Meanwhile in Moscow, Havana and Tehran...

As the United States "stimulates" itself into oblivion, the weak and coiled snakes begin to sense weakness, and make their moves.

Here, Russia 'stops missile deployment in Europe because of Obama.' Pffffffff... haha! That is a good one.

Russia has held out an olive branch to President Barack Obama by suspending plans to deploy missiles in Europe.

Defence Ministry officials said that the move had been made because the new United States leadership was reconsidering plans to establish a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe. Deployment of Iskander short-range missiles, which can carry nuclear warheads, in Russia's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad had been halted in response.

The news emerged before Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's appearance at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last night. Mr Putin said on Monday that he was "cautiously optimistic" about improved relations with the US because Mr Obama had shown a willingness to reconsider the missile shield.

Bear in mind that the Times (UK) is a relatively conservative newspaper. Their foreign editor: "The Russians seem to have finally grasped the implications of Mr Obama’s whirlwind foreign policy review."

Did these people sleep through the Cold War? They even quote Novosti! Ah, "peace" propaganda. It can only be more effective in the Age of Obama. Tom of Naples, Florida writes, "Only President Barack Obama can bring peace to the world. After 8 years of Pres Obama, our citizens will realize the value of a liberal philosophy. After the last 8 years Americans have experienced the dangerous failure of conservatism. Conservatives are going to be in minority for a long time to[o.]" But to their credit, most of the commenters on this item take it for the public relations farce that it is.

Oh, but I have to share this one: "I hope President Obama follows through on his plans to end nuclear weapons and star wars programs. By destroying US weapons and ending new programs, unliaterally [sic], he would send such a positive signal of peace, that the other nations of the world would surely follow suit. This story is proof!" This is the kind of thing a conservative like me would write as a joke. I mean, there's lots of what could be sarcasm, mainly the implication that "detroying... weapons" and "ending... programs," "other nations would surely follow suit." This is obviously wrong, and yet... some people believe it. The useful idiots believe it. I guess it goes to show, once again, that left-wing sincerity and right-wing parody are the same thing.

Meanwhile, Raul Castro comes to Moscow! Nothing to see here, folks! They're just "boosting ties."

Castro told the ITAR-Tass news agency before the trip that Cuba and Russia enjoy "wonderful relations" again after a lull in the 1990s.

TASS! Our old friend! Officially state-run, but truly independent of the government propaganda now, for sure.

[Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov also reaffirmed Russia's call for the United States to lift its trade embargo on Cuba. "We intend to firmly pursue our course for lifting the blockade, which we see as a vestige of the long gone era," he said.

Yes, a long gone era. Ah, who could forget all those peaceful democratic reforms that have swept through Cuba and the former Soviet Union? The rule of law established, freedom of speech, movement, religion and representation restored, and all. Otherwise it would be ridiculous to talk of lifting the embargo!

Lest we forget, Drudge reminds us: December 19, 2008-- 3 Russian warships visit Cold War ally Cuba. Those ships then moved on to Venezuela.

And finally, the inestimable Michael Ledeen speaks of Iran once again, reminding us how big a loss they suffered in Gaza through their terrorist proxy.

All of this confusion distracts us from the big story, which is that Iran is in a jam, defeated in Iraq and Gaza, facing a cash flow crisis, and the usual demonstrations raging on college campuses and factories all over the country. If ever there were a fine opportunity for the United States to support Iranian dissidents, this is it. But we’re apparently not going to do any such thing; we’re going to try to strike a deal, even though every president since Jimmy Carter has tried to do just that, and every one of them failed.

Later:

There are certainly Iranians who disagree with the official doctrine that is best summarized in the street chant we see so often on the evening news: “Death to America.” In fact, there are probably 50-60 million of them. They are the oppressed people of Iran, and we don’t need the Intelligence Community to identify them. We see them in prison, we see them publicly executed in very brutal ways (including stoning), and we see their offices raided and smashed. Those are the people we should be helping.

But instead we are 'pursing [the same failed] diplomatic solutions' to the same old problems. Russia, Cuba, Venezuela and Iran are weaker now than they have been in years. Now is the time to speak out harshly against them, to sponsor dissident groups and encourage the toppling of these governments. But to do that would be to vindicate President Bush's 'cowboy diplomacy,' where he 'alienated the world' and 'turned them against us.' He 'only strengthened our enemies,' by giving them causes and reasons to fight against us.

To do the right thing now, and treat the governing regimes of these countries as illegitimate would be tantamount to admitting that George Bush's foreign policy was not fundamentally flawed; that he had the right idea. And that is out of the question for the Democrats and for President Obama; he would rather play silly games with the leaders of these countries than support their dissident voices. For his shallow appearance as 'mender of nations and bringer of peace,' he will sacrifice the freedom of millions and ultimately the security of Americans.

HR1: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, William James, and Lobbyists

Remember the first bill of this historic, wonderful new Congressional era, with the majority in full agreement with the President. Take it from the Wall Street Journal: "This is a political wonder that manages to spend money on just about every pent-up Democratic proposal of the last 40 years."

I'm not going to get into the details of this nightmare of a "bill": the word "Reinvestment" is an interesting one. Perhaps it might remind one of another "...Reinvestment Act," one that had a hand in getting this crisis started in the first place.

Remember:

"Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before."

-Rahm Emmanuel, Pres. Obama's White House Chief of Staff, 2009

I spoke of the "moral equivalent" of war. So far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way. But I have no serious doubt that the ordinary prides and shames of social man, once developed to a certain intensity, are capable of organizing such a moral equivalent as I have sketched, or some other just as effective for preserving manliness of type. It is but a question of time, of skilful propogandism, and of opinion-making men seizing historic opportunities.

-William James, 1909

Rush Limbaugh is pointing out that 20 days ago, Barack Obama was saying that there is no way to solve this financial crisis except through government. And now, of course, with this big government "stimulus" bill on the table, he is paying lip-service to the truth that 'only American workers and businesses' can stimulate the economy. Well, duh. But it kind of belies what Obama's saying that he says it in defense of a slush fund that takes the money from American workers and businesses and gives it to politically connected interest groups and "infrastructure funding" for business interests with the most vigorous lobby groups.

But that's not the fundamental dishonesty here. It's that President Obama has often spoken of the horrible influence of lobbyists in Washington, and yet everything he does only encourages them and further entrenches their positions. I don't like lobbyists either. But you can't just bar them from lobbying. It is their constitutional right to petition the government for "redress of grievances." You might say, 'Oh, that's an ancient term. More like for filling of pockets.' Well, no. Why are lobbyists in Washington in the first place? Because Washington plays a game of 1) regulation and control of industry and 2) picking winners and losers through funding, subsidies and taxes. The industries that are most regulated, that see the most fluctuation in funding, subsidies and taxes are the ones who have the most lobbyists in Washington; Because Washington is in their business, they are in Washington's business.

It's as simple as that, really. The cause of lobbyists is not greed, or malevolence, or dishonesty. It's self-interest. Is that petty? Well, so is Washington's constant manipulation and regulation of their industries. If Washington would leave them alone, would avoid giving money to or propping up their competitors, would lay off regulation that affects their industries, then they would have no reason to lobby in Washington.

So Obama's stated goal of lessening the influence of lobbyists is completely at odds with his big government, super-regulatory, top-down management approach. The prospect of his administration has probably only increased the number of lobbyists and their influence. No, definitely so, because his administration brings a unity of House, Senate, and White House, an unblocked path to a world of new legislation. Money is to be had in Washington! Favorable regulation and subsidies are to be obtained there. D.C. might as well be renamed El Dorado. It's a lobbying golden age!

HR1 is only the beginning.

U.S. Detention Policy in Iraq

I thought I'd pass along this article by Jeffrey Azarva in the latest issue of Middle East Quarterly. Azarva doesn't go easy on the United States, speaking of U.S. detention facilities as breeding grounds for extremists, in many cases turning those who only planted an IED or fought alongside Al Qaeda for financial reasons into strong opponents of the U.S. and Coalition forces.

It sounds like a typical liberal argument about the war: the U.S. occupation has just made more terrorists and insurgents-- first they fight against you for economic reasons, but then because you have made them hate you; American liberals may love these arguments for their own unhealthy reasons, but for a long time they were largely true. Detention facilities mixed the most radical terrorists with people who were largely innocent or were not very radical. There, they were made by the radicals to follow their own prison code-- backward, barbaric Sharia law.

But with the long overdue counter-insurgency (a development the liberals who proclaimed the whole war lost have tried to downplay), a new policy in the detention centers came also:

The military realized that the point of departure for any successful reform would be its ability to detect and segregate irreconcilables—those incorrigible detainees bent on upsetting the apple cart and imposing their extremism on others. Although detainee assessments were administered under Maj.-Gen. John D. Gardner, Stone's predecessor, they were significantly expanded following Gardner's transfer of authority to Stone. The task force figured out that it was in detention, more so than in the alleyways of Baghdad, where the worlds of coalition and insurgent forces met. To capitalize on this interaction, the task force employed psychologists, teachers, social workers, and Iraqi imams to paint a rough sketch of each detainee's background, including their religiosity, education, skills, work history, and general motivation. The evaluations have since assisted not only in the physical placement of detainees—those deemed extremist are now quarantined in modular housing units—but have also proved instrumental in shaping the military's innovative reintegration programs.

In conjunction with the psychological assessments, surveys of detainees reaffirmed the potential for their rehabilitation. Many detainees, it turned out, were not avowed jihadists but Iraqi civilians spurred on by pragmatic considerations. Research commissioned by the task force revealed that in a majority of cases, a confluence of factors contributed to the average detainee's arrest, such as illiteracy, fear of reprisal, underemployment, and the enticement of cash. Family demographic studies also helped to explain why otherwise law-abiding citizens gravitated toward the insurgency: 63 percent of detainees were married, 79 percent had children, and the overwhelming majority lived with their extended family. For those detainees who acted as family breadwinners, the allure of $200-$300 a month in supplemental income—Al-Qaeda's average recompense for planting a roadside bomb—was simply too strong to resist.

Armed with this knowledge, the task force set out to counteract these motivations and provide detainees with an alternative to joining the insurgency. Education, vocational, and enhanced family visitation programs formed the backbone of the military's efforts, filling a void previously exploited by extremists. In August 2007, the military set up Dar al-Hikma (House of wisdom), an education center accredited by the Iraqi Ministry of Education. The school, which is open to both juveniles and adults and offers a core curriculum of Arabic, English, math, science, civics, and geography, has turned into an unequivocal success: On a number of occasions, detainees have postponed their releases to finish studies, and parents without detained children have petitioned to enroll their kids in the program.

Perhaps the education programs' true center of gravity lies in the Islamic discussion program. There, vetted Iraqi clerics employ a moderate exegesis of the Qur'an to encourage debate and refute extremist arguments. Ironically, most insurgents are not devout. Polling of the population has revealed that, prior to detention, more than 70 percent of detainees were not fastidious mosque-goers; in fact, 36 percent had never even set foot in one. On other questions about piety, responses did not reflect stringent or immoderate beliefs. Even mid-level members of Al-Qaeda and the Shi‘ite Mahdi Army at times exhibited few signs of religious fervor.

On the surface, such information would seem to render moot the utility of such a program. But it does not. Al-Qaeda has long used a perverted interpretation of the Qur'an to proselytize among secular, illiterate, and disenfranchised Iraqis. But for those who do not arrive in detention possessed of religious fervor, the program still has merit, both in its ability to reduce future susceptibility and to encourage independent thinking. A number of imams who led the juvenile Islamic discussion program attested to this fact, telling this author that the program unlocked adolescents' minds and made them less vulnerable to brainwashing upon release.

It is interesting to consider this new policy in light of American liberalism's beliefs about our own prison system. They support rehabilitation, right?

The problem with this (for them) is that the detainees aren't being rehabilitated in their own ideology. The left of the Democratic Party (which means our new President) would see this as an imperialist indoctrination, a form of rape and torture even more severe than anything we might do physically to some important "militant."

Ideologies of Hope

The following is an excerpt from Postmodern Metaphysics, by Christos Yannaras (Meta-neoterike meta physike, Athens, 1993), translated by Norman Russell. I have emboldened some particularly interesting passages.

5. Ideologies of hope

Part of the characteristic "physiognomy" of the modern age is the transposition of social perspectives into ideological blueprints and teleologies.

The term "ideology" owes its origin to the first theoretical schematizations of the modern age: Destutt de Tracy first used it in 1796, marking the start of the faith of the Enlightenment that social reform would result from the reorganization of ideas: Only when people's ideas change-- their individual perceptions, convictions and interpretation of reality, their understanding of nature and history, of goals and obligations, of the meaning of existence and of life-- do new and desired social forms emerge.

The demand for new "ideas" implies that the change must be expressed as a system and put into effect. If "ideas" need to be changed, the existing ones must be mistaken and harmful. Confirmed error or harmfulness justifies putting forward a counter-proposal, legitimizing the effort of imposition.

Thus ideology is engendered by the logic of breaking with and struggling against, the past. It becomes specific, proposing new ideas which people must embrace if they are liberate themselves as individuals and as a society from the "darkness" of the medieval past: ideas which block progress towards the forms of society to which they aspire are to be set aside and faith in the desired goals is to be imposed on all.

Such demands ignore marginal areas where new ideas can be engendered naturally from the needs of the social body. The ideology dominates because its adherents are convinced that prevailing ideas are wrong and harmful. The correct and more profitable ideas are framed in advance without reference to the social body. The ideology interprets social and individual needs, the needs which people ought to have, by itself and a priori. And it systematically imposes previously framed ideas.

Ideology is by definition a rationalist construct. It emerges from the rational criticism of existing ideas, and its own counter-proposal cannot but be based on rational arguments, on "objectively" valid blueprints of the intended social perspective. Rationalistic systematization over-anticipates social needs, and would have had no chance of success without the goal of arousing collective desires at the same time. Collective and general desires spring from innate drives, such as the self-preservation urge or the egocentric quest for power.

Accordingly, ideology represents something more than its proposed new perceptions, convictions and interpretations. It can transform desire into a conviction-interpretation-goal, which does not need to correspond to the actual circumstances of life, seeing that these are to be transformed. Starting from rational motives for changing reality, ideology often transforms its own rationalism into mysticism, achieving a complete denial of reality for the sake of the desired illusion. Freud demonstrated how this "power of illusion" functions, and later studies have based an impressive critique of modern ideology on Freud.

Certainly, the function of ideologies in the modern age is complicated, contributing to the "physiognomy" of modern societies; ideologies have replaced the ontology that has been rejected or consciously marked as spurious. The "soteriological" character of ideologies, means they promise to fulfill collective hopes.

Ideologies do not respond directly to ontological questions-- nor do they aspire to do so. They are always clearly anthropocentric and sociocentric: they promise institutional and organizational change in society as a whole, in labor relations and in the functioning of the economy, which will lead to "general happiness." Ideology weaves together schematic programs with eudaemonistic promises, thereby mating rationalism with incompatible cherished illusions.

This shotgun marriage always has its invisible or unacknowledged ontological presuppositions, which help ideology establish its self-evident, if not obligatory, acceptance. Modern social ideologies typically ignore questions concerning the causal principle of existence, subjective self-awareness, the modal absoluteness of existential otherness, the definitive relativity of the subject, or any other mostly unanswered question. Social ideologies work on the level of collective desires and eudaemonistic promises with concomitant anthropocentric criteria presupposing the "random" principle of existence, and a correlative agnosticism. They conceive of existence, nature and history on the assumption of the existential fact's axiomatic self-sufficiency, a human autonomy unfettered by ideas about causality or providence.

This existential autonomy explains the power of ideologies in the goal of "progress." Within this ideological framework, human beings aspire to be managers of their hopes, creators of their own future. Nature with its rich capabilities and energy sources is waiting for the human mind to tame it, intervening in its innermost functioning to satisfy the need for comfort and ease. Ideologies propose ways and means for a more productive management of humanity's existential autonomy, which can be imposed to constitute a hope of "progress" and "general happiness." The element of hope, the eudaemonistic promise-- either material or spiritual-- constitutes the ideological dynamic. The ideologies of hope, from realistic rationalist schemes to the wildest utopian illusions, have largely formed the modern age.

Russian KGB State and Obamian Ignorant State

As the world convulses in its idiotic Obamania, Russia happily resumes being a fascist police state:

The broad-daylight slaying of Stanislav Markelov sparked anger among Chechens—already upset by the release of last week of Col. Yuri Budanov—and prompted an outpouring of grief and ire among Russia's beleaguered rights activists.

"This is a horrible, frightening crime," said Tatyana Lokshina of the Human Rights Watch, comparing it to the 2006 slaying of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya—a client of Markelov's and a fellow enemy of rights abuses in Chechnya and across former President Vladimir Putin's Russia.

Markelov, 34, was gunned down in central Moscow near a building where he had just held a news conference, about half a mile (1 kilometer) from the Kremlin, said Viktoria Tsyplenkova, a spokeswoman for the Investigative Committee of the Moscow prosecutor's office.

Markelov was shot in the back of the head at close range by an attacker who followed him after the news conference, wore a stocking-style mask and had a silencer on his gun—clear signs of a planned killing, state-run RIA-Novosti news agency reported, citing an unidentified law enforcement official.

A deputy editor of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, Andrei Lipsky, said freelancer Anastasia Baburova, who had written for the paper, was shot when she tried to intervene after Markelov was shot. She was taken to a hospital, but Lipsky said he did not know her condition.

Obama's gonna change it, Obama's gonna leeeeead 'em...

Who is more like Abraham Lincoln-- Barack Obama, or George W. Bush? While our lovely free media voluntarily enslaves itself to the silliest hero worship, calling Obama Lincoln and not in any way pointing out the absurdity of the comparison or even laughing at it-- actually taking it seriously, those "divisive" right-wing blogs that are just too bitter to get on the love train point out that Obama is more like the anti-war Copperhead Democrats of Civil War Fame-- i.e. Lincoln's opponent.

And that would make Lincoln, who stubbornly persisted in preserving the Union despite what everyone was telling him about the impossibility of victory and sustainability, despite all the casualties that were put on his head-- that would make him more like George W. Bush, who heroically persisted in the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, refusing to turn the former into an Iranian proxy state and the latter into the free and open training ground for every backward terrorist group imaginable, despite all the insane Copperheads screaming about how the blood of our children and the lives of innocent Iraqis were on his head.

Yea, Bush=Lincoln. It's a hundred times more true than this disgusting parody of history in which the cowardly Obama, who has never been responsible for anything, who has advanced through life and to the highest office of our country on smiles and charm alone, is somehow compared to Lincoln, who was sullen and depressive, a stubborn and committed defender of the Union, who had more enemies than not and was smuggled to Washington (for the first time) anonymously under cover of night, not with empty speeches and flocks of ignoramuses at every stop.