyah, and not from those clauses of his Ma'alim fi'l-tariq which speak of a classless society in which the "selfish individual" and the "exploitation of man by man" would be abolished, which the prosecution cited as evidence against him.

The martyred Qutb's writings rapidly acquired wide acceptance in the Arab world, especially after the ignominious defeat of the Arabs in the June 1967 "Six Day War" with Israel, taken as proof of the depth of depravity to which the regimes in the Muslim realm had sunk.
SOURCE

I find this a very convincing narrative - it not only appears essentially true, it helps explain a lot of things too. It also leads to a lot of questions. One that intrigues me is the rat-run of high profile Nazis spirited out to S America and, apparently, Egypt. Who went where? To do what?

It seems uncontroversial whether the physical connections of 'radical Islam' to Nazism are true. Whether the ideological roots are shared I don't really know, as I'm ignorant of all that Islamic stuff - although simplistically the two seem extremely similar. But most of us are similarly ignorant, I suspect, and so we can see there's the possibility for it to be true even whilst remaining invisible to most of us.

And remember, these are links given in support of an article posted at Rys2Sense's forum Anti-Neocons - when I posted the exact same narrative in response, it was deleted and censored.

Banned and Censored at Rys2Sense - for 3rd Time

The Fearless Truthseekers at Rys2Sense/Anti-neocons have censored and banned me again.

One of the moderators, Tim, had posted a thread titled "The 'Muslim' Brotherhood, Freemasonry and Nazism" in the "Church & State, anti-Zionism" section. Tim's post simply contained a link:

http://www.terrorism-illuminati.com/content/muslim-brotherhood

Whilst the Freemasonry angle is the usual conspiracist guff, the page does contain something about the real history of Nazism and Arab ultranationalism, The Grand Mufti in Berlin for the war, etc.

I took the opportunity to post from 2 articles and a report I have linked to here previously - on the Muslim Brotherhood, and on the history of Hamas and Al Qaida as ideological brethren of Nazism. I posted as Antifa_6_million:

All was deleted of course - without any acknowledgement that anything had been censored. Before deletion, my comments received just one reply, saying

Trading Ziofascism for Muslim fascism... but there are no Muslims pushing us to war, but plenty of Zios.

So that shows where the power is... not the Muslim Brotherhood

Funny. It wasn't about "where the power lies", it was about the FACTUAL HISTORIC connections between Muslim Brotherhood, Arab ultranationalism, Islamic fundamentalism and Nazism. Not 'where the power lies'. If the Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas really are ideological allies of Nazism, then it's a bloody good thing they don't have power. But nevermind that, eh?

Of course, what I posted shatters the worldview of the anti-semitic conspiracist - and illuminates their claims with a rather embarassing light.

It's a history the 'anti-zionists' of Arab nationalism and Nazism would rather nobody heard. Hence Rys2Sense/anti-neocons deleted it all. Can't have people pointing out embarassing FACTS about our Islamic allies and the Nazis, can we? Nor can we have anything saying Hamas are akin to Al Qaida. That Mein Kampf is a best-seller in Islamic world etc. Nor can can we have anything which suggests Al Qaida has ever existed as an independent entity with a real, radical, offensive political and social agenda (Nazism with the Aryan Nation replaced by the Nation of Islam). All of this is contrary to the main notions of anti-semitic conspiracism and "911 as inside job" etc. Under that scenario, Al Qaida must be a product of American/Jewish world conspiracy, manipulated into acting American/Jewish interests so as to ultimately futher them (in what the conspiros ignorantly call 'the Hegelian dialect - problem, reaction, solution'.)

This is what they deleted:

The mad notion of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy, suppressed in Germany since May 8, 1945, survived and flourished in the political culture of the Arab world. An especially striking example is the charter adopted in 1988 by the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine, better known as Hamas.

In the Charter, the Jews are accused of being behind all the shocks of modernity: “They aim at undermining societies, destroying values, corrupting consciences, deteriorating character and annihilating Islam. (They are) behind the drug trade and alcoholism in all its kinds so as to facilitate its control and expansion.” In addition, they are held responsible for every major catastrophic event in modern history: The Jews "were behind the French Revolution [and] the Communist Revolution. . . . They were behind World War I . . . they were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. . . . There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it. . . . Their plan," states Article 32 of the charter, "is embodied in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."

For example, in the “Letter to the American People” of November 2002, which the report repeatedly cites, bin Laden warns: “The Jews have taken control of your media, and now control all aspects of your life making you their servants and achieving their aims at your expense.” Osama goes on: “Your law is the law of rich and wealthy people. . . . Behind them stand the Jews who control your policies, media and economy.” Yet the report’s authors inexplicably fail to see the significance of these words and the ideology behind them.
----
Substitute religious for racial purity, the idealized ummah of the rule of the four righteous caliphs of the mid-7th century for the mythical Aryan "Volksgemeinschaft", and most ideological and organizational precepts of Nazism laid out by chief theoretician Alfred Rosenberg in his work The Myth of the 20th Century and by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf, and later put into practice, are in all essential respects identical to the precepts of the Muslim Brotherhood after its initial phase as a group promoting spiritual and moral reform. This ranges from radical rejection of "decadent" Western political and economic liberalism (instead embracing the "leadership principle" and corporatist organization of the economy) to endorsement of the use of terror and assassinations to seize and hold state power, and all the way to concoction of fantastical anti-Semitic conspiracy theories linking international plutocratic finance to Freemasonry, Zionism and all-encompassing Jewish world control.

Not surprisingly then, as Italian and German fascism sought greater stakes in the Middle East in the 1930s and '40s to counter British and French controlling power, close collaboration between fascist agents and Islamist leaders ensued. During the 1936-39 Arab Revolt, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of German military intelligence, sent agents and money to support the Palestine uprising against the British, as did Muslim Brotherhood founder and "supreme guide" Hassan al-Banna. A key individual in the fascist-Islamist nexus and go-between for the Nazis and al-Banna became the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini - incidentally the later mentor (from 1946 onward) of a young firebrand by the name of Yasser Arafat.

A central role in the propaganda offensive was played by a Nazi wireless station, now almost totally forgotten. Since the 1936 Berlin Olympics a village called Zeesen, located to the south of Berlin, had been home to what was at the time the world’s most powerful short-wave radio transmitter. Between April 1939 and April 1945, Radio Zeesen reached out to the illiterate Muslim masses through daily Arabic programmes, which also went out in Persian and Turkish. At that time listening to the radio in the Arab world took place primarily in public squares or bazaars and coffee houses. No other station was more popular than this Nazi Zeesen service, which skilfully mingled antisemitic propaganda with quotations from the Koran and Arabic music. The Second World War allies were presented as lackeys of the Jews and the picture of the "United Jewish Nations" drummed into the audience. At the same time, the Jews were attacked as the worst enemies of Islam: "The Jew since the time of Muhammad has never been a friend of the Muslim, the Jew is the enemy and it pleases Allah to kill him".

http://www.mideasttruth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7692&sid=267d1ca00eb568875b786bc0372f2f73

-------------------

To my surprise Hamas turns out to be a Nazi-influenced, anti-Semitic, conspiratorial group, which sees religion as all, is primarily concerned with its competition against Fatah, and has the ultimate objective of the re-establishment of the Islamic Caliphate of old, an objective it shares fully with Al Qaeda. Hamas views on Jihad, Martyrdom, Western conspiracies against Islam since it was founded, and the absolute primacy of Islam in the world and in all areas of life are, to my amazement, nearly identical to those of Al Qaeda.

The Hamas Covenant, which is widely available and should be read by anyone interested in this issue, comprehensively reflects the views of Hassan al- Banna, Sayyid Qutb, and Abdullah Azzam, respectively the founder, key ideological influence, and patron of the Muslim Brotherhood.

These three, are (as set out in my book on the subject) also core ideologists of Al Qaeda , bringing their radical views on Jihad, militant Islam, martyrdom, the importance of a tiny vanguard leading the masses in the "right" direction, and a deep--seated belief in worldwide conspiracies, especially against the one true religion, Islam, into this completely religious document. The Oxford dictionary definition of a covenant is "An agreement held to be the basis of a relationship of commitment with God". The Hamas Covenant begins with the words: "In the name of the most merciful Allah", and very much continues in that vein.

The second paragraph of the Covenant contains a key quotation from Hassan al Banna -- "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

Sayyid Qutb, the godfather of Al Qaeda, wrote a paper in 1950, Our struggle with the Jews, which says: "the Jews were the enemies of the Moslem community from the first day... This bitter war which the Jews launched against Islam... Is a war, which has not been extinguished, even for one moment, for close on fourteen centuries, and which continues until this moment, its blaze raging in all corners of the earth... The Jews also utilised Christianity and idolatry in this comprehensive war... They attack every foundation of this religion in a Crusader-Zionist war." This is all Al Qaeda anti-semitic commentary and ideology and is clearly at the core of the Covenant and belief system of Hamas.

Abdullah Azzam , the patron of Hamas, coined the famous aphorism-"Jihad and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no conferences, and no dialogues”. This approach forms a core tenet of Al Qaeda and -as we will see - of Hamas.
These three core influencers on the Muslim brotherhood (the parent of Hamas ) are all highly anti-Semitic. Amplifying that anti-Semitism was the Nazi influence brought to the Muslim brotherhood and Hamas by the first leader of the Brotherhood in Palestine, Amin al -Husseini who held the office of Mufti of Jerusalem from 1921 onwords. The mufti spent most of the Second World War in Berlin with a staff of 60. A rabid supporter of Nazi Germany he broadcast on a Nazi Arabic-language station broadcasting out of the south of Berlin during the Second World War. After that war the Mufti was appointed leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine and deputy to Hassan Al-Banna.

Before the war the Muslim Brotherhood, part funded by the Nazi regime in Germany, distributed copies of Hitler's Mein Kampf and the Mufti himself acknowledged that it was only due to the German funds he had received that it had been possible to carry through the Arab Uprising in Palestine between 1936 and 1939. It is notable that during that uprising , more murders and homicides occurred inside the Palestinian camp than were perpetrated against the Jews or British. This trait of internecine Palestinian conflict has, unfortunately been worsened with the arrival of Hamas on the scene.

With this dual heritage from key Al Qaeda ideologists and from Nazi Germany, it is easy to understand why anti-Semitic comments are scattered throughout the Covenant. These refer to supposed Jewish world cconspiracies,The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, supposed Jewish control of the League of Nations, the UN and the UN Security Council, and Jewish responsibility for all wars, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution etc etc.

http://www.richardwhelan.com/otherarticles/14January2009.htm

They also deleted a music video I had posted without comment in the 35-page songs thread. It was the Protocols song by that Rabbi dude. They need to get a life? Sheesh.

Oh, I also posted this link to a very interesting report on the Muslim Brotherhood which raises some very serious issues:
http://www.currenttrends.org/docLib/20090411_Merley.USBROTHERHOOD.pdf

All was deleted at Rys2Sense / Anti-neocons. Truthseekers, see......

This seems to really expose their claim to be antifascist as - a lie. Clearly, the interests of Islamic fundamentalism and anti-semitism trump anti-fascism at Rys2Sense and Anti-neocons. And it's one thing to disagree with the contents of what I posted, but it's quite another to refuse to allow them to appear. The content of the articles they deleted explains the reasons they were deleted. Neat.

This is quite disturbing behaviour for people whom appear to believe they are "anti-fascist". Black is white. Hello Orwell.

Mubarak Resigns

I'm waiting for Rivero to spin this as "WE did it!" I bet he'll brazenly try casting it as a success for him and his values, his political ideals, his supporters. As if he deserves credit, as if it endorses his positions. On the right side of history, see......yeah, yeah.

Paul Krugman on Austrian Hangover Theory

The Hangover Theory
Are recessions the inevitable payback for good times?
By Paul Krugman
Posted Friday, Dec. 4, 1998, at 3:30 AM ET

A few weeks ago, a journalist devoted a substantial part of a profile of yours truly to my failure to pay due attention to the "Austrian theory" of the business cycle—a theory that I regard as being about as worthy of serious study as the phlogiston theory of fire. Oh well. But the incident set me thinking—not so much about that particular theory as about the general worldview behind it. Call it the overinvestment theory of recessions, or "liquidationism," or just call it the "hangover theory." It is the idea that slumps are the price we pay for booms, that the suffering the economy experiences during a recession is a necessary punishment for the excesses of the previous expansion.

The hangover theory is perversely seductive—not because it offers an easy way out, but because it doesn't. It turns the wiggles on our charts into a morality play, a tale of hubris and downfall. And it offers adherents the special pleasure of dispensing painful advice with a clear conscience, secure in the belief that they are not heartless but merely practicing tough love.
Powerful as these seductions may be, they must be resisted—for the hangover theory is disastrously wrongheaded. Recessions are not necessary consequences of booms. They can and should be fought, not with austerity but with liberality—with policies that encourage people to spend more, not less. Nor is this merely an academic argument: The hangover theory can do real harm. Liquidationist views played an important role in the spread of the Great Depression—with Austrian theorists such as Friedrich von Hayek and Joseph Schumpeter strenuously arguing, in the very depths of that depression, against any attempt to restore "sham" prosperity by expanding credit and the money supply. And these same views are doing their bit to inhibit recovery in the world's depressed economies at this very moment.

The many variants of the hangover theory all go something like this: In the beginning, an investment boom gets out of hand. Maybe excessive money creation or reckless bank lending drives it, maybe it is simply a matter of irrational exuberance on the part of entrepreneurs. Whatever the reason, all that investment leads to the creation of too much capacity—of factories that cannot find markets, of office buildings that cannot find tenants. Since construction projects take time to complete, however, the boom can proceed for a while before its unsoundness becomes apparent. Eventually, however, reality strikes—investors go bust and investment spending collapses. The result is a slump whose depth is in proportion to the previous excesses. Moreover, that slump is part of the necessary healing process: The excess capacity gets worked off, prices and wages fall from their excessive boom levels, and only then is the economy ready to recover.

Except for that last bit about the virtues of recessions, this is not a bad story about investment cycles. Anyone who has watched the ups and downs of, say, Boston's real estate market over the past 20 years can tell you that episodes in which overoptimism and overbuilding are followed by a bleary-eyed morning after are very much a part of real life. But let's ask a seemingly silly question: Why should the ups and downs of investment demand lead to ups and downs in the economy as a whole? Don't say that it's obvious—although investment cycles clearly are associated with economywide recessions and recoveries in practice, a theory is supposed to explain observed correlations, not just assume them. And in fact the key to the Keynesian revolution in economic thought—a revolution that made hangover theory in general and Austrian theory in particular as obsolete as epicycles—was John Maynard Keynes' realization that the crucial question was not why investment demand sometimes declines, but why such declines cause the whole economy to slump.

Here's the problem: As a matter of simple arithmetic, total spending in the economy is necessarily equal to total income (every sale is also a purchase, and vice versa). So if people decide to spend less on investment goods, doesn't that mean that they must be deciding to spend more on consumption goods—implying that an investment slump should always be accompanied by a corresponding consumption boom? And if so why should there be a rise in unemployment?

Most modern hangover theorists probably don't even realize this is a problem for their story. Nor did those supposedly deep Austrian theorists answer the riddle. The best that von Hayek or Schumpeter could come up with was the vague suggestion that unemployment was a frictional problem created as the economy transferred workers from a bloated investment goods sector back to the production of consumer goods. (Hence their opposition to any attempt to increase demand: This would leave "part of the work of depression undone," since mass unemployment was part of the process of "adapting the structure of production.") But in that case, why doesn't the investment boom—which presumably requires a transfer of workers in the opposite direction—also generate mass unemployment? And anyway, this story bears little resemblance to what actually happens in a recession, when every industry—not just the investment sector—normally contracts.

As is so often the case in economics (or for that matter in any intellectual endeavor), the explanation of how recessions can happen, though arrived at only after an epic intellectual journey, turns out to be extremely simple. A recession happens when, for whatever reason, a large part of the private sector tries to increase its cash reserves at the same time. Yet, for all its simplicity, the insight that a slump is about an excess demand for money makes nonsense of the whole hangover theory. For if the problem is that collectively people want to hold more money than there is in circulation, why not simply increase the supply of money? You may tell me that it's not that simple, that during the previous boom businessmen made bad investments and banks made bad loans. Well, fine. Junk the bad investments and write off the bad loans. Why should this require that perfectly good productive capacity be left idle?

The hangover theory, then, turns out to be intellectually incoherent; nobody has managed to explain why bad investments in the past require the unemployment of good workers in the present. Yet the theory has powerful emotional appeal. Usually that appeal is strongest for conservatives, who can't stand the thought that positive action by governments (let alone—horrors!—printing money) can ever be a good idea. Some libertarians extol the Austrian theory, not because they have really thought that theory through, but because they feel the need for some prestigious alternative to the perceived statist implications of Keynesianism. And some people probably are attracted to Austrianism because they imagine that it devalues the intellectual pretensions of economics professors. But moderates and liberals are not immune to the theory's seductive charms—especially when it gives them a chance to lecture others on their failings.

Few Western commentators have resisted the temptation to turn Asia's economic woes into an occasion for moralizing on the region's past sins. How many articles have you read blaming Japan's current malaise on the excesses of the "bubble economy" of the 1980s—even though that bubble burst almost a decade ago? How many editorials have you seen warning that credit expansion in Korea or Malaysia is a terrible idea, because after all it was excessive credit expansion that created the problem in the first place?

And the Asians—the Japanese in particular—take such strictures seriously. One often hears that Japan is adrift because its politicians refuse to make hard choices, to take on vested interests. The truth is that the Japanese have been remarkably willing to make hard choices, such as raising taxes sharply in 1997. Indeed, they are in trouble partly because they insist on making hard choices, when what the economy really needs is to take the easy way out. The Great Depression happened largely because policy-makers imagined that austerity was the way to fight a recession; the not-so-great depression that has enveloped much of Asia has been worsened by the same instinct. Keynes had it right: Often, if not always, "it is ideas, not vested interests, that are dangerous for good or evil."
Paul Krugman writes a twice-weekly column for the New York Times and is professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University. His home page contains links to many of his other articles and essays.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/9593/

Austrian School - Baby of the Far Right?

I've written before about how the Austrian economics school seemed wrapped up with the far-right. I also mentioned that the extreme free-marketeering Mises Institute couldn't run as a business and had to exist off of charity - receiving large donations from one wealthy backer whom also supported the extreme far-right with substantial donations.

Whilst looking into the Austrian school I came across a great page of critiques, one of which had a very interesting mention of the Austrian school and the far-right, alongside its stinging criticism:

The Austrian School of Economics is a tiny group of libertarians at war with mainstream economics. They reject even the scientific method that mainstream economists use, preferring to use instead a pre-scientific approach that shuns real-world data and is based purely on logical assumptions. But this is the very method that thousands of religions use when they argue their opposing beliefs, and the fact that the world has thousands of religions proves the fallibility of this approach. Academia has generally ignored the Austrian School, and the only reason it continues to exist is because it is financed by wealthy business donors on the far right. The movement does not exist on its own scholarly merits.
SOURCE

So, financed by 'wealthy business donors on the far-right'. I find it ironic that their message is an extreme sort of economic free-market darwinism, yet they rely on donations (from the far-right!) Yeah, right. Nice work if you can get it?

An ineteresting collection of threads - Mises Institute, Austrian School, wealthy far-right business funding - and its proponents and fans - Ron Paul, Alex Jones, Ryan Dawson, Rivero(ish - who knows what Rivero really digs? He'll even pretend to a bit of socialism when it suits him.) all that jazz.

That site goes on and the criticism of Austrian school is very good - though obviously theAustrians would completely reject it, I suppose:

Mainstream economists dismiss the Austrians as cranks. Nobel economist Paul Samuelson wrote that "I tremble for the reputation of my subject" after reading the "exaggerated claims that used to be made in economics for the power of deduction and a priori reasoning [the Austrian methods]." Noted economist Mark Blaug has called Austrian methodologies "so cranky and idiosyncratic that we can only wonder that they have been taken seriously by anyone."

Haha. That's quite a blast.

Aside from the technical criticism, this is of interest:

For most of the Austrian School's history, mainstream academia has simply ignored it. Even today, none of its works are on the required reading list at Harvard. Most introductory economics texts don't even mention the school, and its economists are absent from many encyclopedias or indexes of the century's great economists. Several of its founding figures struggled to make ends meet, rejected by universities which did not view their work as sound. Even today, the movement's faculty boasts no more than 75 scholars worldwide. By comparison, there are over 20,000 economists in the American Economics Association alone. Their failure to rise in academia has not been for want of publicity -- on the contrary, their leaders have been publishing books for over 120 years, all the while bumping elbows with famous economists like John Maynard Keynes. And after Hayek shared a Nobel Prize in 1974 for a contribution to monetary theory, the school received a huge burst of academic attention. But it was just as quickly rejected. Their dismal showing in academia stems from the fact that they have simply failed to make their case.

In classic crank tradition, Austrians have a conspiracy theory to explain this failure. In an essay subtitled "Ignorance and the Universities," Austrian professor Patrick Gunning writes:

"The aim of this essay is to try to explain why positivism [the mainstream approach] has succeeded in professional economics, while subjectivist economics [the Austrian approach] has failed. It… identifies two main reasons for this phenomenon. The first is that ordinary people cannot tell the difference between good and bad economics. The second is that the training ground for professional economics is the university. In modern times, the university is more likely than not to be funded by the government. In a democracy, government funding implies a competition for funds and bureaucracy. Both of these characteristics favor positivism."

Today the Austrian tradition is kept alive by the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a think tank financed entirely by wealthy business donors. It is part of a broader phenomenon, the explosion of far-right think tanks in the last 20 years, funded by such conservative and libertarian donors as the Bradley, Coors and Koch family foundations. These foundations have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the creation of an "alternate academia" of right-wing think tanks, after the failure of mainstream academia to support right-wing dogma. This alternate academia comes complete with extensive media ties to publicize their research, which is why Austrians are so frequently found on conservative talk radio. Austrian economist Israel Kirzner describes the critical role that their primary backer, the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), has played in the "revival" of Austrian economics:

"It was their vision which brought Ludwig von Mises to FEE at a time when he was, to put it mildly, all but ignored on the academic scene. It was through the resources of FEE, its skilled use of the tools of communication and public education, which ensured that Mises' message would survive."

Very interesting.

Their criticism of Austrian economics is good. Several of the criticisms are of Austrian positions which are akin to religious claims - which is doubtless part of why it seems to appeal to conservative christian folk - rich and poor.

Here's a very good page on criticism of Austrian economics (Ron Paul, Mises, Lew Rockwell etc)

So who is to blame, Ryan Dawson?

Oh wow. The movers and shakers are.....Christians and Jews! It's not really saying anything much is it? And hold on - doesn't Ryan Dawson's signature say "This is not a site to flail on about space aliens-illuminati-masonic-deathcult-jewish-catholic-lizard-lucifarian-jesuit-queen-barvarian-etc bull hockey."

Indeed it does. It even says "Take that junk somewhere else."


So one can't say it is Catholics, but one can say "Die-hard Christians!"? One can't say "Jesuits" but one can say 'Die-hard Jews'?

But hold on....Ryan says he's against claims about Jews, he's opposed to Zionism not religious Jews? Or....well, who knows? One moment it's one thing, the next another.

Ryan explains, kinda (lol):

... the faction that has nothing to fear from the US media and who could cover up something as huge as 911 or larger are the Zionists of Israel and their allies in the US government and press who all profit through the MIC and investments from fringe element religious organizations who are rewarded with air-time.

So now it's 'the Zionists of Israel' and the military industrial complex(MIC) to blame? How does all that fit together? Ryan again:

"Multi-national corporations run our press and government. They tie back to the privately owned central banks."

So, 'christians and jews' must run multi-national corporations? Amazing.

The Central banks as you know are rooted back to the same Zionists who wrote the plans for foreign policy

Where did the die-hard Christians go?

So, the MIC controls corporations, press and banks.....all tied back to the private central banks....which are 'rooted' with those same 'Zionists of Israel' etc profiting from the MIC?

The US and Israeli agencies and their Neocon governments work for their own interests and those interests are guided by a racist, political ideology mixed up with a fascist version of a religion and Straussian philosophy.

Their own interests? The 'racist political ideology' of Zionism, apparently. So the MIC is 'guided' by this supposed racist Israeli Zionism then?

Ryan once again:

Israel is a violent nation that engages in false flag operations routinely and serves the interests of the MIC not any particular ethnicity.

Eh? Now Israel serves the interests of the MIC not 'any particular ethnicity', and yet the MIC is guided by 'the racist Zionism' of Israel. Glad that's clear! [Pssst! Noticed the circularity there yet?]

Ryan again:

US foreign policy works for Likud Israeli interests first second and third. This is because the Zionists and MIC have overlapping financial interests. But most of all the press is Zionist.

Ah - overlapping interests now? Separate and distinct, but 'overlapping'? That doesn't explain why America would work to Israel's agenda and not the other way around.

Ryan really does think all roads lead to Israel. Apparently Zionism is racist, provides a philosophy for the MIC and controls America's press politics and policy to serve its own interests - even though Israel apparently 'serves the MIC and not any particular ethnicity'.

Yet if Israel doesn't 'serve a particular ethnicity' how is it racist? And how come America apparently serves Israeli Likud interests rather than the other way around if Israel's Zionists don't serve any particular ethnicity only the interests of the MIC?

How can MIC serve the interests of 'the racist Israeli Zionists' whilst Israel serves the MIC interests and not 'any particular ethnicity'?

This is just a run-around - batshit crazy bamboozled. It's a load of half-arsed tautology playing kiss-chase with anti-semitism.

Zionism

"Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland".
SOURCE

Anti-zionism is therefore opposition to 'the self-determination of the Jewish people'.

----------

The charge is sometimes made that Zionism is inherently "racist" because its concern is specifically Jewish. However, Judaism can be practiced by anyone from any race, so it simply cannot be a matter of race and cannot rightly be called "racist".

Moreover, those claiming to be 'anti-Zionist' don't appear to consider the constitutions of specifically Islamic nations to be offensive. However they do find Israel's foundation as a Jewish nation objectionable. Clearly the distinction that causes them such offence is not the fact it is a religion, because they accept Islamic state constitutions as legitimate and offer no protest about it.

Instead, this sort of supposed 'anti-racist anti-zionism' is against the ethnic part of jewish identity: the offence must be being taken at the ethnic (Jewish) part of the distinction of "Jew/Jewish nation", rather than the religious aspect because Judaism can of course be adopted and practiced by anyone from any ethnic group).

Here's Ryan Dawson's claim about his website, anti-neocons.com:


Ryan bluntly equates zionism as racism (thereby suggesting his grounds for opposition is anti-racism. Who would complain about that, eh?).

But clearly, absolutely anybody whom supports Israel or Jewish self-determination can be called a Zionist, and anybody from any ethnicity can adopt Judaism. If Zionism is support for Jewish self-determination and any ethnicity can adopt Judaism, it can't be 'racist'.

Are we to understand then that when Ryan says 'Zionist' he really means ethnic Jew? What else can it mean? The only possible 'racial' aspect of "Zionism" would be if one considered Zionism a description to be applied only to ethnic jews. This conclusion is given additional weight by the loose and interchangeable use of "Jewish" and "Zionist" right across Ryan Dawson't website, including his own work.

Here's a Rabbi. Presumably he's a 'racist zionist', according to Ryan Dawson:


Maybe he is a racist? But about which 'race'?

And aren't these 'racist Zionists' just awful? Here's a picture from 'the racist fascist state of Israel'.....yawn.


'Zionism as racism' is an untenable position, and what we're really seeing is an attack on ethnic jews. It isn't Zionism that is being attacked here but rather the Zionism of ethnic jews. If it isn't that, what is it? There is no other answer available?

Also, is it not an act of racial prejudice to discount the Zionism of non-ethnic jews, whilst opposing the Zionism of ethnic jews?

So, what is the substance of the objection to Zionism as racism? Nothing, it's a hollow claim, and so it seems the whole notion is a mental contortion undertaken by anti-semites to escape the fact of their prejudice. Whether undertaken consciously (and cynically for propaganda purposes) or not, the result is the same.

Here's Ryan Dawson(Rys2Sense)'s view of the press: "the press is Zionist"


So what on earth does that mean? That the press supports 'a right for Jewish peoples' self determination'? What's wrong with that? Of course, when asked for the basis of this assertion that 'the media is Zionist' we're demeaned by Jew-spotters saying "He's a jew!" As if being Jewish is automatically the same as being a Zionist.

And look, here's Ryan claiming elsewhere that Israel and Zionism don't serve any particular ethnicity: Ryan says: "Understand that Israel is not Jewish people OK please get that through your warped heads. Israel is a violent nation that engages in false flag operations routinely and serves the interests of the MIC not any particular ethnicity.


If Israel 'does not serve any particular ethnicity' how can Ryan Dawson claim it is racist-zionist?

Clearly Ryan is a bit confused and his use of terms inaccurate at best.