My Beauty Best Teacher

Alemayehu G. Mariam writes in Pambazuka:

The current state of affairs in Ethiopia calls for the reinvention of politics in the democratic opposition, by disconnecting from the self-destructive politics of the past and overwrought politics of the present, and connecting to a new politics of the future which transcends partisanship, ethnicity, ideology, language, region and so on. This reinvention requires several things: A paradigm shift in political thought and behaviour, a radical change in perspective, a new approach and lexicon for political communication and a redefinition of the issues within a broader national agenda. It calls for politics that is ‘compassion-centred’ and pragmatically oriented to creatively solving the entrenched problems of governance.

This weekend marked the two year anniversary of this blog, so I thought that it would be fun to look back a bit. As I wrote in my inaugural post My Goal, this blog is primarily an outlet for my thoughts on education, teaching, local politics, and national politics. My background in government, business, and education has given me a unique perspective from which to comment on these subjects and I have continued to do a lot of different things in these areas, and so my hope was that these experiences would further the political discourse in this country and maybe even educate some of my readers. What motivated me to put together this blog and what continues to motivate me to spend the hours each week on it is the desire to make the world a better place.

My blog has been described as "like Glen Beck, minus the Mormonism" by one of my readers. Another reader wrote to me and said "What I like about The Conservative Teacher is the focus on national and regional politics, the reporting -- often in real-time -- on the dynamics of the liberal fascism of today's public schools, and the entertaining mix of popular culture. I read The Conservative Teacher every day, and you should too." Some people have said that my blog "gives them hope that there is actually still conservative teachers in education," and others have written that "each post is fun and entertaining and informative."

It is surprising how many regular readers that I have and how many people my blog has reached. Oh, I know I'm not a huge blog, but based on the numbers, I am the biggest conservative teacher blogger in Michigan. Each year has more and more people are checking out my blog, linking to it, adding it to their list of favorites, and emailing friends and family links. This year alone alone twelve thousand new readers have found their way to my blog! And they are not all from the US- I have readers from the United Kingdom, Australia, South Korea, India, Germany, and Italy, and have even had readers from Egypt, Iran, Russia, Turkey, China, Pakistan, and North Korea.

Being a blogger means that I am part of a community and could not have spread my message and observations without the help of other bloggers out there. In particular, I would like to thank Pundit and Pundette, TheBlogProf, Vox Day, Net Right Nation, Right Michigan, and For A Better Day- thanks for letting your viewers know about my blog.

Based on reader responses and feedback, here are some of their favorite posts on politics, the environment, teaching, and popular culture- be sure to check them out!
Democratic Aide implicated in Scheme to Bilk Millions out of taxpayers through Michigan Film Credits, Obama Nicknames, Coon Hunting, A Bear Named Obama, Teleprompters, Queen Touching, and Bush Fighting Zombies, or David Petraeus says a special Cherokee word to soldier in coma, soldier wakes up!.

Dans ses écrits, un sàge Italien
Dit que le mieux est l'ennemi du bien
-From Voltaire's poem La Bégueule

There is no real race for the Republican nomination for President- there are only two candidates who have a chance to defeat President Barack Obama, the Democrat nominee, and those two candidates are Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. They may not be the best choices- there may very well be a better candidate out there- but either would make a better President than Obama, and the only way to defeat Obama is to choose one of these two nominees.

There is also no real race for the Republican nomination for Senate here in Michigan- our only chance is by choosing Pete Hoekstra to be our nominee, and we should choose him, not because he would make a better Senator than Durant or Konetchy, but because Hoekstra is better than Stabenow, who will likely be elected if he isn't the nominee.

Oh, I know what my Tea Party readers are saying right now- they think I am a traitor to the cause, they feel that I am not being pure enough to the principles of the party, and they think that now is the time to nominate a Michelle Bachman or Peter Konetchy, who they have deemed as the pure and ideal candidate, mostly because these sorts of candidates haven't been in politics long (or at all) and have never been in any sort of leadership positions. These sort of idealists are the sort that nominate unelectable 'pure' candidates over solid conservative candidates, and then when their candidate is defeated by a progressive socialist they pat themselves on the back for staying true to themselves- meanwhile in the real world, the real effect of their actions was to help elect a progressive over a conservative.

Those people out there who argue that Romney or Perry or Hoekstra aren't sufficiently 'conservative' or 'tea party' enough for them can afford to be true to their morals, but I can't- I have children who need a future for our nation, so all I can afford to be is a true patriot who through my actions and votes helps replace progressive liberals with anything better. If a moderate knocks out a liberal, that's an improvement; likewise, a Romney or Perry is an improvement over an Obama, and a Hoekstra is an improvement over a Stabenow.

Many though argue that it isn't really like this- that now is the time that 'true' conservatives can defeat Stabenow and Obama, and that if we don't go big we'll miss our chance. This is a severe misreading of the last several elections, which showed (notably in Delaware and Colorado) that although conservative ideas and tea party ideals are popular, they center in American politics lies closer to where it has always lain, which is slightly right, and in politics, the closer a candidate is to the sweet spot, the more likely they are to be elected. As far left as Obama or Stabenow is, there biggest hope is that tea party and conservative activists like many of you help nominate someone who is farther to the right than what the American people want and by doing so help them win re-election.

The 'Golden Mean' of American politics, the Middle Way, the Doctrine of the Mean, all suggest that Tea Party activists and conservatives should be very careful with who they support and who they campaign for. Although some candidates may appeal to your more extreme views, the reality is that with a little bit of moderation, you can help elect a good candidate, even if they aren't a perfect candidate.

For months, my two brothers and I have been discussing the connections in our modern political system between church and state- that is, between religion and politics. We reject the false theory that religion and politics should be separated, because it is not possible. A person’s views on God, the nature of God, and the teachings of God do affect their political views- nay, those are the basis of a person’s political views. A person’s religion will form the foundation on which that person builds their political theories, and thus it is very important to consider what religious beliefs important political figures has.

This is not to say that one should vote based on religion- I’m not advocating identity politics or discrimination in any way. And this is not to say that the State should establish a particular religion as the only recognized religion- this is not the role of government and lessens liberty. But it is important to know what major political figures believe about the world so that you can better understand how they will use policy and power to shape the world.

One way of looking at the world is advocated by our current President, Democrat Barack Obama, and he has many others who share his worldview, such as Democrat leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Through their statements and policy proposals, they have revealed how they view the nature of the universe.

Generally speaking, the modern Democrat party feels that people are trapped in an unfair and unjust material world. In churches they blame a lot of people for this, and their anger and bitterness is felt quite clearly. They frequently point fingers at God himself, who unjustly and unfairly did this to certain groups and races.

This does not mean that Democrats reject God, although there are a lot of agnostic and atheists in this party today. Rather, they frequently reject the traditional Christian teachings of God, and try to go over his head to find some greater power than him. To Democrats, there is some higher power yet than even God- The People, The World, The Globe- they call it by many names, but the idea is the same, that there is some remote and powerful being out there who is higher than God.

Democrats today believe that man is good and that the world is evil- that man was a good and decent person but was ambushed and put in a nation or world where bad things occur. It isn’t man’s fault, it isn’t any groups fault- no one is at fault, since man is good. The fault lies with the world, which must be changed from its fallen state.

The chief way for a person to change this fallen world and once again hope of being divine is by believing in these facts and by more fully understanding how great humans are. Obama’s speeches are filled with platitudes and phrases about how he knows that people are good, about how he feels that people are great, and that if only they would follow his ideas, then we could overcome this fallen world and be great ourselves.

The key to Obama’s speeches are that knowledge and understanding and empathy are the central factor in this process of restoration. And I’m not talking about knowledge as in an understanding of policy, book learning in economics, experience in certain industries, etc- I’m talking about esoteric experiences of direct participation with the divine.

It is more important for Obama to appoint Czars of various industries who feel what he feels, who have empathy like he has empathy, and who know what he knows, rather than appoint czars from within particular industries. It is more important that they are acquainted with Obama than they have real knowledge of subject matters. It is more important that they be inward 'knowing' people or people on journeys of self-exploration than be people who have common sense and are average people.

The idea is that the disorder and badness of the world can be overcome by dreaming and believing, and above all, by trusting the leadership of Obama and his guidance of this journey, because he is.

A lot of time it feels as if Democrats today are alienated from the world- Obama holds himself as aloof, above the world, and it is not uncommon for Democrats to insist that they be called by fancy titles that make them higher than the rest of us. They don’t feel connected with us, especially those of us in the heartland of the nation, those of us who are laughed at for clinging to our guns, gods, and goods.

This is not all speculative stuff- there is a policy impact of this. Obama and the Democrats, acting on these beliefs, seek to implement and or create a policy to actualize their speculations- to create a sort of heaven on earth. Now is the time, the one point in human history, these Democrats claim, when the kingdom of God can be replaced with the kingdom of man.

For example, some Democrats believe that we can establish the perfect healthcare system once selected bureaucrats, who have special knowledge, take control and overturn the natural forces of capitalism. Or that the perfect education system can be established if only it is run by chosen government official, who will overcome the natural forces of man and make us better people.

Democrats are now marked by a desire to dominate others, as seen by the Cap and Trade bill, because it is they who has The Vision. They Know, and they laugh at others who pretend to know things, because they Know that they don’t. As a result, there is very little regard for the welfare of those who are harmed by the resulting politics, which ranges from coercive to calamitous.

Hopefully, this little essay helps you to understand the beliefs behind Obama, Pelosi, and the Democrat Party today, and in the future you will not wonder why they do the things that they do. Their political policies are indeed affected by their religious views, and in understanding their religious views better, you will better understand their political views.

From Slate:

....It is no secret that the ranks of scientists and engineers in the United States include dismal numbers of Hispanics and African-Americans, but few have remarked about another significantly underrepresented group: Republicans.


No, this is not the punch line of a joke. A Pew Research Center Poll from July 2009 showed that only around 6 percent of U.S. scientists are Republicans; 55 percent are Democrats, 32 percent are independent, and the rest "don't know" their affiliation....

...Yet, partisan politics aside, why should it matter that there are so few Republican scientists? After all, it's the scientific facts that matter, and facts aren't blue or red....

...Or could it be that disagreements over climate change are essentially political—and that science is just carried along for the ride? For 20 years, evidence about global warming has been directly and explicitly linked to a set of policy responses demanding international governance regimes, large-scale social engineering, and the redistribution of wealth. These are the sort of things that most Democrats welcome, and most Republicans hate. No wonder the Republicans are suspicious of the science. Think about it: The results of climate science, delivered by scientists who are overwhelmingly Democratic, are used over a period of decades to advance a political agenda that happens to align precisely with the ideological preferences of Democrats. Coincidence—or causation? Now this would be a good case for Mythbusters.

During the Bush administration, Democrats discovered that they could score political points by accusing Bush of being anti-science. In the process, they seem to have convinced themselves that they are the keepers of the Enlightenment spirit, and that those who disagree with them on issues like climate change are fundamentally irrational. Meanwhile, many Republicans have come to believe that mainstream science is corrupted by ideology and amounts to no more than politics by another name. Attracted to fringe scientists like the small and vocal group of climate skeptics, Republicans appear to be alienated from a mainstream scientific community that by and large doesn't share their political beliefs. The climate debacle is only the most conspicuous example of these debilitating tendencies, which play out in issues as diverse as nuclear waste disposal, protection of endangered species, and regulation of pharmaceuticals.

How would a more politically diverse scientific community improve this situation? First, it could foster greater confidence among Republican politicians about the legitimacy of mainstream science. Second, it would cultivate more informed, creative, and challenging debates about the policy implications of scientific knowledge. This could help keep difficult problems like climate change from getting prematurely straitjacketed by ideology. A more politically diverse scientific community would, overall, support a healthier relationship between science and politics....

Robert Guest writing in the WSJ states:

Simply put, since politics is the quickest route to riches in Nigeria, a lot of crooks go into politics. That makes life tough for those who are trying to clean up the system. Before the elections put everything on hold, Mr. Obasanjo's economic reform team had done a good job of making the central government’s finances more transparent; so much so that Nigeria won debt relief in 2005.
But the reforms did not go far enough, and barely began to drain the swamp of state and local politics. The chief obstacle to any anticorruption drive is that most rich and powerful people in Nigeria have a vested interest in its failure

From Grandiose Parlor:

In other countries, politics is a vehicle for effecting change, in Nigeria(read most Africa), it is a means of economic survival. We have politics and politicians, but we do not yet have democracy, and so, every May 29, we can only gape as the politicians describe the bore holes that they have sunk, the street lights that they have provided, the school buildings that they have re-painted, the roads that they have resurfaced - as true evidence that they are democrats! - Reuben Abati

Over at the blog Bible, Math, Politics and More! I read a really good and inspiring post about what it means to be involved with the Republican Party. Here is some of this post:

If "All politics is local," then we represent a front line in the political battles being waged in America today. I think a lot of people—especially those who complain that politicians are insular or that they, the voters, can't have any impact on what's going on—would be pleasantly surprised at their ability to interact with the people voted into office...if they would take the time and opportunity to attend GOP county meetings. Not every politician attends every meeting, but if you come to three or four of ours, you will meet most of our county elected officials in Van Buren County.

As a result of my attendance the last few years, I can say that I am friends with my state representative, most of the county commissioners, most of the county elected officials (county clerk, county treasurer, etc.), and a variety of folks who hold township-level positions. I have had the opportunity to meet a number of state-level candidates and officials, as well as senators and representatives from other Michigan districts. As an officer of the organization, I was even invited to a private meeting (along with about 50 other people in this part of the state) with John McCain in 2007. And I asked him about that nutty immigration bill he supported two years ago.

My main point is this: If you want to make a difference, get involved. Contact your county Republican Party and ask when and where the next meeting is. (Not sure how? Check out migop.org, or the corresponding website in our state.) Take a friend or two with you if you are uncomfortable showing up in a group of relative strangers...because if you want to know more, your friends probably do, also. Attend a Lincoln Day Dinner or other county event where people and politicians mingle. Join a facebook group (we have one—Van Buren County Republican Party) or other internet social network for interested people; read blogs and news stories written by the people who are doing the actual work. There is much work to be done between now and November 2010; be a part of it!

Image via WikipediaDuncan Green writes in the New Statesman:

The secret of Botswana's success lies in politics. The country's elite come from a single dominant ethnic group (the Batswana) whose governance systems, emphasising broad consultation and consensus-building, emerged largely unscathed from colonialism. Botswana's leading human rights activist calls it "gentle authoritarianism". The government broke every rule in the so-called Washington consensus, setting up state-owned companies, nationalising mineral rights and steering the economy via six-year national development plans. "We are a free-market economy that does everything by planning," one local academic told me, laughing.

In the second half of the 20th century, dozens of developing countries emulated Botswana's success and achieved similar growth rates. "Getting the politics right" was key for them all. These countries have built effective states that guarantee the rule of law, ensure a healthy and educated population, control their national territories and create a positive environment for investment, growth and trade. For many, the growth spurt began with the redistribution of land and other assets...[continue reading]

The real counter-culture today is not to be found on the left, with the Occupy Wall Street people or in the liberal and progressive blogs on the internet. After all, counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of people who run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day. They aren't 'fringe groups' or 'subgroups'- rather, the counterculture are those people who are the manifestations of the zeitgeist of the day. And the group that best rejects the old way of doing things, the traditional ways of doing things, and offers new and different solutions to the problems facing society today are those people who love freedom and liberty and property rights. Ladies and gentlemen, the new counterculture is the Tea Party, and if you were hip and cool you'd join it.

The 'establishment' of today is not the restrictive, conservative white-picket fence war hero's of the '50's- rather, today the 'establishment' are those very hippies who rose to power and influence reacting against the 'establishment' of that time. Today, those in power and authority are those war-dodging self-righteous selfish drug-using types who now spend their days lecturing others around about being more friendly to the environment or to make peace not war or other meaningless garbage, while they live way beyond their means piling up debt on their children and grandchildren. These so-called 'progressives' control the modern-day Democratic Party and tint the Republican Party as well. Look around you- the entertainers on TV, the comics in the clubs, the celebrities in movies, the musicians- the culture of the day is that of the left, the establishment of politics and the media is that of the liberals, and even “The Man” is a lefty tyrant.

So what then is the new counter culture? As I wrote back in The New Counter Culture: Liberty, it is those people who love life, liberty, and the protection of property who are the new counterculture- rejecting the 'mainstream' big government progressive and liberal policies of the major parties and embracing the soaring rhetoric of the Bible and the Declaration of Independence to challenge the status quo and express the ethos of the times. The new rebels are the old rebels once again; those who fight against tyranny and oppression again and take back our nation, and they are to be found in the gatherings and celebrations of the Tea Party's, conservatives, and (to a lesser extent) the Republicans.

The real change in our society, the real difference makers, are those people who are out there at Tea Party's across the nation. Those who are going to shake the world and make a difference are not Harvard-educated community organizers committed to spending money they don't have on social re-engineering schemes while they urinate on themselves and shout about being the '99%'- rather, the counter-culture and cool group of today are those entrepreneurs who are standing up at town halls and yelling 'freedom'. They are the '1%' who are fighting for change and a return to the values that once made our nation great, and that is why their movement is so vibrant and intellectually alive, because they capture the spirit of the day and the direction our nation should go more so than the old hippy establishment culture that is the status quo now.

The Weekly Standard echo's some of these thoughts of mine in its latest article The Reactionary Left, by Matthew Continetti. Here are some of the best parts of it:

...The very notion of a backward-looking left is laughable. Since its inception during the French Revolution, the left has been the party of progress, riding the wave of history to that distant shore where man will cast off the chains of society and live a truly authentic, free, and “natural” life. It’s been the conservatives who have looked in the other direction, tapping the lefties on the shoulder and reminding them that faith and tradition are important guides to human action and shouldn’t be cast off lightly. In contemporary America the equation has been reversed: Tea Party populists support drastic measures to revitalize the American government and economy, while left-wing class warriors want nothing more than to maintain the broken structures of the welfare state....

...What happened to the American left’s utopianism, its sense of adventure, its fearless derring-do? Today’s liberals say conservatives are radicals who want to overturn the American political tradition (as liberals understand it). What remains of the liberal confidence in progress seems to be restricted to the culture, where Americans continue to perform occasional experiments of living. But even the cultural left seems withered, exhausted, ready to go to that big Oneida community in the sky. So what’s a Rousseau to do? Ruminate on his glory days, and pretend that Occupy Wall Street is something more than it is....

...The wistful left reaches back farther when it mimics the class politics of the 1930s. The “99 percent” versus the “1 percent,” Warren Buffett’s secretary versus Warren Buffett, Obama’s attacks on nameless “millionaires and billionaires” are echoes of the rhetoric of Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and Franklin Roosevelt. What is puzzling is that the strategy of division and resentment has not had a good track record. To be sure, it worked for FDR. But Roosevelt had 25 percent unemployment, a minuscule federal government, and a sunny disposition. Since LBJ, the spokesmen for American liberalism have been dour and passive and condescending. Their populism has lacked bite because it is a pose. The public has seen through their attempt to rehash the old formula for what it is: “the shield and slogan of the cunning who will rule in the name of equality,” as Martin Diamond once put it.

The longing for the culture of the ’60s, the economy of the ’50s, and the politics of the ’30s is evidence of the left’s failure. No longer able to inspire with a utopian vision of the future, the left has been forced to return to its past. The left’s failure, then, is the right’s victory, because a return to the past is what we’ve been calling for all along....

Via Memeorandum I read an article by Ross Douthat, writing for the New York Times, called Waiting For A Landslide, in which he discusses V. O. Key's essay “A Theory of Critical Elections.” In his article Douthat claims that:

...One reason American policy-making has become “less stable, less effective, and less predictable” — in the words of the downgrade that Standard & Poor’s handed to the United States on Friday night — is the enduring influence of V. O. Key’s theory, and the seductive dream of realignment that it conjured up.

This dream has hovered over national leaders from Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich. But it has loomed larger in the last decade, as our politics have grown more polarized and our country has suffered through a series of dislocations and disasters. Events like 9/11 and the Great Recession have persuaded partisans on both sides that a dramatic realignment is imminent; the breadth of the ideological divide has convinced them that it’s necessary...

...The dream of realignment has become the enemy of such compromises....

...In reality, the next election may be no more transformative than 2008 turned out to be.

The theory of realigning elections (sometimes called key elections, critical elections, or historic elections)is that sometimes there is a dramatic change in the political system that you can observe in one election or a couple elections in a row. Usually it coincides with the coming to power of a new coalition of voters or the movement of a large or important bloc of voters to a new coalition, these realigning elections occur when voters decidedly break in a new direction on a particularly important issues, when a new party leader emerges who takes the party in a new direction, when the regional and demographic bases of power of the two parties switches, or when there is a new rules of the political system (ie, expansion of suffrage). Because political parties in America tend to be rather stable coalitions, a sudden realignment by a voting group tends to have a longer-lasting and dramatic effect. These realigning elections seem to occur once a generation (every 30-40 years). V. O. Key, Jr. is the professor who pioneered the study of these elections.

Most experts agree that the following where clearly realigning elections- 1800 (Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson wins over Federalist John Adams), 1828 (Democrat Andrew Jackson wins over Democratic-Republican John Q. Adams), 1860 (Republican Abraham Lincoln wins over others), 1896 (Republican William McKinley wins over Democrat William Jennings Bryan), 1932 (Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt wins over Republican Herbert Hoover), 1968 (Republican Richard Nixon beats Democrat Hubert Humphrey), and 1980 (Republican Ronald Reagan beats Democrat Jimmy Carter). In each election, patterns in politics were broken and new patterns were put in place that lasted many years and large blocs of voters moved from one party to another. Based on the 30-40 years estimate, the next 'realigning election' is due 2012-2020.

Many though, because Barack Obama is black, want to say to say that the 2008 election (Democrat Barack Obama beats Republican John McCain) was a historic election, an unprecedented election, or a realigning election. Does it fit the model though?

There is support for the argument that it was a realigning election. There was an important issue that a candidate could have advanced a different view on (the War in Iraq), there were some realignments of geographical areas (surprisingly strong Democratic gains in the Northeast), and there was a change in the number of voters who declared themselves to belong to a particular party (dramatic rise in the number of voters who declared themselves to be Democrats). If Obama had run as a liberal- running on a liberal platform and advocating liberal issues and highlighting his sharp policy differences from the past- then 2008 would have been a realigning election.

But let's go back to last year. Watch the campaign commercials that Obama ran. Obama did not run as a liberal. He did not run on a platform that advocated stimulus packages, massive spending, large amounts of debt, pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan, nationalized healthcare, raising taxes, cap-and-tax, or government-take-overs of companies. Obama ran as a moderate. He ran as a new and different candidate, one who would not be liberal or conservative, but would reach across the aisle and be a post-partisan President. He talked about tax cuts and strong defense and ending corruption.

Obama ran as a moderate- on a moderate platform- and McCain was a moderate, and the gains in Congress for Democrats were mostly from moderate Blue Dogs, and the polls show the election map as being essentially the same as 1996-2004, so 2008 was not a historic, realigning, critical, key, or unprecedented election.

Obama's victory in 2008 is closer in its character to 1976 (Carter over Ford) or 1964 (LBJ over Goldwater) in that it represented simply dissatisfaction with the proposed candidate. The later unpopularity of Carter and LBJ did set the stage for the historic realigning elections that followed.

2012 will probably be the historic election that we are all looking for. Obama will be running as a liberal and will be seeking a mandate and approval for his policies- which this time around will be clearly liberal and far left. Voting blocs will have to move to vote for him, the map will have to change, and our nation will indeed embrace change with an Obama victory in 2012, setting the stage for likely Democrat control of government for 30-40 years and a shift in our nation farther to the left. If Obama loses, he will lose to a conservative candidate (the GOP is not going with another moderate- Romney, Pawleny, Palin, Huckabee, etc are all conservatives) running on a conservative platform, and it will mark a return to power for conservative Republicans and a move back to the right for our nation.

The recent data from 2009 supports my argument. Read Charles Krauthammer's article The Myth of '08, Demolished to see that the evidence is that 2012 will be re-aligning- areas that once consistently voted Democrat (like New Jersey) will switch and even moderate Republican candidates will be defeated by conservatives. The elections in 2010, in which Republicans will likely make big gains, will further vindicate my theory that 2008 was nothing more than just another ho-hum election and not the unprecedented, historic, realigning election that many on the left want it to be.

Another wave is coming, Washington – and “the ‘ins’ may be thrown out, and the ‘outs’ may be thrown in,” according to Michael Genovese, Loyola University political-science professor.

Genovese thinks the economic and political turbulence of the past 12 years are “eerily similar” to the Panic of 1893 and the unsettling election cycles of 1884 to 1896. Both eras feature fantastic wealth created for a privileged few, fiercely competitive and highly partisan elections, an ineffectual and seemingly corrupt government, and an angry, disillusioned electorate. And both have had populist movements – the Progressives of the late 1800s, the Tea Party of today – born of economic dislocation that has pressured the status quo, Genovese said.

While people call the 2008 presidential contest a “change election,” it was merely a small part of the unsettling of the country, rooted in economic uncertainty that has crippled the middle class. If Barack Obama’s election truly was the “change” the nation sought, then solid-Democrat New Jersey would not have rebuked his policies less than a year later by electing Republican Chris Christie as governor. Nor would Virginia have given Republican Bob McDonnell a landslide victory that same year. And Republican Scott Brown had no political rationale to run for Teddy Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts, let alone to win it – but he did.

Despite all of the warnings, the White House was blindsided when Republicans took back the U.S. House in historical numbers in 2010. Last week, New York voters in a Democrat-stronghold district reminded President Obama that nothing is safe, not even in Brooklyn: Republican Bob Turner comfortably won the House seat that text-happy Democrat Anthony Weiner was forced to give up.

Economics drives politics, Loyola’s Genovese says, adding: “If the past is a prelude, another angry election is on the way."

Image via WikipediaIn Sahara Reporters Gary K. Busch provides a contrarien view about the crisis in Ivory Coast:

The civil war which broke out between the North and the South in the Ivory Coast was largely about the efforts of the Gbagbo government seeking to achieve real independence; a breakaway from the colonial dominance of the French which controlled almost every aspect of national life. He had the support of the Ivorian people. However now, after all the fighting and suffering by both sides, the current policy of Gbagbo seemed to veer away from confrontation to a policy of restoring the status quo ante; French neo-colonialism. This didn’t work. It fostered is a level of bitterness and rancour among a people who were watching the yoke placed on their necks again and, despite their current apathy and discouragement after years of fighting and sacrifice, they realised that, North and South, they had nothing to lose by sweeping the board clean of their black Frenchmen and installing genuine Ivorian patriots in their place...[continue reading]

In a country of long-term and soaring unemployment, these men found that their political activities gave them slight leverage in an atmosphere of otherwise dwindled opportunities. As one of my respondents astutely remarked, in a crisis-ridden Côte d’Ivoire, “the one business that works is politics.” Admittedly these men were far from gorging themselves off the fat of party politics. Instead, situated at the bottom of the hierarchy, they received little more than its crumbs. But crumbs – to appear as a guest speaker here, to get help to pay a medical bill or a child’s tuition there and to be relatively immune to the informalised state extraction in the form of the regular bribes – are all heavy incentives in the absence of gainful employment. Moreover, each speaker boasted of meeting warm congratulations after a speech, having his name called when walking down the street or being bought a beer from an admiring spectator he encountered when out on the town...[continue reading]

Duke Energy Corporation is going to be guaranteeing a $10 million line of credit from Fifth Third Bank to the Democratic National Convention, which is apparently the first time such an arrangement has been used by any Democratic convention organizers and which has never been done ever by Republican organizers.

By extending a line of credit, Duke is either currying favor or looking for a particular kickback, both of which are even more evidence that the America of the modern-day Democratic Party looks a lot like despotic governments of the past or (Detroit of the recent past) in that it is pay-to-play and a gangster economy out there, and you get benefits and advantages not by producing a better product more cheaply and efficiently, but by bribing Democratic officials. It is either one of these explanations, or a third possibility, which is that rich Big Energy executives are using a company that they don't own as collateral against loans from a Big Bank to support a political party that their company does not necessarily support. That would be wrong too. There is no other explanation that I can think of.

This makes a mockery of the current attack on Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia for their votes on Citizens United v Federal Election Commission. Democrats (like popular leftwing blog The Blue Voice) whined and cried endlessly about how conservatives and Republicans support businesses being more involved in politics and how that is just so wrong and that they hate having businesses dirty money in politics- and yet, demonstrating their utter hypocrisy, they then turn around and welcome far more business money and involvement to run their very convention.

I wonder- is Obama going to bemoan corporate donations reading from a speech on a teleprompter backed by $10 million line of credit from Fifth Third Bank backed by Duke Energy Corporation?

According to experts, Duke's involvement can only help Duke in seeking energy subsidies from the Obama administration, although if the Republicans win the White House, it is all but guaranteed that such shady inside corrupt deals will not be rewarded with government contracts. Democrats though are hoping that Obama's ability to... to... to do something or other will win him a second term of office so that he can continue to spend my grand kids wealth so that the new normal of our economy continues and the world becomes a little bit more of a dangerous place.

This sort of behavior should not be tolerated in a free society, and by that I don't mean that Duke Energy Corporation did something wrong. They should be able to dump as much money as they want on any political party they want- it's a free society. But it shouldn't matter- factions should be checking factions, fighting over the abilities of a weak and limited government that has no powers to award contracts or give out favors in a free and prosperous society. Democrats and liberals have created a tyrannical government, the kind feared by our founding fathers, the kind that can be bought off, but more so, once bought off can use its connections with government to corrupt and subvert free peoples and their labor for their gain. Democrats and liberals need to be thrown out office, at every level, consistently for several decades, as Tea Party battles Republican in a battle to restore life, liberty, and protection of property to the free and prosperous people of America.

Kingsley Ewetuya writes in Politics Africa

In perhaps his most iconic work, Fela Anikulapo Kuti in the song “Coffin for Head of State” irreverently bemoaned the unseemly encroachment of Christianity and Islam in our politics, commerce and national affairs...He satirically lambasted the influence of the clergy and Imams–particularly their unbarred access to those who line the corridors of power. In doing so, he was labeled a heretic and an anti-establishment radical who opposed the social order that these religions create for the betterment of mankind.

Thomas Sowell put out another brilliant article today, and the title of my post is the title of the headline. Democratic President of the United States Barack Obama is actively and personally trying to create a potential disaster for our nation, and Sowell writes about it in clear and powerful language. Here are some selected parts, although you should read the whole article here:

When that person is the president of the United States, the potential for disaster is virtually unlimited. Many people are rightly worried about what this administration's reckless spending will do to the economy in our time and to our children and grandchildren, to whom a staggering national debt will be passed on. But if the worst that Barack Obama does is ruin the economy, I will breathe a sigh of relief. He is heading this country toward disaster on many fronts...

Nothing has torn more countries apart from inside like racial and ethnic polarization.

This is a president on a mission to remake American society in every aspect, by whatever means are necessary and available. That requires taking all kinds of decisions out of the hands of ordinary Americans and transferring them to Washington elites-- and ultimately the number one elite, Barack Obama himself.

Like so many before him who have ruined countries around the world, Obama has a greatly inflated idea of his own capabilities and the capabilities of what can be accomplished by rhetoric or even by political power. Often this has been accompanied by an ignorance of history, including the history of how many people before him have tried similar things with disastrous results.Moreover, ignorance by itself is not nearly as bad as charging full steam ahead, pretending to know.

While the mainstream media in America will never call him on this, these repeated demonstrations of his amateurism and immaturity will not go unnoticed by this country's enemies around the world. And it is the American people who will pay the price.

Richard Dowden a Director of the Royal African Society writes "...As the momentum for Live 8 gathers pace and the pressure on international leaders to deal with Africa's problems mounts, Richard Dowden argues that aid is not the answer.Many argue that aid creates a situation of dependency When a tsunami hits or war creates refugees, the victims can do with some help to get back on their feet wherever they are.Humanitarian relief aid will always be needed when disaster strikes.But the evidence that aid can transform whole societies and lift millions out of poverty is unconvincing.It can only speed up a process that is already happening.When we see scenes of destitution from Africa we assume that we can change things by sending money.But if aid could make Africa prosperous, it would have done so by now.Despite nearly a trillion dollars of aid since independence in the 1960s, much of Africa is worse off now than it was then.Much of that aid was spent by outsiders without consultation with Africans and with little understanding of Africa's ways or needs.Today the continent is full of abandoned projects: wells in the wrong place, factories without a fuel supply, roads that were not maintained.Impoverished by politics But UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown are proposing to double aid to Africa, promising a Marshall Aid plan, like the help America gave Europe at the end of the Second World War.The comparison is false.In 1945 there was peace in Europe and armies of disciplined and skilled workers stood ready to rebuild. All that was needed was the cash.Africa has rich resources but has been impoverished by bad politics - including our own policies.Africa's nation states that crammed old societies into artificially created countries have not produced effective governments.
It is impossible to deliver education and better health to Africans without working through those governments.The African countries that are well run, South Africa and Botswana for example, do not need aid.At the other end of the spectrum are countries like Somalia and Democratic Republic of Congo which have collapsed as nation states and do not have any effective administration. It is impossible to use development aid there.Those in the middle that are not doing too badly, like Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda, are already receiving around 50% of their budgets from aid.That makes them more dependent on Western aid donors than they were in colonial times.Aid creates and sustains unequal relationships. Talk of partnerships is false.As one western diplomat in Africa put it to me recently: "We like it when they take ownership of the programme but we mean our programme. We don't like it if they start having their own ideas."No shortcut the aid business is an industry with its own dynamic.Much of it is spent in the donor countries in the form of consultancies and goods.For the recipient it creates dependency, undermines self-reliance and ultimately breeds resentment.There is no short cut to development. Only Africans themselves can bring change to Africa.States have to raise taxes and spend them productively in order for their countries to develop.Aid creates and sustains unequal relationships When state institutions are functioning in support of the people and the economy, there may be a case for helping with specific short term assistance but unless and until the local systems are in place and there is real commitment, aid will be wasted.At present lack of capacity and corruption prevent even basic services being delivered in most of Africa.Outsiders can run one-off projects like immunisation programmes but development has to be done by the people themselves.
Better alternatives Giving aid feels good but there are better ways to help Africa.We must pursue policies that create a fairer system of trade. Current policies and practices in Europe and America damage Africa's chance of earning its living in the world.We must end agricultural subsidies that distort prices allowing cheap food to be dumped in Africa and ruining farmers there. We must lower tariffs and trade barriers to allow Africa to trade more processed goods.We must stop encouraging Africa's brain drain, luring the best educated and talented out of the continent to fill jobs in the West.The British government could also do something about arms flowing into Africa.Weapons that kill in Africa's wars may not be made in Britain but arms dealers base their operations in London and are largely unregulated.
And London has become the laundry of choice for money laundering because Britain applies one of the weakest banking scrutiny systems in the world.We need to start treating money stolen by corruption in the same way as drug money or terrorism funds..."

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Right now I'm listening to Obama try to scare us into giving him more power, and I'm shaking my head in sad laughter- did I understand correctly that he said that the debates about the role of government in general and the role of government in the Great Depression were settled long ago? Did I black out or did he say that there are no earmarks in this pork bill? Did I blink into bizzaro world or did he say that government is the only option available to create jobs and that capitalism has failed? Poke me in my eye- the failed theories of the last 8 years have horribly failed and so we're going back to the failed theories of communist Russia?

Even though Obama claims we can have a 'respectful debate,' he immediately dismisses entirely with my philosophical ideas and uses his power to try to shut me up- that isn't respectful to me, and so my tone isn't going to be respectful here.

Moving on, it is quite obvious that the fairy tale is over with this guy- midnight struck and this guy has been shown to simply be a dangerous pumpkin. As Charles Krauthammer writes in the Detroit News this weekend:

"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe." -- President Barack Obama, Feb. 4. Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.

And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn't understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.

And yet more damaging to Obama's image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama's name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.

It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.

It's the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus -- and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress' own budget office says won't be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama (said he) came to Washington to abolish.

Not just to abolish but to create something new -- a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new. Turns out the "fierce urgency of now" includes $150 million for livestock insurance.

The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting "planted" for "ready to market" would mean a windfall garnered from a new "bonus depreciation" incentive.

After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.

Friday night was once BSG night before it went off the air. But BSG went bad long before that. Jonah Goldberg understands politics and entertainment, and sometimes he writes articles that truly echo my thoughts. For years I tried to convince my brother to watch Battlestar Galactica because it was the best show on TV. But as the show went on, I changed my pitch to my brother and only tried to get him to watch the first couple seasons. By the end of the show's run, I no longer was trying to convince him to watch the show- liberal leftism combined with incoherent moral relativism had ruined the once great Battlestar Galactica.

In the beginning, I really felt the show tried to grapple with the post-9/11 world, but by the end, it had fallen back into a pre-9/11 world of moral ambiguity and emptiness. Where once strong characters and great human beings- who were full of all of the stuff that makes men great but also full of all of the failures of man- stirred the soul with striking action and stirring dialogue, the show degenerated into 'complex' characters who were boring and unlifelike, so much that they would die and come back again for no reason and the machines ended up being more human that the perfect morally relativistic humans they were trying to kill or love or save or something.

If you are a fan of the show, I suggest you take a look at Goldberg's column- he does a much better job at analyzing what went wrong with the great show Battlestar Galactica in his column and really articulates exactly what went wrong.

Oh, and if you haven't checked out Firefly yet, I suggest you do- that show ended before they could wreck it.