George Handlery reviews the week that was.
1. From here it seems that color is creeping into Obama‘s once free-of-race campaign. There are implications for his electability once the majority catches on.
2. At the time of America's elections, the economy will be on the voters' minds. Thereafter, the new administration's main problem will be security. By then, the US' "B Team" could be in charge to handle the challenge.
3. America's choice. On 3/5 Iran helped the undecided. The Mullahs want a Democrat. Tehran knows what it is talking about. So should the voter.
4. Castro is going. Again the demand arises for the lifting of the US embargo. Pause to think. Cuba's ideology assumes that the system with which it demands contact, is collapsing. At the same time, the boycott by the system doomed by the law of history is made responsible for whatever fails in Cuba's socialist paradise. Revealingly, the EU's commission for development representing tottering Capitalism, has (2/9) recommended that the embargo of Cuba by lifted. Seldom has access to a cadaver been so forcefully demanded by the future's depository. The insight: Cuba‘s rulers realize something that their "useful idiot" supporters do not know and will never learn.
5. Violating a promise, in Britain there will be no referendum on the EU's new basic law. You see, the document is no constitution because it abridges the rejected original one. Besides, it grants England the option to apply a minimalist interpretation of the Lisbon treaty. The likely outcome: Once OK-d, massive pressure will be brought to implement the maximalist version.
6. Another broken election promise. In Hessen (Germany) the Social Democrats' candidate, Ms. Ypsilanti, countered the charge of leftism by promising not to enter a coalition with the extreme reds. Now she and her pinkish SPD have a chance to govern with the votes of the deep reds. Ypsilanti blames the voters for making this alliance "necessary." An SPD deputy's revolt nixed the deal. (After the war in the Soviet Zone the SPD was brutally persecuted.) Without her there was no majority. Ypsilanti withdrew. Then pressure was put on the deputy. She crumbled and surrendered her mandate. Ypsilanti is back in the game. The next act is predictable.
7. The scandal — mainly in Germany — of widespread tax cheating uncovered by using an illegally obtained and originally stolen CD, continues. Especially the "little people" are outraged. In their case the deft maneuvers of the wealthy do not pay. A study claims that 75% of the Germans cheat on their taxes. So call the outrage a sign of envy and not of moral uprightness. Perhaps the idea of equality — confused with justice – should be given an extended meaning. All people shall be allowed to cheat, not according to their ability but according to their self-determined need.
8. Taxes and distortions. The value of a person's contribution can result in an income that becomes, due to its size, subject to confiscatory taxes. If this is felt to be the case, competitive skills and personal ingenuity will shift from economic value-creation to tax avoidance. This distortion is especially damaging when avoiding taxes generates more revenue than creative activity brings after taxes.
9. Unaware of the above, the German government wants to access the holdings that fled its policies. Meanwhile it continues to make its subjects feel that they pay for steak while getting greasy-spoon burgers. Berlin claims that it is not its policies that cause the flight but the alternatives offered by others. (Not all of these are, by the way, in actual fact tax heavens. Subject to Swiss taxes, the writer can testify to that!)
10. Just one more impertinent idea. In the name of solidarity, productive people have to pay for those who are, by the standards of a government bureaucracy, down on their luck. Even the original supporters of the idea, such as this writer, notice that this burden-sharing is abused. This provokes the question: "how about solidarity by the beneficiaries of succor with the contributors who pony up their dough?"
11. A piece by a Lt. Col. J. Rose of the German army should be mulled over. In "The Disintegration of NATO – A Chance for a More Peaceful World," the alliance is called "obsolete." Its dissolution would "initiate the end of the American Empire." NATO covers up an "offensive alliance." Dissolution would not fully eliminate "the chief threat to international security represented by the USA," however, it would reduce the threat. It would also be a "chance for the emancipation from the USA." Conclusion: what might worry some is the desire of others.
12. More folly. There is a sentiment around that prefers to doubt that there was a Holocaust. This is not new. New is that that this claim of the fringe gains legitimacy. Just wait until retroactively Churchill, Roosevelt, Eisenhower (but never Stalin) are charged by a tribunal for "war crimes against innocent babies, widows and retirees."
13. From a source that is, due to botched note taking, unidentifiable: "according to the agency‘s own estimate, most spending fails to reach its intended recipients." The funds are "siphoned off by a vast bureaucracy."
14. Rare good news from the front of nationalism. A publication from Serbia reports that the Magyar and the Serb minority of both countries intend to cooperate. The aim is to further the mutual interests and the good relationship between these states.
15. Here a contradiction of the chauvinistic view of the world occurs. Serbian ultras reject, regardless of the demographics, Kosovo's right to independence. After all, the Albanians are immigrants who came 400 years ago. If this argument holds, then Serbia's claim to the Vajdasàg (Woiwodina) is an exercise in illogic. Its Serb majority had entered that Hungarian province when the Albanians settled in Kosovo. The Serbs, like the Albanians, reacted to Turkish pressure as they moved North. Once Ottoman power collapsed they were allowed to stay where their new settlement was. So, if Kosovo is, regardless of the facts on the ground, Serbian, then the Vajdasàg is Hungarian. (Remember that in such cases, logic is suspended.)
16. 3/9 China foils a terrorist plot targeting the Olympics. Indeed, the terrorists are ungrateful for the indirect support China gives them internationally. Surprised?
17. In the Intellectual Conservative (2/27) Robert Stapler posted a weighty study about climate change. The heated debate produced 48 responses of substance. A conclusion: The scientific issue has clearly become a political matter.
18. Self-set traps. Have you noticed that the one to first exclaim "I am insulted" wins the debate? Some Moslems are inclined to be insulted abroad by anything that is not Mohammedan. The subjects of outrage include not letting them have what they are denying others where they already hold power. Anticipating outrage, some issues are not even raised. If such ideas still get publicity they are suppressed because they cause the "insulted" to complain. Even raising the matter is termed an insult that makes the exercise a no-no.
19. Fuzzy thinking. A "dialogue" with anybody about whatever is a typical demand by "certain circles." In practice dialogue means that "they" may curse "us" about the way they feel. We may respond only with what they permit us to say.
20. We were taught that dissuasion prevents conflicts and secures the peace. A corollary made treaties into instruments of security. The premise was that states were the originators and objects of aggression. The Islamists — being an international movement – have no country. Therefore in their case dissuasion does not work. The same goes for the value of treaties concluded where they hold influence.
21. We practice a cult that provides excuses for the inexcusable. An "identifiable group due to its characteristic way of life" has committed three separate gruesome murders in a central European hamlet. Arrests followed. The accused have identified the culprit. It is the mayor. The monthly support payments of the central government have not arrived in time.
handlery@sunrise.ch
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