Socialists Are Fools But Not All Fools Are Socialists

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George Handlery about the week that was. Hesitant vacillation as a policy principle. Paralyzing preconditions for soluble problems. The failed state and its benefits. Iran, the Anti-Racism Conference and nuclear negotiations. Too neutral? In whose favor? When an enemy is more useful to a dictatorship than a friend.
 
1. It has become fashionable to present reports on piracy that are wrapped in a tranquilizer. It is suggested that the solution of the problem is in Somalia. Save Somalia (throw money at it?) and all will be hanky-dory. One is tempted to suspect that the popularity of the mantra has to do with the trick of attaching an otherwise threateningly soluble problem to a precondition that cannot be met. The benefit is that, succumbing to the West’s luxurious self-doubts, a good reason is given to persist in doing the unreasonable. Thereafter it becomes easy to desist from solving the solvable.
 
2. Helping Somalia as a project assumes that Somalia’s population is ripe enough to want to be helped. The assumption that, the solution of the piracy-problem begins with the rescue of Somalia, ignores that piracy is not only a symptom but also among the causes of disorder. Chaos creates golden opportunities. Piracy pays as long as the victims that suffer from moral relativism pay and in doing so acknowledge some moral obligations that make them into virtuous suckers. If the chaos of a “failed state” results in dividends expressed by the profit from piracy then a non-PC solution recommends itself. Make piracy a losing business. Then start to give Somalia what it might be able to use.
 
3. The question is how to deter the addicted Somali from piracy. In the news, accounts multiply, according to which, pirates are apprehended and then released. The soothing explanation is that there is “no legal power to arrest them”. This gives hesitant vacillation posing as policy a pleasing label and a good excuse. Meanwhile, the self-imposed impotence aggravates the problem by reducing the offenders’ risks. Only by destroying pirates will piracy be restrained and, as a result, its on-shore bases dismantled. To do that security zones need to be set up and these must be patrolled from the air. Obviously, aircraft can hardly detain the mother ships and their auxiliaries. However, what it can do is to be at the aid threatened vessels within useful time. Once on the scene they can destroy buccaneers. The rest may be trusted to word of mouth propaganda. Let the news spread that raiders are unlikely to return and the hunters will desist from sailing. The winds of the present’s ineffective counter-actions might change as soon as non-Western naval forces, unrestrained by inhibitions, appear to participate in the “project.”
 
4. Parallels pertaining to ignored and tolerated criminality seem to exist on the home front, too.. Those who feel exposed to the unpredictable mercy of criminals, people that are uncertain of their own skill to evade crooks and folks unsure of their ability to fight them off, have a legitimate concern. The state is, under its current rules of operation and, due to the values of those who act in its name, not sufficiently able to protect them. This complaint is not about lacking laws. We have plenty of laws regulating nearly everything – even the right to fight off effectively what are, even according to the official definition, criminals. No, the problem is not that we have no laws or not enough laws. The problem is the predictable application of existing rules. What troubles is the insecurity that flows from the perception that some actions are not acted against even if they are illegal. This is because their perpetrators enjoy, for being what they are, a degree of immunity as a collective right.
 
5. Kim’s “Rocket and Nuke Show” might convince some analysts that the man is sick. Regardless of his mental state, the “Dear Leader’s” actions are not entirely irrational. He, as well as his Iranian clone, might have a praxis-tested shrewd understanding of how the liberal Western mind works. Let us not forget that extortion - oriented tantrums have tended to net handsome profits. When not, no harm came to visit upon clumsy actors putting on shows of fits of temper.
 
6. As a concession, Ahmadinedjad likes to tantalize his enemies with proposals to discuss Iran’s nuclear project. The invitations to talk begin with the other side having to accept the already existing facts and what Tehran is overtly or covertly doing. In this case the ensuing negotiations serve to signal at least short-term lenience and the relaxing -but at least the non-tightening- of sanctions.
 
7. “A dialogue is better than no dialogue” was the justification of Switzerland’s protocol President’s meeting with Ahmadinedjad at the opening of the Geneva Anti-Racism conference on April 19th. Mr. Merz had a reason to meet briefly the Persian at the opening of the widely and rightfully suspected gathering. Switzerland, acting in tune with her traditional role to be the neutral go-between among hostile parties, represents the US’ interest in Tehran -and the other way, too. (She performs the same service for Washington in Cuba.) Israel protested the meeting. The overly warm handshake’s justification depends on how convincingly Merz might have warned Ahmadinedjad about improving his “bad habits”. At any rate, Ahmadinedjad used his performance to reiterate his wish for Israel’s removal from the map. As a concession, he dropped his Holocaust-denial formulated in the original and distributed text. (If Switzerland’s government which is tempted to flirt leftwards would take its official reservations seriously, the Socialist-run foreign Ministry would have down-graded its presence at the summit. As things stand, Switzerland’s credibility as an honest broker and go-between has again suffered by being too neutral in favor of an impostor.)
 
8. Ahmadinedjad’s speech to the anti-racism conference in Geneva surpassed even the expectations of seasoned pessimists. This it did to such an extent that most scandalized Western delegations walked out during the harangue. The needless provocation in Geneva shows that Tehran is unable or unwilling to apply diplomacy to secure its interests. There are implications to the instinctive use of diplomacy limited to the tactic as an extension of war by other means. The impact of this on future negotiations about nuclear projects is left to the imagination of the reader.
 
9. Dealing with the enemy brings the Americas’ Summit to mind. Obama assured the prominent autocrats of the continent “I want to be your friend”. There is some potential opportunity in that phrase. Should, as it is to be expected, the addressees persevere on their current course, the President could, while he reacts, state convincingly “I have already tried everything else”. Regardless of the opportunity presented to them, some of the region’s more notorious dictatorships might need a credible enemy more than a wary friend. Why? The ideology at the base of their systems is a password to failure. Malfunctions cannot be admitted because the alleged absolute truth of the ideology legitimizes the absolute Leader. So a malign outside force is needed to explain the gap between the expectations created and the performance delivered. The same applies to the Weltanschauung-related role of the “infallible” Party.
 
10. We need to be careful not to over-apply the Socialist label. Admittedly, Socialism is foolish. However, this does not mean that everything that is out of whack amounts to Socialism.
 
11. “Tax haven” is a loosely conceived category. Highly diverse states and policies (ranging from the criminally conniving to the legitimately protective) can be stuffed into it. Exempting the institutionalized dealings with truly dirty money, the legitimate havens serve a useful purpose. They create a tax-competition between systems. Therefore, they encourage the responsible expenditure of the public’s money. Some tax havens allow those who desire to stash away portions of their legitimately created – and at the home base property taxed – reserves in a safe place offering competent management. Some US’ Senators like to grandstand with investigations of contrite havens. In doing so they overlook an important ramification of which they are apparently ignorant. It is that some tax havens like to invest in America many of the untainted billions entrusted to them. The amount is many times of whatever evaded taxes might amount to. Scores of firms and industries are major beneficiaries of these investments. Taking banks such as the UBS hostage –which repentantly admits having had employees that facilitated tax cheats – makes a good show within the congressional circus. The resulting reduction of their operations will net little profit compared to the economic negatives it creates. As usual, the proper corrective reaction to an inequity – in this case of investment advisors violating firm policy by helping clients to cheat on their taxes – lacks a sense for nuances and proportions.

More heat than light

Kappert appears to have no doubts about the veracity or the plausibility of Prof. Vincenzo Ruggiero's scientific findings here, which is interesting when one considers any number of previous statements made by this self-proclaimed anti-scientific New Age guru.(Kappert, that is,not Vinny)

RE: Socialists Are Fools But Not All Fools Are Socialists

RE:

 

1-3.  A long-term solution to Somali piracy must involve addressing certain Somali problems, and these solutions need not be bribery with cash or goods. Somali territorial waters need to be secured from illegal fishing trawlers, notably Egyptian ones, which was the original reason that Somali fishermen turned to piracy. Secondly, Puntland needs to be formally recognised as a sovereign state. Puntland already has an emerging system of governance far more viable than in the rest of the country, and is developing export industries. Puntland is like Iraq's Kurdish north.

 

Of course, military operations must target pirates and their bases with a concern for the welfare of captives rather than civilians who support or at least benefit from the ransoms. The use of deadly force is a prerequisite to any diplomatic overtures. However, the other major powers (i.e. China and Russia) need to be consulted and invited to participate, in order to dispell any intervention as a precedent that can be used to justify questionable operations by either. Neither the Chinese nor Russian elements off Somalia are prepared to venture beyond the self-imposed limits of the NATO warships. Both China and Russia are dealing with Islamic insurgencies and are not eager to incur any further human rights-related criticism or exacerbate tensions with their Islamic minorities.

 

4.  The problem is too many checks and balances that emphasize the rights of the individual against those of the community, and exceptions rather than rules e.g. false convictions, police brutality etc. It is reminiscent of the old Seym's liberum veto, where one single vote could dismiss the will of the majority and derail effective public policy.

 

5.  The key is to pressure Beijing. The Chinese are very concerned with Kim antics, but are more fearful of the consequences of intervention: an exodus of refugees, internal strife and WMDs no longer under central control. While incapable of resisting airstrikes by any major power and vulnerable to airborne and littoral incursions, the North has nuclear bombs and other WMDs, and can mount such a ferocious resistance as to make occupation untenable. Nor is it clear if the regime can be toppled, given the military's capacity to assume command in the event of Kim's death or an invasion. Western diplomats must work within such tight constraints when dealing with Pyongyang that Obama and his team could not be innovative or force a decision if they tried.

 

6.  None of the major powers wants to see a nuclear-armed Iran. Mr Handlery can be assured that intelligence is being gathered and contingency plans updated regularly. As if Ahmadinejad's "enemies" would release everything to the media...

 

7.  Perhaps Mr Handlery is inferring too much from a simple handshake. This is not the United States or Israel. Swiss (and Swedish) neutrality is vital to international relations. Switzerland trades with the enemy and acts as broker to Kim Il-Jong and all manner of tax evaders and criminals (incl. narcotics producers/traffickers), and yet it also is a major centre of global diplomacy. When it comes to Switzerland, one must take the good with the bad.

 

8.  On the contrary, Teheran's diplomatic "prostitution" to the Palestinian cause indicates considerable manoeuvering room. As Spengler (David P. Goldman) at the Asia Times has observed, the Iranian economy was headed for collapse even at the oil/gas prices of 2008's first and second quarters. If the Mullahs and Ayatollahs are prepared to waste vital resources on dead-end paramilitary proxies to project their power, then they can certainly sit down with Western diplomats (albeit secretly) and realize the benefits of economic power.

@ traveller

Kappert could learn much by a) reading  Fjordman's latest excellent article and b) taking  a serious look at the following link. http://www.cynical-c.com/?p=13255 . (S)he can make of this what (s)he will, but whatever (s)he

makes of it, one thing is for sure, and that is that the vast majority of the students in question are neither Christian, European, or white.

@ Atlanticist911

I am not surprised Hitler is popular in India.
The management style of the Marwaris(ethnic group from the Rajistan desert)is very comparable to Hitler's methods. They are a very small community, but control minimum 5 of the 10 biggest corporations of India. Lakhsmi Mittal is Marwari.

Racism speech # 4

Obviously, a few corrections are in order, at least for anyone interested in any approximation of honest 'truth' (which would exclude/preclude Kappert). 

1) Marcfrans is NOT interested in "whitewashing" anyone, including Europeans.  But he is much more interested in modern forms of 'slavery', than in past forms of slavery.  And he will not stand for the spectacle of CONTEMPORARY dictators/'slavedrivers' selectively lecturing on the PAST sins of the ancestors of others. 

2) Marcfrans did NOT refer to "perverse selfhatred" in the context of possible "scratching of the European conscience". NO, he reserved that designation for those who naively (and perversely) can give credence to the words of manifest dictators and who naively parrot propaganda that is contrary to empirically observable evidence.

3) Marcfrans has no interest whatsoever in the respective sets of wifes of Ahmadinejad and of Sarkozy.  He simply makes the observation that the latter are FREE to speak their minds, whereas the former are NOT.  The fact that such considerations could not even enter the mind of a typical young contemporary German 'teacher' today, suggests that Germany's future (as a free society) could be as bleak as Iran's.

@ Atlanticist

That quote of Blake suggests a great mind, indeed.  I am pretty sure, though, that he never used the word "twonk".  

   

Racism speech #5

Thanks for calling me 'young'. Still, modern forms of slavery are very diversified and common in most societies, that's why the UN Forum has its right to exist and to be discussed by everyone. On dictators, by the way, the Iranian president has less power than the French one. Your 'empirically observable evidence' has a blind eye on Palestine.
I'm not so sure who is treating his/her partner the better way: the Iranian muslim or the Belgian christian, there is evidence of rising figures in domestic violence in the Western democracies.

@ kappert

Having seen the corpse of a burned, murdered Filipino wife in the Gulf and having seen the murderer/husband released the same day, while the murder case became an "accident".
Having seen the brutal slavery of today in Pakistan, India, Bangla Desh, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, I would strongly advise you to give an opinion about things you know something about.
I could write books about the psyche of those subhuman species, but you would still embrace them as "poor, misled" human beings.
I am really trying to stay polite and civilised here, but for God's sake stop advertising your ignorance by a silly do-good attitude which is the root cause of so much suffering and idiotic behaviour today.

@traveller

You may find all these horrible things in Europe, too. And be careful to call human being as 'subhuman'. Our psychiatrist knows everything on conditioning human behaviour.

@ kappert

Where does slavery exist in Europe? In 5-star hotels amongst the maids of the Saudi "princes"?
Where does burning wives by the thousands every year exist in Europe?

@traveller

Slaves in Contemporary Europe, Vincenzo Ruggiero, London 2002: From Ireland to Holland to Spain, from Romania to Germany to Norway - human trafickking is BIG business. Burning people is a bit out of fashion in Europe, but the Dutroux and Fritzl continue their work in the dungeons. See also: http://www.eurowrc.org/

@ kappert

Mama mia!!!

Dutroux and co are sick individuals who, when caught are punished by law.
The wife murderers in the M.E. and Asia are "normal" people who are functioning in an immoral society and who are NOT punished.

The illegal alien traffickers are requested to do this job for the aliens and they are PAID for it by the aliens.

OH GOD, LET THERE BE LIGHT.

@traveller

Let there be light, indeed. I wonder how many Dutroux and Co are still frolicking their nasty business. As the traffickers are paid for the job, it seems you do not see a lack of moral in the treatment of 'aliens'. As for scientific research, any visit in a social centre provides you with the necessary insight.

@ kappert

So, you don't see the tiny moral difference between obliged and non-consenting slavery and an alien who goes to a trafficker and pays him to do him the favour of smuggling him to the Western "paradise"? On top of that, when he succeeds, he recommends the same smuggler to his friends who stayed behind.

I don't even want to answer your comment on Dutroux. You really hate our society, don't you? And how does that square with your "love for humans"? Are we not humans?

@traveller

Your first paragraphh encounters a coincidence: today begins the 'Spanish Slavery Process' in Logroño, Spain, on charges like sexual and working slavery. The 12 accused promised work and housing, the victims ended up in shafts on tomatoe fields.
I do not hate our society, I live in it. Deplorable things like discrimination, prejudice, greed and arrogance should be addressed.

@ kappert

One absolute last time: THE BADDIES WERE CONVICTED, THE SLAVERS IN THE M.E. AND ASIA ARE FREE, WEALTHY AND RESPECTED. ONE OF THEM IS THE UNCLE OF THE VERY DEMOCRATIC AND VERY DEAD BENAZIR BHUTTO.

By the way the fact that you live here is no confirmation of love or hate for this society.

@ marcfrans  

 

I believe William Blake unwittingly wrote a most appropriate and succinct response to "racism speech #3" when he wrote these words:

 

When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those twonks who don't know it, or refuse to accept it, but, rather, for the sake of defending those honest and rational men that do.

I paraphrase the great man here,of course.

 

 

Ahmadinejad's children and other family matters

In 2008, the Ahmadinejad regime sent the "Family Protection Bill" to the Iranian parliament. Women's rights activists (anybody know the Farsi term for "Oxymoron"?) criticized the bill for removing protections for women, such as the requirement that a husband obtain his wife's consent before bringing another wife into the family.

 

And while we are on the subject of Ahmadinejad's children...

 

http://www.verumserum.com/?p=2663

 

http://www.matthiaskuenzel.de/contents/ahmadinejads-demons

 

etc., etc., etc.,

 

racism speech # 2

The historical truth is, of course, that most of the remaining (200-23=) 177 delegations can look back on their own "rich heritage on racism and slavery".  Now, if the speaker in question, Ahmadinejad, would be capable of addressing both contemporary forms of 'slavery' (e.g. legal inequality of women and of nonmuslims in Iran, the persecution of Bahai's and others in Iran, etc..) and Persian participation in past forms of slavery, then perhaps there might be a point in attending his speech.  But, since he is not (and neither is the UN), why anyone would want to attend one-sided discourses by CONTEMPORARY 'slave-drivers' (i.e. totalitarians) on the PAST 'sins' of others, is the kind of perverse selfhatred that should be investigated by psychiatrists.

The reason why Kappert has no clue about who Frau Ahmadinejad and his other concubines are, is because they are modern 'slaves'. Perhaps the UN could look into the matter? In your dreams.   

  

racism speech #3

Surely we agree that few countries have little or no tradition in racism and slavery. Though the Western democracies shouldn't be whitewashed the way marcfrans wants it. The creation of a Jewish state of Israel would have been different, if not impossible, without the holocaust and the latent persecution of Jews in Europe. Therefore, Europeans were quite relieved to 'offer' a country to the Jews, desired by zionists and largely tolerated by the Arabian population of Palestine, as they lived side by side for centuries. Unfortunately, the Jewish State became quickly a regime of intolerance and segregation, still continued 60 years later. It is obvious that Europe doesn't want to discuss the 'past sins', still traumatized by the dimension of the holocaust, any discussion would scratch the European conscience (marcfrans calls it “the kind of perverse selfhatred that should be investigated by psychiatrists“).
It is also remarkable that marcfrans shows interest in the wife of Ahmadinajad, as if she must be some Carla Bruni, but does not mention his three kids. Quite idiotic his assumption of concubines and modern slaves, doesn't he live in Belgium?