A Greek Tragedy: The Sin of Eco-PC

A Greek Tragedy: The Sin of Eco-PC

Col Mike Walker, USMC (ret.)

All,

As Greece prepares to exit the Euro currency confederation in full crisis mode let us put a large share of blame for the crisis on economic political correctness (Eco-PC).

That is not to say that responsibility for the underlying financial meltdown lies anywhere but with Greece, but Eco-PC made this crisis far worse than needed and everything centers on one word: AUSTERITY.

None of the players could bring themselves to tell the truth: The Greek Government went broke.

Even a miraculous return to pre-Great Recession levels of prosperity combined with full and honest tax payments by the Greek people can save the day as existing statutory entitlement programs exceed 100% of even those unrealistic cash flows (and let that be a lesson to us all).

And that leaves nothing to pay government employees or the military or for any government services or to pay back the monies they borrowed to keep a sinking ship-of-state above water for the last several years. That is right: Even if Greece defaults on 100% of the money owed to folks around the world, it will still go broke.

For perspective, we are talking about a country with a per capita GDP well below Mississippi, the poorest state in America (which also begs the question: So what if the tiny Greek economy leaves?).

To avoid telling those truths the Eco-PC gang came up with AUSTERITY as a substitute for this reality: THE GREEK GOVERNMENT IS DEAD FLAT BROKE.

Thus began the mischief as the word “austerity” is so opaque as to mislead almost everyone and that is exactly what happened.

If you follow the debates, the inescapable conclusion is that the “austerity” measures are optional. Even worse, that means they are not really needed. “Austerity” became a wrong visited upon the people of Greece by evil others (usually spelt G-e-r-m-a-n-s).

Good grief!

As the “responsible” leaders (both inside and out of Greece) were trapped in a PC lie, the inescapable reality that “broke” means “broke” and the government spending cuts must happen and must happen now was lost in translation, Eco-PC translation, that is.

The “responsible” leaders lost their credibility, the lifeblood of elected politicians, and the extremists gained power.

So here we are, Greece ruled by stale Marxists stuck in the 1970s without a clue as to how to proceed, European leaders stuck with a fiscal collapse of the Greek Government that they lack to courage to accurately describe and the Greek people still wondering why in hell anyone would “choose” to enact an austerity plan, as if they ever had a choice.

Eco-PC sucks. 

When you are broke, tell the truth, pick yourself up and get back in the race. That's life! (And thank you Frank Sinatra)

Mike

The CSG* Can’t Shoot Straight: THE FUTURE WE SEEK? Seriously?

The CSG* Can’t Shoot Straight: THE FUTURE WE SEEK? Seriously?

Col Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

All,

Abandon Poland to SEEK a “reset” accord with Putin who then invaded Crimea and Ukraine?

That is failure writ large.

Distancing us from Israel while SEEKING an accord with Assad and the Islamic Republic that butchered their peaceful progressives?

That is failure writ large.

Declaring victory in Iraq only to give large parts of it to the Islamic State and hate-filled Shi’a militias controlled by the Islamic Republic?

That is failure writ large.

Intervene in Libya, declare victory (once again), abandon it and cede it the Islamic State?

That is failure writ large.

Declare Yemen a success only to see destroyed in a civil war between the Islamic Republic and the Islamic State?

That is failure writ large.

The CGS is the most incompetent national defense team in American History.

And every one of our enemies knows it!

Mike

*To use their own vulgar language, CSG = Chicken Shit Gang

Test Prep Idiots

Barron's AP Test Prep Guide equates Clarence Thomas with Fascists...

Test Prep Idiots

Col Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

All,

You likely did not read about Barrons’ apology for their inanely written AP European History study guide.

It is worth the read and you will be rewarded with quite a chuckle. 

The specifics are that Clarence Thomas is officially a “fascist” but the underlining principle is that for mainstream historians, the bar for accuracy has remained unchanged for the last century or so but for the too influential far-left historians, as the Barron’s “clown show” demonstrates, there is no bar for historical accuracy.

What makes this a hoot (and ironically so) is that the definition of “fascist” is untethered to European history. Barron’s fairy tale it is not founded in objective historical research or mainstream or even progressive interpretations but lies wholly in far left “goofism” (that still passes as history in too many quarters).

Here is the Orwellian “doublethink” that Barron’s guide foisted upon its readers: That “fascism” is a reactionary movement of the capitalist right. Seriously?

Fascism or nationalist socialism was a major post-First World War radical socialist movement that welded together nationalism and socialism and by socialism we mean the European definition of the term used at that time i.e. state control of the means of production (after all, the guide was supposed to be about European history). 

Recall that the topic at Hitler’s first meeting with the German Worker’s Party was about how and when to end capitalism, Mussolini was a life-long socialist, and listing all the anti-capitalist socialist policies they adopted after coming to power would take pages to recite.

Its great rival was communism that argued for not just state control but state ownership of all means of production. There was also a strong internationalist strain in communism as opposed to the nationalist focus of fascism.

Here is where the Bozo’s at Barron enter the twilight zone. 

One thing that Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Trotsky all agreed upon was that the future lied in radical socialism. As a corollary point of agreement, all believed that liberal democracies were inescapably destined for the dustbin of history (great phrase that, Leon).

None of this has anything to do with Justice Clarence Thomas (a life-long advocate of liberal democracy). 

It is apparent that the Thomas entry stemmed from bias and intellectual dishonesty. So why does this ilk of historical silliness persist?  

Two reasons: Ideology and ignorance.

Ideological Bias

By the 1930s, the communists and fascists were locked in an immense struggle and the far-left in the West became mostly sympathetic to communism as compared to fascism (remember, liberal democracies were abhorred but also considered a dying breed and thus only of passing danger to the revolution). 

This led the far left to transform the word “fascist” into a pejorative which they combined with the adoption of “reactionary” and a host of similarly demeaning terms to describe nationalist socialists, a vocabulary that far leftists use to this day.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to the workers’ paradise: The Second World War came along. 

As hoped for by the far left, nationalist socialism was defeated and communism emerged victorious but deeply troubling, those doggone liberal democracies also emerged victorious and stronger than ever.

What to do? 

The far left never admits a fundamental mistake and it could not waste all the great propaganda efforts against fascist nationalist socialism so they took a lesson from Goebbels: If you repeat a lie often enough it can become the truth. (BTW, Goebbels was a more radical socialist than either Hitler or Mussolini)

The result was a brilliant display of “doublethink.” 

The very same liberal democracies that eradicated fascism as a global threat, that opposed its brutal socialist control of society in favor of basic human freedoms and limited powers of government were now conflated into their opposite by the far left, the ultimate application of doublethink.

The problem of course is that doublethink is always a lie. 

When leftist historians equate Justice Thomas with a fascist then their ideological bias is on full display.

Analytic Ignorance

I guess too many leftist historians failed Algebra I in high school. Putting communism on the far left and fascism on the far right may be fine if the subject is socialism. Otherwise, the argument lacks reason and any sense of good judgment.

Once non-socialist economic systems enter the mix, a linear model becomes impossible. Where do libertarianism or economic liberalism fit in? Where do free-market economies land except far away from the two extremes of communism and fascism? More subtly, where does a protectionist vice an “open door” economic system appear? 

Perhaps even a two-dimensional model is too simplistic but it would do an immensely better job than the dull-witted and stale leftist one-dimensional model presented by Barron’s authors.

An honest historian could never have compared Justice Thomas to a Hitlerite (or Leninist for that matter). 

Shame on the authors and shame on Barron.

Semper Fi,

Mike

Telling it like it is of Focusing on the Wrong Enemy

Telling it like it is of Focusing on the Wrong Enemy

Col Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

All,

To seek a relationship with the Islamic Republic is the ethical equivalent of having sought a relationship with Adolf Hitler’s Nationalist Socialist Germany – a more morally bankrupt and despicable goal is hard to imagine.

Iran is an aggressive and revolutionary regime with a global vision: It wants to destroy and replace the current "unjust" world order.

To the Ayatollahs, the heart and soul of the unjust world order is the United States (hence the "Satin, "evil" etc. rhetoric). 

We are the number one enemy and will remain so as long as the Islamic theocracy remains in place.

Further, that Iran is fighting ISIL is a given -- a freebie. They will fight them with or without us and we need not give up anything for that. Only fools and suckers would pay for that free ride.

Kind-hearted people want to believe that Iran only wants its rightful place under the sun. That is why our attempts to reach detente with Iran fail over and over again and will continue to fail.

In addition to having us in their crosshairs, Iran is the greater threat not because they are more “evil” but because they are more competent. Iran grows in strength and influence and capabilities. The Sunni extremist factions (al Qaeda, ISIS, etc) are to be feared as efficiently savage murders but for little else.
   

They created Hezbollah in Lebanon making that poor country a potential Iranian vassal state. As if to make their point, Mohamad Chatah was assassinated by pro-Iranian terrorists on 27 December 2013, a few days after his open letter to Iran was published. The letter can be found at: 

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304483804579286723620835720

Teheran declared Bahrain the 14^th province of Iran. They have strong influence in Iraq. The most lethal IEDs used against Americans by Sadr's forces (Mahdi Army) were designed and often manufactured in Iran.

Assad in Syria now owes his rule to the Ayatollahs -- that is why Turkey and the Sunni Arab states won't fully support U.S. policy in Syria because we have backed off our demand for Assad's removal. That foolish policy strengthens Iran and weakens our regional allies.

They have backed the Houthi in Yemen, further destabilizing the region. Iran hates the Saudi form of Islam so the Saudis may go into Yemen if they see it becoming an Iranian satellite.

Now lets move on to their international maneuvers.

Morocco broke off diplomatic relations with Iran in 2008 because MOIS/VEVAK was using fake NGO and cultural organizations to destabilize the regime there. 

Iran aided and abetted our enemies in Afghanistan and was barely foiled in a plot to place a bomb at the JFK Airport in 2007 that resulted in a life sentence for Abdul Kadir, the former-head of operations in Guyana directed by the Iranian embassy in Caracas, Venezuela. 

Iran continues to build its intelligence and clandestine operations capability in Latin America as an attempt to bring the struggle closer to America.

In April 2009, a Canadian of Iranian ancestry was arrested for trying to illegally ship a number of pressure transducers to Iran, which he had originally purchased in the US. The transducers are needed in making nuclear weapons.

More recently, on 25 May 2013, Argentine federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman released a study detailing the Iranian regional terrorism network in Latin America built on his previous 2006 investigation that indicted seven Iranians and one member of Hezbollah for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community Center in Buenos Aires that killed eighty-five people. Nisman was apparently murdered last week just as he was issuing a report on Iranian attempts to escape justice.

On 30 May 2013, Manssor Arbabsiar was sentenced to a 25-year prison term for his role in the foiled Iranian plan to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the United States and detonate bombs at the Saudi Arabian and Israeli embassies in Washington, D.C.

Finally, we now have proof of what US intelligence professionals had long argued, that the Ayatollahs had aided and abetted al Qaeda beginning, at least, within weeks of the 9/11 attacks.

The Ayatollahs have both the will and ever-growing means to attack the United States. That makes them the dominant threat to the United States.

Having written that, I do not propose an aggressive policy against Iran, only a containment policy with strong sanctions against a real and active threat.

Semper Fi,

Mike