George Rebane
Communist spying and influence on our national policies have long been denied/diminished by our Left. The public experience in uncovering these activities within our government was not sufficient to change any minds in our unions, mainstream media, or the halls of academe. Things should have changed when the USSR collapsed in 1991, and the subsequent opening of some KGB historical files that contained conclusive evidence of atrocities like their massacre of Polish intellectuals and its officer corps in the Katin forest, and spying/infiltrating activities in all western governments. No contrition from our progressives save a stiffer upper lip. New evidence from more released files has produced added historical works on “revealing accounts of Soviet espionage in America, from the 1930s, when the pickings were easy, to the unforgiving Cold War era.” Short summaries of books on the topic, including some classics, are presented in the 26nov11 WSJ here. We expect no change in the historically impervious Left.
‘The New Tammany Hall’ is how Leftwing historian Fred Siegel sees the last forty years of public-sector union permeation into all levels of government in America. Siegel, a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, is still able to call them as he sees them. In a recent interview Siegel acknowledges that “The Great Society put the state on growth hormones. Less widely appreciated, the era gave birth to a powerful new political force, the public-sector union. For the first time in American history there was an interest dedicated wholly to lobbying for a larger government and the taxes and debt to pay for it.” The quotable interview is worth a read for the independent voter, and also as a stress test for the rock solid progressive. The happy conclusion from this is that there exist Leftwing intellectuals who are still Americans first.
Many of us keep wondering how long the national ‘green jobs’ farce will be continued at a government budget near you. Organizer Obama has been touting green energy jobs for as long as he has been a sty in our public eye. Every day we hear of more corruption, misdirection, lies, and malfeasance in the government’s nurture of the crony socialism that is the country’s green energy industry. In spite of this, the traditional (read fossil) energy sector today employs over 440,000 workers, and since 2003 has grown 80% in its number of American jobs. And this growth doesn’t take into account the multiplier effect for non-energy jobs to support all these workers and their families. Now the Left is real good at claiming all kinds of multiplier goodies for their mythical green jobs projections, but howl their heads off when the same analysis is applied to real jobs and job growth in our workforce.
In the meanwhile the political corruption continues without so much as a sniffle from our journalistic stalwarts. Well almost; according to the Washington Post Obama’s $38.6B green loan program had created – drum roll please – a whopping 3,500 jobs compared with the 65,000 he touted the program would “save or create”. And please don’t look under the rug where all the Solyndras have been expeditiously swept. There is no learning here, the beat goes on.
Now for the good news (almost). Since the government nationalized the nation’s school loan program, someone in the bureaucracy had their bulb light up. To save the entire enterprise from going bust sooner than later, why not discriminate in who gets the loans. Don’t lend to students with dumbbell majors who will have little chance of paying back the loan. What a concept! But don’t hold your breath, this has yet to be implemented. And dumbbell majors got rights too, know what I mean?
Stupid once, stupid forever. My favorite socialist site truthout.com skidded on yet another patch of slick progressive history. In it Martin Bennett and Richard Walker write ‘Job Crisis: What did Roosevelt do that Obama should?’ This piece deftly cherry picks the sorry record of Depression1 in the 1930s, and concludes that we can replicate FDR’s performance (recall the National Recovery Act and its alphabet soup of jobs programs) by taxing the bejeezus out of the ‘rich’ and closing corporate loopholes. They turn a blind eye to the high hard statistic of that era that is oft repeated in these pages – unemployment was at 17+% in 1933 and still in 1939 when Sec Treas Morgenthau confessed to Congress that nothing had worked except growing government, running up the country’s debt, and extending the misery. The socialists’ standard response to such failures over the decades has been to double down and do it again. It still is.
[28nov2011 update] This morning Rep Barney Frank (D-MA) announced that he has reconsidered, and will retire at the end of his current term in Congress. This is the man who is one of the authors and energetic goads of the subprime loan mess, the pompous ass who assured the nation that Fannie and Freddie were in the best of health and doing the right thing in buying all those worthless loans, a member of the dynamic duo of the Dodd-Frank 'Wall Street Reform Act'. Except for separating the trust and investment functions of banks and insurance companies (as they were before the ill-advised Republicans joined them), the law is a typical one step forward, three steps backward in creating unnecessary frictions in America's financial industry. So along with the hastily retired Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) of Countrywide scandal fame, the pair will be in a timely retirement instead of jail for their shady careers on the Hill. Both leave/left easy shoes to fill, and the sad part is that the voters of Massachusetts and Connecticut have been up to the challenge.
An apology for all occasions
George Rebane
[In my long working career I was privileged and very lucky to have worked with and under some truly remarkable and very smart people. One of these was an older systems engineer extraordinaire and a complete gentleman by the name of Skip Case. I was technically his peer, but I never considered myself as such. In a number of different ways Skip taught all of us who worked with him. Those who also bothered to learn, benefitted from his wisdom.
Skip died a few years back, a little before I started RR, and was then only occasionally posting on the SESF website. When I heard the news, it hit me that over the decades I and several others had been profitably using a phrase that he taught us years ago. To remember Skip, I wrote the following vignette and posted it on the SESF website. My most recent use of the phrase in a comment recalled the vignette, and I retrieved it to share with RR readers. You may also find it useful some day, especially in the heated discussions of complex issues we cover here.]
Skip Case RIP
George Rebane – 21 May 2007
The conference room was crowded with the company’s elite engineering talent and top management for a very important system design review meeting. The decision taken today would impact the company’s standing and future role as the nation’s leading nuclear submarine combat systems developer and manufacturer. In 1968 as a young hotshot engineer I was privileged to be included in that tense gathering of greats in a very secretive industry critical to the country’s well-being, yet almost completely and purposefully unknown to the outside world. On board every operational fleet ballistic missile and attack submarine of our Navy, our company’s systems were the ones that would likely fire the opening salvos of WW3.
One of the company’s senior project engineers had just completed a presentation of an important design concept on which the effectiveness of the new system would hinge. He was a man in his late forties of small yet lithe stature and thinning neatly combed hair. What especially distinguished Skip’s presence was his gaze – he had the most focused and level gaze which when turned on you established an intellectual connection that would bind like a taught rope. Using the fewest words needed, Skip always spoke precisely and with a calm urgency that made the listener want to lean forward in his chair so as not to miss a single pearl.
Engineering, as a demanding technical profession, is often a ruthless forum in which mistakes and errors are pounced upon by peers for ego gratification, reputation enhancement, and generally counting coup. Such critiques are most often spontaneous but sometimes, especially when corporate management will be present, they are planned ambushes of great sophistication. That morning a mid-level division manager with a short career as a practicing engineer rose to deliver a withering critique of the just concluded presentation. It was obviously a long-planned critique that had still been in deep rehearsal while Skip was talking. And it was apparent to us all that he had not understood the very essence of the design approach. As he concluded with a knowing glance to the company’s chief technical officer (Chief Engineer in those days), all eyes turned to Skip.
Remaining seated with hands folded, Skip fixed his attacker in that signature gaze and, with incredible calm and no hint of sarcasm, said,
“I’m sorry, I didn’t say it well enough for you to understand.”
… and paused. As the semantic impact of this simple sentence settled in our minds most of us were astounded. I remember scrambling to record those words in my notebook and I wasn’t alone. The managerial upstart was dumbfounded, he didn’t know on whom those contrite words put blame or shame. He wanted to strike back, but no obvious target had been presented. While his would-be nemesis was so consternated, Skip proceeded to quickly correct the man’s error and the meeting went on to a productive conclusion.
In his wisdom Skip Case settled a potentially contentious and divisive situation with a sentence that allowed everyone to draw their own distinct yet proper meaning of the occasion depending on their position and perspective. All of us left the room with those words in mind. I was fortunate to count Skip as one of my mentors and to sit at his knee during those early years. And since that time I also have learned to apologize when I could not say it well enough for my respondent to understand – but still not as well as Skip.
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