Rebane's Ruminations

Autocracy in our future (updated 1nov12)

The lesson for Americans is clear enough.  Our growing size and diversity make republican government, whether democratic or oligarchic, impossible.  Thomas Fleming

George Rebane

Wholesale democracy across a diverse nation is an enduring goal for collectivists, and the bane of those conservatives and libertarians who understand the functions of a republic.  Long have I lamented on the increasing scope of democracy in our beloved land.  Mine is a lonely stance since it is so widely opposed and misunderstood.  The November 2012 edition of Chronicles, the flagship publication of the Rockford Institute, features a series of essays that explore ‘The Failure of Democracy’.

Perhaps the closest example of the dangers of broad-based democracy is found right here in California where long ago our politicians cracked the code on how to use democracy to their own ends, and in the process be innocent of any of its excesses – our notorious initiative process in which we can be manipulated to vote for taxes, constitutional changes, added regulations, new laws, and all manner of things that the Legislature in Sacramento does not want to touch.

And in the interval of the last half century or so, we the sheeple have been convinced to vote this way and that, to give us today an internationally recognized dysfunctional state.  The next objective on the domestic agenda is to spread democracy across America until the last vestiges of our republic disappear under the feet of a nationwide ignorant mob.

The embrasure of Obama as the man on a white horse in 2008 confirmed what many have thought about the degeneration of our electorate.  Half of the country is ready to welcome autocracy on the autocrats’ promise to drain the pockets and redistribute the wealth of the rich.  They totally believe that all good things come through the benevolence of government – Ronald Reagan was wrong.

In ‘Voting for Monarchy’ editor Thomas Fleming examines some historical background and precedents that have led to our current state of national mind.  I extract some relevant passages that should not surprise long time RR readers –

The political credulity of American grown-ups cannot be blamed entirely on propaganda or even on the media.  We actively want to be deceived; we desperately want leaders to believe in to the point of reverence.  As every American with the right to vote should know, political reverence of this sort is incompatible with republican government, but, then, hardly anyone relly wants republican government.  What they want is monarchy – a Kennedy, Clinton, or Bush dynasty – and the only reason we have failed to achieve this desire is the persisting competition of the two crooked factions that divide power between them in much the same way that the North Side Mob and the Capone boys divided up Chicago.

As much discussed in these pages (see under Great Divide), multi-kulti in an expanding democracy surely leads to the dissolution of republics.

The Roman order idealized by Cicero could not effectively rule a diverse polyglot and multiethnic population of subject peoples, any more than the U.S. Constitution can serve as the political framework within which  Yankees and Southerners, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims and Santerians, Africans, Mexicans, and Asians can function as citizens of a republic.

Smaller, more cohesive populations have given us the accoutrements of civilization that we all enjoy.

City-states and republican commonwealths have given the human race its civilization, but the painful truth is that, however we define it, republican governments are short lived, anywhere from a few generations to perhaps 500 years. … The lesson for Americans is clear enough.  Our growing size and diversity make republican government, whether democratic or oligarchic, impossible.

So where does all this pull an under-educated and disinterested citizenry, here in America and worldwide.  Fleming posits that –

Monarchy is the default position for human politics; republican self-government, a hard enterprise that can only be taken up by a brave and self-reliant people who possess a common culture and religion.  With every cry for effective leadership, whether it comes from the leftists or conservatives, we can hear the sound of an oligarchic regime hardening into a party state. … Liberty is only for the free.  It cannot be given to slaves, and if someone has to be liberated, he becomes the slave of the liberator.

In the same edition of Chronicles, Clyde Wilson (a “recovering professor”) in ‘The Imperial and Momentary We’ observes how emotion has necessarily replaced critical thinking for most of our voters.  He writes

A regime of feelings cannot be a regime of law, because laws are fixed things.  It must become a regime of edicts from rulers.  The founders did not think that centralized tyranny and mass democracy were opposites.  They recognized them as boon companions. … For mankind, a sense of shame has always been the source of good behavior and social health.  People might do wrong, but they knew the were doing wrong.  The founders could not imagine a self-governing community that was not a morally governed community.

In our land shame was banished long ago in favor of nourishing unmerited self-esteem.

[1nov12 update]  Of the plethora of available examples of sheeple yearning for autocracy, I offer the current leaning of California for passing Moonbeam’s tax bamboozle – Prop30.  It takes very little digging to discover that the main argument – ‘it’s for education’ – is patently a lie embedded ever more deeply by the daily pounding of union sponsored sound bites.  The tax money is needed to maintain some tolerable level of funding teachers’ pensions; almost none of it will be used to enhance our children’s educational standards or experience.

But Moonbeam is using the well-oiled liberal threat of reducing classroom education for the kids if Prop30 fails to pass.  That he can guarantee, and will do in a heartbeat to see that his teachers’ union supporters are placated – the kids can go to hell.

California is not broken because it doesn’t tax or regulate enough.  The state is in the toilet with its tax and regulation policies, along with cohorts like Illinois, New York, and New Jersey.  But the sheeple realize none of this.  When El Lidder says we need to tax the rich more to school our kids, we simply bleat and genuflect.  This is now the democracy about which Jefferson warned, ‘A nation ignorant and free, that never was and never shall be.’

Sandy votes for Obama (updated 2nov12)

George Rebane

What a blessing that hurricane has become for our President.  The confluence of two storms on the east coast will not be a wasted crisis for this man whose desperate campaign has shrunk to personal slings and arrows against Romney.  Obama can’t talk about the disaster of the last four years, and he can’t say anything about his disastrous plan forward.  The only thing left to do is to look mighty presidential as this storm ravages the countryside.

The present disaster is a recognized godsend, and the President was quick to cozy up to the FEMA headquarters that is setting up to support the states.  In front of the cameras our shirt-sleeved President was peeling off platitudes about storm preparations that everyone had heard a hundred times already.  The FEMA chief sitting next to him just nodded.  Neither had anything to say about what exactly that agency was going to do to help during the next 72 hours.  But you can be sure that Obama will now look like he’s organizing one hell of a big community from his White House command center.  And somewhere someone may be able to take an iconic picture of Fearless Facing the Waves on some windswept rainblasted jetty.

For the next several days any talk of issues salient to the election and the next four years will come off as a callous and clearly clueless politician who does not and never will understand the sufferings of the people.  Glory be!

[2nov12 update]  Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado puts in perspective Sandy and the damage from that storm (here).  As expected, the Left at all levels is again appealing to the ignorant and distracted that Sandy is the result of manmade global warming, and harbinger of greater climate change.   An example of such efforts to persuade may be seen in the comment stream to this post (Steven Frisch 654am).

We also note that FEMA’s efforts are not visible in the response to Sandy.  Yesterday the mayor of Hoboken was appealing on the radio for nearby communities to send food to her beleaguered city, they were hungry and government was not responding.  I don’t expect that the lamestream will make an issue of these occurrences, especially since the Messiah made his progress through the state and gave a grateful Gov Christie a hug.

Past the Tipping Point – 27oct12 (edited)

George Rebane

Readers know that I believe our country is already past the tipping point and headed for a bad transition.  For me the tipping point represents that unfortunate state of affairs in our nation from which recovery by 'normal' or historically successful corrective measures will not be enough to save us from a disastrous transition.  If we are to be saved, we now must prepare for more dramatic efforts and draconian events to restore the republic.  But not to lose heart, dear reader, we have been through such dire straits in the past, the last one was called the War Between the States, The War for Southern Independence, or erroneously The Civil War.

Let me be clear and state that there are also other ways that nations have navigated such waters, Germany’s Weimar Republic comes to mind.  And we all know its aftermath.

Evidence of our being past the tipping point is what I want to memorialize in these offerings.  I am reminded that all posts on the internet will survive ‘forever’, so that these offerings could inform or amuse a future cyber-anthropologist digging back into the history of the early 21st century.



Two major national institutions are now beyond normal repair – K-12 public education and our justice system.  Since the feds’ Great Society (1964-68) started the destruction, we have revamped public education by spending trillions and getting nothing out of it save a workforce ever more out of touch with the realworld labor markets.  (See figure and the Friedman Foundation report and more details here.)   Instead we have built up an extremely ignorant and state-dependent teacher class, led by their corrupt unions, that in the aggregate is barely smarter than the students they claim to matriculate.  Socialism is openly taught in government schools as the correct way to organize society.  Nevertheless, education remains the Republic's ONLY hope.

California Dumbing Down – SB1200, the latest chapter

George Rebane

If you 'don't do numbers', you don't do critical thinking.

[This is the linked edition of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 26 October 2012.]

Regular listeners to my little harangues are aware of the very large iceberg with which our ship of state is about to collide.  It will not be a glancing blow, but a head-on impact that will crumble the current geo-political structure of the world.  I am again talking about America’s systemic unemployment, and the chances for halting its rapid rise.  Last week California pounded the latest nail into our country’s prospects for economic growth.  But we’ll return to that in a moment.

Administrivia - 26oct12

Re logging in for comments.  Recall that TypePad had a problem with that a couple of weeks ago, and many of you could no longer log in.  I communicated that to TypePad and changed logging in to optional, but you had to prove you were not a robot.  'Kimberly' at TypePad now informs me that the log in problem has been fixed.  Does anyone have any feelings about going back or staying as is - or does anyone give a damn?

Eric Cantor at Doug LaMalfa fundraiser

George Rebane

Yesterday the Steeles and Rebanes joined many other Nevada County conservatives in Auburn for a delicious and informative fundraiser for state Senator Doug LaMalfa running for Congress this November.  There to help him in the effort was House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

Cantor gave a good, concise, and fairly comprehensive stump talk about national politics and Doug LaMalfa’s support in implementing the Republican agenda for the next Congress.  During the Q&A I asked the congressman about the Republicans’ planned response to the administration’s announced intention to violate the Warn Act on November 4th. You’ll recall that this act requires companies to give 60 days advance warning of impending layoffs, such as will happen when another law of the land – last year’s sequestration agreement by Congress – has to be implemented as part of the fiscal cliff over which Washington will propel the country after we sober up from our New Year’s Eve festivities (perhaps sobering up will not be a good idea this January).

Cantor’s response to my question was a non-response.  He used the opportunity to talk about the partisan perspective of how Democrats are planning for a fiscal Armageddon (the so-called taxmageddon) and other cynical socialist sobriquets in store for a fundamentally transformed America.  It seems clear to me that the Republicans will not let that important issue lie fallow, just two days before the election as companies such as California’s Lockheed-Martin's requirement to send out hundreds of thousands of layoff warnings to prospective voters.  But apparently the response will be one that cannot yet be disclosed.  Is that the Republicans’ November surprise?

Debate3

George Rebane

Well, it’s over.  Romney and Obama will have to talk to one another only once again if/when Romney gets elected, and then on the ride from the White House to the Capitol when they can both grab window seats in the limo and stare outward.  Last night’s hugging and kissing of the candidates’ families after the debate was excellent theater, and confirmed that we still know how to act civil when contemplating the transfer of power.

I didn’t get much out of the debate other than seeing Obama turn on some snark in the attempt to lure out of hiding a more bellicose Romney.  The President was willing to sacrifice a few ‘likability points’ when he delivered his snide dissertation on the new military not needing so many horses and bayonets, and explaining that we now have carriers on which airplanes land and submarines that can actually travel under water.  Those zingers must have been real knee slappers for members of the messiah’s celestial choir.

But it didn’t work.  Romney stayed calm, reasoned, and presidential the entire time.  That must have been the strategy – don’t screw up, just let him come to you.  And I think it worked, although I was all ready for some rock and roll on the ongoing Benghazi Bamboozle.  We know why Obama didn’t bring up Libya, and smarter minds than mine figured out that neither should Romney – there’s plenty of time for that on the stump while watching the lamestream swing in the wind.

Romney’s recounting of Obama’s foreign policy failures was systematic and comprehensive.  No one, especially not our allies, believes that the US has created a safer international climate during the last four years.  And that al Qaeda is on the run song doesn’t play so well any more since people keep dying in greater numbers, our embassies are under attack,  and our “intelligence community” is accused of not even knowing what in hell is going on with that regiment of ragheads.

The only sour note from Romney that pinged my ear was his statement about getting all US troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014.  Do we really believe that we can change that five thousand year-old benighted culture in the next two years?  Afghanistan has never really been a nation-state, just a bunch of murderous, thieving, and warring tribes who have agreed that the territory between Persia and India is their private fighting ground.  They unite only on an ad hoc basis to expel anyone foolish enough to come there to try and change their traditional game of life.  But I digress …

No one expects the polls to be budged much by last night’s exchange – BTW, I thought Bob Schieffer did a good job mediating.   In Debate1 Romney pulled up even with Obama, and for all that it mattered, they could have mailed in Debate2 and Debate3.  Now we’ll see how well Romney can communicate Obama’s record - the twin disasters of the economy and foreign policy - in the next week.  In the same interval Obama will attempt to convince the nation’s light thinkers how being a successful business executive, entrepreneur, and governor of a major state are not a sufficient resume for the presidency, while being a community organizer, do-nothing political hack, inept academic, and a one man presidential disaster area recommend him for a second term doing more of the same.

Ruminations - 22oct12

George Rebane

President Obama has been a one person foreign policy and domestic economy disaster area.  His acumen there recognized, he has been visibly and volubly welcomed as America’s preeminent socialist president by some of the most shady heads of state on the planet, along with the Marxist mannequins who are still trying to figure out what went wrong with their countries’ economies in Europe and South America.  Besides America’s sheeple looking for another dollop from Obama’s “stash” to ease their fiscal worries, we can take a measure of the man by recognizing ‘his people’ worldwide, the ones who are endorsing him for a second term – these include Chavez, Castro, and Putin.  Now why can’t Romney get world leaders like that to back him?

“… exceptional readings of reality …”, that is how WSJ’s editorial board member and senior columnist Dorothy Rabinowitz characterizes the four year history of the most consistently and uniformly lying administration on record.  In ‘The Unreality of the Past Four Years’, she gives a brief summary of Team Obama’s output that was meant to deceive from the gitgo.  The only thing that Team Obama and I seem to agree on is the utter gullibility and/or disinterest of voters on issues which affect our very lives and America’s future.  Rabinowitz demurs on this assessment, and writes hopefully that “the American people inevitably recognize the difference between lies and truth, illusion and the real thing.”  In evidence to the contrary, I submit the results of the 2008 election.

Moreover, the total ineptness of Obama's foreign policy is visible from all quarters, including from inside the beast.  Rosa Brooks, former Obama official, outlines a six-step road to an attempted recovery of what has eluded the community organizer for the last four years ('The Case for Intervention in Obama's dysfunctional foreign policy team').

To illustrate the permeating toxicity of Washington politics, we note that CIA Director and retired general Petraeus seems to have been co-opted by the Obama administration.  Our frontline intelligence agency has been rolled, rolled with, and given backing to the obvious tsunami of lies about the Benghazi terror attacks that continues to roll out from the White House.  That this distinguished career military leader capitulated so rapidly in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is, to me, a breathtaking development.  I didn’t expect that when the general was appointed to the post.

Has our UN ambassador Susan Rice resigned yet?  I keep searching the papers and online sources for a small announcement that the woman has quietly snuck out the back door and become the provost of some college.  It would be a belated yet welcome shred of honor from an unexpected …, - well, you know.

With baited breath we await tonight's Debate3 where all of this will be cleared up, and other myths

edX meets the workforce (updated 21oct12)

George Rebane

[This continues the RR series on jobs and the economy, and illustrates the relationship between workforce skill levels and available jobs across a spectrum of productivity levels.  The objective is to give the reader a firm understanding of why and how America’s systemic unemployment has come into place, and its future in terms of worker education.  This problem has no current solution, and is the prime reason that politicians of all parties avoid it like the proverbial third rail.  The portents of such a future are truly grim, promising to accelerate the growth of economic disparities or the imposition of wholesale misery on all of us.  It is the mother of all our ills.]

Last May readers were alerted to a new initiative in online education called edX – ‘edX – ‘a revolution in education’’.  Since then people have been busy, and Harvard has activated its HarvardX program with the launch of two edX courses.  More than 100K students worldwide have signed up and are now taking the courses (more here).  This is an exciting milestone that will soon have many universities convert curriculum to this delivery platform.

According to my lights, this is the kind of broad-based, economical, and widely available education product that can make a difference in US workforce participation – now about 61% - as technology pushes up worker productivity.  For large scale analysis, the use of aggregate or average worker productivity is useful for evaluating alternative economic policies.  Readers may recall previous RR posts on the topic – e.g. 'The jobs problem - shhh'.

But looking at the problem at a finer scale, one quickly realizes that jobs distribute themselves at various productivity levels from still very low (e.g. field hand harvesting tomatoes) to very high (e.g. laser eye surgeon with patients on a turntable).  We can envision the number of available jobs at each productivity level as a bar graph (histogram) in the shape of a bell curve (Gaussian).  These are represented by the green bars in the graph below (Figure 1) which illustrates a toy economy for discussion purposes.


The red bars represent the number of available workers in the workforce who are qualified at each of the indicated productivity levels (including, of course, lower productivity levels).  We can also envision them being distributed more or less in the shape of a bell curve.  But notice that in the real world, the available workers (red) distribution is shifted to the left of the available jobs (green) distribution.  And here’s the punch line - to the extent that the red bars are taller than the green bars, there are more workers available at the low productivity level than there are jobs.  Conversely, to the extent that the green bars are taller than the red bars, there are high productivity jobs unfilled due to the shortage of skilled workers.  That is the systemic imbalance of workforce skills and jobs in our economy.

The excess of workers at any productivity (skill) level causes 1) unemployment and/or 2) lower wages for those working the jobs for which there are excess workers – i.e. supply of labor exceeds demand.  So what to do?

Today's AI in tomorrow's medicine

George Rebane

Wired magazine has a very lame article on what should be an exciting report - the advent and functionality of clinical AI systems that are entering the healthcare service.  ‘Paging Dr. Watson: Artificial Intelligence As a Prescription for Health Care’ authored by Brandon Keim paints an inconclusive ‘on the one hand, … but then on the other hand’ picture of how these AIs will perform.  Reader motivation and understanding is tied to the now famous Jeopardy victories by IBM’s Watson supercomputer.  But I’m sorry to report that Keim’s understanding of the power of these AIs and how they will serve is severely limited.

Once people become educated on the statistics of the complexity of the human system, its maladies, and medical errors encountered in human-only healthcare delivery (about 200K annual deaths attributed to ‘medical mistakes’), it will not take a leap of faith to conclude that physicians attending patients ‘a capella’ of AI will be rejected by those patients who have a choice.  And as the Dr Watsons (equivalent and more powerful medical AIs) become available, if not ubiquitous in the industry, then insurance rates in great measure will reflect the advance.

Debate2 ruminations (updated 18oct12)

George Rebane

Woke up this morning to a blatant Obama-centric report of last night’s debate on National Propaganda Radio’s Morning Edition.  Talk about being in the tank for everything progressive.  Of course, Mitt’s promise to pull their federal funding doesn’t help that already biased outfit to cut him any even-handed slack.  In any case, it was a masterpiece of journalistic subterfuge.  For example, their handpicked ‘expert’ was asked the same question Romney asked Obama about how many federal drilling leases were cancelled after Obama took office.  The expert mimicked Obama and started talking about the ‘complexity’ of the energy situation, blah, blah, … .  Apparently the correct answer is that Obama cancelled about 60+% of the sea leases, and about 30% of the land leases.  The NPR journalist just ignored being ignored, and went on to the next question the answer to which was another Vote Obama ad.

Administrivia - Typepad problem (updated 17oct12, again)

George Rebane

Typepad has been having problems this morning.  Many readers have had trouble logging in to the comments - no comment window appears.  Had the same problem myself this morning, yet others seem to have no problem.  Have reported problem to Typepad.  Keep trying and report your success under this post.  Thanks.

[17oct12 update]  Had no problem logging in to comments this morning.

[17oct12 more update]  Have made comment log in optional, and added a random character widget that you need enter if you don't log in.  Please let me know how that works.  Russ Steele tested it, and it seems to work as TypePad advertizes it.

Slapdown from 'The Middle'

George Rebane

Saw Bob Crabb's latest contribution in this morning's Union - therefrom it is filched and displayed below for all to see.

Oh, the slings and arrows that penetrate most deeply come not from the enemy, but alas, the friend.  This piece of contemporary art recalls an ancient ode from another Bob who lived in bonnie Scotland -

"O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us."

Hillary blows 3AM call, plays Harry

George Rebane

What a preamble to Debate2!  Hillary, again out of the country for the debate, is told to play Harry’s “The Buck Stops Here” line from Lima, Peru.  And appearing the loyal trooper, she does it.

That sacrosanct line has been associated only with America’s President and Commander-in-Chief ever since Truman put the sign on his desk over sixty years ago.  Hillary must know that her appearance of falling on that sword is a sham that will impress only the light headed.

But it may be a memorable statement of her ‘courage’ for when she hopes to become President, and gets one of those made for her desk.  Or like Obama, will she instead have one made for the desks of each of her cabinet officers, who will again surround the White House like covered wagons circled hitch to tailgate, prepared to defend an innocent President against all comers.

It is now clear that this President is truly incompetent, and surrounds himself only with people who will not outshine him.  From the record of Benghazi's aftermath, we now know that even Hillary could not handle the 3AM call.

DebateVP - a heartbeat away

George Rebane

Not for the lack of trying, but I am still unable to say anything cogent or relevant on the matter of the 11oct12 Vice Presidential debate, other than the recurring thought that this piece of political theater - man and event - has been taken seriously by people whose vote counts as much as mine.  Talk about making one feel like an elitist.  If ever there was an answer as to why democracies have been the most fragile form of governance, the following proxy for a thousand words will have to do.

Abortion and the Two Bodies Problem

George Rebane

The nonsense claims that Republicans want to ‘deny women the right to their bodies’, or even more egregiously to ‘deny women healthcare’ completely swamps any reasonable discussion of the abortion issue – its legalization and its funding by government or private means.  The issue seems to always come back to what a woman can do with her own body, a concept perhaps more sacred to the conservative than to the secular humanist liberal.  Here’s my take on it.

The question ‘what rights does a woman have to the disposition of her own body?’ needs first to delineate what we are talking about.  What are the boundaries of a woman’s body given that at times it is a container for what can reasonably – clinically, philosophically, spiritually, religiously, and legally - be argued to contain a separate and distinct body in every sense of the word.  Courts are today considering fetal homicide - the intentional and purposeful killing of a fetus - as murder, even though the pregnant woman (the container) suffered no long-term physical harm (more here).

Given such starkly real considerations, the entire question of a woman's decision to kill what nature has built her to nurture and protect comes up for serious consideration that should not (cannot?) be dismissed on the basis of political ideology or of ‘primitive religious traditions’.  Most certainly it should not be misrepresented and pandered to those voters with disabled reasoning machinery.

The simple reality is that we have an unsolved ‘two bodies problem’ here.  Without denial, we all know there’s a kid in there, another body inside the body of the woman who demands the right to dispose of that smaller body for which she is a natural receptacle.

Exit Question: So then, when does 'a woman’s right to healthcare' turn into fetal homicide or simply pre-meditated murder?

Agenda21 is NOT a conspiracy (updated 17oct12)

There is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit. ― Ronald Reagan

George Rebane

Last Tuesday’s Nevada County Board of Supervisors meeting achieved its larger purpose that was promoted by a lot of mostly conservative attendees belonging to organizations like CABPRO and the local Tea Party.  A memorandum of agreement regarding federal lands in Nevada County was tabled because the aforementioned people all testified their opposition to it.  Background to the whole dust-up was covered here under ‘Agenda21 – Exhibit A on display locally’.

We were scheduled to leave Tuesday morning on a short RV trip to Graeagle with our neighbors.  But both of us decided that this meeting was important enough to delay departure a bit so we could attend.  Most RR readers know I am member of CABPRO and the Nevada County Tea Party.  So we dutifully attended, waited for the MOA agenda item to come up, and I took a turn at the mike to give the Supes my prepared remarks on the issue as follows –

Keeping out the smart ones

George Rebane

[This is the submitted form of my regular column that appeared in print and online in the 13oct12 edition of the The Union.  This column continues the RR series on America’s unaddressed systemic jobs crisis.]

Recently we again learned that there are millions of jobs in America that are going unfilled – three million more or less.  600,000 of these are low-tech jobs that require people to speak correct English, answer the phone properly, and dress appropriately for the workplace.  But apparently not enough in our unemployed workforce can fill the bill – but that is another story already covered elsewhere.  What we’re concerned about here is the almost 2.5 million available jobs that do require higher level skills.

For those aware of the situation in our institutes of higher learning, this problem is somewhat unbelievable.  Our research universities are full of foreign students who are here to learn the latest and greatest science, technology, engineering, and math skills available.  Some of them we even pay to study at our schools.  They graduate with all kinds of valuable advanced degrees in the STEM fields.

When these young people take off their mortar boards, we ship the overwhelming number of them back to their home countries.  There they join and start companies that compete with America in developing and selling the most advanced products available in the world.  American trained Masters and PhDs are successfully going after the remaining competitive bulwarks where we have always been privileged to be the leading suppliers to the world.

Awaiting the Luddites’ Return (updated 13oct12)

George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 12 October 2012.]

If we don’t acknowledge its existence, then clearly it doesn’t exist.  That behavior is going on so much today that it requires its own word in the language, and we have one, it’s called hoovering.  The growing systemic unemployment problem threatens the very existence of our dear land, and our national leadership is hoovering the coming shipwreck while making claims and counter claims about something very irrelevant – the dodgy unemployment rate.

Jim Lehrer, Moderator – RIP

George Rebane

For several decades I have been a fan of PBS liberal journalist Jim Lehrer.  He is one of the few remaining professionals in that industry.  Last Wednesday he committed an unforgivable error.

Mr Lehrer has long been a national icon of the broadcast industry, the former Marine having made his bones on the legendary McNeil/Lehrer Report years ago.  By invitation of the Democratic leadership, he has been the voice of even-handed gravitas as moderator of nationally televised political debates.  It has been hard for conservatives to find fault with his command of the jousting events we all enjoy.

That all came to an end in the first presidential debate this year when he allowed both candidates to have their head, and let the country see what was the essence of each when not speaking to a controlled audience or spouting a set piece from the teleprompters.  President Obama showed his true colors, and Jim Lehrer just let him swing in the wind.  That was a no-no, and an abrogation of unspoken responsibility.

So this commentator now predicts that Mr Lehrer will never again be invited by the Left as their choice to moderate a significant nationally televised debate.  And discounting the off chance that conservatives would make him their choice in some future debate, after all he is 78, the 3oct12 presidential debate was his signature swansong.  His legacy is that he unabashedly let the country see both candidates in their full glory.  Semper fi Jim.

Columbus Day 2012

George Rebane

Today we observe Cristofo’s grand achievement in 1492 that started the European conquest of the Americas – the Vikings blew their attempt about 500 years earlier.  This national holiday is specifically eschewed in Hawaii, Nevada, and, of course, California.  Nevertheless, I was reminded by a reader that RR would be remiss in not taking note of this auspicious beginning.

Actually, on this day I want to commend Queen Isabella of Spain for launching the three ships.  It was her investment that made the Italian’s trip possible, being the first among his countrymen to arrive in this hemisphere ‘without papers’, thereby establishing the denigrating ethnic label to a generation and more Italians who followed him 400 years later.  But that’s another story.

Here I wish to draw your attention to one of the most momentous of all government investments – and it truly was an investment, totally unlike the spending programs of today – to find a shorter route to India, since Portugal ruled the long route around Africa to trade with that fabled land.


So anyway, Columbus sailed bravely onto an ocean that many thought would come to an abrupt end at the edge of the world as depicted in many woodcuts of the time.  After a long voyage he blundered into a new hemisphere instead, while still believing that he had landed on some outer archipelago of Asia.  But then who knew.  The map he got from his subscription to the National Geographic of the day was drawn by some clown named Toscanelli who should have opened a restaurant instead.

Later voyages by true Spaniards – they got the WOP out of the way, and even prosecuted him for some financial shenanigans – confirmed that this was a new world, and that it contained riches beyond their wildest dreams as soon as they could get rid of some pesky Indians.

After the peskier Indians were dispatched, the remainder were put to work digging out and hauling in unimaginable amounts of gold that was then shipped off to Spain.  Some of it got nailed by hurricanes and pirates, which again is another story.  But here I’d like emphasize what the Spanish government did with their windfall.

The first thing they did was to establish a behavior that has come to be known as ‘spending money like drunken sailors’, which is exactly what they did for the next three centuries.  (This part of California's Spanish heritage is still practiced in Sacramento.)   Who needed to work when all that gold was coming in?  It was all eat, drink, and make Mary, or merry, or was it war?  The bottom line is that like all governments, Spain spent itself silly for 300 years until the gold shipments stopped, mostly through the efforts of Spain’s European neighbors like the French and the English, whom the profligate Spaniards had managed to piss off to a fair thee well with successive attacks, wars, and other sundry intrigues.

In the 19th century Spain was broke, and through revolution and competitive imperialism it managed to lose all the possessions in the New World it had discovered.  America, flexing newly found international muscles, put a bow on the whole sordid affair in 1898 with the foisted Spanish-American War in which Spain lost its remaining overseas possessions – we got Cuba and the Philippines, and some other sundry real estate.  And Spain was reduced to making sangria for tourists, and muttering something about their shoulda, coulda, wouldas.

By the way, Spain learned nothing from its centuries long government spending.  In the 20th century Spaniards gave various forms of socialism a try, settling finally on what we today know as the European model.  This got them into policies that called for even more ‘investments’ in things like green energy, public employee pensions, 25% unemployment, and a national debt up to their collective interglutial cleft.

So happy Columbus Day, and the next time you hear someone from Washington talk about government investments, consider the sad tale of España. Ole!

Agenda21 - Exhibit A on display locally (updated 7oct12)

George Rebane

The Left and their supporters deny the existence of UN's Agenda21 and their part in promoting its precepts.  That's to be expected of global collectivists to whom local control is anathema.  What is more insiduous is when such precepts under the "sustainable development" banner of the ICLEIs - the regional and local Agenda21 implementing organization - are promoted by local leaders not formerly known for their left leanings.  These people will only acknowledge that Agenda21 is a problem when someone called the Regional Commissar of Communities comes into town riding behind the local ICLEI marching band.  (See also Russ Steele's 'Agenda 21 Comes a Creeping'.)

If it walks like Agenda21, quacks like Agenda21, then guess what? it doesn't need an Agenda21 banner.  I got the following email from CABPRO's Chuck Shea today.

Ruminations 6oct12 - 8oct12

George Rebane

[Administrivia – ‘Ruminations’ postings will now be labeled by the interval from which they draw their items instead of sporting an ‘Updated xx’.  The subsequent addenda will include content annotated with the date of their appearance.  Hope this makes it easier to peruse.]

To the astute observer of the political scene, the real news of yesterday’s announcement of the unemployment rate’s drop from 8.1 to 7.8% was the overwhelming surprise that this event caused for the usual gang of national analysts and economists – you know, the gang that can never shoot straight.

The problem here is that the unemployment figure is cobbled together from an ad hoc algorithm that is manipulable to satisfy the vagaries of its manufacturers, and therefore beyond reasonable defense.  Not even the pros who follow these shenanigans 24/7 can make heads or tails of it, so they are constantly ‘surprised’.  But being in the business of economics and public policy, they are totally insulated from the shame of poor performance that is part and parcel of most other professions – law, politics, and journalism being the most obvious exceptions.  It turns out that the published unemployment number is the offspring of political parents, and therefore boasts all the reliability of a political statement.

The more reliable and less publicized fraction of people un(der)employed stayed the same at 14.7%.  But the numerate reader will focus on the fact that the economy needs to create at least 200,000 jobs per month to keep up with workforce growth.  It if doesn’t, the number of unemployed seeking a job increases, and so should the unemployment rate.  The rest is bullcrap.

Another telltale of this sordid reportage is Bernanke’s QE3, his current $40B/month printing frenzy is unfazed by the la-la land unemployment rate.  If the announced reduction had any basis in reality, then QE3 was grossly mistimed and should be stopped immediately.  But ol’ Ben Shalom will do no such thing simply because he’s in a position to look behind the curtain and see the empty chair.   The presses will keep rolling.

Debate1 Thoughts (updated 8oct12)

George Rebane

In presidential debates I haven’t seen a better performance than Romney’s since Reagan took the stage in the 1980s.  While everyone and their brother is publishing voter sentiments on the debate, Gallup is strangely silent.  It’s as if the debate never happened when you look at their website.  I was hoping to use their poll to adjudicate a prediction competition (see ‘Prognosticators – An invitation to the dance’). The clearest voter sentiment poll comes from CNN with 67% saying Romney won, and 25% saying Obama won last night’s debate.

‘American capitalism gone with a whimper’

George Rebane

That is the title of a piece by Stanislav Mishin which appeared in the 27apr09 issue of Pravda, a few months after Obama’s inauguration.  It was then already clear to many of us in the US and also around the world that our new communist-nurtured president had every intention of fulfilling his promise to “fundamentally transform” America.  The ensuing years have borne out our predictions and apprehensions.  Nevertheless, our country’s electorate has a large and terminally mush-minded contingent that may well return Obama to the Oval Office for the final touches of his ambitious agenda.

In this context I want to reprise the piece by Mishin who is a correspondent and observer of world affairs uniquely qualified to interpret the arrival of collectivism in whatever form it takes – socialism, communism, Marxism, or even obamunism.  His essay starts with –
 
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
 
True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.
 
Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.
 
First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather than the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas than the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. …

The entire piece may be read here, and with the understanding that it was published under the graces of the autocratic Putin/Medvedev regime in Russia.  The historical nuances make that clear.  Mishin writes about his social beliefs here.