Posts by James Bremner
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Tony,
So it is unclear to you whether the regimes of North Korea, Burma or Zimbabwe deserve to be overthrown or not? A regime that starved to death 2 1/2 million of its own citizens (10% of its entire population) is not deserving of being overthrown on humanitarian grounds?You must have been pissed when Milosevic was overthrown!! Srebrenica, hey no problem!! Who are you to say that slaughtering 9,000 men and boys is bad!! Who are you to be so judgmental!! Those starved people in concentration camps? Like those damn North Koreans, they needed to go diet anyway!!
Well, I guess that is moral relativism for you. An inability to see the blindingly obvious. A sad place to be.
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RB,
Apparently most South Ossetians have been issued Russian passports. Part of Russia's long running annexation plan.I don't get your obsession with Scheunemann, who appears to be a very minor bit part player at best. Advises McCain, so what? Apart from making a few statements on the subject as part of his campaign, McCain has had nothing to do with any administration decisions on the topic.
The idea that neocons have been at the bottom of nearly every US policy or action over the last nearly 8 years is just so obviously not true.
Do yourself a favour, stop foaming at the mouth at the mention of the word "neocon".
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Tony,
Scheunemann, neocon or not, is hardly driving the train is he? He is an advisor to a presidential candidate who is odds on to lose right now.
As for the "American kind of freedom", what exactly does that mean? The freedom I enjoy in the US is pretty much the same as the freedom I enjoyed growing up in NZ and people enjoy in any country around the world typically described as "free".
As for overthrowing governments, what could possibly be wrong with whomever overthrowing governments such as North Korea, Burma, Zimbabwe which horrendously oppress their populations, as long as the hell that was before was replaced with a more free environment and human rights where virtually none exisited before?
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Funny, or rather sad, how these days the first response of many to anything bad that happens in the world is a reflexive "neocon, neocon, wah wah wah!!"
What has happened in Georgia is a balls up of spectacular proportions, but it is hard to see that it has much to do with neocons, for the reason that there are almost none in the administration anymore, and haven't been for a while.
Condi Rice has been very firmly in charge of US foreign policy these last four years and her actions, or inactions on many occasions, have hardly smacked of neocon impulses. Iran marches merrily toward a nuke crossing so many "red lines" and its more talk, talk talk. North Korea tried to detonate a nuke and is caught red handed proliferating Nuke technology to Syria and its "heh, no problem, let’s keep talking about our agreement!!" Hard to how a Kerry administration would have been much different in this regard (except handing Iraq to Al Qaeda and Iran’s Shia militias).
This article seems a fair analysis:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=9da1fd2d-1701-470b-b734-3fc365571e0d
The ire of the world should be directed at Russia, not the US or Georgia or neocons. It has been obvious for a number of years the direction Putin was taking Russia, squashing dissent at home, rebuilding its military with the objective of throwing its weight around globally, but especially in their "near abroad", once more. The US being fully occupied in Afghanistan and Iraq suited Russia very well. And over the last year or so Russia has socked away billions in additional oil revenues which has emboldened them further (all the more reason to drill for oil in the US and drop the price of oil and stop enriching so many vile regimes, including the Saudis).
The Russians were pissed about Kosovo and Georgia was the obvious place they were going to make a statement. How Georgia and the US screwed up and gave the Russians the excuse for which they were looking will rightly be the subject of much analysis in the near future.
Bush screwed up mightily by trying to be all matey, matey with Putin to bring him and Russia into the modern world, while all the time Putin had very different ideas. Putin must be relishing the thought of President Barry Obambi, whose knowledge and thoughts on international policy make a helium balloon look substantive by comparison. Terrible time to be an Eastern European with Prince Barry the Vacuous in office. Putin will have a virtually free reign. The Euros, spineless as they are anyway, wont do anything or Vlad will turn off their gas in winter. Nice lad, that Vlad.
Anytime the world becomes less free, as it has in this situation, it is something to be regretted and hopefully reversed and whomever or whatever made the world less free should be the automatic object of opprobrium. Anytime the world becomes freer, and more people gain some or all of the freedoms that readers of PAS enjoy, it is something to be celebrated. And that is the way to view this situation. Not, "neocon, neocon, wah, wah, wah!!"
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Klein, I mean to say where to start, I can't be bothered. She is just another Michael Moore, a paranoid loon who strings a bunch of bs together into a screed that the gulible and ignorant sadly lap up.
Space warfare. With so much in our modern world depending on satellites, and that ability of the US to defend itself totally dependent on satellites, the idea that the Yanks wouldn't make sure they can take care of business in space is pretty naive.
Katrina. Read the "From" below my name. I know a bit more about Katrina than most people I meet. Never ceases to amaze me to read or hear people going off about some aspect of the big K with barely a fucking clue about the subject.
If you want to get pissed of at FEMA, have at it. But don't forget that FEMA is not responsible, or equipped at all, for the immediate response to a disaster, that is the responsibility of local authorities.
Also don't forget to get pissed off at the clowns in the Army Corp of Engineers who designed fatally flawed levy walls 30 years ago (17th St, London Ave canals etc) that did most of the damage to the city. Get mad at the Local and State governments which hadn't done the preparation they were supposed to have and screwed up plenty afterwards as well.
Biggest single fuck up: Kathleen Blanco saying on Tuesday "I need 24 hours to make up my mind" about calling out the National Guard. What is there to think about? Absolute fucking moron.
Biggest mistake Bush made: Taking a state's rights perspective (a big deal over here) and deferring to Blanco as Governor. He could have gone around her and had Nagin make a request for federal military resources that would have provided a legal basis to cirumvent Blanco and gotten the army there days faster. He didn't do it. Big mistake.
And don't forget those who ignored the evacuation order. I am not referring to the sick or elderly (which the city of NO was supposed to evacuate but didn't even have a plan to) but the tens of thousands of able bodied who routinely ignore hurricane evacuation orders. They played Russian roulette with the biggest nastiest hurricane in a century, and lost.
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Media bias? No of course not. It's only a 100 to 1, no bias at all.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=301702713742569
McCain is running a lousy campaign (no surprises there) and Barry Obambi is such a lightweight he must need 20 lbs of lead in each shoe to stop him floating off into the clouds. He gives a great speech, but away from the teleprompter at a press conference, he is as bad as Bush.
As far as foreign policy flubs are concerned, Obama's ridiculous suggestions that his policy preference on the surge; don't do it, instead just turn around and withdrawal and who cares about the consequences (he and the NYT both said basically "who cares what happens") is causing him some problems. He has tried to say that the progress that can't be denied would have happened also with his policy which is patently absurd. He is starting to get called on his Iraq position from a number of angles. Even Katie Couric had a go at him on this topic the other night.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/07/our-view-on-ira.html
Perhaps this explains why he doesn’t appear to have gotten a bounce out of a very well staged overseas trip.
Still, with a weak opponent and the wind very much at his back, Obama has to be strongly favored to win. But if he implements his stated tax policy, we will get a very sharp lesson in the damage tax increases cause. He stands a very good chance of making Jimmy Carter look like one of the three wise men.
Oh well. Life goes on.
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It always amuses me when I see myself or Public Address being decried as "extreme left" on some wingnut blog.
Come on, I described PAS as "NZ's preeminent leftie blog", I thought you would be flattered!! You are to the left of center, I would have thought that this would have been a fairly uncontroversial statement.
After reading positive comments about the China deal on this blog it is interesting to stop and think that not so long ago Nixon said "we are all Keyensians now", Muldoon had a wage and price freeze on in NZ on and every country around the world had all manner of tarriffs and trade restrictions. The only criticism Bill Rowling or Bob Tizard would have had of Muldoon's controls and restrictions was that they weren't strong enough. And now a Labor Govt run by Helen Clark is a huge fan of free trade, signed a deal with China and is now wants to start talks with Japan and South Korean. You have to admit, that is one hell of a big change.
Glad to read that making a few bucks is no longer viewed as such a bad thing in NZ. I get that feeling when I come home for vacation, but I certainly remember the " if you got rich, you obviously screwed a bunch of people over" view that was so prevalent when I grew up in NZ.
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While I am at it, it is interesting to note how many posters have cited the free trade agreement with China as one of the Clark government's major achievements.
So Chicago school style free trade has gotten a thumbs up from the posters on NZ's preeminent leftie blog!! How times change!! Never would have been the case 20 or even 10 years ago, but this would seem to be evidence that the laws of economics prevail over time. Cause for optimism indeed!!
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A bit OTT, but never mind, it is a slow day at work ...
Tom Semmons wrote:
... from the fallout from the money printing of the economic lunatics in the White House, then I would say the polls would reverse as well.
The Fed prints money or not, not the White House, so blame Greenspan and Bernake for the continuing fallout out from printing money. Greenie held the Fed funds rate way too low for way too long and pumped up a real estate bubble. The decline in the dollar and all the many and varied problems is causes (main factor in the increase in the price of oil and food etc) it is absolutely their fault. And the fuckers still haven't figured it out, gold is off $30 today and the market is way down after yesterdays do nothing Fed meeting, a solid real time market based rebuke if ever there was one. Their do nothingism means that inflation will get significantly worse.
Certainly the White House could have and should have been much more aggressive in stating a strong or stable dollar as a policy over the years, but at the end of the day all the WH can do is jaw bone, it is the Fed that has all the actual levers.
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If gratitude is important to you, don't go into politics.
Politics and elections are mostly about what people want today or tomorrow, what they got yesterday is quickly forgotten. The greatest example of that is Churchill in 1945. He led Britain brilliantly in its greatest hour of need, yet got unceremoniously booted out because Atlee offered a bunch of handouts.
Human nature yearns for variety and something new and I think the modern communication environment we live in exacerbates this desire even more. We see or read about politics and politicians 24/7 on TV, cable satellite & the internet, no wonder we get sick of them faster!!
At the end of the day, having one party for too long is a not necessarily a good; they get stale and complacent over time. A change over and some new blood is not a bad thing. Besides, there isn't a huge difference these days between Labor and the Nats in NZ, Labor and the Libs in Aussie and Labor and the Conservatives in the UK (if only that were true in the US as well). I have read David Cameron described as Tony Blair with a blue tie. I correspond with a political journalist in NZ who wrote to me recently that the only difference for NZ with Key as PM is that tax rates will trend lower over time. Nothing else will change much.