African Reich

I'm not usually one for comparing second-rate dictators to Hitler. This time, though, it's coming straight from the horse's mouth.

Comments

[Lefty]

Let's see. Looks like Mugabe's gonna have to take a number and stand in line. We've still got Iran and North Korea to bomb - once this other little dustup is finished.

[Gandu]

Why not do a noble thing and double our financial aids so that he can continue all the "good works" he's been doing.

[Steve]

Lefty! I'm surprised at you. You should be all for this guy! He's redistributed the wealth to the poor indiginous peoples from the bad, bad wealthy, white aggressors. The end justifies the means, right? This guy should be your freakin' HERO.

[Lefty]

Nah. A tad too much head bustin' for my taste.

I like the Chavez guy down in Venezuela. He knows where the real money is and is grabbing it legally. The little guys love him. Been re-elected two or three times and the oil execs are just livid. He must be doing something right.

[Lefty]

That was a Venezuelan oil exec.

[joseph]

But he doesn't say which Hitler he is taling about.

[Anonymous]

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16170

"Mugabe is now widely execrated, and rightly, but blame for him began late. Nothing is more astonishing than the silence about him for so many years among liberals and well-wishers?the politically correct. What crimes have been committed in the name of political correctness. A man may get away with murder, if he is black. Mugabe did, for many years."

[Anonymous]

oops, funny that was posted four down, twice even 😀 anyway, good read!

[Anonymous]

actually, i was just kind of thinking if i lived in zimbabwe and wanted to foment change for the better, i.e. kill/exile/depose mugabe?and given that the US only takes an interest in "regime change" if it is threatened?then, in a logically twisted way, i'd probably want to be blowing up as much US property and american civilians as possible and chalk it up to a "failed state."

it's not right of course, it abrogates personal responsibility and i think short-cuts the truly hard work of sustainable progressive development, self-fulfillment, determination and prideful identity, but i can't help thinking how seductive the path would be to someone willing to sacrifice their individual morality for the "greater good" of their land and people; it'd be patriotic even.

and so it is with the logic of triage preemption and prevention?that the worse-off may intentionally make themselves and others worser-off over the short-run for long-run gain; the self-inflicted wound becomes the catalyst for a better tomorrow. in this sense, the US may be subsidizing a global welfare state (as it has) but explicitly stated in the NSS and thomas barnett's concept of "the gap" misery, suffering and violence has gained currency.

[JDM]

Anon,

Except that now you have Mugabe trying to stop you, instead of helping you. Only states can build nuclear weapons.

[Anonymous]

no see it'd be done in mugabe's name: a pro-counter-insurgency if you will; an agent provacateur ensconced within the mugabe gov't to *make* an enemy of mine enemy! sorry, just watched the quiet american 😀

also, like i've been reading about irish neutrality during WWII: churchill was outraged and it was known at the time that german spies were working with sympathizers (against the british). what wasn't known and only recently revealed was that MI5 was working with the irish dept. of defence and who actively advocated the irish stay neutral so as not to tip their hand at intelligence gathering (counter-espionage) against the wehrmacht. wheels within wheels 😀 also see stephenson's cryptonomicon!

[Lazarus Long]

>>OK, Laz, what's your solution for a widening gap between rich and poor, or even middle class? >Is there a point where the top quits sucking the wealth from the bottom? > Do market forces take care of this or is some intervention required?>Or is it something we shouldn't bother ourselves with?

[Lefty]

I can't argue with that except it lacks detail. i.e. when you've got a system out of control, a "company town" for instance like we saw in coal mining country a century ago, the miners unionized, fought bloody battles with company goons and elected friendly politicians to balance the wealth and power of the company. The power of the government was their last and only hope.

I see a lot of similarities to this in the growing pains of African and South American countries.

[Lazarus Long]

>>The power of the government was their last and only hope.

[Lefty]

You're not that dude that makes soup on Seinfeld, are you?

[Lazarus Long]

Lefty,
Again all you can fall back on is accusing me of being a "fascist." You are a walking talking cliche.

PS: No soup for you!

[Lefty]

Here's an exerpt of a review of Kolko's book. You shouldn't pick on us lefties like that. Our feelings are easily hurt.

"If there is a lesson to be drawn from Kolko's work, it is the failure of all ideologies (whether from the right, left, or center) to adequately explain the rise of political capitalism in America. Both the right and the left share the common assumption that government regulation hurts big business."

Laz, I guess I'm just too dumb to keep up with your logic. You also seem to be wanting a "US-leashed" dictator to set these brown skinned yokels straight. So, that's a Democracy (or Republic or some sort of representative government) overseeing a dictator who oversees the masses.

Why not cut out the middle men and let the people rule themselves?

[Glenn C]

Guys & Gals:
You are missing the real story here. Recall just a short time ago the great peacemaker and freedom-lover Jacques Chirac convinced the EU to relax their prohibition against Mugabe so an African summit could be held in Paris. This comment from Mugabe tells us the real reason Chirac requested that waiver. Just as Mugabe is Hitler, Chirac is Petain. The summit in Paris was really a surrender negotiation. Vive la Vichy France!

[Lazarus Long]

"Both the right and the left share the common assumption that government regulation hurts big business"

FYI the point of the book that this assumption is inncorect. Regulation is the tool of Big Business.

For the rest, quit thinking in abstrations! That is my biggest pet peve about leftists! I am not talking about "Democracies overseeing a dictator who oversees the masses" in the abstract, but as something that would work today 2003 in places such as Africa and South America.

The particular people in question are not ready to "rule themselves" yet. They will simply elect a tryant into power, as they are poor, desparate and uneducated -- and tyrants tend to use these to dupe people.

History proves that democracy only works within the institutions of liberalism -- free markets, individual liberty, limited republican government, rule of law, property rights, separation of church and state, civic virtues and cultures of tolerance. These must be built FIRST and can only be built by force of arms. The alternative is mob rule followed by the *election* of a tyrant.

A US-leashed dicator would be better than an a Islamist-leashed dicator in today's environment, for security reasons. However the ideal model for the particualar nations of Africa and South America (and Islam for that matter) would be a Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Republic of Turkey.

Maybe even a Pinoche, murderer that he was, did wonders in Chile with his "Chicago Gang" of economists who have built one of the most free and prosperous nations in the third-world. Ironically Pinoche himself was cast out by the very liberal society that he helped build, which is a great example of what I am talking about.

[Anonymous]

Is this "Pinoche" fellow related to Mr. Pinochet?

[godlesscapitalist]

Lefty & Lazarus:

A pure free market solution works as long as you have an ethnically homogeneous country (like China, the UK, etc.). When you don't, you get a market-dominant minority - a group that's more clever than the rest of the population, and better at accumulating capital and running businesses. The free market rewards their competence, but the majority group looks on their wealth as illegitimate, leading to pogroms. This is the plight of Jews (everywhere), Chinese (through Southeast Asia), Indians (in Africa), Europeans (in South Africa), etc. See Amy Chua's book (World on Fire) for more on this.

Of course, the *absence* of a free market means a worse standard of living for everyone (everyone equally badly off), as we've seen from the three times we've partitioned an ethnically homogeneous society into commie/capitalist systems (N/S Korea, HK & Taiwan/China, E/W Germany).

[Heather]

Chavez didn't turn Venezuela into a shit hole. It pretty much already was.
The reason that there is such a problem there is because most of their economy comes from the nations nationalized oil, (because oil is nationalized, only 20% of the population has to pay any taxes) but the people on the oil board were accepting big kickbacks from the US and in return, they didnt follow OPEC price guidlines, thus the country was robbed of their main source of revenue. When Chavez came into power, he fired them.
The US plotted a coup agaisnt him, it failed.
The strikes can mostly be attributed to the heads of corperations closing the doors of the factories, they are not organised by actual labor leaders. When the people are home all day not working, they dont have much to do but take the streets (anti-Chavez or pro-Chavez), beings the strikes are the only things that any of their telivision stations broadcast anymore theres nothing good on to even watch.

[Lazarus Long]

As long as Mugabe is politically correct and murders 49% of his population (especially evil capitalists and whites) with the backing of the poor black 51%, then the Left will worship the ground he walks on.

Mugabe = Leftist
Hitler = Leftist

Leftism = mass murder

Why is this trend so unclear to people?

[Lefty]

OK, Laz, what's your solution for a widening gap between rich and poor, or even middle class?

Is there a point where the top quits sucking the wealth from the bottom? Do market forces take care of this or is some intervention required? Or is it something we shouldn't bother ourselves with?

[Robert Hutchinson]

OK, Laz, what's your solution for a widening gap between rich and poor, or even middle class?

Let's have some fun with hypotheticals, hmmm?

Lefty, let's imagine that you're poor and Lazarus is rich. (Feel free to switch your statuses if you're bothered by any implication.) Now, let's imagine that I have $3,000 burning a hole in my pocket. I give you, Lefty, $1,000, and I give Lazarus $2,000.

In this microcosm, I have just widened the gap between rich and poor. If you're measuring the gap as a percentage, the three Gs can still be divided so that the gap is ultimately widened.

Now, some questions. Am I wrong not to split my cash gifts equally? Should I be forced to split the gifts equally? If the gap is so detrimental, should I be forced to only give you money until you have amassed wealth equal to or greater than Lazarus'? Is the $1,000 I've given you in any way made less valuable by the $2,000 I've given Lazarus?

If you want to argue that the poor are being made poorer, or are being wrongly prevented from justly growing richer, fine. But in those cases, that's what needs to be said. "Correcting the gap between the rich and the poor", as a concept, is laughable.

[Lefty]

Steve! Sconsin got over represented in the NCAA's. I'm needing some help in my bracket but Marquette's fucking it all up.

What ever happened to parity?

[Lefty]

Nice! I like that.

But what if you give Laz $2,999 and I only get a buck? And a hamburger costs two bucks!?

I would be very unhappy.

[Lazarus Long]

You may be unhappy but you would be $1 richer with free money. But I think Robert is missing the bigger picture: The $3,000 only EXISTS because SOMEBODY produced it.

A widening gap between richer and poorer is irrelvent if the rich are PRODUCING and the poor are too lazy/stupid to add value. However I do suspect that in many third-world countries this gap exsists because the Power Elite in these nations are either robbing the poor at gunpoint (taxes, confiscation) or robbing the poor of opportunity by failing to build the right institutions (property rights, rule of law, etc). Since these poor are usually used as dupes by violent Communists and Islamists, this problem is very relevent and it is a US national interest to solve it.

[Barrett Bill]

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DATE: 01/21/2004 08:41:59
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