It may look like this to the casual observer, but the damage to the Nation's very core is vast. Healing it will last long beyond the next presidency.

The Roberts' Court surprised the Stiftung in moving this fast, this early. Americans still don't understand the ideology that has been gloating at them through familiar institutions the past 7 years — their anger at Dubya and even Cheney is about perceived failures, not goals or vision. So how to explain the need for a thorough and complete purge to remove those planted into the apparat still devoted to the regime's goals? Who will even think even to mount a purge? Who would know how to do it, anyway, except the Movement itself? Does anyone really believe the feckless Democrats ever could be trusted not to screw it up beyond recognition anyway?



Nonetheless, there is some satisfaction that the Imperial Project is in a tailspin. The Movement's internal destruction has been far more successful than the Neocon strand's Home Depot International Imperial Dreams. If the Movement's various strands continue to gnaw on themselves that is a double plus good. They can even take solace together in the massive damage done to our institutitonal infrastructure and the global community while they nurse those grudges against hateful — but possibly temporary — Reality.



Tags: Cheney, Authoritarianism, extra constitutional, Addington, Carl Schmitt, unitary executive, contempt for democracy, anti enlightenment, Neocons, Imperial America, Hubris

IC contactors out of control.

Just the tip, my friends. This is gonna be one ugly mess when that rock gets kicked over. To be fair, TSA and HLS were problematic. No one competent wanted to work there.

The Stiftung and others lost the legislative fight to give HLS a meaningful, internal and independent intellegence analysis with limited collection capabilities. The rice bowls too sacred to move. Intelligence at HLS was a bureaucratic Chernobyl. So in HLS' case, one can argue that they were so screwed and no one wanted to be bureaucratic castrato, some contracting was inevitable.

We even said so at the time. But that does not excuse this kind of behavior. Which is merely Peoples' Exhibit A.



In fact, the entire HLS Dept. is a Titanic, of qualified people leaving after short stays or refusing to come on, etc. Another Joementum special. We hae known legions of senior people who left in despair of anything productive ever happening even before Katrina. Hijacked by Rove and Card after polling and they used it to crush the Dems in Fall 2002. And the rest is history. It's a farce. It's worse than a farce, it is criminal.

This Booz contact is bad. There are so many, many others. The incomprehensible scale of wasteful, stupid, possibly illegal if not illegitimate contracting that has gone one makes profligate Rome look like Calvin's Geneva. (Apologies to Salon for invoking Rome again). Trillions of dollars coursing through the veins of the Imperial City. Very little or no reliable, professional supervision. And people wonder at all these farcically huge and undeniably tacky McMansions popping up like body lice all over the Imperial City? All the shiny new Lexus and SUVs? Together with the regulatory and lobbyist contingent, they don't even bother hiding it.

Rookies when they go up to the Hill always forget that the two most important things to a member, particularly in the House, are (a) money; and (b) jurisdiction (especially for chairmenperson). The intern screwing and all that gets tossed in the back along with constituent service. So it is true Tom Davis, that you had jurisdictional struggles to deal with and your NRCC tricky burden to pull off, but I like and liked you, even raised many thousands of dollars for you. But you and the Committee took a dive on the Nation for a felonious pest control salesman, a maleable wrestling coach and a libertarian-leaning 3rd rate economics professor — all whom thought you were a Bolshevik anyways.

Sadly, I think the regime's thefts will go unpunished. Another sign of terminal dogma.



Tags: Incompetence,, no-bid-contracts, TSA, HLS, Tom Davis

What Sid says.




Tags: Cheney, Authoritarianism, extra constitutional, Addington, Carl Schmitt, unitary executive, contempt for democracy, anti enlightenment

As a random thought experiment, which of you, Dear Readers, could offer a coherent paragraph summation about the foreign policy (note, not just Iraq) vision of the oh, top three candidates of either party? Without cheating and clipping and pasting some crap a 24 year old intern posted on the web page from a think tanker angling to be the new Dep.Asst.Sec. of something. We mean, in real time, an off the top of your head kind of thing.

We tried it tonight. Even after Advil, no success. Just bits and pieces of AgitProp and gibberish. Maybe you, Dear Reader, might have more luck.

It looks like it will get worse.

Alot worse.



Tags: Geopolitics, China, Debt, Asuka Langley Soryu, Cybermen, Europe, Russia, American Foreign Policy, Post Neocon Age, Post Realism, Post Post, Beyond the Beyond

Tags: Fall Of Night, Cesar Conda, Brad Berenson, Cheney, Bush, Neocons, liberal democracy

so in interim point you, naturally, to Balkinization.

Who knew that the widening Gyre would have Tucker Carlson's smug face on it and ever more insulting MSNBC promo graphics. There's this lovely little item that notesFukuyama (and Michael Novak (the other one) paens to how Christianity is uniquely suited to capitalism) join the rest in frankly flatulating into Tuckers beaming smile, now the breadth of 4 galaxies, as we near the End.

But what to make of Tweety's desperate ratings lunge with Ann Coulter. Does she have something on him? Or perhaps something must be amiss in the Matthews household? As he is devoting 60 minutes tomorrow to the only kind of pole dance that can really get him hopping now — with that gangly incoherent attention seeker. Will in anyone in the crowd have the honesty to toss her (the deserved) singles, one wonders?

Tags: The Legacy, Tucker Carslon, Tweety Getting Pole Dances

We're conflicted about writing about Jim Schlesinger's “Family Jewels” (they were never “Colby's”, he merely inhereted them and selectively leaked them to the public (and the Glomar story to Hersh) to save the Agency from being burned to the ground).

Or as James Jesus et al. maintained ipso facto proof that Colby was the mole. Now presumably Bobby DeNiro winks this way after some vino having been “made”. But then JJA and De Niro never addressed JJA and Golitsyn's other banalities that the Sino-Soviet tensions were a ruse (even after the Sovs asked if we would join them in nuking the Chinese sites). Funny, 7 years of Neocons and they actually made JJA and Golitsyn retroactively rehabilitated re Beijing and Moscow axis today. Wonders never cease.

First, there's not a whole lot in there that isn't already fairly widely known in general terms already. Some minor bit historical actors like “Felix Rodriguez” can show off Che's Rolex again, and relieve old stories, etc. All done before the Hughes-Ryan and 1980 Intelligence Oversight Acts. Second, from them during the 1974-2000 time period one is not likely to find anything nearly the equivalent of current unsanctioned activity (hence the mining in 1983, Ollie, Secord, Boland, Iran Contra, etc. — they couldn't get away with it in the framework). Casey, the Wall Steet lawyer had to operationalize the NSC to do it. His protoge, Addington, more successfully operationalized the EOVP.

Now, of course, who knows. The militarization of the Nation escapes capacity to imagine, and 70% of the Community are now contractors — so God help us all. Of course, the Founders never anticipated a Republic determined to commit seppuku to the tune of a Fox News Alert and Laurie Dhue's lips. I saw Victoria Toensing show tendancies of extremism in the early 1980s, but you have to remember that during the Reagan transition team Angelo and alot of more serious people wanted to abolish the Agency altogether and start over, fearing it had been tainted by moles, bureaucratese, kowtowing to Congress, etc. No one, at that time, however, could have conceived that the entire congressional branch would willingly castrate themselves politically and become a mere Congress of Peoples' Deputies under a dumber Putin from Texas, but there you go.



Which brings us to Count Metternich and the death of the Russian Ambassador. In the middle of the night, a servant woke Count Metternich to inform him that the Russian Ambassador just passed away. To which Metternich replied, “I wonder what his motive was . . .”

Coming clean with stale stuff already “known” for 40 years is a terrific PR flare off the back of an Agency with a morale problem. GULAGS, torture, international criminal liability, Italian courts, this wasn't the script. Cofer Black was gonna stride into an Oval Office carefully covered in painter's taupe and show the Warlord that famous head on stick. By mid 2007, the 3rd Infantry Division was supposed to be coming ashore at gaza linking up with the IDF. Re-write time. About as bad as Heaven's Gate.

Congress, the media, the NGOs, everyone gets distracted. I thought Tweety was jumping on his chair so enthusiastically something uncomfortable was about to happen. It eats up the summer media. Perfect beach reading. This act of “good faith” also introduces the means to slowly open the desk drawer to 2001-2006. Not only do we know that Goss launched at least one major covert action without telling anyone on the Hill (acknowledged and terminated by current DNI) but there is the open secret that no one is really auditing and/or supervizing the the contract force. And moreover, from an institutional memory point of view, your memory leaves when your contrator quits or is fired. Intelligence agencies above all things, particularly from the CI and other disciplines, are in the memory business.

It will be seen where the ripples from this pebble in a lake go. Re Cheney/Addington, re Executive Branch overall, re-igniting in Congress a raison d'etre for their being oversight at all. The damage of the last 7 years is so vast, who would have imagined it. And who really among our political class cares enough to take a stand rather than exploit current tactical situations?

No great defeat in a 4 year Total War. No millions of casualties. No empire torn assunder (yet), wheelbarrows are not filled with bills to buy bread, Chinese credit still flows smoothly, and yet so much sub rosa radicalization in open sight.




Tags: Family Jewels, CIA, Big Whoop

Sandy Levinson asks the rhetorical question of whether the Vice President and David Addington have any honor or sense of constitutional duty. The WaPo today suggests Sandy's take is if anything, too kind. The heartbeat of this regimes' radicalism is on display, but only by negative inference — detecting a null sense of absence.

Vice President Cheney's office has refused to comply with an executive order governing the handling of classified information for the past four years and recently tried to abolish the office that sought to enforce those rules, according to documents released by a congressional committee yesterday.

We all know Addington's malign influence by now, his ties back to Casey, HPSCI, Cheney and Iran Contra. What is not fully understood is how deep this radical extremism extends throughout the Federalist Society — the ideas that Malbin, Addington and the others trotted out in 1987 in the Minority Report shape our Nation todayn and came from somewhere. I still wonder and worry if the Left, Center and small “d” liberal democratic infrastructure understands what it just endured what still stand, Bush's personal tumble notwithstanding. Are small “d” adherents wiling to build corresponding institutitions not just of mealy mouthed moderation but capable of detecting and engaging the Federalist/Addington radicalism? Sandy closes by quoting the now seemingly ubiquitous David Rivkin supporting Addington's radical views, naturally. Again, the Stiftung regrets giving his early career a boost. So much heavy and dark karma to work off and so little time . . .



Tags: Addington, Cheney, Classification, Federalist Society, Sith Lords

Cancelled. Finally. (And allegedly). Mike's got a decent piece in FA here.
Get used to axes coming out. It's gonna get ugly. The Nation has not a clue how expensive the Force Replenishment will be for what we have thrown away in Iraq; next generation procurement scissors crisis is going to be even more World Historical brutal. Our salvation? Richard Haas maybe will assign Max Boot or Peter Beinart to think our way out of it for us all.

Tags: Misty Satellites, DNI, Cancellation, Procurement

Akiva Eldar from Ha'aretz explains how:

If Ariel Sharon were able to hear the news from the Gaza Strip and West Bank, he would call his loyal aide, Dov Weissglas, and say with a big laugh: “We did it, Dubi.” Sharon is in a coma, but his plan is alive and kicking. Everyone is now talking about the state of Hamastan. In his house, they called it a bantustan, after the South African protectorates designed to perpetuate apartheid.

Worth reading the rest. Also, with no disrepect meant to the fallen warrior and statesman himself, if the jackals at NBC are looking to plug a hole in its Fall schedule, there may be a science fiction/apocalyptic angle here, especially with his deep interest in Cher Condi's shapely legs. Think mid season replacement? Heroes surprised you all.

Tags: Sharon, Gaza, Hamastan, Coma, NBC Fall Schedule

before FermiLab starts name checking wankers of the day.

Not that there aren't other topics out there, mind you. The Left Blogosphere smacks Richard Cohen around (deservedly), mosques go up, the Army lies, troops die, Tweety thinks he is aiding democracy on MSNBC — we even have a fucking Paul McCartney album to contend with. At least before toupes and dyed hair (curtains and rugs according to the totally unreliable Heather), back in the late 70s he knew how to call it when an age winds down:

Whats that man holding in his hand?
He looks a lot like a guy I knew way back when
Its silly willy with philly band
Could be . . . . . oo-ee . . . . . .
Whats that man movin cross the stage?
It looks a lot like the one used by jimmy page
Its like a relic from a different age
Could be . . . . . oo-ee . . . . . .

Pilates toned “baristas” today probably dont even know Jimmy or what a theramin is. Just think. In 30 years someone will be selling “Neocon Perfume” — although in Hong Kong boutiques, perhaps. The beauty of commodification is it is utterly remorseless, without scrupples. As Sgt. Reese warned, “ That [commodidification] is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are [sold].”

So, today we give you physicists fighting it out over the “God Particle”. Just can't summon the Pavlovian reflex to bark yet again at the Warlord's world falling to pieces around us. At least one day off. We avoided the dreaded, hey what are the best Top 10 Action Movies, etc. (we condsidered it briefly in the car during the commute this morning). As they used to say in another context, it's not new wave, it's not old wave, it's — well what it is.

Tags: Physics, God Particle, Jimmy Page, Theramin

Sigh. A reader correctly points out the Stiftung missed the obvious aesthetic statement of this regime — in all things:



We understand EOVP may provide the Stiftung with a further response in the near future, as well. Carry on. Nothing to see.

Tags: Bush regime, aesthetic

Many of us have survived these last Dark Years, knowingly or not, relying on mimesis. This concept was brought home to the Stiftung by a fascinating essay by Russian art critic Victor Tupitsyn, reviewing “Art and Propoganda” in the Summer issue of “Art Forum” (the Stiftung reads it soley for the auto reviews, of course). It is not yet online or I would link it for you.

At issue for Tupitsyn is his take of a collection “Art and Propoaganda: lLash of Nations 1930-1945” depicting how the Sovs, Italy and Germany and the U.S. (interesting omissions there) explored their political perceptions via art. He then adds the commonplace but not often dwelled upon fact that throughout the ages humanity (subjects/victims) used art to process and interpret the current authoritarian or even theological regimes around them. Hence, the truism that art indeed can be serious politics.

Here in the States, where conformity and enthusiastic compliance with regime's AgitProp disappointed but did not surprise the Stiftung, our mimetic sources were of a frankly fairly meager sort. We had the fetish of surrounding Dubya with goofy signs when he spoke, we had Scott McClelland, perhaps Rummy qualifies as a stand up art of a sort. But in truth looking back in hindsight, there was no regime aesthetic at all. None, a total void. Even the deceit was and is brazen and contemptuous, like the demon laughing knowing the Father Merrin's heart is failing and Karas has no faith. Even the ugly jersey walls initially thrown up waffled all over the map. So it fell to the opposition to create the regime's own art style through parody, and then parody that parody for the mimetic release Tupitsyn discusses. You can name them now easily, Jon Stewart et al., Lewis Black, David Letterman — by all means add your own such as the Warchowski Brothers.

The Democratic Party has fallen into another mimetic trap Tupitsyn notes. It's Americanized version as known by the folks at the swimming hole around Strawberry Point, Iowa know runs like this — “If you stare at a squinty Texan or jowly Sith Lord long enough, they begin to stare back at you”. In Greek terms, Tupitsyn reminds us well they called it pharkmakon — then maybe screamed out “Sppppphhhaaaatans!” But an actual abyss it remiains, at least aesthetically.



Tags: Aesthetic, Artforum, Mimetic Relief, Tupitsyn, Bush Administration, Jon Stewart, Lewis Black

Everyone calls it by different names, and exprienced it in different ways. At the high school prom, it's that MeatLoaf classic “Stop Right There!” and praying for the end of time. Later it can be on Wall Street — at least the Stiftung has been told this. We are even told by friends, mind you, that while overpaid and often useless IBankers flaunted nasal stimulation (more for coolness and to collect girls,) the adrenlin level of the deal heat is sufficient to keep most fired up, again no different than that high school memory. At least they tell us that. Negotiations in general do this, especially in adversarial situations, such as litigation (and criminal settings especially).

All of which is to say, that despite our efforts to strut and preen here, it is a lie for the Stiftung to deny that he loves being on the Hill. For all of its unholy flaws documented here ad nauseum. If you've ever been in a car on the NJTP (God rest your soul) and around exit 13A (going North) suddenly feel the energy, the raw pulsating waves radiating from over the horizon and the pavement itself, you know what the Stiftung is talking about. Now the Hill is not like that except in the most rare of circumstances, but when deal heat infects everyone on the Hill or even just your micro issue you want to get through the House on Suspension, for example, if you like the hunt, the chase, the thrill and sheer unpredictability of human foilables and immoral betrayals, lies and backstabbings, then there you go.

Some the Stiftung's female friends swear bidding on eBay is the same and we take them at their word.



We have no real dog in the immigration fight from a client or institutional point of view and have mixed feelings about the project over all. Those that know the Stiftung personally also understand our sensitivity to these issues from a macro societal level as well for other reasons. But the Stiftung loves deal heat.

We were on the Hill with some of our networks or tribes (and the Hill runs this way even before the Dark Times, and that even means 1994, of which we are not wholly innocent God spare us). We were discussing the impact of Manhattan Institute scholar Tamar Jacoby's letter in support of the bill on Republican sensibilities. It was signed by the usual suspects, Jeff Bell, Jack Kemp, and some other actual sitting members. etc. As you likely know, the Manhattan Institute is a reliable if small player institution in the intellectual trench warfare, and if not quite Krupps in quantity and quality, their armaments are highly reagrded.



And as you also likely know, lobbying has very little to do with what you see on TV, George Clooney's best efforts aside. Take letters. The right letter, from the right group or coalition, delivered at the right time, signed by the right people can kill or hold up a deal flat. Or keep something alive and push it into conference (when all hell breaks loose and atrocities and who knows what else occur to those smart enough to prepare for it). We've done it and seen it, delivering letters to staffers and even members sometimes in member terms past 11:00 PM and staffer terms 3:00 AM that have killed fast moving bills dead. Or the reverse.

Not to over emphasize the above — they're only one of many factors — but they do matter more than the general public realizes. So we were curious how the Jacoby Letter went down. We knew it had no clout on arrival of course. Immigration now has reached a thermonuclear deal heat level that no minor think tanks' plaintive utterances would matter next to NAM, the Chamber, etc. But these pro-immigration republicans were so demoralized. It was like talking to Tom Davis and David Drier in one of the Leadership BatCave offices under the House when they swore next time Dick Armey and Tom DeLay would not shove a telephone pole so far up their keisters that it would pop out their front jaw with a Verizon operator included, just because they had the temerity for asking for a little reason. That kind of sad. We felt bad for them.



There was alot of talk about how Tancredo managed, like Micheal Corleone at the end of Part One, to get 50 members to kiss his ring. (Allegedly). No small feat. There were also insinuations that certain high profile companies doing business in his neighboorhood were asked to walk the Halls for him and his drive. That's another thing about lobbying — and Coppola for that matter. The amount of time smart lobbyists devote to doing seemingly extraneous favors knowing memories on the Hill can be (if not always) long. In this case, we doubt it. Tancredo and the others doesn't need it. And neither does anyone in the Senate. Buchanan has it about right. Even in communities where a Chinese restaurant staffed by blondes is the closest to immigration they know, they are convinced the brown hordes are here.

When we laughed at Stan Kurtz the other day, we mentioned that there are waves and patterns of Nativism in American history, going all the way back to the Founding. It might be worth visiting that one day here as much of what we see has come before.

I'll be up on the Hill again tomorrow. Not to try and effect any outcomes. This issue is not our playground and we have no dogs in the fight. But to mingle. As we said, we would be a liar if we said we were immune to deal heat — at least entirely. Like the buzz of human energy around Exit 13A. All of which may undermine my determined effort to paint only dour misanthropic visions for you here, Dear Readers.

P.S. The Cheney bit is a teaser for something coming later. I also screwed up the base line run but was too tired to re-record it. Next time.




Tags: Lobbying, Deal Heat, Immigration, Letters

In response to our esteemed Aldershot's logical question, why don't we bring Cher Condi here to the bunker for an accounting (if not actual reckoning), it's a layered situation.

The first step is so widely known one suspects everyone guessed immediately. The Flux infrastructure required to generate a field suppression to intercept and penetrate her declarative AgitProp shield would by its very nature exceed 1.21 gigawatts just for even initial operation. Here in the district, alas, I think the power grid, in solidarity with Baghdad, has reverted to pre 1920 levels.

Everyone's had to deal with a shaky grid not pumping out the gigawatts now and then. So we'll do what what likely all of us here do; plan ahead for COSTCO's 4th of July battery sale. Problem solved.



Cher Condi's Fabulosity (tm) is also so far beyond the whole feline in a portmanteau thing. A related phenomenon, but in truth, whether when viewed when opened she's in there being interviewed by Gwen Ifill or some manly deputy assistant junior minister from Canda pops up (who then conveniently issues press releases declaring “Cher Condi is a morning person preferring the windows open” ) — well, it concerns us not the least. We know others believe this field of research holds great promise for 2001-2007 but we discretely disagree. A sleeping cat to us, is well a sleepy kitty.

We have a different problem. It is actualy us, in a way. You and me, Dear Reader. It is well known in Quantum Mechanics that:



Be not daunted. When all is said is done, energy states in the universe must at some level be emitted at a constant. (The Stiftung is remembering this all from a man who made Big Firecrackers go boom and ran a national lab, so I could have also showed you the formula for the New Vitamin Empowered Coke Zero, but I think I am right). All dervied from E = hv as given to us by Max Planck's immense and creative mind. Here he tells us that E (energy) = h (a constant rate) and v (radiaton).

The Stiftung's own Unfähigkeit-Verteidigung-Schild-Kraft team tell us that Planck was only partially correct, and made the bold and so far scientifically unverified determination that h also has in fact an anti-h aspect. Like the Greenhouse Effect, this anti-h phenomenon has grown they believe due to man made actions. The increase in anti-h leakage into our universe since 2001 they report is off the charts.

In this case our commitment here to objective, rational empirical reality as a constant is in tension with this new and growing anti-h. My speciliasts are sure we are operating on this basic quantum level here. Of course, we would offer Cher Condi the expected respective ritual sacrifices of couture and saccharine book reviews and Joshua Muravchick to intone ritual offering of prayer and submission. We are not primatives, after all, and know how to treat Fabulosity (tm). All to induce her to open one slice of her Fabulosity (tm) to the Stifting, if but for a moment. We may never be the same, basking in it.

Our UVSK Team are not sure exactly what happens when anti-h and h interact on that level. Suddenly they believe everything must be discussed in Finnish as the highest lingistic authority for the anti-h phenomenon. But if the Stiftung's Finnish is still semi-rusty, still here goes --they suspect minor gas/hefty bag-level explosions (so big, flashy explosions that do nothing) and cheap fast moving dark clouds like a Saturday night Sci Fi Channel original movie. Maybe some of us woud have to hold to to things and sway back and forth on sub unit director cue as a camera tilts. That's their guess. But remember, folks, we are rolling dice with the friggin universe.

Perhaps, to overcome our E= hv problem, we could all simulate belief (I mean really pretend like the old Star Trek Western Episode that Spock made them believe the bullets wouldn't kill them so the bullets didn't), or import some true believers from RedState and hope it's the ratio not the purity. So much is not known about anti-h and its properties.

In any event, we shall “perserve and continue working”, dear friends.

(More to come later tonite on Something Completely Different);

Tags: Cher Condi, Fabulosity, Max Planck, Schrodinger

Today we were up on the Hill to survey the carnage. Full report tomorrow.

But as Cher Condi (doubltlessly flush with the roar of the Albanian masses in her dainty ears) declared, the Warlord's foreign policy is a success in World Historical terms because she and her speech riders writers tell us so. Elsewhere, believe it or not, some elements of the AgitProp machine still creep along, unaware that the brain has died — not too far off from Wehrmacht map makers translating maps of India into German in Fall 1944.

One had to hunt for them next to the “I Love The FBI” and “Alberto Fights For Kids” t shirts, but you could indeed find them. Here are two Albanian tokens available to Imperial City loyalists we spied. Oddly, denizens neglected to display their zeal for the commemorative stamp the Warlord received and ignored them. Perhaps something happened to Paris that we missed being on the move so much today that distracted them? Seriously, more tomorrow re above.









Tags: Albania Loves Its Bush

Yes, the Truman thing.

Before we go on, our friend (whom we will call “David Gregory” (but no, not the real one because he can't do Brokaw, I don't think)) asked us to bring this to your attention. It is an interesting development, especially if you stay with it to the close.

We suggest readers, in the words of our friend, keep an eye on this.



But that's just the appetizer. Today the subject is actually my media “friend”. Ruminations on how I have treated(mis) him of late, why, and what it means to have friendships in this Tyvek-blotted cesspool in the Bush gloaming. (How's that for a 'Good Sunday Morning to you, Dear Reader!?).

It'a not as bleak below. And your feedback might help make sense of it all. Just to square things away, here's my version of Truman's admonition ala getting a true friend in DC:



We got him passing through San Francisco back during the BOOM when the Sony Store there just opened, Moscone was not yet completely a psychic blight and he himself was brand new - just one model on display. Our yard is not fit to treat a real dog, and we have never felt one daily walk was anything but animal abuse.

Read more »

We ask your indulgence, Dear Reader. We're not sure when we entered the Twilight Zone (the atrocious recent color one hour versions, not the classics) but here we are. The LA fiasco, the farce in Germany, Dubya fetted in Albania, and so on. A regular reader might predict we would seize on Pace's replacement, Putin or some other substantive topic to flail back in an effort to re-enter the familiar and recently departed cubic zirconium reality of MSNBCNNFOX. Instead, we chose to write today about technology.

Read more »

Here.

Tags: Crimes Against Humanity, Mass Murder

These are the days that drive sentient humanoids to bang their heads on their desks in frustration. Why bother asking why? One has to merely look in any direction. But if a glance in any direction will do, it is today's Salon's tedious “Is America Rome?” intellectual prosciutto and rockmelon platter.

When one hears even marginally historically literate Americans launch into these inevitably repetitive comparisons one feels compelled to race for the bar or the door, which ever is closer. Even Salon perforce must concede it's ALL BEEN DONE.

We already saw 2001-2004 the little Max Boots, Beinarts and Niall Fergusons et al. essentially republishing American Empire speculation Raymond Aron and even Kristol Senior did decades ago. A whole new generation of war hawks set for life lifting almost in whole cloth work of their predecesors and not even paying a price for being wrong. (Ferguson trimmed his sails early to his credit). Not bad work if you can get it.

Same with the Rome thing. Back in the 1980s, the Roman military was the smart set's favorite. Edward Luttwak got alot of mileage from his incredibly wrong (in this author's view) “The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire”. Luttwak wrote “Coup D'etat” so naturally, hey he knows his legions. In the 1980s, another weird thing was everything was a “Grand Strategy”. Funny how certain word groups define ages. To be fair, Salon has the good graces to concede that this is well trod, familiar ground. Reading between the lines, it is hard to escape that this quickly devolves into the nerd equivalent of who would win in a fight, Picard or Kirk?

Joking aside the whole topic is quite complex not just because which Rome is one speaking about? The Republic? At what phase. Early Empire? West? East? Did Rome really fall. Why did Bobby Ewing appear in a shower? People ponder these questions. But more importantly, why are we trapped in the the Western tradition? Because William McNiell wrote it? Comparative imperial “overstrtetch” to use Paul Kennedy's felicitious phrase should take us outside the familiar Western cul de sac (and most Westerners don't even know Venice was a world power). A comparison and contrast of American Power and decay to Chinese imperial rule and collapse would be something new from say a geopolitical amphibian perspective — at least to the Stiftung.

Readers of this blog know our view which we will not regurgitate here except in passing. The loss of civic virtue is what Machiavelli (in the Discourses, not his deliberately politically pornographic Prince), Harrington, Montesquieu, and the Framers predicted would be the American Republic's downfall. Salon thankfully notes that there are approximately more than 220 more to explain the Roman Imperial fall.

A shame that Sid Blumenthal did not try his hand at this, because his unique set of skills, experiences and deft writing might have left us something new. But here are my two cents: we have been ruled like Claudian Rome the past few years in a certain few aspects. But who knew Livia had a bad heart and shot people in the face?



Tags: Salon, Rome, America, Migraines

One of the most annoying features of NRO (out of many) is the patina of erudition and history they strew across a web page to advance the pedestrian talking points. It's the intellectual equivalent of the Bedazzler (tm). Goldberg, Jpod they all take turns with it. Cal Thomas' famous Fox demo is besotted with all the shiny things, apparently.

Today it is Stanley Kurtz's turn to festoon glittery factoids to an irrelevant argument in the hopes no one notices. Another glop sized helping of Kulturpessimism asking if “Europe's Last Days” are our future. Note the tautology in the set up - Europe *is* doomed. We are like Europe . . . therefore you better sign up for that boat cruise with Jonah and JPod now!!


This time, Kurtz is careful not to hide behind world class hacks like Mark Steyn,Pat Buchanan, FoxNews John Gibson and Tony Blankley. He trots out polymath historian Walter Laqueur. Laqueur has a decent record on European history and is the type of historian that can reliably churn out a tome even in quiet historical moments. His works are usually solid if not ground breaking. He's been around long enough that he can trade blurbs on his book jacket with Henry the K and Niall Ferguson.

So you would think Kurtz has more to work with here than Steyn's meanderings.

In his concluding reflection on what went wrong for Europe, Laqueur singles out immigration as first among causal equals: “...uncontrolled immigration was not the only reason for the decline of Europe. But taken together with the continent’s other misfortunes, it led to a profound crisis; a miracle might be needed to extract Europe from these predicaments.”

In Laqueur’s telling, the trouble began “when European countries recruited workers abroad to do the work European workers were not willing or able to do . . .Laqueur returns several times to the failure of Europe’s authorities to consult with the public on immigration. Instead of putting the matter up for debate, government and corporations quietly and unilaterally set policy. Europe’s elite had a bad conscience, given memories of refugees from Nazi Germany who’d been turned away decades earlier. There was also the omnipresent “fear of being accused of racism.” This bizarre combination of multiculturalism and complete disregard for the significance of culture opened up a huge gulf between Europe’s elite and the public — a gulf that emerged openly when France and The Netherlands rejected the proposed EU constitution (in part over concerns about Muslim immigration and the accession of Turkey to the EU). There was, says Laqueur, “a backlash against the elites who wanted to impose their policies on a population who had not been consulted....Another important motive was the reluctance to hand over national sovereignty to central, remote and anonymous institutions over which people had no control.”

And so on. All about Europe. But what about the situation here? Kurtz closes with a mere 2 desultory paragraphs about hispanics not being quite the same as the Islamic Menace destroying Europe. But wasn't that the point of your article, Stanley? The analogy? The comparison? The warning? Where did the American part go? He knows he is a carney because he quickly switches gears yet again to the Albanian Dix Six — you know, those elite pizza delivery sonderkommandos as proof dark people are here already.

And there's the problem. Kurtz knows utterly nothing about the history and pattern of American Nativism, the interplay of nationalism and ethnic prejudice here — its tides and causes. He instinctively knows he need to avoid the label like a “Kerry Democrat”. But does he have the faintest idea of the massive history *here* of American Nativism?

Kurtz, if you are going to make the comparison, make it. Don't dodge with two toss off sentences about Hispanics not being Islamics. Do you even have the faintest idea of which you pontificate about?

How understood properly it is not about fringe groups easily mocked but about how ideas gained sway in large segments of the American people at all levels. About how TV pundits earning six figures coming from elite colleges can espouse it? Moreoover, Stantley in American history there is not one Nativism — but several kinds, such as religious, revolutionary concerns, racial. The reasons for creating the Nativist pressures differ, too. In fact, if Kurtz was more familiar with American history and less concerned about ripping the bodice off the Steyn's and even Laqueur's of the world, he would find that rather than mirror Europe's situation, America always did and still differ to casualities and solutions.

Can someone lend NRO a library card? And make sure they use it.

Tags: Stanley Kurtz, NRO, Nativism

Tags: Ideology, Neocons, Evengelicals, The Long March From 17th Street To Volkish Climes

Bad historical jokes are like a bad penny or soul draining colleague. They always turn up. You know, “The Cold War is over, and Japan won.” The Iraq ones write themselves by the hour, tragically.



Every once in a while, one of the jokes rings piercingly true. James Mann's latest is one of them. His mordant observation that China won the Iraq war (not Tehran) is undeniable. He is the Mann of “Rise of Vulcans” fame and turned out a very timely book earlier this year that the Stiftung is just turning to now. Benjamen Shobert writes a concise review for Asia Times here.

In a nutshell, his point is it is not the economic model that challenges Washington's failures, but the viability of a dictatorial political regime deliverying the goods and keeping the populace largely quiescenet (or afraid, in alliance with Google, Yahoo, etc.) Elites can be subborned as the Nomenklatura showed with cars and apartments. Much of what drives Putin's policies we believe can be gleaned from making this choice.

You can read Shobert's review for the details, about how Mann goes on to explain how Dubya helped the rise of the China model. A failed militarized foreign policy of freedom by force. Ding. And the government has managed to survive and control the Internets and communications. So it may not apply to Mush sitting there raging at the Indians, dumb Americans and his unreliable tribal chiefs. But it may well work elsewhere.

Mann calls for an end to the American religious devotional that trade and wealth equal democracy will go no where. (Something the Japan Lobby successfully obscure easily and cheaply for over half a century). Statecraft of that sort is beyond our reach at the moment. Perhaps after 2008. Even then we have doubts. Our Republic is likely entering new waters under new stars.

Remember the toss off line about jokes above? Even Al Gore can be right too, in his latest book title. A nation preocuppied by men petting Tyrannosaurs in museums, installing bibles in science classes, turning national politics into celebration of fetus power. All the while watching male Catholics becoming unhinged on TV raging that their long denied admission to the power club is allegedly finally threatened by surging brown people after the WASP club fell apart.

Tags: China, James Mann, Benjamn Shobert