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2008, the year American greatness collapsed
Jeffrey Kuhner l
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Historians will look at 2008 and say it was the year that America ceased to be a great superpower. A war-weary public threw in the towel against Islamic fascism, and embraced President-elect Barack Obama´s policy of appeasement. Groveling in fear of a recession, Americans also overthrew their free-market ideals. This was the year of false hope by an Obama prophet who will only accelerate our demise.
The core of Mr. Obama's appeal - behind the vacuous promises of "change" and "hope" - is that his election will "restore America's standing in the world." The muscular, unilateralist foreign policy of President Bush is over. Conservative nationalism is out; liberal multilateralism is in. Mr. Obama vows to wind down the Iraq war, restore our alliances and engage in direct dialogue with rogue states, such as Iran, North Korea and Venezuela.
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For the remarkable Japanese, it's time to dance
Sol Sanders l
Monday, January 5, 2009
Japan is stumbling into what could be a year of seminal decision-making for a people, a culture, and an economy — all still unique and critical for her Asian neighbors and the keystone of U.S. strategies and policies in the region.
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The daunting year ahead, for the economy, China, and Barack Obama
John Metzler l
Friday, December 19, 2008
BENNINGTON, Vermont — With my crystal ball somewhat clouded by a snowstorm, I’m still going ahead to predict some trends our weary and jolted world can expect in the new year. Given the financial meltdown and the global economic doldrums, optimism remains in predictably short supply. So let’s face the facts and let realism be our guide in viewing some key issues.
Global Economy: The Autumn 2008 Financial meltdown has done irreparable damage to the USA and the world in general. The individual Wall Street crooks who in many cases created this crisis should be unceremoniously indicted, prosecuted, and punished if guilty. The economy has drifted into rocky recessionary shoals not seen since the late 1970’s. This was not a failure of free market capitalism as is so glibly stated, but the long-looming outcome of casino capitalism, fueled by play money, and marinated in a cozy relationship of gazillionaries with politicians.
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Oh, woe is us: A new year ahead
Wesley Pruden l
Friday, January 2, 2009
Welcome to 2009, the year when it's suddenly unpatriotic, or at least ill-mannered, to be an optimist. Franklin D. Roosevelt told us that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself (cribbing Stonewall Jackson's warning to "never take counsel with your fears"), and Ronald Reagan reassured us that despite discouraging times, it's still "morning in America."
Optimism has always been the engine driving the American dream, but in the wake of bad news, the peddlers of gloom, doom and drear carry the day. The Baltimore Sun greeted the new year with the headline that these are the worst times since the '30s, and The Washington Post offered its usual menu of victim stories - five of the seven headlines were about bad things happening to good people - the first among them the news that $6.9 trillion dollars in wealth was wiped out on Wall Street in 2008.
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The invisibile war by the owners of China
Lev Navrozov l
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
I have been buying all books like “War and the World” by Jeremy Black, Professor of History at the University of Exeter, or “War and Anti-War” by Alvin and Heidi Toffler. None of these authors seems to realize that they describe old-fashioned wars, which were attempts of armed people to occupy or to hold a certain territory. But already in 1939 to 1945, the real war of today was the development of atom or atomic bombs in the U.S.A. and Germany. The war was won by the U.S.A. because Hitler (1) let scientists, including Einstein, flee to the U.S.A., and (2) he had been wasting the nuclear development money on his irrelevant attempt to occupy Russia.
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Government as cancer, Obama or no Obama
Mark Steyn l
Mon, November 10, 2008
My Republican friends are now saying, oh, not to worry, look at the exit polls, this is still a "center-right" country. Americans didn't vote to go left, they voted to go cool. It was a "Dancing With The Stars" election: Barack Obama's a star and everyone wants to dance with him. It doesn't mean they're suddenly gung-ho for left-wingery.
Up to a point. Unlike those excitable countries where the peasants overrun the presidential palace, settled democratic societies rarely vote to "go left". Yet oddly enough that's where they've all gone. In its assumptions about the size of the state and the role of government, almost every advanced nation is more left than it was, and getting lefter.
Even in America, federal spending (in inflation-adjusted 2007 dollars) has gone from $600 billion in 1965 to $3 trillion today. The Heritage Foundation put it in a convenient graph: It's pretty much a straight line across four decades, up, up, up. Doesn't make any difference who controls Congress, who's in the White House. The government just grows and grows, remorselessly.
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