Why the National Defense Authorization Act Now?

By Marti Hiken and Luke Hiken

Barack Obama just signed into law one of the most repressive and right-wing pieces of legislation ever passed in the history of the country: the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It allows the military, a.k.a. the Pentagon, to determine who is a “terrorist” and to detain that person in prison, indefinitely, without trial, under its jurisdiction. It makes no difference whether the person is a U.S. citizen or a foreign “enemy combatant.”

The NDAA takes the civilian judicial system out of the equation regarding who is a “combatant” or “terrorist” and substitutes military command over every person inside or outside of the United States. By defining the entire U.S. as a battlefield, all the Pentagon needs to do, in order to exercise this power, is get the approval of the sitting president.

Historically in the U.S., questions of criminality were determined by civilian tribunals. The country has now yielded the principle of arrest, detainment, punishment, and imprisonment to executive privilege. This catapults American jurisprudence back into the reign of George the Third.

David Cameron THE LEGAL Terrorist By Taxi Driver

Political Incorrectness Warning:
Not Suitable for Bankers, Zionists, NeoCons, or Other Wankers

As the fraudulence of liberal democracy, a form of government spread chiefly by the likes of alleged Nazi Jew, George Soros and the various foundations and color revolutions that he supports, the phone bugger, Rupert Murdoch and his stable of pornographic, religious and supposedly serious news publications and broadcast outlets, and by US/NATO carpet bombing of countries rich in oil and gas or with territory suitable for oil and gas pipelines and oil export terminals, there seems little that the citizen can do other than make rude noises to detract from the dignity of the thieves, frauds and psychopaths who stand atop the manure pile.

Harmless though such childish behavior no doubt is, an end to it will surely soon be made, either by legal prohibition or by the simple expedient of designating those foolish simpletons carried away by the fun of it as "enemy combatants" to be detained indefinitely without rights or trial.

So, let us enjoy making rude noises while we can:


Video link via http://govermentterrorism.blogspot.com/

The Euro: A Weapon of Economic Mass Disruption

By CanSpeccy

As if the peoples of Europe weren't already sufficiently screwed, seventeen European states joined the Euro currency union in 1999.

This was a disaster in waiting dreamt up by, among others, Edward Heath (U.K. Prime Minister, 1970–74), who could also claim responsibility for establishing the politically correct view on mass immigration to Britain by kicking Sir Cyril Osborne out of the Conservative Party caucus for stating that Britain was a white country for white people and by firing Enoch Powell from the cabinet for warning about the peril of civil strife if mass immigration continued.

Heath who, in 1971, took Britain into the European Economic Community under the false claim that it was a free trade association not a proto-political union, advocated a common European currency because, in trading with Europeans, he asserted, it would save the trivial inconvenience of changing one's money.

Fortunately, for Britain, Heath's Conservative successors rejected membership in the Eurozone, and Tony Blair feared to arouse the anger of the electorate by reversing their decision.

The countries entering the Eurozone did so without provision for fiscal union or any other basis for adapting their widely differing economies to dynamic shifts in relative performance.

As a consequence, the Eurozone constitutes a potent mechanism for economic destabilization. Here's why. All nations engage in foreign trade, not merely to obtain commodities or industrial products that they lack, but to enjoy a diversity of goods and services beyond the basic necessities that they are unable to produce economically for themselves.

Thus, America, for example, which produces perfectly acceptable California wine, imports wine that is rarely superior to the Californian product from France and Spain, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, Chile and Peru among many other countries. Likewise, Canada, with more trees than any nation save Russia and Brazil, nevertheless imports American Christmas trees and wooden power poles.

To purchase from abroad one must first buy a foreign currency. The price of one currency in terms of another is largely a matter of supply and demand, which means that a country that becomes increasing competitive in international trade will see its currency appreciate in value against other currencies, thereby checking exports and encouraging imports. Conversely, a country that loses competitiveness will see its currency fall in value relative to that of others, thereby checking imports and boosting exports.

Although there are complications as, for example, when a country hoards foreign currency, or engages in the export or import of substantial quantities of investment capital, the effect of such actions are ironed out in due course.

However, if countries join together in a currency union, there is no mechanism to adjust imports and exports on a country-by-country basis so that exports and imports of each country roughly balance. On the contrary, the use of a common currency creates an instability leading to runaway economic distortion resulting in the disintegration and collapse of the least competitive economies and the accelerated expansion of the most competitive economies.

For example, when the international competitiveness of one country in the currency union declines, it tends to lower the exchange value of the common currency, which in turn stimulates the exports of the strongest members of the union, while reducing its imports.

Conversely, the success of the most competitive countries in raising exports and limiting imports tends to raise the exchange value of the common currency, which in turn depresses the already poor export performance of the least internationally competitive members of the union, while increasing their imports.

This means that a currency union guarantees an exchange rate that is too low for the most competitive member states and too high for the least competitive member states, and this unavoidable mispricing of the currency  leads to runaway economic growth and falling unemployment for the the most competitive members of the union at the cost of declining output and rising unemployment for the least competitive members of the union.

This is precisely what is happening within the Eurozone now. Germany and several other North European states are growing fast as the southern Eurozone states, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain see their economies contract, their government revenues shrink and their public debt explode.

The problem could be solved through the creation of a fiscal union which would permit tax revenue to be siphoned from the strong economies to cover welfare costs or to increase investment in the weak economies. This is what happens within most national jurisdictions, but it is a fairly stupid solution, and in the context of the Eurozone, it is naturally uncongenial to the Germans and other prospering members of the union who believe that inhabitants of the less prosperous states need to work harder and earn less.

Another solution would be for the unemployed in Greece or Spain to migrate to Germany or Netherlands where employment opportunities are more abundant. But due to language barriers (not every European is multilingual, and few indeed speak Hungarian, Slovenian, Slovak, Bulgarian or Romanian) and generous unemployment pay and cultural factors, ready internal labor mobility is not a feature of the Eurozone, as the current unemployment statistics bear out. In Spain, unemployment now stands at 22.9%, whereas in Germany unemployment is at a "record low" of 6.8%.

A further possibility would be the adoption of a process whereby wage rates are adjusted country by country at regular intervals to reflect changes in national unemployment rates. Thus, where unemployment is high, all wages and benefits would be adjusted downward in accordance with an appropriate formula. Conversely, where unemployment is low, wages would be adjusted upward in accordance with the same formula. The result would be to balance competitiveness and employment rates in all countries.

And the formula could be extended within nations to even out regional differences in employment. Thus those in regions of high unemployment would have the option of accepting work at below national average wages or moving to a more prosperous region.

Although this is a perfectly viable scheme for which I readily accept public acknowledgment, it is presumably beyond the intellectual grasp of most bureaucrats and politicians and is unlikely, therefore, to receive acceptance in less than a hundred years.

In the meantime, one can expect continued buggering around that makes the leadership of Europe look increasingly incompetent.

Perhaps the result will be the withdrawal from the Eurozone by those countries most adversely affected. Greece, apparently, is already threatening: give us 130 billion Euros or we split. This could be the prelude to a return to the happy days of independent, democratic, self-governing European nations, each with its own currency, but joined in a free trade association and a mutual defense and non-aggression pact.

Throw in a consultative committee of heads of state operating under the motto "Independence Forever", or just "Never Again", and it might work.

See also:
What's Wrong With Europe and What Needs to Be Done About It

What's Wrong With Europe and What Needs to Be Done About It

By CanSpeccy

Europe has three key problems, debt, unemployment and immigration, all of which derive from the 1994 GATT agreement, which opened the way for global wage arbitrage and unrestricted free trade.

Off-shoring of jobs drove up unemployment and welfare costs, while driving down tax revenues, thus creating public sector deficits.

Cheap imports of both goods and services kept inflation low even as interest rates were reduced to counter deflation. Cheap credit created a Ponzi economy in which credit drove asset prices, mainly houses, and asset prices drove credit demand.

As with all Ponzi schemes, the trajectory of growth in debt and asset prices reached its apogee and set off a vicious cycle of declining prices and debt default which destroyed bank capital, squeezed consumption and drove unemployment even higher.

Mass immigration is just another aspect of wage arbitrage: bringing the cheap labor in, rather than sending the work out.

As Cambridge University economics Professor Ha-Joon Chang explained (1):

If there were free migration, most workers in rich countries could be, and would be, replaced by workers from poor countries.

What that means is that immigration creates unemployment among the indigenous population.

Let me say that again: European governments deliberately pursue immigration policies that displace their own people from gainful employment by importing people from elsewhere who are more competitive than the least productive members of the indigenous workforce.

And let those "tolerant" middle-class liberals living in leafy white suburbs, who love diversity and call Emma West a racist remember, it could be their job next, for if it pays to rob the lowest paid of the opportunity to work, how much more profitable would it be to do the same to university professors, engineers, doctors, and most public sector employees.

Understanding this last point might go a long way toward pricking the bubble of political correctness that so distorts perception and prevents intelligent discussion of European immigration policies.

But how are European states handling the triple crisis of debt, unemployment and mass immigration?

With the usual combination of stupidity, short-sightedness and brutality that characterizes "liberal" democracies fronting for globalist corporate oligarchs.

With declining revenues and the need for bank bailouts to avoid economic chaos, government deficits have massively increased, taxes have been raised, welfare benefits cut, the unemployed left to r(i)ot, and mass immigration, both legal and illegal, facilitated to drive wages even lower.

The net result?

A reduction in GDP, living standards, and workforce skills and the progressive destruction of the racial and cultural identity of the European peoples.

What should the European states do instead?

There are only two ways to deal with debt.

One is to quit borrowing, spend less, work harder, create a surplus and repay the loan.

The other is to borrow from Peter to pay off Paul, while ripping off all your creditors with haircuts, payment in debased coin, or outright default.

Sloughing off the debt by money printing and negotiating haircuts is already in progress. It will leave Europe poorer, demoralized and internationally less competitive.

The route to repayment requires two things.

First, massive cuts in government spending to liberate resources to repay debts. Program cuts should focus on reducing the size of the public sector, bringing public sector wages back in line with private sector wages and eliminating benefits for the the middle and upper classes such as  grants for higher education, and subsidies for windmills that don't work just when you need the juice.

Second, getting the unemployed off the dole and into jobs where they contribute to the creation of wealth and acquire skills that enhance their productivity and hence market worth.

Th problem of unemployment cannot be solved as long as (a) welfare pays as well or better than the minimum wage, (b) the wage an employer must pay exceeds the value -- in a globalized market -- of the available labor, and (c) the state permits mass legal and illegal immigration of those who will displace the least competitive indigenous citizens from the workforce.

To make the unemployed worth employing at a living wage will require a wage subsidy scheme such as I've discussed elsewhere.

Briefly, employers would compete for subsidies through a public auction in which the higher the winning bids, the lower the subsidies.

Such a scheme, in the absence of mass immigration, would make virtually every able-bodied adult employable and would gives employers a level playing field upon which to compete internationally.

The cost of a wage subsidy scheme will be largely offset by the savings in welfare spending (including the indirect costs of unemployment such as elevated rates of crime, prison incarceration, and mental illness) that will result from bringing tens of millions of Europeans back into the workforce. It will also increase GDP, as off-shored work is brought home; improve the balance of payments through import substitution; increase corporate profits and hence government revenue; enhance workforce skills; create the surpluses necessary for the repayment of both private and public debt; and not of least importance, end the genocidal program of mass immigration to among the most crowded nations on Earth.

(1)Ha-Joon Chang. Things they don't tell you about capitalism. Bloomsbury Press. 2010.

See also:
The Euro: A Weapon of Economic Mass Disruption

Per ardua ad astra: Why not?

By CanSpeccy

Escher Dyson Sphere

A post over at Tallbloke's Talkshop argues that we need global governance to restrict hydrocarbon energy use if we are to avoid civilizational collapse when supplies of hydrocarbon fuels abruptly run out.

The idea makes a change from the "if we don't stop burning so much oil we'll all die an 'orrible death from global warming" argument for the Global Soviet Socialist Republic, but seems hardly more convincing.

Of interest, though, is the argument in an article to which the author links, which states:

No matter what the technology, a sustained 2.3% energy growth rate would require us to produce as much energy as the entire sun within 1400 years.

In other words, so we are to assume, our present course of ever increasing energy use is totally unsustainable.

But wait, is it really inconceivable that we could harness the sun's entire output of energy?

Not to the visionaries:

When we physicists look at outer space for alien life," says Michio Kaku, Professor of Theoretical Physics at City of New York University, "we don't look for little green men, we look for Type I, Type II and Type III civilizations. A Type I civilization has harnessed it's planetary power ... A Type II civilization is stellar ... they get their energy directly from their mother star. Eventually, they exhaust the power of a star and they go galactic" (i.e., become Type III)

So could we evolve in a mere 1400 years to the point of going galactic, of evolving from a Type I to a mature Type II civilization?

Freeman Dyson

Absolutely. In theory, anyhow. A means proposed by the legendary mathematician, Freeman Dyson, would be to build a sphere surrounding the sun, which would intercept every emitted photon and converts its energy to human use.

A Dyson sphere (or shell as it appeared in the original paper) is a hypothetical megastructure originally described by Freeman Dyson. Such a "sphere" would be a system of orbiting solar power satellites meant to completely encompass a star and capture most or all of its energy output. Dyson speculated that such structures would be the logical consequence of the long-term survival and escalating energy needs of a technological civilization, and proposed that searching for evidence of the existence of such structures might lead to the detection of advanced intelligent extraterrestrial life. (Maveric Universe Wiki)

So why not?

Let us abhore global governance, but instead "boldly go where no man has gone before": each small group in its own independent, self-governing, hollowed-out solar-powered asteroid.

What won't happen in 2012, let's hope

By CanSpeccy

This is the time of year when some otherwise sensible people offer a prediction as to how the World's economy will unfold during the forthcoming year. Such forecasts are perfectly harmless and perfectly useless because the evolution of the economy depends on events that cannot be predicted with the requisite accuracy. 

Image source

For example, the Atlantic Island of La Palma, just off the northwest coast of Africa, periodically sheds a few trillion tons of congealed lava into the ocean setting off a tsunami of such destructiveness as to make the 2011 Japan tsunami look like a ripple on the surface of a puddle.

Such a wave, according to a BBC report  would be

...far bigger than anything ever witnessed in modern times. It will surge across the entire Atlantic in a matter of hours, engulfing the whole US east coast, sweeping away everything in its path up to 20km inland. Boston would be hit first, followed by New York, then all the way down the coast to Miami and the Caribbean.

So there go your New York mega banks and with them the global financial system.

Area of the US under ash after an eruption of the
Yellowstone mega-volcano.

And that's not all that Americans have to worry about.

There's Yellowstone, the World's largest volcano. If that blows, it's basically all over for the US economy -- half the country would be buried in ash. And that would mean collapse of the Chinese since they'd have no one to print the money to buy all their stuff.

China itself could be the source of economic disturbance no less catastrophic. A place where people and pigs, fish and poultry live in close proximity and in huge numbers, China is where a hitherto insignificant virus may at this moment be switching hosts to cause a global pandemic that rivals the black death in global reach, lethality and economic impact.

Plague victims, Martigues, France.

China, though, may not represent the greatest threat as a source of the next pandemic. Dutch scientists have just reverse engineered bird flu to make it spread through the air. Let loose it could wipe out most of the World's population, which would certainly mean a hit to global GDP.

"It only took a small number of mutations to change the avian flu virus," said one of the scientists concerned. 

We have discovered that this is indeed possible, and more easily than previously thought. In the laboratory, it was possible to change H5N1 into an aerosol-transmissible virus that can easily be rapidly spread through the air.

Oh, well done, chaps. The planet may be rid of this pesky creature Homo sapiens sooner than the most radical ecopolyptic environmentalist could hope.

But the chances of any of the above happening in 2012 is probably less than even, although a small to medium-sized nuclear war, starting in the Middle East seems far from improbable.  More likely, though, we'll get through with nothing much worse than the complete bankruptcy of half a dozen countries and the disappearance of most if not all of your pension and mine.

The World Economy in 2012

Clark and Dawe: World Economy Collapse explained in 3 minutes


John Ross: China's pivotal role in the world economy in 2012

James Petras: A Doomsday View of 2012

The Government Can - By Tim Hawkins


John Ward: The EU debt crisis; Poppa Piccolino’s cash concertina hits the highnotes

Mish: 2012 Predictions; 2011 Year in Review with Max Keiser

Aangirfan: The Economy in 2012

Max Keiser and With Steve Keen: the UK’s 950% Debt to GDP (From 14.00 On)

And from Nostradamus: 

Cool Climate Links

Steve McIntyre: How U. East Anglia handles a Freedom of Information Request

Roger Tattersall: Climate realism: Tallbloke style

R. Neukom et al.: The Southern Hemisphere medieval warm period

... mean summer temperatures between 900 and 1350 are mostly above the 1901–1995 climatology. After 1350, we reconstruct a sharp transition to colder conditions, which last until approximately 1700. The summers in the eighteenth century are relatively warm with a subsequent cold relapse peaking around 1850. In the twentieth century, summer temperatures reach conditions similar to earlier warm periods. The winter temperatures in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were mostly below the twentieth century average.

Tony Brown: The long, slow thaw?

A warming trend can be observed from 1659, the start date of Central England Temperature  (CET)- the oldest instrumental record in the world- to today.  It would be a notable coincidence if the warming started at the exact point that this record began. The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct CET from its current start point, through the use of diverse historical records, to 1538, in order to see if the commencement of this centuries long warming trend can be identified from within this time frame.


Figure 1 CET from 1659-in the style of Hadley 1772

How the Liberal-Left Are Destroying Britain's National Identity

'The English are potentially very
aggressive, very violent" - Jack Straw

By Info on Islam

So this is what they've been doing for the past twelve years...
".....replacing traditional pride with inherited guilt: all of this could be facilitated by a large influx of migrants whose presence in the population would require the wholesale deconstruction of the country's sense of its own identity."

"New Labour tide brought with it in the beginning: the contempt for history and the Year Zero arrogance with which they set about "modernising" the nation's institutions."

"But the subtext was always self-examination and personal guilt: the indigenous Briton must be trained (literally, by the education system) always to question the acceptability of his own attitudes, to cast doubt on his own motives, to condemn his own national identity and history, to accept the blame even for the misbehaviour of new migrants – whose conduct could only be a reflection of the unfortunate way they were treated by the host population." - Green Arrow

Hidden agenda
When the Labour control freaks came to power twelve years ago they had a secret agenda to destroy British identity and national pride, with Englishness as public enemy number one.

At the time of their election victory, anyone who suggested that Labour were setting out on a deliberate campaign of nation-wrecking would have been regarded as a loony conspiracy theorist. But recently overwhelming evidence has emerged showing that this was their intention all along.

Politically motivated attempt to radically change the country
The first revelation of their hidden agenda came from Andrew Neather, a former government adviser
"The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and "rub the Right's nose in diversity", according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.
He said Labour's relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to "open up the UK to mass migration" but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its core working class vote." - Telegraph

Secret policy paper proposed a cultural jihad against Britishness
Then, confirmation came from the release of the full text of the draft policy paper composed in 2000 by a Home Office research unit – the gist of which had already been made public by a former Labour adviser – released under Freedom of Information rules. It is political dynamite.

Genocide of the English

By Paul Weston 

“A West which has not yet understood that whites, in a world become too small for its inhabitants, are now a minority and that the proliferation of other races dooms our race, my race, irretrievably to extinction in the century to come, if we hold fast to our present moral principles”

Jean Raspail, 1982, The Camp Of The Saints
 
It is understandable that the vast majority of the heavily propagandised English populace remain unaware of the continental shift in immigrant demographics and birth rates that will relegate the indigenous population of England under the age of 40 to ethnic minority status in their homeland within twenty years.

Understandable, admittedly, but if these recipients of a progressive education and 24/7 cradle-to-grave state-sponsored brainwashing could remove their liberal blinkers and gaze in horror at their surroundings through the eyes of their grandparents, then they could only have themselves to blame, because their dispossession was carried out in full view of those that would not see, and in retrospect how could there be any other outcome than gradual extinction when one considers exactly what out socialist rulers have carried out over the last few decades?

Almost Three-Quarters of Brits Consider Moving From Their Advanced Cultural Marxist Totalitarian Country

Source

Reuters, May 10, 2010: Almost three-quarters of Britons have considered emigrating this year, with Australia as the most popular destination, according to a new survey.

The survey carried out by foreign exchange broker Currency UK found that 31 percent of respondents cited the poor state of the British economy as the reason for wanting to leave, while 23 percent blamed the lack of job prospects and 19 percent said they are worried about the outcome of last week's election.

"Our survey highlights that many Brits are concerned by the prospect of a hung Parliament and that the next four years will be dominated by huge tax rises, cuts in public service and inflation," Currency UK senior account manager Adrian Jacob said.

The numbers have dramatically risen compared to Currency UK's last survey on emigration in 2005, when only 25 percent of respondents said they had considered leaving Britain.

About one in 10 of the 1,029 people surveyed said that a change in the pace of life was the main reason they wanted to emigrate.

The survey also found that Canada was the next most popular destination after Australia, followed by the United States, New Zealand, Spain, France and Thailand.

(Reporting by Valle Aviles Pinedo, editing by Paul Casciato)

And What Is Racist About Objecting to the Genocide of Your Own People?

See any Brits, lately? (Image source)

"A woman accused of launching a vile racist rant on a tram is to spend Christmas behind bars after she was remanded in custody for her own safety" reported Britain's Daily Mail.

But it's not just an accusation, according to You-Tube:
Racist London Tram Lady 2011 - Emma West of New Addington in Croydon - CAUGHT ON CAMERA!!!

The BBC deploys the same smear, but they're tricky about it:
Racist tram rant accused Emma West remanded after court hearing
See, they included the word "accused" but you get the idea, she's gotta be a white racial supremacist.

Then that stinker Nick Griffin (is he not of the security services?), steps in to associate Emma West, in the public mind, with his own toxic effluvium.

The Metro conveys the smear, while avoiding the risk of a libel suit by the use of inverted commas: Woman, 34, charged over 'racist rant' on My Tram Experience video.

The openly racist organization, Operation Black Vote, resorts to the same despicable legally permissible smear with its story:

Show ‘Emma the racist’ compassion

LOL. The settler colonists have no compunction when it comes to screwing a native.

Which prompts reproduction of the following article.

Emma West. Truth or Racial Harassment?

Green Arrow, The British Resistance: So they tracked down the Tram Lady, 34 year old Emma West for daring to speak the truth and stand up for British People in a public place, arrested her and held her on remand until she appears in Court sometime today. Did she attack someone after the camera stopped selectively filming?

Globalist Lies About Offshoring Jobs

The globalist lies about the British job market

Robert Henderson

Source

England Calling, November  19, 2011: One of the great lies of the modern liberal is that in developed countries such as Britain unskilled  and low skilled jobs are a rapidly shrinking commodity.  Daniel Knowles of the Daily Telegraph  was at it  on 17 November with Our greatest social problem: there are no jobs left for the dim (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielknowles/100118217/our-greatest-social-problem-there-are-no-jobs-left-for-the-dim/).  He tried to explain  away Britain’s growing problem of youth unemployment by arguing that the less bright, less educated British youngsters of  today are unemployed because “Robots and Chinese people have taken over the sorts of jobs that 16 year olds could get without any qualifications straight out of school and work in for a lifetime.  The only jobs left for the under-educated, or often just the less academic, are in service industries: serving coffee, cleaning toilets, stacking shelves. These jobs are not the first rung on the ladder. There is no ladder; no one hopes to work in Pret a Manger for life.”

There are several interesting aspects of Knowles’ comment. First, he assumes that offshoring jobs to places like China is something which cannot be reversed and the practice carries no moral opprobrium.  Second, he makes the assumption that everyone wants a career rather than just a secure job which allows them to live independently. Third, he makes no mention of the role mass immigration has played in creating unemployment amongst the young, something which can only be explained by  Knowles being of the generation which has been brainwashed into pretending that the ill effects  of immigration do not exist.

Knowles’ ideas about the young could be as readily applied to British workers of all ages if one accepts his interpretation of  the state of the labour market.  He is right on the superficial detail that  less well-qualified Britons British workers are increasingly being left without unskilled and low-skilled work, but wrong in understanding of why this is and his implied assumption that Britain’s economic circumstances cannot be changed.

Read more

Emma West and the colonization of Britain

Alex Kurtagic
From the Occidental Observer

Only a racist could object. (Image)

With her four-letter words and direct syntax, Emma West has truly focused the Leftist mind, for one remarkable aspect of the reaction to her critique of government immigration policy in Britain is the sudden regurgitation, in concentrated form, of Leftist clichés in support of the status quo.

For those of us who enjoy analysing those clichés, this reaction has simplified our work, since we now need only to look at any one single source to find them all helpfully collated for our convenience.

It hardly seems worth bothering responding to some of the most common assertions. The idea that Britain has a ‘tradition’ of welcoming every imaginable race because the island was invaded at various times by White folk with differently coloured hair is simply not a matter for serious debate.

Merry Christmas

The Ilgachuz Range, left, and the Itcha Range, right, viewed from the West across a stretch of the Chilcotin Plateau, British Columbia, Canada. Most inhabitants of this region are First Nations people, members of the Tsilhqot'in and Dakelh peoples.

The so-named Ilgachuz Range is not a mountain range but rather a single, heavily-eroded extinct volcano formed about five million years ago. It is located in British Columbia, Canada, on the Chilcotin Plateau, 350 kilometres north-northwest of Vancouver and 30 km north of Anahim Lake.

The Itcha Range is the 2.5-million-year-old remnant of a 10-kilometer-diameter volcano that has been eroded by glaciers.

Image: The Bella Coola Blog

Scrooge (1951) with Alistair Sim


Paul Craig Roberts: The Greatest Gift for All

Mark Stein: THE MULTICULTURAL DEPARTURE LOUNGE

The Economic Optimist: One American Still As Good As Ten Chinese

By CanSpeccy

Economics has been called the dismal science, but over at Carpe Diem, Professor Mark J. Perry's "Blog for Economics and Finance," it is the feelgood science. Whenever the markets slump I head over there for a dose of unrelenting economic and financial good cheer. Here, for example, are the topics of a recent handful of posts

The Magic and Miracle of the Marketplace. Yeah!
Mortgage Rates Fall to Fresh Historic Record Lows. Yeah!
Leading Economic Index Points to Ongoing Growth. Yeah!
US GDP tops pre-recession high. Yeah!
Jobless Claims Fall to Lowest Level Since Mid-2008. Yeah!

But here's the one I really like:

China Is Now World's No. 1 Manufacturer. Uh-oh!

Image Source

But don't worry. As the text is quick to explain, this reflects no great credit on the Chinese -- far from it:

China's manufacturing workforce is estimated to be around 100 million and could be as high as 120 million, compared to America's manufacturing employment of about 11.5 million. Therefore, China is producing roughly the same manufacturing output as the U.S. but Chinese worker productivity is so low it needs 9-10 workers for every one American factory worker.

Yeah!

Or, rather LOL.

For if Americans produced for themselves what the Chinese produce for them, for example, iPads, computers and car parts, those things would cost many times what they cost now.

In other words, Americans produce only what the Chinese don't, e.g., F-35 Fighter jets at $110 million per copy and rising, plus large civilian aircraft, missiles, cluster bombs, etc., patented drugs, lumber, leather, minerals, cement, steel and other bulky building products for home consumption, all of which can be sold at prices reflecting American wages because there's no Chinese competition.

True, in dollar terms, China produces only slightly more than America while using a much larger workforce to do it. But that reflects China's competitive advantage. Where China competes with America it provides massively better value.

Which explains the trajectory of growth in Chinese manufacturing. US post-recession manufacturing has barely recovered to the 2006 level. In the same period, China's manufacturing output has approximately doubled.

In a globalized economy, wages in the West are converging with those in the Rest. As they do so, prices of manufactured goods from China will rise. But by then it will be the Chinese who have the bulk of the World's manufacturing plant and the workforce skills to out-compete the West even on a level playing field.

Oh well, enjoy it if you can. It takes ten Chinese making iPads to produce the same dollar volume of output as one American sawing lumber or building rockets, which truly goes to show how smart we in the West are.

Exporting Democracy

By CanSpeccy

The God Obama?

Exporting democracy is something many American presidents have been keen to do. Woodrow Wilson, who campaigned for election on the promise of peace but who, on election, went to war with Germany, thereby extending World War One by two years to achieve a German surrender instead of a negotiated peace and achieving the Russian Revolution as a bonus, is among the great names in American democratic philanthropism.

Almost single-handedly Wilson created the League of Useless Nations, which did nothing whatever to prevent World War Two, but generated much rhetorical humbug, which is certainly the essence of American democracy.

But Barak H. Obama, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who has started more wars than any other American, will surely be judged, as he judges himself, as one of the great American leaders when it comes to delivering America's democracy to other countries whether they want it or not.

This drive to export America's democracy to the World at whatever cost to the recipients, though undoubtedly admirably, has a downside, which is the creation of a shortage of democracy at home.

A glimpse at America's current democratic deficit was provided by Obama's recent boast that he can have any American killed, anywhere, anytime.

Perhaps Americans will be prompted by this to rename their chief executive. That Obama seems less American Presidential than Pharaohonically despotic, suggests the title, simple yet both descriptive and reverential of The God Obama.

But delivering democracy by force or subversion can generate push back and according to Iran's highly unreliable Press TV quoting Israel's highly unreliable DEBKAfile military intelligence website, Iranian cyberwarfare agents broke into the CIA's drone control center in Langley, Virginia and hijacked America's newest stealth drone, which had been sent to spy on Iran. According to the report:

Iranians not only unlocked the Sentinel's secret software but also penetrated the command and control center running the drones from CIA Headquarters at Langley in McClean, Virginia.

Now if the Iranians can do that, then how difficult would it be for them to reprogram a drone intended to zap an obnoxious troublemaker and fly it through the Oval Office window?

Personally, I rather doubt that the Iranians could do that. But, with Russian or Chinese help, who knows?

Another regrettable consequence of trashing the culture and traditions that made you great is that you finish up less great. Hear Oxford/Columbia/Harvard/Stanford Prof. Niall Ferguson explain why China's economic rise is not the problem, but America's decline as a free society:



Meantime, the Europeans, in league with America to spread democracy to the World, are working overtime to use the debt crisis as a lever to force the creation of a democracy-free European Union that looks very much like a Western recreation of the Soviet Union, complete with a privileged nomenklatura, a crumbling economy and an impoverished proletariat.

Yet out of weakness may yet come strength. Whether Barak Obama is the worst President ever, as Bill Clinton is supposed to have informed him, many Americans are beginning to sense something is wrong with the course on which ship of state is headed. What's more, they seem to have considerable reservation about the main contenders for the Republican Presidential nomination, which could mean that this is Ron Paul's moment.

If elected, Paul might not prove the greatest US President ever, but he knows how to say no, and would probably say no to enough spending, enough new military adventures, and enough new measures aimed at humiliating and intimidating the American people that he'd rank pretty high overall.

US Nobel Peace Prize Winner, President Barak Obama: "I can kill anyone anywhere, anytime"

“President Obama Just Stated That He Can Have ANY American Citizen Killed!”
Jonathon Turley, Washington University, Constitutional law expert on CSPAN.

More Thoughts on Emma West

By Sean Gabb

One of the ways in which a ruling class keeps control is its insistence on rules of debate that place opposition at a regular disadvantage. I cannot think of any time or place where opposition voices have been listened to on fully equal terms. In modern England, however, the ruling class and its various clients and useful idiots are particularly rigid in their shepherding of debate. This is so not only because England is an increasingly totalitarian place, but also because the main legitimation ideologies are all obviously false and cannot be exposed to open criticism. Therefore, while speech mostly remains free in the legal sense, it will only be listened to when expressed in terms that privilege the ruling class.

Some of the rules of debate in England are linguistic. For example, if you refer to someone as a homosexual, you will be told that he is gay. Or you will be told that the Indian cities of Bombay and Calcutta must be called “Mumbai” and “Kokata;” or that the native population of England must be called the “white majority;” or an immigrant a “migrant,” or a failed suicide a “self-harmer,” or a mongol a Downs syndrome sufferer. If you persist in using the now disapproved words, you may be dismissed as ignorant: you may be denounced as some kind of bigot. Sometimes, the words keep changing, or different words must be used depending on the audience – therefore, Ethiopian became person of colour, and then negro, and then Negro, and then coloured, and then black, and then Afro-Caribbean, and may still be any of these except possibly the third. In many cases, names are changed merely when something pejorative is replaced by something neutral – obviously so in the instance just given. More often, though, the changes are made to humble those outside the naming elite. Whoever must follow the other side’s naming conventions loses any claim to equality of status, and will at least tend to lose any debate. This is so when the shift of name is mostly verbal – for example coloured to black. But it is specially so when the shift involves an acceptance of new facts. See again the shift from “native English” to “white majority.” The former implies that a particular territory is historically the possession of a self-defined group, and suggests that this group has a right to continue in possession. The latter simply implies that one group among many has what may be a passing numerical weight. Equally, “migration” is so much softer and less threatening than “immigration.” Quibbling over words may sound petty. But to control the words usable in debate really is to have a very great if subtle advantage in debate.

A similar advantage is had by taking real or pretended offence, and calling on an opponent to apologise. When those crying out in horror have numbers or the power of government on their side, they can avoid the danger of arguing with an opponent by smashing his reputation. People are led to believe that he is a bad person. Often the person himself can be brought to agree. We saw how this can work last week. Speaking on a BBC programme that lies on the border between news and light entertainment, Jeremy Clarkson said that strikers in the public sector should be shot. No one but a fool could believe he intended this as other than a joke. But it raised a storm of synthetic outrage. The BBC gave in at once and apologised for any offence caused. Mr Clarkson may or may not have apologised, but certainly did not stand his ground. His enemies are now circulating rumoursthat his mind is unbalanced, and the credibility of a prominent non-conformist may have been destroyed.

If Ron Paul Wins Iowa It Doesn't Count