Tuesday 30 August 2011

Stromfront on Black Dominance in Athletics/Sports - lol

After the BBC article on black dominance in athletics sprinting I thought I'd take a look at Stromfront's view. It's just what one might expect, if not more so. I expected to find what I did, but it's shocking. It's also very funny to consider these people feel so threatened by apparent black athletic success, and how they can turn their own views upside down so as to explain it.

For instance, SF links to a 'pro-white' football website which complains black dominance in American Football is because of.....discrimination against whites. Sure, every football team purposefully neglects whites in their search for victory, no matter how skilful or athletic? That's quite some claim. Here it is:
NationalCrusader14: Another stormfront member brought up this website about racial issues in sports and it turns out whites are discriminated in sports. http://www.castefootball.us

SOURCE - STORMFRONT [NAZIS]
NationalCrusader14? Catchy nym.

The conversation is quite interesting......in a laughing-at-you way. Here's some of the tone:
People in this country need to boycott and stop worshiping these savages...I personally have quit watching professional sports due to the fact that the majority of players are filthy, no good people.
So, an admission that pro sports is dominated by non-whites. Though it makes no difference to whether they are "filthy, no good people" or not, apparently. So in what terms do they judge it? Clearly a supposed dominance in sporting athletics and skill isn't a factor. Jesse Owens all over again? No matter. Pity the poor maligned super-human Aryan, eh? How ridiculous is it?

Another amusing addition - Psychosword (!) says:
All the crazy things these proto-humans do creates drama. And organized professional sports is all about the drama. Even the announcers are fixated on it. It's not as much about winning or losing anymore. That's a side issue. It's all about what color did the buck dye his hair today. Or.. the buck's cousin/brother/father was shot in a drive-by last week and he's playing this game for them..
I don't think many people will be found arguing that pro-sport is no longer about winning and losing. Most people believe the converse instead, obviously. And these 'proto-humans' create drama? Which is now a big thing in sport? I see. And drive-by shootings, even amongst millionaire sportsmen (because they're black/non-white). Incredible. Very funny in ways (to mock it) but very disturbing too.

Some more sage advice on the matter from SF member WaffenSS (!):
"I can conceive of no greater calamity than the assimilation of the Negro into our social and political life as our equal..." -Abraham Lincoln

The whole country is now hopelessly negrified; worship of black athletes, whites loving rap music and acting negro while hating their own culture, Now a black president. All of this is the result of jewish infiltration and domination
What a disciplined and well-taught Nazi. Wow. Crude isn't it?

Another SF member, this time Great White Beast (!) adds a personal touch:
Just recently I was riding back home from a weekend hunting trip with a buddy and his dad. My friends dad was listening to the Cowboys game and began to sing the praises of black ball players, talking of there wonderful, amazing athletic abilities. I tried to explain to him that blacks are not more athletic than white, but that there ability to run fast for a short period of time is greater than most.
HAHA. As if 'running fast for a short period of time' isn't important? Brilliant. Gotta admire someone so self-aware and self-critical. Wow. Hunting trip too.....who'd have guessed?

Great White Twit adds:
"what I also pointed out that whites are discriminated against in professional sports as with many or all professions. Both, my friend and his dad are what I would call racially aware but still so brainwashed by the FREAKIN T.V. Change is in the air though, even they will admit that...
Christ, doesn't that fill one with optimism? Hardly. Notice how racially prejudiced equals racially aware in the commenter's view.

Someone with over 12000 posts at SF says:
It is absolutely amazing what a person can see,(including children), when they are not completely influenced by the television. You should hear my kids talk. They are not disrespectful, and don't talk of hate, but they talk about what they see with their own eyes. I have to say very little.
Very little, daddy? Sure. That's some moral and intellectual giant speaking, obviously - vindicated by the views of his own children. Wow.

At least this one has a sense of humour, laden as it is with prejudice, mind you:
I'll watch tennis if it's men's, since it's guaranteed to be void of the jungle sisters. Almost all white guys in men's pro tennis. I'd rather go fishing or browse Stormfront than watch football. The way I see it, if you want to watch a bunch of sub-saharan primates run across a field, flip to the Discovery channel. At least then you'll learn something.
I might as well stop here. But I can't.....

Here's another 'gem' (they come thick and fast at Stromfront):
US college and professional sports are biased toward black athletes. Every year White high schools dominate state championships, and every year colleges recruit the same black trash and maintain the fiction of the "student athlete." Black athletes are a menace on campus. It's always the same story of drugs, alcohol, shootings, stabbings, rape, and illegitimate pregnancy. Professional sports in the US are the worst. The tickets are over priced. The fans are rude and drunk. The players only care about their paycheck. I wouldn't waste my time or dollar.

I've noticed that Lacrosse is gaining popularity around the country. That's a good White sport.
Yeah, I imagine Lacrosse ain't massive 'in the ghetto'. I've never seen anyone playing Lacrosse. It isn't big in S Wales.

At Stormfront whatever the subject might be all the same things always come tumbling in - the contents of Nazism. It's incredibly intellectually dull but it's as preposterously funny as it is horrifying. I find it hard to imagine such stuff can really catch on, this day and age. But.....who knows?

It's interesting to witness how self-delusion can act...how seemingly complete it can be, whilst the thinker himself is totally unaware of the most obvious contradictions of his thoughts. Funny, but worrying. It's difficult to see these folks as a serious threat......but....

More from SF - all from the same 4 page thread (the stupidity is rich there):
If you watch these "great" black athletes you'll notice that they are constantly botching the plays, making mistakes, and getting called for fouls. It doesn't matter how fast or how strong you have conditioned your body to be (anybody can do that with the time and motivation), if you're too stupid to remember the plays, the formations, and the rules of the game you're not a great athlete. These black athletes are boring to watch because they can only execute on the handful of plays that they have run in practice repeatedly hundreds of times. Ask any coach who works with black players, it takes hundreds of "reps" for those players to get something down where they can run it. I was watching a college game recently with some friends, and someone made the comment "that coach is so conservative." My reply was, the coach isn't conservative the players are too stupid to try and do anything else without having to work on it everyday for two months.
What a great illustration of how racial prejudice is used to make sense of the world.....and how it shapes understanding. Seemingly (for Nazis) black success is because of supposed pro-black/anti-white discrimination (environmental cause) whereas 'white success' is proof of supposed white superiority (a genetic, innate cause).

We could probably find threads at SF highlighting the preponderance of 'whites' in various industries or whatever, and SF'ers touting it as proof of whites' racial superiority.

The same contradiction arises in Nazis view of Jews - they always complain how successful Jews are, how they dominate everything, how they have all the power, rah rah rah. Yet this doesn't prove to the racial Nazi that Jews are a superior race.....rather it shows the opposite. Somehow.

I've put that argument to Nazis before; I suggested if Jews rule the world then likely they deserve to do so.....I don't fancy the job, thanks. And I'd rather Jews did it than Nazis, if it's simple choice. lol. Nazis don't have an answer for it.

Back to the fascinating insights of SF members? Raised By Wolves says:
I just don't think they're athletes. Sports games are built on the premise of team strategies. With blacks it's all about them. Individvual blacks and even teams of blacks can do little compared to a team of whites in any sport.
I can't stand people that even talk about them in a postive way.
So they're not athletes now?

One real true believer adds:
Professional sports teams are owned by Jews and their henchmen. Sports, like entertainment, are used as a means to an end to promote race-mixing.

You cannot cover up the genetics of players from various racial/ethnic backgrounds as 'team' members with artificial uniforms and put them on 'one team' to be united as 'one'. Blood unites the spirit and the spirit is in essence the team, the rest is an well crafted illusion.
Ein volk, ein Reich, ein Football Team. Hmmm. Blood and soil, and football.

Bitter White Man (yes he's called that) says:
I would love to start a NBA and NFL boycott, but I think it would be futile in this liberal, negro loving coutry that is the USA.
HA! Well, good! Some would say that was what the USA was supposed to be about. But there we go, Mr poor maligned Nazi.
The saying goes "White men can't jump." Well, black men can't skate.
OR drive racing cars.....oh but wait.....

Christ it's ridiculous. But fascinating, somewhat too. I'll stop here though, just halfway through page 3 of their 4 page thread. Quite amazing thread, no? I imagine it is typical.....it's the first one I picked to look at. What a crowd.

The amazing thing to me is that all this harsh judgement and hostility making an entire worldview is about....skin colour. As it stands, skin colour is a simple and small genetic component of every human. Beyond coding for skin colour, what's to say about it? The understanding of genetics is primitive atm - single genes can be isolated as related or causal, but they don't work in a simple on/off fashion, and there isn't a black genetics and a white one, there's just human genetics. I've never understood racial prejudice like that. I understand it as an expression of the innate human suspicion of 'difference', something everyone has, I believe. People pile on their own justifications (race 'science', even) but at root-cause it's just suspicion (and distaste) for the unusual and different. So, as humans it's legitimate (in so far as it's almost inevitable) to feel racial prejudice....but that's no justification for racial prejudice as a worldview, rather it means we need be aware of how it colours our view, and how distorted WE are by it, so as to fight it.

Sunday 28 August 2011

Retreating Sea-Ice

The Arctic sea ice has been melting fast this year, and for a while it appeared set to break the 2007 record for the smallest minimum area in the satellite record.

However, in recent weeks it has been running a narrow second to 2007.

"The minimum ice extent is still three to four weeks away, and a lot depends on the weather conditions over the Arctic during those weeks," said Leif Toudal Pedersen, senior scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute.

"Whether we reach an absolute minimum or not, this year again confirms that we are in a new regime with substantially less summer ice than before.

"The last five summers are the five minimum ice extent summers on record."

The volume of sea ice continues to decline annually.
SOURCE

Saturday 27 August 2011

Is it wrong to note 100m winners are always black? [BBC]

Is it wrong to note 100m winners are always black?

The conclusions that are drawn from black athletes dominating the 100m final go a long way to explaining attitudes in wider society, argues Matthew Syed.

The 100m final at the World Athletics Championships this weekend will be won by a black athlete.

Every winner of the 100m since the inaugural event in 1983 has been black, as has every finalist from the last 10 championships with the solitary exception of Matic Osovnikar of Slovenia, who finished seventh in 2007.

Assuming that this success is driven by genes rather than environment, there is a rather obvious inference to make - black people are naturally better sprinters than white people. Indeed, it is an inference that seems obligatory, barring considerations of political correctness.

Logically flawed

But here's the thing. This inference is not merely false - it is logically flawed. And it has big implications not merely for athletics, but for the entire issue of race relations in the 21st Century.

To see how, let us examine success not in the sprints but in distance running, for this is also dominated by black athletes. Kenya has won an astonishing 63 medals at the Olympic Games in races of 800m and above, 21 of them gold, since 1968. Little wonder that one commentator once described distance running as "a Kenyan monopoly".

But it turns out that it is not Kenya as a whole that usually wins these medals, but individuals from a tiny region in the Rift Valley called Nandi. As one writer put it: "Most of Kenya's runners call Nandi home."

Seen in this context, the notion that black people are naturally superior distance runners seems bizarre. Far from being a "black" phenomenon, or even a Kenyan phenomenon, distance running is actually a Nandi phenomenon. Or, to put it another way, "black" distance running success is focused on the tiniest of pinpricks on the map of Africa, with the vast majority of the continent underrepresented.

The same analysis applies to the sprints, where success is focused on Jamaicans and African-Americans. Africa, as a continent, has almost no success at all. Not even West Africans win much.

The combined forces of Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, the Republic of Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Togo, Niger, Benin, Mali, the Gambia, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Gabon, Senegal, Congo and Angola have not won a single sprinting medal at the Olympics or World Championships.

The fallacy, then, is simple. Just because some black people are good at something does not imply that black people in general will be good at it.

Labelled box

Imagine a similar argument using the Central African Bambuti, a black tribe more commonly known as Pygmies. With an average height of 4ft we could assert that the Bambuti are naturally better at walking under low doors. Would it be legitimate to extrapolate that black people in general have a natural advantage at walking under low doors?

Our tendency to generalise rests on a deeper fallacy - the idea that "black" refers to a genetic type. We put people of dark skin in a box labelled black and assume that a trait shared by some is shared by all.

The truth is rather different. There is far more genetic variation within racial groups (around 85%) than there is between racial groups (just 15%). Indeed, surface appearance is often a highly misleading way of assessing the genetic distance between populations.

This evidence demonstrates how absurd it is to engage in racial generalisations - how crazy it is to witness a tiny group of black people winning at, say, the 10,000m and to infer that all people who share the same skin colour share an aptitude for 10,000m running.

But our subconscious assumptions about race have more than merely sporting implications.

Consider an experiment by Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, two American economists. They drafted 5,000 CVs and placed archetypal "black" names such as Tyrone or Latoya on half of them and "white" names such as Brendan or Alison on the other half. They then divided the white CVs into high and low quality and did the same with the black CVs.

A few weeks later the offers came rolling in from employers, and guess what? The "black" candidates were 50% less likely to be invited to interview. Employers were using skin colour as a marker for employment potential, despite the fact that the candidates' CVs were identical.

But that's not all. The researchers also found that although high-quality "white" candidates were preferred to low-quality "white" candidates, the relative quality of "black" CVs made no difference whatsoever.

It was as if employers saw three categories - high-quality white, low-quality white and black candidates. To put it another way, the subliminal assumption that causes us to think that black people are all the same has powerful real-world consequences.

For many economists, this assumption, which gets under the radar of our conscious thought, explains why black people still lag behind white people in economic development more than four decades after the introduction of race-relations legislation.

Recognising that we have these biases is a good place to start in trying to combat them. And a good way of tracking progress is to watch a 100m final and see whether we fall into the trap, when seeing eight contestants with black skin, of inferring that black people are naturally better sprinters.

Matthew Syed is the author of Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice

SOURCE

Tuesday 23 August 2011

Iran supports Rebels - what will Rivero say now?

0847: Iran has expressed its backing for the Libyan rebels, BBC Monitoring reports. A statement by the foreign ministry in Tehran says Iran "supports the people's uprising in Libya and hopes that the Libyan people can decide independently on their future".
-BBC

The people's uprising? Rivero's invariably in lock-step with Tehran, so how will he bridge this divide? Just ignore it?

Fisk writes today asking "And how soon..[]..before the people of Europe demand to know why, if Nato has been so successful in Libya – as Cameron and his mates now claim – it cannot be used against Assad's legions in Syria, using Cyprus as a territorial aircraft-carrier, devastating the regime's 8,000 tanks and armoured vehicles as they besiege the country's cities."

Well, indeed. Rivero isn't very keen on "the people's uprising" in Syria either.

Counter to Rivero, Fisk says of Syria (and Israel): "Or must we heed the neighbours; Israel still secretly hopes (as it shamefully did in the case of Egypt) that the dictator [Assad] will survive to be a friend and make an ultimate peace over Golan."

They surely can't both be right.

Under the heading "Syria" at Rivero's WRH, there is a story posted by Wake up From Your Slumber blaming Israel......surprise surprise!

It quotes some US document before adding its own spin:
After the 1969 coup, Qadhafi closed American and British bases on Libyan territory and partially nationalized all foreign oil and commercial interests in Libya. He also played a key role in promoting the use of oil embargoes as a political weapon for challenging the West, hoping that an oil price rise and embargo in 1973 would persuade the West, especially the United States, to end support for Israel.
No doubt israel stands to gain richly from a more western allied government in tripoli -- willing to sell its oil to israel.

In fact, if you read this Congressional Report from March 2011: Middle East and North Africa Unrest: Implications for Oil and Natural Gas Markets (PDF), paying close attention to the second half which lists each MENA country and its strategic importance (IRAQ, LIBYA, SYRIA, IRAN and EGYPT among others) you will discover the reason for every political and military intervention by the US and Europe in MENA over the past 10 years.

It's been none other than one massive continuous initiative by the Zionist manipulated West to control the flow of oil from MENA countries.

All roads lead to OIL and the country that stands to benefit most from control over MENA oil is ISRAEL.
HAHA - get that? It's all about oil.....and apparently Israel stands to gain "the most" from its control, which it obtains by "Zionist manipulation of the West". Lordy, how ridiculous.

It makes no sense to argue from a position asking "Who stands to gain the most?" And how does Israel stand to gain the most anyway? Oil is a precious resource for everyone - for those who have it and those who don't.

This is all just rationalisation for anti-semitism. The readiness of people to swallow such nonsense is an expression of the same.

Rivero's published results of Guardian poll, asking whether Syria should be "next" for intervention....

MegaPhoney networks....oh, y, that's when other people organise, not Rivero. I see. When Rivero does it, it isn't propaganda - it's setting the record straight!

I'm very averse to military intervention. However, actually supporting Assad and Gadaffi against popular democracy movements is unconscionable. [Are they popular democracy movements? I don't know.] Has it not occurred to Rivero why these places have needed 'democracy movements'? He keeps insisting that the prevention of peaceful revolution makes violent revolution inevitable.....only that doesn't count for Syria...or Iran...and it didn't count in Libya. As 'enemies of Israel' he seeks to protect these awful regimes, nevermind democracy or the will of the people.

Western hostility and aggression towards regimes which loathe it (Syria, Iran, Libya, Iraq, NK etc) drives Rivero to warn his readers (and world leaders! lol) that these nations have mutual defence pacts, and that aggression against Syria and Iran, say, might trigger WW3 by bringing in Russia on the side of Iran. But when considering western/american defence of Israel, against Syria or Iran, say, suddenly things like defence pacts, alliances and mutual aid are symptoms of Zionist manipulation of the West - rather than legitimate acts of self-defence which reasonably should persuade aggressors of caution (which is how Rivero treats them when used against Israel/the West.)

Monday 22 August 2011

Rivero and Libya

Rivero's had to concede he was completely wrong again - though he doesn't explicitly say it, of course. Seems Gadaffi is done and the rebels managed to depose him without the need for NATO ground troops - something Rivero said was impossible.

This is how he is spinning it:


He says "...no matter how many Libyans have died, Libya's state bank (the one Goldman Sachs screwed over) is destroyed, the gold dinar is dead, and the world is now safe for private central banking and debt-based currencies!"

Err.....ok.

But if we look back at what Rivero was saying a few months ago it was a very different picture - back then he was calling the rebels "the democracy movement" and accusing Gadaffi of being supported by Israeli mercenaries.


Here's Rivero back in March, when he was clearly agitating for intervention against Libya:


What a hypocrite. He agitated for intervention, claiming that Israel was supporting a Gadaffi dictatorship and was crushing the Arab Spring....rah rah rah. Fast forward a few months and we now have Rivero attacking the intervention on behalf of the rebels (because it ...crushes the Arab Spring....and benefits Israel and Bankers. Whereas back in March he was saying not intervening was crushing the Arab Spring, and helping.... Israel.

Rivero agitated for intervention on behalf of "the democracy group" as he called them - the rebels. He said there would be no intervention because Israel would never allow it - Rivero was certain.

But the UN did vote for intervention, and that's the moment Rivero changed tack - suddenly the intervention was a bad and nasty imperialism - a war crime; the rebels were no longer "the democracy movement" and Gadaffi was transformed into some heroic nationalist leader of Arabism and anti-imperialism. What happened to Gadaffi's supposed 50,000 Israeli mercenaries, Mr Rivero? What happened to the Gadaffi tyranny...the dictatorship....the democracy movement? lol.

Here's Rivero from March again, when he promised the USA (on behalf of Israel) would veto any intervention:


Just compare that to his position now? Hilarious.

More on Rivero's hypocritical, opportunist transformation over Libya here and here.

This same thing is happening with Syria - somehow Rivero (and the conspiracists) believe the protests in Syria to be illegitimate, that they aren't part of the Arab Spring, that Assad is actually a very nice chappie....just like they did with Iranian protests.

Clearly, the thing that determines Rivero's view is how hostile to the West (and esp. Israel) any particular nation is. That determines Rivero's entire position. Of course that's so....because his anti-semitism is central to his grand conspiracy, and Gadaffi can be tyrant or hero one day to the next depending entirely on the demands of an anti-semitic narrative - nothing else. Nevermind local conditions, all that matters is the relationship to Israel. Ridiculous.

Rivero's Bullshit edition number 9,382

I had wanted to post this earlier - but didn't get to it, so I'll do it now.

Here's Rivero making some bold claim.

" the absolute catastrophic situation in Libya, which has not a chance of being won by the Western-backed rebels without the introduction of Western ground troops."

Is that so? Right at this moment it looks like being proven very false very quickly.

ETA - from the BBC : 22 August 2011 Last updated at 07:44

Libya conflict: Fighting rages near Gaddafi compound

Libya conflict Live

Heavy fighting is taking place in Tripoli around the compound of embattled Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi after rebels seized control of much of the city on Sunday.

Throughout the night, jubilant crowds remained in central Green Square, previously the scene of nightly pro-Gaddafi demonstrations.

Rebels met little resistance as they swept in from east, south and west.
=====

So much for Rivero's assertions. lol

And what happened to all those mercenaries who were supposed to be fighting for Gadaffi on behalf of the Joooos? And what happened to the Arab Spring? Libya's different? Just like Syria is different? What crazy-arse principle is Rivero applying here? Seemingly, any anti-western (or Islamic) state that gets threatened with the Arab Spring Thing and Rivero thinks it's the evil work of the Jooooos to undermine a legitimate state (a la Syria, Libya and Iran.) But where the government is pro-western, any Arab Spring is then wholly justified in Rivero's eyes - suddenly it's a true expression of the people, liberty! a revolution... blah blah blah. (a la Egypt and Tunisia).

His judgement depends solely upon whether the regime is (A) friendly to USA and (B) Islamic. Or not. That's ridiculous. No assessment of local conditions.....everything judged against position re America (and Israel). Ridiculous. One is good, the other bad. What a binary moron.

free-market Nationalism

Related to a thread I was going at in comments earlier: libertarianism as "free market nationalism."

The article is by Lew Rockwell. It's interesting in light of Breivik's manifesto citing Rockwell as an influence (it's about immigration).

[Lew Rockwell is Miseian economics dude, Ron Paul supporter.......and here he is making a nationalist appeal. Interesting. Clearly he doesn't see (all) nationalism as problematic. But how well does he hang his free markets to a nationalist appeal? Not very successfully, imo. And he seems to completely fail to consider any of the sentiment from nationalism about the anti-nationalism of his wider view.


Nationalism and the Immigration Question

The State Department doesn't like the revival of nationalism, but those of us who believe in national independence can only applaud. Socialism isn't the only reason the Soviet Union collapsed; the captive nations wanted their own traditions, institutions, and languages. They rejected the messianic universalism of Communism, which is why they will prove a barrier to the New World Order.

In thinking about nationalism, we must distinguish between two sorts. One, as in Croatia, is pro-freedom and anti-imperial, and therefore good. The other, as in Serbia, is pro-imperial and anti-freedom, and therefore evil. We see its results in blasted cities and murdered civilians.

Both nationalisms are nothing new in Europe, but it's been some time since we saw healthy nationalism in America. It could not be more timely, for we are under attack by a fifth column of multiculturalists. Western civ courses at top universities are one long libel, and that's only a sign of the deep anti-Western bias of the elites. As Ludwig von Mises pointed out, "the idea of liberty is Western," and whatever the enemies of our civilization claim, they "look with envy upon its achievements, want to reproduce them, and thereby implicitly admit its superiority."

Nationalism puzzles most economists because it is bound up with what Mises called "extraeconomic" considerations: language, history, religion, manners, and private life. But he did some of his most subtle and brilliant writing on the subject.

The classical liberal economists showed that a world of free trade and free migration would tend toward the most suitable uses of labor and capital. But, with almost the sole exception of Mises, they ignored nationalism.

If the classical liberals were guilty of oversight, the socialists were blind. They assumed that nationalism could be literally abolished in the long march towards a world state.

The classical liberals were concerned about emigration and governments that treated citizens like prisoners. We should always be free to leave with all our property. But the "right to immigrate" seems less persuasive.

In 19th-century America, our booming free market easily absorbed everyone who wanted to work, and if someone didn't want to work, he was out of luck. There was no welfare, no ideology of victimhood, no inferiority complex about our heritage, and no attack on English. Immigrants became English-speakers because they wanted to become Americans. "What is specifically national lies in language," says Mises, and "individuals belong only to one nation." After he emigrated to America, Mises wrote and spoke English.

Today, our economy is disabled, victimology is rampant, welfare is abundant, and English is demeaned. In the New York City public schools, classes are held in 82 languages. This tax-funded multi-lingualism is an attack on English and therefore the American nation.

Bitter social conflict is inevitable when the dominant culture and language are displaced by immigrants – as Americans in border towns know. Mises, who favored the free immigration ideal, said fears of majority displacement in a mixed economy were "justified." "As long as the state is granted the vast powers which it has today," he wrote in 1919, "the thought of having to live in a state whose government is in the hands of members of a foreign nationality is positively terrifying."

Leftists claim that group antagonisms can be cured with togetherness, but that's utopian nonsense. Under present circumstances, as Chronicles editor Thomas Fleming points out, open borders would only subvert American liberty. Anyone could arrive, have his children educated in the public schools in an alien language, be hired and promoted through affirmative action or go on welfare, lobby for more "civil rights," and be feted by the national media as superior to the plain taxpayers – just for showing up.

Is there a case, in 1992, for a slow rate of immigration and preference for those from compatible cultures? Certainly businessmen should be able to hire foreign contract workers, as they could before the trade unions had their way, and we need to reexamine the idea of citizenship.

Citizenship is a civil convention, not a right, yet we grant it automatically to anyone born here. Former Congressman Ron Paul, an obstetrician, tells about the legions of pregnant women who arrive illegally from Mexico at his Texas hospital, receive free medical care (which the doctor and hospital must provide), and then leave with their newborn American citizens. As my daughter's favorite magazine says, What's Wrong With This Picture?

Shouldn't naturalization at the least require a long residency, good behavior, and proficiency in English? Aristotle praises Pericles for denying the franchise to those not of "citizen birth by both parents." That was classical democracy; today it's a hate crime.

Mises argued that private property would help solve the immigration question. Certainly we should seek to make our commercial districts private and therefore as safe and bum-free as malls, and private residential areas could be closed to anyone not invited or hired by the owners.

Immigration policy is no easy matter in the age of the new nationalism, but as in other areas, if we put the liberties of the American people first, we cannot go far wrong.



==========

He says of socialists - "They assumed that nationalism could be literally abolished in the long march towards a world state."

Yes, but in fact the Empire of Tsarist Russia was far less sensitive to nationality than the Bolsheviks. Lenin's argument on nationalism is similar to Rockwell's in so far as there are good and bad nationalisms, depending whether they are imperial or anti. Lenin wrote on the National Question. There is no simple assumption there that Nationalism will be "abolished". One might not agree with what Lenin says, but nobody can say it simply 'assumes nationalism will be abolished'. It doesn't.

Rockwell says: "Leftists claim that group antagonisms can be cured with togetherness, but that's utopian nonsense." It isn't Utopian nonsense it's just obviously sensible and reasonable.

And this part seems so obviously to pose a threat to 'liberty', yet Rockwell doesn't see it: "Certainly we should seek to make our commercial districts private and therefore as safe and bum-free as malls, and private residential areas could be closed to anyone not invited or hired by the owners."

Doesn't seem especially liberty-minded, does it?

But this is what I was getting at - that Ron Paul as a supposedly free-market dude and a supposedly nationalist guy, has to carry the two parts. And it's difficult. I don't think Rockwell succeeds in this piece at all, but he was obviously aware of the issue....the conflict between nationalism and free-markets.

As I said elsewhere already, someone at OpEdNews was making the common-enough complaint about Corporations not serving national interests. (They even suggested this corporate anti-nationalism was 'fascist'.) And yet others were proclaiming fascism was a successful and complete combo of state and corporation. Well, both things can't be true, can they? Depends on how you define "national interests" perhaps.

And notice this bit - Rockwell says: "Under present circumstances, as Chronicles editor Thomas Fleming points out, open borders would only subvert American liberty. Anyone could arrive, have his children educated in the public schools in an alien language, be hired and promoted through affirmative action or go on welfare, lobby for more "civil rights," and be feted by the national media as superior to the plain taxpayers – just for showing up. "

Anyone could arrive! Just imagine! Strange to hear a supposed libertarian complain like this. And notice how it is American liberty he is concerned about, rather than Liberty per se? Liberty has borders, or so it seems.

Regardless, this Monday morning the entire world is concerned about "libertarianism, free-markets and the National Question". I have no doubt.

Saturday 20 August 2011

Happy Birthday to me!

No-one especially famous shares my birthday. [Ron Paul does.....Grrrrr lol]

Most relevant to me, on this day....

1858 – Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory.

1940 – In Mexico City exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramon Mercader. He dies the next day.

Hmmm.

No mention of me in the list......yet.

Friday 19 August 2011

Money Growth does NOT cause Inflation

Money Growth Does Not Cause Inflation! [As published in that hotbed of socialism, Forbes.com]

It is conventional wisdom that printing more money causes inflation. This is why we are seeing so many warnings today of how Quantitative Easing I and II and the federal government’s deficit are about to lead to skyrocketing prices. The only problem is, it’s not true. That’s not how inflation works. Hence, this is yet another of the false alarms being raised (along with the need to balance the budget) that is preventing us from doing what we need to do to recover from the worse recession since the Great Depression.

Explaining inflation would be much simpler if not for the need to first spend so much time debunking the popular view. But, that’s the way it is. And so, let me start with the “money growth ==> inflation” view. This is based on the equation of exchange:

MV = Py

where M is equal to the supply of money, V the velocity of money (or the average number of times each dollar bill is spent), P the average price of goods and services, and y the total quantity of all goods and services sold during the time period in question. Thus, if there were 100 goods and services that sold for $10 each (on average), then that means a total of $1000-worth of transactions took place. Were there 200 one-dollar bills in this economy, then it must be that each was used 5 times (hence the “velocity” of money, or how fast they were spent again).

MV = Py 200 x 5 = 10 x 100

It is important to note here that the above is not the least bit controversial. No economist disagrees with the basic equation MV=Py. The arguments arise when additional assumptions are made regarding the nature of the individual variables. For example, this is what is assumed in the “money growth==>inflation” view:

M: That which is money is easily defined and identified and only the central bank can affect it’s supply, which it can do with autonomy and precision.

V: The velocity of money is related to people’s habits and the structure of the financial system. It is, therefore, relatively constant.

P: The economy is so competitive that neither firms nor workers are free to change what they charge for their goods and services without there having been a change in the underlying forces driving supply and demand in their market.

y: The economy automatically tends towards full employment and thus y (the existing volume of goods and services) is as large as it can be at any given moment (although it grows over time).

Now let’s go through an example, recalling the mathematical example from above:

MV = Py 200 x 5 = 10 x 100

Consider the assumptions made regarding each of the variables. P can’t change on it’s own, y is already as large as it can possibly be given current technology and resources, and V is constant. Only M can change in the short run and it must therefore logically be the starting point of any fluctuation we introduce. Furthermore, according to our assumptions, the central bank has the power to (for example) double the money supply at will. In Milton Friedman’s example from “The Optimum Quantity of Money,” a helicopter is used to accomplish this. Now what happens?

MV = Py 400 x 5 > 10 x 100

There is clearly a problem here which could be solved in one of three ways (assuming we don’t just lower M back to 200): 1) y could rise to 200, but of course it can’t because it’s already at its maximum; 2) V could fall to 2.5, but it is constant (something Friedman takes pains to emphasize in the original article); or 3) P could rise to 20. It is of course the third that proponents of the “money growth==>inflation” view say will occur.

MV = Py 400 x 5 = 20 x 100

Equality again!

Let me reemphasize why this is the only logical outcome. We have assumed that y and V are constant. Friedman says that y is constant at the level associated with the natural rate of unemployment, while V is indirectly related to agents’ demand for cash. When people want to hold more cash, V, the rate at which they spend cash, naturally falls, and vice versa. But, Friedman further specifies that V is relatively constant and so, therefore, is the demand for cash. Thus, when the central bank raised the supply of cash from 200 to 400, this meant that people were holding more cash than they wished to have in their portfolios. The Fed had created a situation in which the supply of money (newly raised) exceeded the demand (still at the original level). The result was that people, in the language of the “money growth==>inflation” view, rid themselves of excess money balances by spending that cash. They hoped to buy more goods and services but since, in aggregate, more did not exist, they only bid up their prices: money growth led to inflation.

This is this standard view. It makes for a great lecture in an intro or even intermediate macro class and I’ve done it many times (in fact, I just did it this week in my summer course). But the problem is that after the course is over, people only remember this:

increase M ==> increase P

What they don’t recollect are all the assumptions we made to get there! And not only are some questionable, they are downright inconsistent with other lectures we make in the very same class.

Take for example y. One need only look out the window to see that it is not currently at the full-employment and therefore maximum level. Hence, given this scenario:

MV = Py 400 x 5 > 10 x 100

there is no reason that this could not lead to the rise in y shown below as those spending their “excess money balances” actually cause entrepreneurs to raise output to meet the new demand:

MV = Py 400 x 5 = 10 x 200

This is, of course, the goal of the government deficit spending that so many economically-ignorant people are trying to stop right now.

In addition, there is a great deal of evidence that the velocity of money IS NOT constant. As one would expect, it tends to decline in recessions when people do, in fact, want to hold more cash. Hence, if we assume that the central bank undertakes the above policy during such a period (as we see today), the final result might be this:

MV = Py 400 x 2.5 = 10 x 100

Or it could be some combination of a rise in y and a fall in V–this would make perfect economic sense. Notice how the process of making the initial assumptions of this approach more realistic is making it far from certain that a rise in M leads to a rise in P, particularly during an economic downturn.

But that’s not the worst of it. There is actually a much more fundamental problem with the “money growth==>inflation” approach. Recall the original assumptions for M:

M: That which is money is easily defined and identified and only the central bank can affect it’s supply, which it can do with autonomy and precision.

What is “money” in a modern, credit-based financial system? Is it that stuff you carry in your pocket, the 1′s and 0′s of the electronic entries in your bank account, the available balance on your credit card, your checking account, your savings account? In practice, this question is so difficult to answer that economists actually offer several possible definitions, just in case! Suffice it to say that for present purposes, the idea that we can precisely identify the current “supply of money” in our economy is suspect. This by itself causes problems for operationalizing the above equation.

To make matters worse, the financial sector can create and destroy money without direct action by the central bank. Every time a loan is made, the supply of money increases. The bank is creating money out of thin air, with only a fraction of the total necessary to have already been in the vault as reserves. And when loans are repaid or there are defaults, the supply of money contracts. Hence, the private sector has a great deal of control over M.

But perhaps the real nail in the coffin of the “money growth==>inflation” view is this: the phenomenon that Milton Friedman identifies as key to the whole process, i.e., the excess of the money supply over money demand, cannot happen in real life. The irony here is that something else we already cover in the intro macro class makes this evident. How is it that the Federal Reserve increases the money supply? Remember that Friedman used a helicopter–indeed, he had to, for there was no other way to make the example work. This wasn’t just a simplifying device, it was critical, for it allowed the central bank to raise the money supply despite the wishes of the public. However, that can’t happen in the real world because the actual mechanisms available are Fed purchases of government debt from the public, Fed loans to banks through the discount window, or Fed adjustment of reserve requirements so that the banks can make more loans from the same volume of deposits. All of these can raise M, but, not a single solitary one of them can occur without the conscious and voluntary cooperation of a private sector agent. You cannot force anyone to sell a Treasury Bill in exchange for new cash; you cannot force a private bank to accept a loan from the Fed; and private banks cannot force their customers to accept loans. Supplying money is like supplying haircuts: you can’t do it unless a corresponding demand exists.

The bottom line is that the “money growth==>inflation” view makes perfect sense in some alternate universe where all those assumptions regarding the variables DO hold, but not here, not today, not in the United States of America in 2011. That’s not how it works. It’s a damn shame, I know, because it’s so simple and intuitively appealing and it would make controlling inflation really simple. But, if we are to develop useful policies then we need a model better suited to the way the modern financial system works.

There’s no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water, so let’s retain the equation. However, we need new assumptions with respect to M, V, P, and y:

M: A precise definition and identification of money is elusive in a modern, credit-money economy, and its volume can change either with or without direct central bank intervention. In addition, the monetary authority cannot raise the supply of money without the cooperation of the private sector. Because central banks almost always target interest rates (the price of holding cash) rather than the quantity of money, they tend to simply accommodate demands from banks. When private banks communicate that they need more reserves for loans and offer government debt to the Fed, the Fed buys it. It’s the private sector that is in the driver’s seat in this respect, not the central bank. The central bank’s impact is indirect and heavily dependent on what the rest of the economy is willing to do (which is, incidentally, why all the QE and QE II money is just sitting in bank vaults).

V: The velocity of money is, indeed, related to people’s behavior and the structure of the financial system, but there are discernable patterns. It is not constant even over the short run.

P: While it is true that factors like production bottlenecks can be a source of price movements, the economy is not so competitive that there are not firms or workers who find themselves able to manipulate the prices and wages they charge. The most important inflationary episode in recent history was the direct result of a cartel, i.e., OPEC, flexing its muscle. Asset price bubbles can also cause price increases (as they are now). The key here, however, is that P CAN be the initiating factor–in fact, it has to be, since M can’t.

y: The economy can and does come to rest at less-than-full employment. Hence, while it is possible for y to be at its maximum, it most certainly does not have to be.

A number of scenarios can be described based on this more realistic alternative and it would be nice to go through each. Unfortunately, as I suggested above, the big problem with this topic is that it takes to long just to reject the popular view! So, I’ll avoid the temptation to write a book here and offer just a quick example (maybe a future post can go over some other interesting possibilities).

As already mentioned, the most important inflationary episode in post-WWII history was that during the 1970s and early 1980s. From 1968 through 1972, consumer price inflation averaged 4.6%. Over the next ten years it was 7.5%. What happened? What caused this sudden and dramatic acceleration in prices? Did the Fed accidentally print too much money? As already explained, that can’t happen–you simply can’t raise the money supply above the demand. M did rise, however, and largely proportionally to the increase in P. This is a much more realistic story of those events.

As the price of oil skyrocketed, so costs of production rose for many, many US businesses. Because there is a lag between purchasing inputs and selling output, most firms have to borrow money (working capital) to bridge the gap. As the ripple effect of the OPEC price increases moved throughout the economy, the demand for cash by these businesses rose. Quite reasonably, private banks and the Fed did what they could to accommodate. These were fair requests on the part of US entrepreneurs. Loans were extended and government debt sold by the private sector to the central bank. This raised the supply of money. Therefore, the rising prices led to an increase in the supply of money and not the other way around. QE, QE II, and the federal government deficit cannot by themselves cause inflation.

And this is how it really works, at least until the Fed starts using helicopters for monetary policy.

SOURCE

Thursday 18 August 2011

Age of Love / A Pagan Place



Several times, in nineteen ninety something......at 3am.....on LSD.......here:


What a song. What a crowd. What a place.....what a time.

I love that song. The empty spookiness. A chick with a fabulous foreign accent, and shw sings like an angel to the driving drum and bass. And that mad, super-extended siren whine..... I'd never heard anything like it. Along with LSD and XTC, a lot of genuinely brilliant people, and the setting of Llyn Brianne.....as pictured.....what a time.

I went to parties there, at Llyn Brianne: everyone was a friend of a friend, they had generators, DJs, dance music, fire and drugs. It was quite the deal. I remember meeting stragers at the fire in the dead of night, and they'd explain they had no idea where they were, having travelled all day, and driven all night. It gave me a strange delight to know how impressed they would be at daybreak, because everyone always is. There's something very evocative about the Welsh mountains. The Welsh landscape provides a very particular mood. For one thing, it feels "old", and on LSD out in the woods listening to music like this, I enjoyed imagining myself a primitive, with knowledge of nothing, just desire and a full heart. I'd climb trees, feeling like I was looking on unseen land, as if I had never seen a map. I felt like I was doing things all humans have done. Something very primitive. But more than that, the sound of that song in the hills of Wales, alongside a fire, and with the drugs......and the primitivism of it all....there was something else there too. All the things together brought out something else....something very dark. Not quite malevolent, but.....something. I feel sure that "something" I sensed deeply was what the pagans were on about. There's something in those hills. Wales is a pagan place.

walter-benjamin - Marxism 2007

www.radio-rouge.org/Users/resistancemp3/walter-benjamins-marxism-a-michael-lowy.mp3

From: www.resistancemp3.org.uk
Marxism 2007

Lots of good audio there.

There's another piece on Benjamin there too:
www.radio-rouge.org/Users/resistancemp3/walter-benjamin-and-the-politics-of-commemoration-esther-leslie.mp3

Monday 15 August 2011

Banned again - from a post complaining about censorship!

Rys2Cents.....or Rys2Censor more appropriately.....is at it again: complaining about "censorship" whilst engaging in it himself.

Here's the previous on Holocaust denier, Rys2Censor.

Banned again - this time from OpEd News

OpEd News banned me, for asking Paul Craig Roberts to explain how his weekly column was published for years in Willis Carto's fascist propaganda organ, The American free Press.

What's left of the thread is here. It no longer makes any narrative sense, and it's clear a certain "Joe Public" has gone missing from the conversation - he's referred to in other comments and quotes, but has been otherwise completely disappeared.

OpEd News claim they are a "liberal and progressive" website. But they host articles by Paul Craig Roberts, and censor criticism of Roberts' relationship with organised fascism.

Some liberals, huh?

I have the full posts, if anyone wants them.....presumably not. lol


ETA 17/8 ETA - as requested, here are some of the posts which were removed.

The following are all posts of mine, under the name Joe Public, all were removed, as it notes at the end of the quote.

PCR is Paul Craig Roberts
PCR says that "the government lies every time it opens its mouth".

PCR says those whom disagree with him are saying "we should *only* believe the government".

All self-evident tosh. All proof that conspiracism is intellectual poison.

Speaking of truth and poison.....it's astonishing to see PCR accuse the US government of inveterate lying.....when he's a columnist for the fascist newspaper published by Willis Carto: AFP.

Fascists have a real good record on the honesty front, don't they? And how about their peerless reputation for being "liberal" and "progressive"?

Rather fascism has a record of using conspiracism to undermine faith in liberal democracy, so as to smash it, any which way it can.

And PCR is helping them try it again? For money, or as a gift? Yeuch.

Shocking. I'd have thought that was quite a story itself.

A quick google and sure enough we have Mr Roberts criticising "fascism"

From RENSE:

------------
Incipient Fascist State
By Paul Craig Roberts
1-1-11

================e/q

And yet Mr Roberts is a columnist for the AFP newspaper published by N America's leading fascist and anti-semite, Willis Carto.

So, PCR condemns liberal-democracy for its supposed fascism......yet he's actually working for *the real thing*. Wow.
On Sunday, Aug 7, 2011 at 2:42:57 PM

Done by Rob Kall

Deleted
Rob Kall is the owner of the website. This list of deleted comments was available under my profile, until I was blocked access.
Shocking

Mr Roberts elsewhere has written that,


"As 2011 dawns, public discourse in America has the country primed for a fascist dictatorship.The situation will be worse by 2012. "
------

So serious is the threat of fascism in N America that Mr Roberts responds by......writing for N America's leading fascist newspaper.

Quite amazing tactics - to defeat fascism, you must work for them. How novel?

Mr Roberts is either a dupe or he must believe everyone else is.
On Sunday, Aug 7, 2011 at 3:55:40 PM

Deleted
Another one:
PCR: Why criticise fascism when you write for a fascist?

You've ignored this question 3 times, even as you've continued attacking various other people and institutions for their supposed dishonesty and lack of integrity. Speaks for itself?

You have even criticised the US government of representing "incipient fascism" - the backstory to your belief that "government always lies" and that there's some grand conspiracy permanently afoot.

But the question remains - how can you write for a fascist propaganda rag - Carto's AFP - and yet at the same time criticise the government for supposed fascism?

How does it make sense?

If the government is genuinely fascist, why does Willis Carto and the AFP oppose it? Surely real Fascists would support the government - if it were really fascist? But they don't support the government - with good reason - they don't believe it is fascist. We might at least credit fascist leaders with the knowledge of what it is they themselves believe!

The people you write for at AFP certainly are fascists, Mr Roberts, however much you might decline to admit it.

And they hate the government. That's why they are happy to print (and pay?) for your articles - which attack the government (for fascism! ha! Neat trick? See what you did there?)

Maybe you should tell your friends at the fascist AFP that they are mistaken, and that it isn't them that are the fascists, it is actually Obama and the government of USA!

That might come as quite a surprise to your chums, Willis Carto et al.

If you don't dig the supposed fascism of the government, why are you writing for AFP - why are you mixed up with Willis Carto at all?

On Sunday, Aug 7, 2011 at 6:49:37 PM

Deleted
PCR replied, claiming ignorance of everything - he didn't know AFP, didn't know Willis Carto, etc. I asked simply
Do you have a column in the American Free Press, or not?

Do you have a column in the American Free Press, or not?



On Sunday, Aug 7, 2011 at 7:50:50 PM

Deleted
PCR responded that anyone could publish his stuff, and that he had no idea who published it. Fair point. However, he was being wholly disingenuous. I said:
No idea about Carto/AFP.

AFP publish online and offline, and sell your work for a fee.


The articles are credited to you, via Creators Syndicate.

You say you write for nobody, but your articles are part of Creators Syndicate - a syndicate intended to protect writers and artist ownership rights.

You say anybody can freely publish you, yet your syndicate says different:

From Creators Syndicate :

Q. I want to reprint a Creators Syndicate column or cartoon in a textbook, newsletter, or other publication. How do I request permission?

A. You will need to request permission via our Permission Request form here. We do our best to respond to all requests in a timely manner, usually 2-3 days.

Please keep in mind that these archives are for personal viewing only.
If you wish to use a cartoon or column for any other purpose, you must submit a permission request
===============

So, this isn't happening? You're suggesting it must be fascists stealing your work and misrepresenting the relationship - when there is absolutely none?

Well, ok - if you really know nothing about it, and the fascists are deceiving people into thinking otherwise....then fine. At least we found out the AFP are being wholly dishonest by representing you as their columnist. If so then this diversion is a result of being mislead by the fascists at AFP - in such a light I happily apologise for being part of the distraction, though it is nevertheless useful imo. (Surely you're pleased at a chance to repudiate fascists pretending you are their columnist?)

If that is the case.....would you like to contribute to helping prevent the deception, and stop them from exploiting your image, name and work in the cause of fascism?
On Sunday, Aug 7, 2011 at 9:19:57 PM

Deleted
I was happy to apologise, if what he had said was true. But it wasn't true. So, at this point I tried to seal him up with a pincer movement - if what he said was true, then he must be saying AFP were violating the law. Would he say it? It had to be one or the other - either he was a paid columnist for AFP, or AFP were breaking the law. So, would PCR say it - that AFP were breaking the law? He had better not say it, if they hadn't been acting illegally, right? So would he say it? Clearly he didn't want to say it! I had him. So, I posted that his syndicate said differently - his syndicate say you have to get permission, and pay, and publish a copyright notice. That copyright notice *had* appeared at AFP columns by PCR.....why would they do that unless they had been given permission? Me again:
Creators Syndicate say different

YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO REPRINT THIS FEATURE UNTIL YOU RECEIVE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM CREATORS SYNDICATE. IF YOU DO SO, YOU ARE IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF THE COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT LAW.
---

This appears on the permissions page, which includes a drop-down box to request reprint permission for articles by Paul Craig Roberts.

So, "anybody can print them" just isn't true? Or have I just been given permission to print PCR's articles in book form, with all the proceeds mine?

If there were no benefits of syndication, why sign-up? If "anybody can print them" what's the point of syndication, the copyright notices, the need for permission, the costs, etc?

Sorry if this a distraction, but I'd like to clear this up - whether AFP are violating copyright laws or not.
On Sunday, Aug 7, 2011 at 9:46:08 PM

Deleted
PCR refused to say AFP must have been violating the law. PCR now conceded he had been a paid columnist, but had quit in March 2010.

I pushed the point:
prior to quitting?

What about prior to quitting in 2010?



Presumably you were paid by via Creators Syndicate for your column when it was syndicated? And so you were also paid by and for AFP when it appeared as a weekly column there?

Which would be entirely contrary to your earlier defence against being "a columnist" at AFP. You had claimed "anybody can print my articles for free".

But that's only been true since you quit. The columns appeared before you quit (obviously) and did in fact often carry the required copyright notice stipulated by Creators Syndicate.

All of which suggests that prior to quitting, you were getting paid for having a weekly column with AFP.

It would also mean AFP were not violating copyright law. It would mean AFP were in fact correctly applying for and receiving official permission. And perhaps AFP were even paying a fee.

Quite a way from "not being a columnist", really, isn't it?

On Sunday, Aug 7, 2011 at 10:45:44 PM

Deleted
To make it clear, I repeated that:
Disingenuous.

PCR: My columns are free. Anyone can post them and they do.


========

That's only been true since 2010.

You quit as columnist in March 2010, but until then your columns were *not* free, they were copyrighted and needed permission to reproduce via the syndicate, Creators Syndicate.

Before 2010 you were (your words) " a paid syndicated columnist".

Therefore, seeing as AFP carried your column for years, along with the copyright notice demanded by your syndicate, presumably they had permission, and were paying for the privilege of carrying your column name and reputation?

In which case, contrary to your claims, you did have a [paying] column at AFP

In which case I have the answer to my original question which was "BTW - I would like to ask whether you get paid for writing for the fascist Willis Carto.

Or do you give your services to fascism for free?

The answer is, "Yes, I did get paid, but not any more."

Thanks.

Presumably AFP are getting them free now?

On Sunday, Aug 7, 2011 at 11:46:53 PM

Deleted
PCR's response was to attack me for being a "zionist troll", accusing me of being some "agent" etc etc. I replied:
The real tale of the thread

The real tale of the thread is that PCR's conspiracism has dragged out the "trolls". As it should be expected to do. The bubble of people with very low post-counts are all in support of PCR and/or conspiracism.


Yet they all believe I am the troll. But look at the vacuous personal invective coming my way, for - daring to oppose the most obvious twaddle? And what has been added by anyone? Nothing - the vast majority of it is simply attacking me.

I have been pursuing a question about PaulCraigRoberts' popularity within fascism - and whether the affection is mutual, and financial. I personally think that's an important issue.

Just because I am asking about one particular thing, it needn't prevent anyone else posting anything. Clearly it doesn't.

If Mr Roberts had properly addressed my reasonable concerns and questions instead of being disingenuous and evasive, then I wouldn't have had cause to persist.

The fact is, Mr Paul Craig Roberts did have a column running in the fascist's newspaper AFP, published by Willis Carto. It seems certain he will have been paid for it and that AFP need have been given authorisation for its use.

Clearly AFP would not put it in the paper if they didn't approve and benefit from it.

I think that's a very troubling relationship, especially for someone making appeals at a supposedly "liberal" and "progressive" forum.

By contrast, Mr Roberts now says of me:

----
"Joe Public" is a troll/agent who tried to hijack the topic by nonsensical personal attacks on me."
===

I'd call it establishing a professional, pecuniary and political relationship with organised fascism.


On Monday, Aug 8, 2011 at 7:46:58 PM

Deleted

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

End Quotes

So, it seems clear PCR was getting paid by fascist Willis Carto's AFP for a weekly column - and that they were given permission to do so.

OpEd news therefore has an author compromised by a relationship to fascism amongst its 'premier' writers - ones whom likely it hopes to bring in some subscribers etc.

But OpEd News claims to be LIBERAL and PROGRESSIVE.

And rather than criticise such relationships to fascism OpEd News bans the critic and suppresses the criticism. That's clearly highly problematic....for "liberals" and "progressives". Hmmm. Are they really those things then? What is PCR doing there anyway? An old Reaganite....blasting the government for wars, dishonesty, defence spending....?

And PCR was the second OpEd News writer that was found with connections to Willis Carto's AFP: I had found another writer there selling a book, with an endorsement by AFP. What's that doing at a "liberal" website? The author said they "didn't see anything wrong with AFP" or The Spotlight. Oh right! And this is Liberal.....how?

It's remarkable, and worrying, how easily the far-right can insinuate itself into supposed "liberal" and "progressive" discourse.

If Liberals and Progressives can't recognise fascism when it's right under their noses, then how can there be any defence against it?

And if Libs and Progressives can't spot fascism, and don't take instinctive offence at it.....and don't recognise any difference in its content and intent.....then aren't they actually fascist themselves? If there's no difference between things, then they are the same.

I was angry to get banned from that site, as I had just replied to several posts about "fascism", and I thought I'd had some success in making the distinction a little clearer.

Of course, the fascism they were identifying was NOT fascism. They were using the common (but wrong) definition of 'fascism is corporatism.' IT IS NOT THAT. Modern American ideas of 'corporatism' are not what fascists meant by corporatism. NOT AT ALL. Fascism is from "bundle of sticks" bound together, to be strong. Whereas american corporatism is crony capitalism, where (big)industry and government fuse to some degree - and which has obvious class conflict implied (which denies the exact thing the bundle of sticks stands for - unity, the people all-together, etc. ) [Fascism isn't socialism either because it has no intention of handing industry TO the workers, has no intent to abolish class instead affirming greater hierarchy - of race, intellect, ability - survival of the fittest - etc.] Fascism's corporatism was to bring the REAL TRUE VOLK all together, as one - but not to abolish class (socialism), and certainly not to exploit it a la crony capitalism ("corporatism").

A complaint was made (at OpEd News) about how the "fascist corporations" sought only to enrich themselves, nevermind the American people.....

But this is a complaint a fascist would make - as they are ultranationalist. Indeed, it was the historic complaint of fascism in Germany 1920/30s - that international capital cared nothing for the Volk. Germany for the Germans! This was cause and effect of anti-semitism too - the idea only REAL Natives can be loyal to the state (Germany).

Capitalist corporations are anti-national in so far as motive encourages them to put national interests below profit-interest.

Whereas, clearly, a fascist corporation - being ultranationalistic - would put national interests before the 'grubby' interests of profit (unlike 'the Jew', of course - as they would argue.)

So, we have a good example of how a little confusion can make it appear left and far-right are saying the same thing. A supposed left-critique is actually very close to the far-right one - because of its narrow nationalism. Seems to me that if the left doesn't notice and understand it is NOT saying the same thing, then likely it IS saying the same thing (as the fascist).

The American Left can be highly Nationalistic. It makes it vulnerable to this entryism of the far-right and leads to errors such as "fascism equals corporatism".

OpEd News seems ignorant of, if not positively disposed towards, crypto-fascism.

--------

ETA Some screenshots

Banned from OpEd News:

Joe Public, the member profile, showing all comments as "hidden".

Example of deleted comment, responding directly to a PCR comment specifically mentioning (and attacking) Joe Public [me]. Comment is deleted from thread presently up at OpEdNews, with no notification that anything has been removed, nor any explanation why.

Example of comment I posted quote from earlier - with PCR directly responding. Again, comparison with present published thread at OpEdNews shows it has been deleted, with no notification that anything has been removed, nor any explanation why.

Wednesday 3 August 2011

Without major stimulus, we're fucked

Cut cut cut.......the path to doom.

Very silly, when sovereign nations print their own money.

We need vast public works; we need to build (even holes in the road). Anything. Though there's plenty to do without digging holes and filling them, it would be better than cuts. Crazy......demand falling precipitously and so everyone.....cuts.

Post-Keynesian Modern Money Theory (MMT) offers a way out. Strikes me intuitively and instinctively as the way to go. Spend! Deficits don't matter - the money is "free" - we can print what we like.....owe it to ourselves....it doesn't matter. Just get things moving, for chrissakes!

But no-one's listening. Everyone is cutting. Madness. Doom. God, it's depressing.

Some good sources for MMT

http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/

http://moslereconomics.com/mandatory-readings/soft-currency-economics/

The act of government spending and concurrent taxation gives the illusion that the two are inextricably linked. The illusion is strengthened by the analogy of government as a business or government as a household. Businesses and households in the private sector are limited in how much they may borrow by the market’s willingness to extend credit. They must borrow to fund expenditures. The federal government, on the other hand, is able to spend a virtually unlimited amount first, adding reserves to the banking system, and then borrow, if it wishes to conduct a reserve drain.


An especially good essay: TAXPAYERS DON'T FUND ANYTHING